論隱多珥交鬼婦 第 1 章 第 2/4 段

For is it to be unknown that the flame-like dignities of the angels are always far fairer than those of men? Therefore from all the deeds together it is easy to see that Saul's ruling mind was blinded as he was driven by the demon, while the devil changed himself into different forms, contriving to be worshipped by the ruler, so that thereby he might unawares deceive as many as possible into bowing down before him.

And what strange thing is it to say, seeing that even when he looked upon the person of Christ—beholding within, in deed and act, God and by nature the true Son of God, while gazing on a pure man outwardly clothed, undefiled, unstained, and a most beautiful, consecrated, inviolable temple—he nonetheless without delay drew near to tempt Him, warring against God after his custom? And when, having provoked the first and second assaults against himself, he was defeated and wretchedly shattered, then changing to another guise, he tried to show Him all the compass of this world and its kingdoms, and boasting in folly and false speech he vaunted, "All these will I give you, if you will fall down and worship me."

Such, then, were the utterances the impious one here burst forth with, thinking to call forth into wrath the disposition of long-suffering, and supposing through such means to gain a hold.

But the Lord, in a manner worthy of God, silenced the avenging fiend by His long-suffering;

for it would be proper to God to bear all things with long-suffering.

If, then, he reckoned as nothing the offering of such words to the Lord Himself, how is it not plain that, wishing to be worshipped on a par with God, he wrought these things? This, I think, is manifest to all the right-minded—that through a frenzied woman he deceived the deranged ruler into bowing down before him contrary to what was right.

And we must still further examine in order the very things that underlie these matters.

So when Saul bowed down to the phantom in obeisance, the guileful one again feigns to have suffered violence, having changed himself into the shape of Samuel;

then with irony he answers more sullenly, saying, "Why have you disturbed me by making me come up?"

And in fashioning these things he wished indefinitely to signify that the demon was able to summon the prophet even against his will, and to have such authority over him.

Then are some so dim-sighted as to be unable to perceive that all who genuinely hold the mind of Christ put the demons to flight by the divine name—and not, on the contrary, that, as being subject to them, they ascend unwillingly out of Hades, summoned by them? But if anyone supposes that the demon of the woman with the familiar spirit is never put to flight, being superior to all the rest together, let him run back to the Acts of the Apostles, and entering upon the very passages, let him see how Paul the itinerant herald arrived at Philippi;

and when he had enlightened the woman called Lydia with the knowledge of godliness, then he was going off to offer his prayers, and it came about, he says, that a certain slave-girl met him, having a spirit of divination (a python), who provided much gain to her masters by divining.

Accordingly, this girl, following after Paul and those with him, cried out loudly:

"These men are servants of the Most High God, who proclaim to you the way of salvation";

and this she did for many days.

But the demon, racked by an invisible scourge, was unwillingly compelled to send forth such words; and Paul, having most rightly considered that that one's testimony was not trustworthy, being grieved said to the spirit, "I charge you," saying, "in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her."

Then, narrating the matter, the writer adds, "And it came out that very hour."

So when the masters of the maidservant saw that the hope of their gain was gone, laying hold of Paul and Silas they dragged them into the marketplace to the magistrates; and by insults and blows they became the cause of trouble, stirring up factions by false accusation.

If, then, Paul, having rebuked the spirit, drove out the diviner all at once in that very instant, and the spirit fled by the authority of his word, unable to withstand the sound of his tongue—let him who supports such a definition come forward into the open and say: by what excellence of power did the demon bring up from Hades, against his will, Samuel, who is of the same belief as Paul, summoning him?

But he would not be able to show anything of these things to be true;

so that through these things too one can very easily see that, having transformed himself, the guileful one addressed Saul, saying, "Why have you disturbed me?"

For he hinted that he was coming up unwillingly, against his will—not wishing it, but by necessity and force—as though commanded to be summoned by the Mightier Himself.

And the ruler, retorting, said:

"I am sorely distressed, and the Philistines make war against me, and God," he says, "has departed from me and no longer answers me, neither by the hand of the prophets nor in dreams;

and now I have called you to make known to me what I shall do."

