The internet is amazing

Just found the entire corpus of J.P. Migne's Patrologia Latine (and Pat. Gr) online at http://www.documentacatholicaomnia.eu

Two items of interest for those of you who venture here:

Exorcism ascribed to St. Ambrose of Milan:

http://www.documentacatholicaomnia.eu/04z/z_0339-0397__Ambrosius__Exorcismus__MLT.pdf.html

Anonymous exorcisms [and rites of excommunication]:

http://www.documentacatholicaomnia.eu/04z/z_0660-0660__Anonymus__Formulae_Veteres_Exorcismorum_Et_Excommunicationum__MLT.pdf.html

I wish I had more information about the last set.

Note that part of the first exorcism [Ambrose] appears in the Roman pre-Vatican II Rituale [http://www.ewtn.com/library/PRAYER/ROMAN2.TXT]

It may also appear in the newer Vatican-II Exorcism, but I have not seen that document.

New Book

I recently picked up "The Rite: The Making of a Modern Exorcist" by Matt Baglio from Half-Price Books here in town. Looks very interesting. An Italian reporter writes about an american Roman Priest who is sent by his Bishop to Rome, to train as an Exorcist at the prestgious pontifical university there. 

On a related note, those who may peruse this blog would be interested in this article, which is old yes, but untill I started reading "The Rite" I was unaware:

 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1538808/Italian-priests-join-the-war-on-Satanic-crime.html

St. Ignatius: the Victory of the Incarnation

For Ignatius the victory over evil, and so also the grand exorcism of Satan from the Earth, was primarily a focus of the incarnation. This expressed in Ignatius’s threefold statement concerning what was accomplished against evil at the incarnation. (Ign. Eph. 19.3) The threefold deliverance for the world was from magic, ignorance and the old kingdom. Magic and spells represent all evil powers that work against humanity (Lightfoot, 83), ignorance is a contrast with the knowledge of God (Ign. Eph. 17.2), and the “old kingdom” was the dominion that Satan possessed over mankind before Christ. Each of these three evils was connected with Satan and the demonic, so that for Ignatius the demons were defeated by the incarnation (Twelftree, 228). With the destruction of these powers came the opportunity for new life (Ign. Eph. 19.3), which was the central concern of Ignatius, and so this passage reflects his views on the chief exorcistic event of history.

Ignatius draws on Pauline ideas found in such places as Colossians 2:14-15, where he calls “this age” the “ancient kingdom” which was overthrown and defeated by the cross. (Lawson, 118) However, there are some differences between the Pauline idea and Ignatius. First, Ignatius is not only connecting the defeat of the world rulers with the death of Christ but also, and more centrally, with his incarnation. In fact Ignatius says that the ancient kingdom was abolished when “God appeared in human form,” Second, Ignatius’s emphasis is on an entire kingdom defeated, more than Paul seems to demonstrate in Col 1:13. This distinction is important in seeing his worldview shaped by a combat between two kingdoms, not just one kingdom that is ruled by God through Christ opposed to illegitimate rulers.

The Church now awaits the consummation of the victory over Satan that had been won for her. This is not overtly clear in Ephesians 19, nor in Ignatius’s letters in general because, more then eschatology, Ignatius places the incarnation as central due to it being the event in which death itself was abolished (Corwin, 155). However, although the victory has been won, he also talks about a future kingdom of God with punishment for the wicked, (Ign. Eph. 16.1-2) along with a brief statement of the Two Ways doctrine which seems to imply a future end to each of the ways (Ign. Magn. 5.1). Although the powers of evil have been defeated, these powers of the old age will be finally done away with at the Second Advent (Russell, 34).

Lawson, John. A Theological and Historical Introduction to the Apostolic Fathers. New York: Macmillan, 1961.

Lightfoot, J.B. Clement, Ignatius and Polycarp. Vol. 2. The Apostolic Fathers. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1981.

Russell, Jeffrey Burton. Satan: The Early Christian Tradition. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1981.

Twelftree, Graham H. In the Name of Jesus: Exorcism among Early Christians. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2007.

Corwin, Virginia. St. Ignatius and Christianity in Antioch. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1960.

