Article 1: On Spirits (Part 7)

Thus did he once deceive Eve, speaking to her not his own words but pretending to repeat the words of God while perverting their meaning281. Thus did he seduce the wife of Job, schooling her in an excess of love for her husband and thereby in blasphemy against God282. Thus did he seduce and deceive all people, perverting the outward appearance of things, and seized and drew all into the abyss of evil that properly belongs to him. After he had seduced the first man, and thereby came to the awareness that he holds in his power and in his dominion the entire human race, he pronounced a cruel and arrogant mockery over them in the following words: I shall encompass the whole world with my hand as a nest, and I shall take it up as abandoned eggs, and there is none who shall flee from me, or speak against me283. But when the Lord came, when the enemy learned by experience of His dispensation and could not deceive the flesh with which Christ had clothed Himself, then the proud one, who had boasted of encompassing the universe, became through Christ a plaything even for children, like a sparrow. Now a young child shall place his hand on the lair of the asp’s brood284—he mocks the one who deceived Eve, and all who rightly believe in the Lord trample upon the one who said: I will ascend above the clouds; I will be like the Most High285. He does not endure this without shame; but by his powerful audacity he attempts to change his appearance. Despite this, the unfortunate one cannot hide himself from those who make the sign of the Cross upon their foreheads: the more fiercely is he driven away by them, with great dishonor and shame to himself. Although now, like a creeping serpent, he deceitfully arrays himself in the form of a bright angel, yet such pretense can bring him no benefit: for we have been taught that even if an angel from heaven should preach to us something beyond what was delivered, let him be anathema.

Again, if he should wish to cover the falsehood natural to him and pretend to speak truth with his lips, we do not know his purpose in doing so and justly reject him with words borrowed from the Holy Spirit: But to the sinner God says: why do you recite My statutes?286 Praise is not fitting in the mouth of a sinner287. The evil one, even if he were to speak the truth, does not deserve to be believed—as Scripture teaches us by recounting the cunning he used against Eve. The Lord restrained his audacity: first, on the mountain, where He exposed his manifold malice and showed him to be one grown old in wickedness, calling him not by the name of any saint but of Satan. Go behind Me, Satan: for it is written, You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only shall you serve288. Second, He commanded the demons to be silent when they cried out from those whom they possessed. By their cry they were proclaiming the truth; they did not lie when they said: Jesus, Son of God, and the Holy One of God289. The Lord did not will that the truth should be preached by unclean lips—especially the lips of demons—lest they, taking advantage of this occasion, should by their evil will mingle something of their own and sow it among men who were sleeping290. For this reason He did not permit them to speak, and did not allow us to let them do so, giving instruction Himself in the following words: Beware of false prophets, who come to you in the clothing of sheep, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves291; and through the holy Apostles: do not believe every spirit292“. It is evident that the thoughts set forth here are identical to the thoughts which we read in the Discourse of Anthony the Great. The opinion found in that discourse—that created spirits have light bodies—without doubt belongs not to Anthony alone but also to Athanasius; otherwise the Archbishop would not have failed to note his disagreement. The materiality of created spirits is apparent from the description of the temptations which Anthony the Great endured from them. Since these temptations are included in the life of Anthony the Great in the Menologion293, we do not transcribe them here. Similar temptations were endured by many hermits and desert-dwellers.

Saint Epiphanius of Cyprus, who reposed on a ship while sailing from Constantinople to Cyprus, spoke thus to his disciples in his parting words before his death: “My children! If you love me, keep my commandments, and the love of God will abide with you. You know through what sorrows I have passed in my life! These sorrows I did not count as sorrows, but in enduring them I was always joyful on account of my hope in God, and God never forsook me, but Himself guarded me from all the machinations of the evil one. For those who love God all things work together for good294. Once, my beloved children, when I was in a desert place and was offering prayers to Christ that He would deliver me from all the snares of the adversary—a multitude of demons fell upon me. They struck me to the ground and, seizing me by the feet, dragged me along the earth. Some of them beat me. This is what they did to me for ten days. After this I never again saw demons in their own form during all the days of my life; but they poured out their malice upon me through people”295.