If Samuel were the far-famed prophet, would he not have brought the man to his senses by admonishing him? Would he not have said to him first:

"Tell me, O most wretched of all men—if the foreigners have surrounded you, drawn up in close array for war; if God has departed from you and has not at all hearkened to you; if neither prophets interceding on your behalf have made anything plain, nor by dream or waking vision has been revealed to you what you ought to do—ought you not rather, by this very means, to have humbled yourself before God in propitiation and to have washed away the causes of your guilt by almsgivings to the poor, far rather than to flee for refuge to a diviner with a familiar spirit, and to barter the tokens of godliness for frenzied divination, and to increase your calamity against yourself doubly? For is it not to be considered that such pollutions God expressly forbade, saying in Leviticus through Moses:

"You shall not follow after those who have familiar spirits, and to the enchanters you shall not cleave, to be defiled by them;

I am the Lord your God"? But do you not reckon these abominations as impious, undertaking to act out a drama contrary to God? Hear also, after other things, God uttering an oracle concerning such an outrage:

"...follows after those who have familiar spirits or enchanters, so as to go a-whoring after them;

"what sort and what things he shall suffer," He added, declaring as He went on:

"I will set my face," He said, "against that soul, and will destroy it from among its people."

If, then, God, having from the beginning legislated, dispatched with stern ordinances those who wallow in such enchantments or divinations, and threatens grim and dreadful punishments fearfully against those caught at the judgment, ought not he who from tender nails was devoted to God Himself, and was a firm guardian of the law, to have first laid an accusation concerning these things? But the man learned in the law from boyhood, who was able most exactly to master the lines of the law, would he not have inquired into the fault, lest perchance through this some be dragged off into frenzied divinations, miserably despoiled by deceit? But of these things he neither said nor inquired anything (for it was not Samuel, but the one who from of old concocts such dramas); and upon these things he answers, having slipped into the person of the prophet: "Why do you ask me, saying that the Lord has departed from you and has come to be with your neighbor? And the Lord has done to you as He spoke by my hand."

These things, then, he reads out as an enemy and at the same time sketching out vengeance, introducing the memoranda of accusation.

But we must observe how, passing over the very essential charges, he feigns to speak more demonstratively by hypocrisy, and, having said nothing worthy of foreknowledge, he repeats artfully those things which Samuel, while yet alive, had foretold would befall Saul—which he proclaimed beforehand as already accomplished, prophesying.

But indeed, the one who said to him, "Why do you ask me?" expressly confesses that he had said these things before as well;

and he is in fact tautologous, confirming the former things by the later ones under a pretext, in wailing fashion.

But Origen, on the contrary, taking the very words that were proclaimed of old to the prophet, defines them verbatim as fresh and new utterances of prophecy; for this very reason he wishes Samuel to have been brought up, although the Scripture convicts him face to face, as indeed he himself in part locally concedes.

But what did the phantom add again after these things, when it conversed with the ruler? "The Lord will rend the kingdom out of your hand and will give it to your neighbor, to David.

"Because you did not hearken to the voice of the Lord and did not execute the fierceness of His wrath upon Amalek—on account of this thing the Lord has done this to you this day; and the Lord will deliver Israel with you into the hands of the foreigners."

But if anyone should wish to ascertain the clear truth, let him go back to the history of the text, running back a little before, and unfolding the very passage where, having defeated Amalek, Saul appropriated the choicest of the spoils and supposed that he ought to offer up burnt offerings from these as first-fruits.

And searching with more discerning exactness, he would knowledgeably find that all these words Samuel had foretold verbatim at that time:

for he said that the Lord had rent the kingdom out of his hand, when the ruler, having laid hold of the skirt of the little double mantle, tore it in two;

and moreover he foretold to him that the kingdom was to be given to his neighbor who was better than he;

and he prophesied also in what manner Israel was, on account of this, to be torn asunder and to turn back no more.

And having said these things, he confirmed his words at the same time by deeds;

for not long after, having been sent by divine decree, he anointed David king.

Did, then, the one said to have been brought up through the woman with the familiar spirit announce anything strange, but rather fashioned by deceit, as though his own, the things spoken before by Samuel, impersonating, and by a plausible artifice repeating them, feigned indeed to converse prophetically?

...they astound their hearers, and leading them into a foolish credulity concerning things to come, they fashion whatever they please; so indeed also the phantom of the woman with the familiar spirit, transforming itself, uttered the very prophetic sayings of Samuel, yet in seeming supposed itself to prophesy, while knowing nothing; rather, it set forth the things of another as its own and astounded the avenging fiend['s dupe], and through these easily plundered and stole away that man's mind.

What else, then, did it add after these things? "And you," it says, "tomorrow, and your son Jonathan, with me; and the camp of Israel the Lord will give into the hands of the foreigners."

But these things the demon seemed to say as his own.

And we must inquire whether it foretold true things, as it supposed, and whether it was announcing from guesswork and coincidence, and in addition to these, whether it could have had any foreknowledge of these things.

First, then, Saul does not appear to have perished on the following day, as the phantom said in its utterance.