Baptismal Exorcism in the Apsotolic Fathers: Barnabas

One of the few places in the corpus of the Fathers that mentions exorcism by concept is in the letter attributed to Barnabas. In the context of answering the question of if there is still a Temple of God (Barn. 16.6), Barnabas describes what a person looked like before salvation in relation to demons (Barn. 16.7-10). The analogy he builds is the person is a temple, which was once full of demons (Barn. 16:7) but after receiving forgiveness and being born anew the person is then dwelt by God. This is salvific exorcism, where the person is purified of the demonic by Christ as part of salvation, and as part of preparation for instead being indwelt by God, thus making the person truly a temple of God. 

Barnabas does not actually say that he has baptism in mind, but based on his sotieriology, baptism is most likely in view. Barnabas’ view of the Old Testament is one of fulfillment, where everything in it, even down circumcision (Barn. 9) and the kosher laws, (Barn. 10) was intended to point to Christ and the New Covenant. In fact, for Barnabas these are the only acceptable interpretations, (Armitage, “Barnabas, Hermas and the Didache” 1926, 10) to take the Old Testament literally was to be deceived by the “evil angel” (Barn. 9.4). If the entire New Covenant was foreshadowed, then he asks “was the water and the cross” (Barn. 11.1) foreshadowed?” This leads to his characteristic allegorical interpretation in defense that the Old Testament testifies to the death of the Messiah and to Baptism. 

First he defends Baptism, saying that Israel would never accept the “baptism that brings forgiveness of sins”. (Barn. 11.1) Baptism in Barnabas is connected with the cross event, brings forgiveness of sins, converts the sinner and brings hope. After quoting several prophets he claims they linked both baptism and the cross together. (Barn. 11.8) Those who are rewarded, the righteous as pointed out in 11.7, are those who in 11.8 “having set their hope on the cross, descend into the water” which brings “conversion and hope to many”. Those who go down into the water “laden with sins and dirt” (Barn. 11.11) obtain both “fruit” in their hearts and hope in Jesus.

Second he comments on how the Old Testament prophets foreshadowed the cross. (Barn. 12) The main focus of his argument comes from Moses and especially the bronze serpent, which was a symbol of the cross. (Barn. 12.2) This is the sign that would bring life (Barn. 12.5) and salvation. (Barn. 12.7) The cross does more then this, as it also brings victory over Satan. Taking the allegory of the serpents in the wilderness to the next level, Barnabas argues that the reason God sent serpents to punish Israel when it was falling was because the “fall happened though the serpent, with the help of eve”. The bronze serpent brought victory over the power of the serpents in the desert the same way that the cross would bring victory over the Satan who deceived Eve. Due to the connections between the cross and Baptism, Barnabas sees the benefits as parallel, particularly that Baptism is the means by which a person receives the benefits of the cross. (Barn. 11.8) This demonstrates that Baptism brought about the victory over Satan to the individual.

Going back to chapter sixteen, the purification of the demonic element is a result of the salvation even of the water and the cross, which happens at Baptism. Barnabas assumes his previous theological assertions when speaking of inner cleansing. There are two sections, the first is the state of the person before salvation, (Barn. 16.7) and the second describes the process of salvation. (Barn. 16.8-10) Before salvation a person is ruled by demons. Their heart, or inner person, was “corrupt and weak”. After the person receives forgiveness of sins they are made new and “God truly dwells” in their “dwelling place”, (Barn. 16.8) which is the heart mentioned earlier. Either a person is indwelt by demons or by God, and the difference is made in being purified though forgiveness and new creation. These are the result of the water and the cross, which are inherently connected for Barnabas. 