The ancient Fathers, as we have seen from the citation of Saint Cyril of Jerusalem, in accordance with Holy Scripture and in common usage, called spirit the air, the wind—in a word, everything that has no gross body. In order to provide beloved brethren with the most satisfactory possible understanding of the ancient Fathers’ opinion on spirits, we present here the teaching of Saint Athanasius the Great on the human body and soul. “It is known,” says the Archbishop, “that the body derives its composition from the elements; and in like manner its dissolution depends upon them. For this reason the bodies of men, as well as those of other animals, die readily, being composed of four elements—namely earth, fire, water, and air. These elements themselves are not free from decay and corruption; in the same way the bodies are not free from them, for all bodies are made of earth. On the contrary, simple, uncomposed substances are easily preserved and remain undestroyed until the end. Such are the sun, the human soul, light, the luminaries, air, water, fire, spirit—in a word, everything that is simple.” Concerning the soul he says the following: “In it there are five passions, called soul-passions. These are anger, grief, fear, anxiety, and envy. Whoever has attained sobriety of mind can have power over these passions. The soul itself, by its own nature, is as it were a burning fire. As fire cooks whatever is placed into a pot, so the fiery soul digests and consumes the food put into the belly. Although it is called ψυχη (soul), it is not so called because it is ψυχρά—that is, cold—as some simpler persons suppose. The power and activity of the sun manifest themselves in it by this—that it dries up what is moist by the force of its warmth. The sun, being fiery and hot, dries up swampy places and resolves into vapors whatever is filled with moisture. That the soul is warm by nature—of this the dead will assure you beyond all doubt and by experience, for in the hour when the soul separates from the body, all the members are seized with cold, no less than from the action of frost. As long as the soul receives nourishment in abundance, the body is strong and vigorous; when it is deprived of nourishment, the body itself serves as nourishment for the warmth of the soul. As a copper vessel or pot in a burning furnace, if not filled with water, cannot bear the force of the fire—because they are burned and completely destroyed—so also the vessel of the body, if it suffers a deficiency of nourishment, will necessarily break down, being brought into complete exhaustion by the fiery soul. If you wish to learn from someone how the soul abides in the body, question him thus: “Tell me, does the soul of man dwell in the whole body, or in some part of the body?” If he says to you, “In the whole body,” reply to him: “Why is it then that when a man’s hand or foot is cut off, the soul is not divided, but the man continues to live and does not die?” If he says, “In one place,” then reply to him: “How then do all the other members exist? for everything devoid of soul is dead, and I do not know what you mean. But I will tell you in what place, for what reason, and where the soul dwells. Positively it is present in three places of the body. As a ray of the sun always enters and comes into a house in one place and illumines the entire house, so also the soul, dwelling in three parts of the body, illumines the entire house of the body. Specifically, it dwells in the heart, in the upper part of the head, and in the royal arteries. In these three parts the soul lives. For this reason, in the moment when the head or the heart is struck, or when blood flows out in great quantity from the royal artery, the soul immediately departs from the body, and the body becomes dead. The soul, truly dwelling in these three parts, spreads the action of its force through the entire body”296.