For if, having heard the words, out of exceeding despondency he ate no bread that whole day and that whole night, as the divine Scripture declares, and after this the woman, again exhorting, urged him to take food, since a journey lay ahead—it is plain that on the second day, doubtless, after that night-long and day-long fasting, she persuaded him, cast feebly upon the ground, to rise and to be seated more becomingly upon the seat; and taking without delay the suckling calf which she had, she slaughters it, and, cooking and baking the unleavened bread, prepared the food.

And when she had set it before him and those with him, having diligently prepared the meal, he then, being urged, partook of the food on the spot;

and it must be concluded that he came into other, nocturnal hours, if indeed he set out from there by night.

So that on this point the demon is self-evidently convicted of having lied;

for it did not come about as it said ("tomorrow you shall be with me"), since the next day he spent there fasting, and then on the second day, having partaken of food, he marched to the camp.

And not only is it caught having spoken contrary to what came to pass in this, but it also said that Jonathan alone, together with his father, would end up beside him;

but on the contrary, the narrative voice of the text declares that Saul was slain together with three sons, and not with one only, as that one said.

Therefore, from want of foreknowledge, the demon spoke nothing true (for otherwise it would not have announced things contrary to what came to pass), but, having stolen away the things spoken before by Samuel, as I said, it added a few small things to these, weaving in things of like character from probability.

So indeed it also threatened death to the ruler, making use of that one's words.

But further it even promised to deliver up the camp of Israel, on the ground that the prophet had weightily said the people would be torn asunder.

Seeing, then, the engines of war set up against them and the leader of the people in terror, and moreover that he had been abandoned by God Himself (whereby the ruler conjecturally confessed that the prophet's proclamation was being carried through even here), it feigned to cry out concerning the present movements.

Yet whatever it added of its own, on its own account, it was plainly caught having lied;

for it was able to foretell neither the day of the death, nor the slayings of Saul's sons, whom the Scripture mentioned by name.

And from these things it would not be hard to perceive that the spirit announced nothing of its own nor anything true, but whatever words of Samuel it filched, these, appropriating them, it supposed itself to prophesy.

But above all it is not possible to say that it prophesied this without falsehood;

...suddenly, unproclaimed? Did it not, transforming itself now here now there in different ways, become at once its own messenger and witness and war-leader, having slipped into the inward parts of men? But such a guise has been considered obscure by the many;

so we must go on consistently to the traces of the Third Book of Kingdoms.

It appears, then, how the prophet Micaiah is questioned by Ahab;

but since he was compelled to speak the truth without concealment, he said that he had seen the Lord sitting on a throne, and then heavenly hosts standing about Him, both on the right hand and on the left;

and together with the account of the vision he said that he had also heard a voice of this sort:

"Who will deceive Ahab, that he may go up to Ramoth Gilead and fall there?" and then he says (that, passing over the things in between, I may say the matter in question), "a spirit came out and stood before the Lord and said:

and when the Lord, retorting, said, "In what way?" it answers again:

"I will go forth and will be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets."

To this, then, the Mightier said:

"You shall deceive, and indeed you shall prevail;

and now, behold," He says, "go forth and do so." And the prophet, narrating these very things to the king, immediately adds:

"God has given a lying spirit in the mouth of all these your prophets, and the Lord has spoken evil against you." Accordingly, if it is necessary to think that this spirit, the cause of false speaking, was not good but wicked, it is consistent to suppose that this very thing is a diabolical instrument.

And if it is properly demonstrated to be this, then it foreheard how the polluted Ahab was to die, going forth to war;

for it deemed worthy to cast in the lie in place of the truth, so that it might itself bring about the outbreak of war and most shamefully destroy the unrighteous man.

So that through these deeds too it is demonstrated that the devil has learned beforehand the evils brought upon the unrighteous, since he himself is the contriver of all the most hateful things.

In the case of Saul, however, whatever he added of his own and joined to the sayings of Samuel, he not only lied plausibly, but also blasphemed impiously.

From here somewhere the first blasphemy is convicted:

first, that in imitation—just as the Lord said to the robber who confessed the power of His kingdom, "Today you shall be with me," saying, "in paradise"—this very same thing the guileful one said also to Saul, who had fulfilled his frenzied divinations:

"Tomorrow you shall be with me, and Jonathan your son." And second, it wishes through these things to show that the righteous man differs in no way from the unrighteous, contriving to cut off the eager zeal of the godly.

But no one, it seems, is ignorant that there exists no fellowship in common for a believer with an unbeliever; or again, how the man who luxuriated in insatiable wealth was separated far from the abode of Lazarus, although he had done nothing like that man.

