The Anatomy of Melancholy eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 2,057 pages of information about The Anatomy of Melancholy.

The Anatomy of Melancholy eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 2,057 pages of information about The Anatomy of Melancholy.
remota est eorum natura a nostra, quapropter daemonibus:  and so belike that we have so many battles fought in all ages, countries, is to make them a feast, and their sole delight:  but to return to that I said before, if displeased they fret and chafe, (for they feed belike on the souls of beasts, as we do on their bodies) and send many plagues amongst us; but if pleased, then they do much good; is as vain as the rest and confuted by Austin, l. 9. c. 8. de Civ.  Dei.  Euseb. l. 4. praepar.  Evang. c. 6. and others.  Yet thus much I find, that our schoolmen and other [1160]divines make nine kinds of bad spirits, as Dionysius hath done of angels.  In the first rank are those false gods of the gentiles, which were adored heretofore in several idols, and gave oracles at Delphos, and elsewhere; whose prince is Beelzebub.  The second rank is of liars and equivocators, as Apollo, Pythius, and the like.  The third are those vessels of anger, inventors of all mischief; as that Theutus in Plato; Esay calls them [1161]vessels of fury; their prince is Belial.  The fourth are malicious revenging devils; and their prince is Asmodaeus.  The fifth kind are cozeners, such as belong to magicians and witches; their prince is Satan.  The sixth are those aerial devils that [1162]corrupt the air and cause plagues, thunders, fires, &c.; spoken of in the Apocalypse, and Paul to the Ephesians names them the princes of the air; Meresin is their prince.  The seventh is a destroyer, captain of the furies, causing wars, tumults, combustions, uproars, mentioned in the Apocalypse; and called Abaddon.  The eighth is that accusing or calumniating devil, whom the Greeks call [Greek:  Diabolos], that drives men to despair.  The ninth are those tempters in several kinds, and their prince is Mammon.  Psellus makes six kinds, yet none above the Moon:  Wierus in his Pseudo-monarchia Daemonis, out of an old book, makes many more divisions and subordinations, with their several names, numbers, offices, &c., but Gazaeus cited by [1163]Lipsius will have all places full of angels, spirits, and devils, above and beneath the Moon, [1164]ethereal and aerial, which Austin cites out of Varro l. 7. de Civ.  Dei, c. 6. “The celestial devils above, and aerial beneath,” or, as some will, gods above, Semi-dei or half gods beneath, Lares, Heroes, Genii, which climb higher, if they lived well, as the Stoics held; but grovel on the ground as they were baser in their lives, nearer to the earth:  and are Manes, Lemures, Lamiae, &c. [1165]They will have no place but all full of spirits, devils, or some other inhabitants; Plenum Caelum, aer, aqua terra, et omnia sub terra, saith [1166]Gazaeus; though Anthony Rusca in his book de Inferno, lib. v. cap. 7. would confine them to the middle region, yet they will have them everywhere.  “Not so much as a hair-breadth empty in heaven, earth, or waters, above or under the earth.”  The air is not so full of flies in summer, as it is at all times of invisible devils:  this [1167]Paracelsus stiffly maintains, and that they have every one their several chaos, others will have infinite worlds, and each world his peculiar spirits, gods, angels, and devils to govern and punish it.

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The Anatomy of Melancholy from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.