The opinion set forth by Saint Athanasius the Great—a man most enlightened in his day—deserves particular attention. It deserves attention especially in our time, when the rationalism of Descartes has fallen or is professed only by backward individuals unacquainted with the present development of the sciences that explain matter. From the exposition made by Athanasius on the significance of body and soul, it becomes entirely evident what the ancients meant by “simple”. They called “simple” what had not been broken down into its component parts, what no means of decomposing were in view of. The concept and the verbal expression of the concept are most natural! Water, air, spirit, and soul were called “simple” in exactly the same respect. Chemistry appeared and overturned the concepts of matter, establishing complexity in what had been acknowledged as simple, proving materiality in what had been acknowledged as immaterial—attaining, by a most precise and mathematical process, the knowledge that everything, save the Infinite, is material. By this knowledge science came into agreement with the opinion of Holy Scripture and the holy Fathers, who separate the essence of God from all created beings by an infinite distance, both in nature and in properties. All the ingenious suppositions, all the magnificent ravings of philosophers unacquainted with the positive sciences, are rejected and laid in the dust by the positive sciences297. The presence of caloric in the soul, indicated by Saint Athanasius, although it cannot be accepted in the form in which it appears in the treatise—being based on the contemporary state of knowledge about matter—cannot yet be counted a strangeness and absurdity, as the Cartesians must count it. All gases known to us—these invisible and subtle bodies—contain caloric within themselves. Athanasius acknowledges, on the basis of experiments known to him, the presence of the soul in three main divisions of the body; throughout all the members he acknowledges the action of the soul, while denying its presence in them. More recent experiments unanimously testify that the soul is present in all members of the body; but life is present where Saint Athanasius indicated. All men—without any exception—who have lost their hands or feet clearly sense the presence of those members and sense the capacity to act with them. Some suppose this to be a play of the nerves. This is not so! The nerves act only within the body; to act outside the body is utterly impossible for them: these are the clearly sensed members of the soul, with the capacity for action—a capacity that remains without employment, because the principal parts of the soul are united to the body.