For this one never imparted anything at all to the poor man—nothing whatsoever, neither of leftovers nor of crumbs thrown to the ground—but neither did he maltreat the man with blows, nor, scourging him with whips, drive him further off the land somewhere.

But nonetheless, when both departed, removing hence, the one came to rest in the bosom of the forefather Abraham, while the other was given to the unsleeping flames of the fire.

So when, being tormented in Hades, he was burning, he sees the forefather afar off, and beholds also Lazarus in his bosom;

and being set on fire by the flame, he fervently besought Abraham to send the poor man to him;

for he begged that Lazarus, having come, might dip the tip of his finger in water and cool his tongue, having drawn upon it a drop of moisture;

so, pained by fiery agonies, the wretch made such entreaties with supplication.

And when the forefather, answering point by point, showed that each in his own portion had received the worthy recompenses for the sake of his reward, then he added and uttered:

"that those wishing to cross over from here to you may not be able, neither those from thence pass over to us." If, then, there is a form of chasm dividing between the righteous and the unrighteous, so that neither can those on this side ferry over thither, nor those from thence arrive here, it is established that Saul, being unrighteous, is not with the prophet Samuel;

for if the rich man cannot be with the poor man—and that though he did him no wrong nor persecuted him, but merely failed readily to share with him out of what he had—how much more is the wretched man unworthy to enjoy the fellowship of the saints? But it is not to be supposed how, for the sake of shameful gain, he sets aside the divine command, and, smitten incurably by a demon, is driven by envy, persecutes the saintly David in a manner befitting no decency (although by prophetic psalmody he tamed the savagery of the demon that raged within him), slaughters the priests of the Lord, three hundred and fifty in number, and apostatizes from God by divining impiously. And if he wrought these things and things akin to these, how is it possible to think that he came to rest with the wonder-working Samuel, who in the season of summer asked for rain to come, and at that very moment an immeasurable abundance of waters was poured down? But if it is not possible to say that Saul is with Samuel, then he who said to him lied:

accordingly, if the one who said these things is a liar, it is plain that this is not Samuel;

for the prophet of the Lord would not have lied so senselessly, so that such words, split in twain when unfolded, lay bare the many-faced beast hidden deep within.

For it is he himself who dragged the raging Saul down into the chasm of Tartarus;

whence, having mastered him, he addressed him in a manner befitting himself;

and trying in a twofold way to establish that the righteous in no way differs from the unrighteous, he conceded that Jonathan, together with his father, carried off the same lot as that man, although he had had no share in that man's cruelty.

And who among existing men pretends not to perceive that he who lived most excellently, the lover of the prophet David, and who did not undertake to persecute a righteous man unrighteously, does not carry off the same wages as the persecutor? For a son shall not die, to say all in sum, on behalf of an unrighteous father.

But indeed, the false-fabricator is convicted also through this disclosure.

And with an unbroken sequence of order the writer added and said that "Saul made haste and fell, standing full length upon the ground, and was greatly afraid, speaking from the words of Samuel."

For he knows those to be the words of Samuel, which Samuel foretold to him while present in his very body and tongue; but the phantom gleaned up these words and brought them forth as its own;

reminded of which, and beholding the tokens of war set up before his very eyes, the ruler became greatly afraid, pondering their outcome.

But Origen, fashioning dogmas for himself, knowing that very many are those who hold these opinions, yet disputing with those who contradicted him, was not zealous to ascertain what was needful with the due reverence;

but rather, while proclaiming beforehand that the drama of the woman with the familiar spirit touches everyone and invoking the truth as necessary for the examination, he manifestly fights against the truth itself.

Then, going through the encomia of Samuel—all that the divine Scriptures relate concerning him—he at that point again, declaring him to be under the authority of the demon, in those very words and very syllables added:

"Is it then, <if> so great a one was beneath the earth and the woman with the familiar spirit brought him up, that a demon has authority over a prophetic soul?" But these things he is suspected of sometimes saying among certain people, as though raising a difficulty, or perhaps inquiring:

"Are they true, or are they not true?" Now to say that they are not true urges one toward unbelief ("it will come upon the heads," he says, "of those who say so"), while to say that they are true affords us inquiry and perplexity.

And after this, again confirming without examination the things he reports, and setting forth the opinions of those who hold a view contrary to his, he adds:

"And indeed we know that certain of our brethren have looked the Scripture in the face and said:

I do not believe the woman with the familiar spirit; the woman with the familiar spirit says she saw Samuel—she lies; and many other things besides these as well."

And through these things he openly censures those who declare the divinations of the woman with the familiar spirit to be false, and cursing, he refers them upon the heads of those who disbelieve her.

