no more doth Avicenna, si contingat a daemonio,
sufficit nobis ut convertat complexionem ad choleram
nigram, et sit causa ejus propinqua cholera nigra;
the immediate cause is choler adust, which [1245]
Pomponatius likewise labours to make good: Galgerandus
of Mantua, a famous physician, so cured a demoniacal
woman in his time, that spake all languages, by purging
black choler, and thereupon belike this humour of
melancholy is called balneum diaboli, the devil’s
bath; the devil spying his opportunity of such humours
drives them many times to despair, fury, rage, &c.,
mingling himself among these humours. This is
that which Tertullian avers, Corporibus infligunt
acerbos casus, animaeque repentinos, membra distorquent,
occulte repentes, &c. and which Lemnius goes about
to prove, Immiscent se mali Genii pravis humoribus,
atque atrae, bili, &c. And [1246]Jason Pratensis,
“that the devil, being a slender incomprehensible
spirit, can easily insinuate and wind himself into
human bodies, and cunningly couched in our bowels vitiate
our healths, terrify our souls with fearful dreams,
and shake our minds with furies.” And in
another place, “These unclean spirits settled
in our bodies, and now mixed with our melancholy humours,
do triumph as it were, and sport themselves as in
another heaven.” Thus he argues, and that
they go in and out of our bodies, as bees do in a
hive, and so provoke and tempt us as they perceive
our temperature inclined of itself, and most apt to
be deluded. [1247] Agrippa and [1248]Lavater are persuaded,
that this humour invites the devil to it, wheresoever
it is in extremity, and of all other, melancholy persons
are most subject to diabolical temptations and illusions,
and most apt to entertain them, and the Devil best
able to work upon them. But whether by obsession,
or possession, or otherwise, I will not determine;
’tis a difficult question. Delrio the Jesuit,
Tom. 3. lib. 6. Springer and his colleague,
mall. malef. Pet. Thyreus the Jesuit,
lib. de daemoniacis, de locis infestis, de Terrificationibus
nocturnis, Hieronymus Mengus Flagel. daem.
and others of that rank of pontifical writers, it
seems, by their exorcisms and conjurations approve
of it, having forged many stories to that purpose.
A nun did eat a lettuce [1249]without grace, or signing
it with the sign of the cross, and was instantly possessed.
Durand. lib. 6. Rationall. c. 86. numb. 8.
relates that he saw a wench possessed in Bononia with
two devils, by eating an unhallowed pomegranate, as
she did afterwards confess, when she was cured by
exorcisms. And therefore our Papists do sign themselves
so often with the sign of the cross, Ne daemon
ingredi ausit, and exorcise all manner of meats,
as being unclean or accursed otherwise, as Bellarmine
defends. Many such stories I find amongst pontifical
writers, to prove their assertions, let them free
their own credits; some few I will recite in this