Saint John Chrysostom: “Do you wish to see Angels and also martyrs? Open the eyes of faith and look upon this spectacle. For if the whole air is full of Angels, how much more is the church. That the whole air is filled with Angels—hear what the Apostle says, exhorting women to cover their heads: For this reason, he says, a woman ought to have authority over her head, because of the Angels298. Again, Jacob: the Angel who delivers me from all evils299. And those who were in the house with the Apostles said to the girl Rhoda: It is his angel300. And again, Jacob saw the host of God encamped, and the angels of God met him301. But why a host and multitude of Angels on the earth? As a king commands his soldiers to be stationed throughout all the cities so that war may not break out somewhere and they may not be attacked unexpectedly, so also God sets the hosts of Angels against the fierce and savage demons—the enemies of peace—who continually stir up wars in this air, so that the Angels might stop the demons the moment they appear, while preserving for us a constant peace. And that you may learn that the Angels are angels of peace, hear what the deacon constantly says in the prayer: We ask for an angel of peace”302. Saint John Chrysostom, refuting the opinion of those who claimed that Angels had coupled with the daughters of men, calls Angels incorporeal, without the capacity for procreation, basing the latter opinion on the words of the Lord: in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like the angels of God in heaven303. Chrysostom says that every man has his own Angel; he supports this opinion by the words of the Jerusalem Christians: It is his angel304. In Homily 53 on the Evangelist Matthew, Chrysostom says: “A prisoner suffers the greatest grief when he is brought before the tribunal; he trembles most when he approaches the place of interrogation, when he must give his answers. In like manner many relate terrible visions that present themselves at this time (at the hour of death), the spectacle of which the dying cannot endure—they shake with great effort the very bed on which they lie, looking at those standing by with eyes distorted by fear, while the soul is agitated within itself, unwilling to leave the body, unable to bear the gaze of the approaching Angels. If we tremble when we look upon terrible men, what fear shall we experience when we see Angels assembled and fierce powers, when the soul is being torn from the body, weeping in vain and with great anguish?” In the Discourse on the Incomprehensible, Chrysostom says: “And what do I say about that blessed Being (the Godhead), when a man cannot freely even behold the being of an angel. So that you may understand this is so, I will cite as an example a friend of God, who was endowed for his wisdom and righteousness with great courage, of whom it is told that he did many glorious things—namely, holy Daniel—so that no one may think, when I show that after the appearance to him of an Angel he fell into weakness, lost his strength, and was faint, that he suffered this because of sins and an evil conscience. After his strength of spirit has been proven, the weakness of his very nature is the more clearly demonstrated. Now this Daniel fasted for three weeks, tasting no desirable bread; wine, meat, and strong drink did not enter his mouth, nor did he anoint himself; and then he was granted a vision, when his soul had become more capable of such contemplation—lighter and more spiritual through fasting. What does he say then? I lifted my eyes and saw, and behold, a certain man clothed in linen, that is, in sacred vestments, with his loins girded with fine gold of Ufaz. His body was like topaz, his face like the appearance of lightning, his eyes like lamps of fire, and his arms and legs like the gleam of burnished bronze, and the sound of his words like the voice of a multitude. And I Daniel alone saw the vision, but the men who were with me did not see the vision; yet a great trembling fell upon them, and they fled in terror. So no strength remained in me, and my splendor was turned to corruption305. What does this mean: my splendor was turned to corruption? The young man (Daniel) was of beautiful appearance; but since the fear arising from the presence of the Angel produced in him—after the manner of the dying—a change in his outward appearance and caused the natural color of his face to fade, he said: my splendor was turned to corruption. What then did the Angel do? He lifted him up and said: O Daniel, man of desires, understand the words that I speak to you, and stand upright, for now I have been sent to you306. He rose, seized with trembling. And when the Angel began again to speak with him and said: from the first day that you set your heart to understand and to humble yourself before your God, your words were heard, and I have come because of your words307—Daniel again fell to the earth, after the likeness of the dying. Let those who out of curiosity seek to see Angels hear this! Daniel, before whose gaze even the eyes of lions were reverent—Daniel, who while in a human body could do what surpasses man—could not endure the presence of a fellow-servant, but lay senseless. My bowels were turned at the sight, and I retained no strength, and my breath was left in me”308. In the Commentary on Psalm 41, Chrysostom says: “How many demons course through this air? How many hostile powers? If God were only to permit them to show us their terrible and repulsive form, would we not go mad? would we not perish?”309 In Homily 34 on the Evangelist Matthew, Chrysostom says that “demons wander about the tombs.” The relation of demons to the sacrifices offered to them, Chrysostom depicts in the “Discourse on Saint Babylas”, against Julian and the pagans. Having recounted the circumstances that gave occasion for the building of a temple to Apollo in Daphne, a suburb of Antioch, Chrysostom says that the devil, taking advantage of a mythological tradition, placed a demon in the temple to deceive and destroy men. The demon, present at the idol, gave oracles by which the errors of the pagans were sustained. The relics of the holy martyr Babylas were transferred to Daphne, and the demon first fell silent, and then, when the sacrifices to him were discontinued, departed entirely from the temple. “Such is the custom of demons,” Chrysostom adds, “when men render them divine worship with the odor and smoke of blood, they, like bloodthirsty and insatiable dogs, dwell in those places for nourishment and enjoyment (of that odor and smoke). But when no one offers them such sacrifices, they vanish, as if from hunger. So long as sacrifices are offered, so long as foul rites are performed… so long demons are present and take delight”310.

Saint Cyril of Alexandria holds a similar opinion on spirits, as is evident from his “Discourse on the Departure of the Soul”, cited in the “Discourse on Death”. Saint Cyril calls the demons terrible, savage, cruel, merciless, shameless, foul—like dark Moors. He says that the soul of the dying sees them, that the soul as it departs from the body is held by the holy Angels, that it passes with them through the air from earth to heaven, that evil spirits hinder this ascent by accusing the soul of the sins it has committed, that the holy Angels stand against the demons and contend with them over the soul, that the soul—finding itself between Angels and demons—trembles, awaiting the outcome of its trial and of the contest of the spirits over it. The Saint says that pious souls ascend to God, while a rejected soul—on account of its sinfulness—falls into the power of the aerial demons, who begin to beat it without mercy, lead it down from the aerial path to the earth, open the earth, lead the soul into the depths of the earth, and shut it there in the prisons of hell for eternal torment.

