Samuel and the Medium

You ask further, I said, whether the unclean spirit that was in the pythoness could have brought it about that Samuel was seen by Saul and spoke with him. But it is a far greater marvel that Satan himself, the prince of all unclean spirits, was able to speak with God and to ask that Job, a most righteous man, be tested — the same Satan who also asked that the apostles be tested.

Or if this raises no difficult question — because the Truth, present everywhere, speaks through whatever creature it wills to whatever creature it wills, and it is no great merit to be one to whom God speaks, since what matters is what he says (an emperor likewise does not speak with many innocent people for whose welfare he nonetheless provides most carefully, and does speak with many guilty ones whom he orders to be executed) — if, then, there is no question here, let there be no question either about how an unclean spirit could speak with the soul of a holy man. For God, the creator and sanctifier, is by far greater than all the saints.

But if what troubles you is that an evil spirit was permitted to rouse the soul of a righteous man and call it up, as it were, out of the hidden dwelling-places of the dead — is it not more astonishing that Satan took up the Lord himself and set him on the pinnacle of the temple? For however he did it, the manner in which Samuel was roused is hidden in just the same way — unless someone should say the devil had freer licence to take the living Lord from where he wished and set him where he wished than to rouse the spirit of the dead Samuel from its own seat.

And if that Gospel episode does not disturb us, because the Lord willed and permitted it to happen with no diminishing of his power and divinity — just as he suffered himself to be seized and bound and mocked and crucified and killed by the Jews themselves, perverse and unclean though they were, and doing the devil's work — then it is not absurd to believe that by some dispensation of the divine will it was permitted that the spirit of the holy prophet consented to be shown to the king's sight: not unwillingly, and not with magical power mastering and subduing him, but willingly and in obedience to a hidden ordinance of God, which was concealed from that pythoness and from Saul — and this in order to strike Saul with a divine sentence.

For why should the soul of a good man, if it comes when summoned by evil men who are alive, be thought to lose its dignity? Living good men are often summoned to the wicked and do come, and deal with them as the duty of fairness requires, the honour of their own virtue kept whole and unshaken, while they handle those men's vices as the use or necessity of present circumstances demands.

And yet in this matter there can be another and easier way out, a readier understanding: that we should believe not that Samuel's spirit was truly roused from its rest, but that it was some phantom, an imaginary illusion produced by the devil's contrivances — which Scripture calls by the name of Samuel for this reason, that images are customarily called by the names of the things they are images of.

So it is with everything painted or moulded out of some material, metal or wood or whatever suits such work, and with the things seen in dreams; nearly all images are habitually called by the names of the things they are images of. For who hesitates to call a painted man a man? Indeed, when we look at a picture of some particular person we apply proper names without hesitation — as when, gazing at a panel or a wall, we say: that is Cicero, that is Sallust, that is Achilles, that is Hector, this river is the Simois, that is Rome — though they are nothing but painted images.

Hence, although the Cherubim are heavenly powers, the figures fashioned of metal at God's command above the ark of the covenant, for the sake of signifying a great reality, are themselves also called nothing other than Cherubim.

Likewise anyone who has had a dream does not say “I saw an image of Augustine or of Simplicianus,” but “I saw Augustine,” “I saw Simplicianus” — although at the time he saw such a thing we knew nothing of it; so plain is it that it is not the men themselves but their images that are seen. And Pharaoh said he had seen ears of grain and cattle in his dreams, not images of ears of grain or of cattle.

If, therefore, it is perfectly clear that images are called by the names of the things they are images of, it is no wonder that Scripture says Samuel was seen, even if what appeared was perhaps an image of Samuel, contrived by him who transforms himself into an angel of light and his ministers into ministers of righteousness.

Now if what troubles you is how true things came to be foretold to Saul even by an evil spirit, this too may seem astonishing: how the demons recognized Christ, whom the Jews did not recognize.

For when God wills that someone should learn true things — merely temporal ones, belonging to this mortal life — even through the lowest and infernal spirits, it is easy and not unfitting that the Almighty and Just One should impart some measure of divination even to spirits of that kind, by the hidden apparatus of his own ministries, so that what they hear from the angels they may announce to human beings. And this for the punishment of those to whom such things are foretold, so that they may suffer the evil hanging over them by knowing it before it comes. But they hear only so much as the Lord and Governor of all either commands or allows.

Hence in the Acts of the Apostles the pythonic spirit likewise bears witness to the apostle Paul and attempts to be an evangelist. Yet these spirits mix in deceits, and the truth they have managed to learn they announce beforehand with the aim not so much of teaching as of deceiving.

And perhaps this is why, when that image of Samuel foretold that Saul would die, it also said that he would be with him — which is certainly false. For we read in the Gospel that after death the good are separated from the wicked by a great distance, since the Lord testifies that a great chasm was set between that proud rich man, already suffering torments in the underworld, and the man who had lain covered with sores at his gate and was now established in rest. Or else Samuel said to Saul “you shall be with me” in a sense referring not to an equality of happiness but to a like condition of death — that both were men and both could die — and one already dead was foretelling death to one still living.

Your good sense sees, I think, that on either understanding that passage has an outcome which is not contrary to the faith — unless perhaps by a deeper and more intricate inquiry, one exceeding the narrow limits of my strength or my time, it should be settled cleanly whether or not a human soul, once it has departed this life, can be called up by magical incantations and appear to the sight of the living, even bearing the lineaments of a body, so as to be not only seen but recognized; and if it can, whether the soul of a righteous man is not indeed compelled by magic rites, but rather deigns to show itself in obedience to the more hidden commands of the highest law. So that if it should become clear that this cannot happen, then the two senses are not both to be admitted in handling and expounding this Scripture, but, that one being excluded, we should understand an imaginary simulation of Samuel produced by a diabolical rite.

But since — whether that can happen or not — the deceit of Satan and his cunning work of simulating images is manifold and ever watchful to deceive the human senses, let us rather suppose — step by step, indeed [pedetentim], so as not to foreclose more careful inquiries, but nevertheless suppose — that something of this sort was done by the evil ministry of that pythoness, so long as it is not granted us to think out and explain anything further.