Yet wishing most easily to persuade the gullible, he attaches the narrative to the Scripture itself, saying, "Are these things written or not written?" And using syllogistic cleverness, he presses on, repeating, "Are these things true or not true?"—although the not-having-been-brought-up of the prophet's soul, he said, affords us perplexity and inquiry.

But how full of impiety it is to attribute such things to the demon—this he no longer says, inquiring, nor does he apply his mind, smitten with unmixed senselessness.

For to God alone does it belong to command with such authority, so as to summon and call souls from Hades.

So here again we must retort:

these things have indeed been taken up in the sacred Scriptures, yet the writer did not declare that such a deed had been accomplished from his own person;

for the book would not be canonical, crying out things contrary to the prophetic utterances, as indeed we showed before and shall say a little later.

But indeed it merely transcribed the words of the woman with the familiar spirit and the frenzied knowledge of the ruler, shown by deeds to be full of ignorance;

for if it will be fitting thus to attack the holy Scriptures, then, since they say that the devil also openly proclaims himself to be God, on that account it will be necessary to believe him, attributing the whole thing to the narrative reception of the text, as Origen suggests? For this too is recorded in the very Scriptures.

Or again, when, using immeasurable arrogance, he says that the whole compass of this world, or even its kingdoms, are his own, would anyone on that account say that it is fitting to think he is the creator of all? By no means, someone would say; for the narrative voice transcribed his grandiloquence, yet does not declare them to be true, nor is there anyone at all able to show this.

But there are countless such things to behold in addition to these, yet it is not possible to bring them all forward, lest by long-windedness we should seem to be driven away from the question.

So, since it seemed that he was being censured not moderately by those of most upright mind, again, having slipped away, he sprang off to another notion, and made matters grim, playing the demagogue, on the ground that they say, among other things, that it would be a fearful thing to suppose that the renowned Samuel had come to be in Hades—he who has been honored with the chosen dignity of prophecy.

This, then, he repeats over and over in old-wives'-fashion, contriving by deceit to shift his hearers from one thing to another.

But we are not at variance concerning these things, about which all must be in agreement, but rather about those things on account of which we have determined to dispute in the proper sense;

for we must not inquire whether it was Samuel, but whether a demon has such authority as to call back the souls of the righteous from Hades and again to send them away.

Since, then, being caught in the very act, he was convicted of pouring out blasphemy as an outrage upon the ears of his hearers, he slinks aside by a deceitful art, and flees forsooth for refuge to the person of Christ, so that, comparing it with the holy men, he might prove that Christ too descended into Hades together with all the rest.

"So that I may put it thus," he says, "being in the place below, He was above by His free choice." But conversing as concerning a mere man, and no longer taking into account His divine nature, he said that He had arrived in the lowest regions, yet doubtless had gone up above by His free choice—just like, assuredly, the rest of mankind as well.

For he said this also concerning the prophets and Samuel: even though they go down to where the souls below are, they can indeed be in the place below, yet they are not below in their disposition of will.

Having filled the world round about with frivolous talk beyond all measure, he does not even understand this: that every single person whatsoever, even if he be utterly wretched, once gone down into Hades is established there unwillingly, against his own choosing.

There is, then, none either of the just or of the unjust who does not yearn to cling always to the dwellings above and to be set free from the regions beneath the earth.

If, then, all who were brought down into Hades together long by their own will for the upward courses, even some who did not at all cultivate a righteous life, what surpassing dignity did he assign to the prophetic choir? And what extraordinary thing did he proclaim of the Lord, when he makes him like to all? But thus did he sound forth his utterance in ignorance, failing to consider that the Word, being God, is present everywhere all at once not so much by choice as by the power of his Godhead.

And though indeed he even permitted his own chosen temple to be destroyed, yet immediately he raised it up again in three days in a new and wondrous manner; and the soul of this human tabernacle, having descended into the lowest parts of the earth, threw open the gates there with one sudden impulse and released the souls imprisoned in that place;

and thus it was strengthened with divine power through its union with God the Word, so as to possess an all-seeing authority.

But indeed I for my part am persuaded that there is a clear proof of this also: that at the very moment he came to the regions beneath the earth, at the same time he was also bringing the soul of the robber that very day into paradise.

For if through one man salvation came to all men, it is plain that the soul redeems the souls of its own kind, at one and the same time descending into the subterranean parts of the abyss, and again restoring to the most ancient pasture of paradise him who had crept in by the might of the unconquerable kingdom.

Consistently with these things, and before them too, the Son of God bore witness, foretelling that 'no one has ascended into heaven except he who came down from heaven, the Son of Man who is in heaven.'