Saint Andrew, Archbishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia, says: “There is no doubt whatsoever that there are multitudes upon multitudes of demons: all the saints affirm that the air is filled with them”311. — “This serpent (the devil) is of a crimson (red) color, which depicts his murderous and bloodthirsty nature, or his angelic fiery essence—though he has estranged himself from the Angels” by the qualities he has willfully acquired.

Saint Gregory the Dialogist speaks much about life beyond the grave and about spirits. We select a few things from among many—those especially notable, especially serving to convey a defined, as far as possible, understanding of spirits. In the homily on the evangelical parable of the ten virgins, the Dialogist recounts the following event: “As Chryserius was drawing near to his end, at the very hour when he was to depart from the body, he opened his eyes and saw foul and most dark spirits standing before him, terribly threatening to seize him in the chains of hell. He began to tremble, to turn pale, to sweat, to implore with a terrible cry for a reprieve, and with extraordinary frantic screaming was calling his son Maximus by name—whom I myself, already a monk, saw also a monk—saying: “Maximus! quickly! I have done you no wrong: receive me into your faith.” The startled Maximus ran at once; the weeping and trembling household assembled. They could not see those spirits from whose attack he was horribly suffering, but they guessed at their presence from the agitation, pallor, and trembling of the one being dragged away. Frightened by the sight of their hideous appearance, he threw himself about the bed this way and that, turned to the left side, unable to endure the sight of them, turned to the wall—there they were. When, driven to the uttermost extreme, he despaired of finding any relief, he began to cry out loudly, saying: “A reprieve! if only until morning! A reprieve! if only until morning!” But while he was crying out—with those very cries he was torn from the dwelling of his flesh. He is known precisely because he saw this not for his own sake, but for ours, so that the vision might be of benefit to us whom the divine patience still awaits. What benefit was there, properly speaking, for him in seeing the foul spirits before his death and in begging for a reprieve—when he did not receive that reprieve?”313

“When the day of death urged Stephen to depart from the body, many gathered so as to present their own souls for the consideration of such a holy soul as was departing from this world. And while all who had assembled were standing by his bed, some with their bodily eyes saw Angels entering, but were utterly unable to utter anything; others saw absolutely nothing. But such a powerful fear seized all who were present that at the departure of this holy soul, no one was able to remain there”314.

“The days shall come upon you, when your enemies shall cast a trench about you315. What enemies are as dangerous to the human soul as the evil spirits, who surround it at the moment of its separation from the body—they who assisted it in carnal love with deceitful pleasures? They lay siege to it, for by setting before its eyes the lawless deeds it has committed, they press it closely, dragging it toward fellowship in their own condemnation—so that the soul, caught already at the very end of life, both sees itself surrounded by enemies and yet can find no way out of their encirclement, because it can no longer perform good works—it that despised them when it was able to do them. In application to them, what follows may also be understood: and they shall surround you, and hem you in on every side316. The evil spirits hem the soul in on every side when they set before it not only the lawless deeds committed in act, but also in word, and even in thought: the soul that was scattered among many in transgression is hemmed in to the utmost by all in retribution. What follows: and they shall dash you to the ground, and your children within you317. The soul is dashed to the ground by the awareness of its guilt when the flesh, which it counted as its life, is compelled to return to the dust. Its children are dashed down when the unlawful thoughts that proceeded from it are scattered in the final retribution of life, as it is written: on that day all their thoughts shall perish318. These same gross thoughts may also be understood under the meaning of stones, for what follows: and they shall not leave in you one stone upon another319. A corrupt soul, adding one criminal thought upon another, what else does it do but lay stone upon stone? But in a razed city not one stone is left upon another, because when the soul is brought to its retribution, all the edifice of its thoughts is scattered to ruin.