Barnabas’ exorcistic views of Baptism in chapter sixteen are very explicit (Kelly, “Devil at Baptism” 2004, 52) on the grounds of his theology of Baptism itself found in 11-12. It would go beyond the evidence to say there was a separate exorcism rite involved in baptism according to Barnabas, although there may have been, but it is certain that he saw baptism itself as exorcistic. This connection between baptism and exorcism is missed by Twelftree when he argues that it is not exorcism but “coming to faith in conversion” (Twelftree, “In the Name of Jesus” 2007, 225) that removes the demonic and that Barnabas’ discussion on baptism fails to mention exorcism. This is true, but Barnabas does connect baptism to the cross, which brings victory over Satan and then latter does connect the same results of baptism to the removal of demons. It is not just faith in the sense Twelftree sees it, but the faith under the rite of baptism that removes the demonic.  Kelly (p52) makes the same mistake by assuming that exorcism must be mentioned at the same point where baptism is for Barnabas to have an exorcistic baptismal theology. The connection is instead made though the forgiveness of sins, which Barnabas sees as being a result of both the Cross and Baptism, (Porter and Cross, “Dimensions of Baptism” 2002, 211) though which is also the cleansing of the inner soul from demonic influence. (Ibid. 221) It is at the moment of the ritual initiation that the person, like the Israelites did with the serpent, looks at the cross and gains victory over the serpent. 

How would Apotropaics work?

In an earlier post there was a comment about the seeming “relic-nonsense” in the Catholic Church, yet that appears to be confirmed by scripture in such cases as Acts 19:12 where we apparently have relics of St. Paul (here they are technically 2nd degree relics) healing people who touch them. In the Catholic Church there is the idea of “sacramentals”, things such as Holy Water and Oil that become, like sacraments, channels of divine grace. 

Many movies play off of this idea during encounters with the demonic. At times holy water will burn them, or a cross/crucifix will repel evil. When sacramental objects are used in this manner they are called “apotropaics” or things that act as a repellent for evil (technically even prayers such as Pslam 91 would fall in this category). 

At this point the more Protestant one is, the more likely they are to use phrases such as “superstition”, “magic”, or the dreaded “popery”. It this fair?

First, there is some scriptural support for God working through physical objects in really unusual ways. Second there is already the precedent of the sacraments where God works his power through physical reality and third…

Third, I wish to propose a way that some apotropaics might work without even needing to accept all of Catholic theology on the sacramentals. This would not mean they do work, but it would provide some conceptual framework to determine if it is possible.

The argument runs like this:

1. Demons are spirits and so are simple creatures

This does not mean they are “simplistic” but that they are non-complex. In terms of emotion they experience it different from humans. For humans emotions are tied up with physicality. When we love or hate, we do so as a physical creature with material chemicals in our brain. This is proven by the way drugs can alter emotions. Angels and Demons, however, do not have this physical connection to their emotions like we do. So when they experience “love” or “hate” or “fear” they do so as a matter of volition more then passion. This also means that they would experience this “emotion” at a higher core part of their being, and perhaps cannot express the complexity of emotion that we can.

2. Symbols create emotional responses

To many people a Nazi flag brings up images in the mind of war and terror. To even more people (Hindu) in brings to mind feelings to good luck. Either way the fact is that the symbol produces a certain response in the brain. To a Jew, especially one who lived though the holocaust, the Nazi flag would bring up images and feelings of hate, fear, ect. Same with people who have had a horrible experience with water, they are truly terrified on a deep level of water sometimes. An event can cause a phobia, which in turn even symbolic representations of that phobia can create strong reactions. 

3. The Cross (and maybe others) act as a symbol of fear in the demonic

St. Paul said that the Cross is where Christ disarmed the powers of evil (Col 2:14-15), the crucifixion of Christ is the focal point where Christ triumphed over the demonic. This event not only is the ultimate defeat of the demonic but also signals their eventual banishment to the abyss of hell. Now consider that the sign of the Cross would have to have some reaction on the part of the demonic. Perhaps it brings to their mind images of defeat and future punishment. Now because they are simple spirits, these are not just chemical reactions but connected to their very wills. So when a demon comes into “contact” with a Cross/Crucifix they are repulsed by the overpowering images on their wills that the symbol brings.

Now also combine this with ideas from scripture of sacred objects and with God’s omnipresence and omnipotence and the testimony of Church history, and we have a strong possibility for the reality of apotropaic sacramentals. Perhaps these same principles even apply to Holy Water and Oil. It is hard to say just how the physical and spiritual worlds effect each other. Perhaps blessings make a symbol out of a non-symbol and can have the same effect. Or maybe not?

Web Link -UMC and the Demonic

Here is a post about a recent article concerning the United Methodists and the demonic. Both the article and post are of interest. A bit of critique on the variety of modern rationalism that tends to downplay the supernatural and all things unseen.