And for what it suffers, it is further added: because you did not know the time of your visitation320. The Almighty God is accustomed to visit a corrupt soul by many means… But since it does not know the time of its visitation, at the end of life it is given over to those enemies with whom it has entered into fellowship—in the eternal judgment of unceasing condemnation—as it is written: for when you go with your adversary before the ruler, on the way make an effort to be free of him, lest he drag you before the Judge, and the Judge hand you over to the officer (the torturer), and the officer cast you into prison321. Our adversary on the way is the word of God, contrary to our carnal desires in the present life. From this adversary he is freed who humbly submits to his commandments. Otherwise the adversary delivers to the Judge, and the Judge to the torturer. This means: the sinner guilty of contempt for the word of the Lord will be detained at the trial of the Judge. The Judge delivers him to torment, permitting the evil spirit to seize him for retribution and to forcibly extract from the body the soul that willingly accorded with this evil spirit in its transgressions. The torturer sends to prison. This means: through the instrumentality of the evil spirit, the sinner is cast down into the depths of hell until the day of judgment—from which day that same (evil spirit) will be tormented along with him in the fires of the nether world.

We must reflect soberly on how terrible the hour of death will be for us, what dread the soul will experience then, what a recollection of all evils, what forgetting of past happiness, what fear and apprehension of the Judge. Then the evil spirits search in the departing soul for its deeds; then they set before its eyes those sins to which they had inclined it, in order to drag their accomplice to torments. But why do we speak only of a sinful soul, when they come even to chosen souls that are dying and search in them for what is theirs, if they have succeeded in anything? Among men there was only One Who, before His suffering, fearlessly says: I will no longer speak much with you, for the ruler of this world is coming, and he has nothing in Me322. The ruler of the world saw in the Lord a mortal man: he therefore supposed he might find something of his own in Him. But He departed without any sin from the corruption of the world—the One Who came into the world without sin. This Peter did not dare to say concerning his own relation to the ruler of this world—Peter, who was counted worthy to hear: whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven323. This Paul did not dare to say—Paul, who before his death was caught up to the mysteries of the third heaven324. This even John did not dare to say of himself—John, who by reason of a special love reclined at supper on the breast of his Redeemer325. The Prophet says: for behold, in iniquity I was conceived, and in sin my mother bore me326: from this it follows that one who came into the world with guilt cannot be without guilt. For this very reason the same Prophet says: no living person shall be justified before You327. For this very reason also Solomon says: there is no righteous man on earth, who does good and does not sin328. And for this reason John says: if we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us329. And therefore James says: we all sin in many ways330. As all—as is known to everyone—are conceived from the pleasure of the flesh, there is without any doubt something of his own in all of them—the ruler of the world—either in their deeds, or in their words, or in their thoughts. But he could neither seize them afterward nor hold them before, because the One Who freely paid for us the debt of death freed them from their debts—so that our debts to our enemy might not detain us; because for our sake the Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, freely gave him what He did not owe. He freed us from the debt of the death of the soul by paying for us the death of the body, which He did not owe. For this reason He says: the ruler of this world is coming, and he has nothing in Me. — We must take care and reflect with abundant daily tears on how fierce, how terrible is the ruler of this world who will come on the day of our death, searching in us for his own works—since he came even to the Lord dying in the flesh and searched for something in Him in Whom he could find nothing.

What then shall we say, what shall we do—we wretches who have fallen into countless sins? What shall we say to the enemy who searches for and finds much that is his own in us, unless it be this alone—that we have a known refuge and a firm hope, because we have accomplished one thing together with Him in Whom the ruler of this world both searched for something of his own and could find nothing of his own? Because He alone is free among the dead331; because we are released from the slavery of sin into true freedom by being united to Him Who alone is free. It is known—and we cannot deny it but sincerely confess—that the ruler of this world has much that is his own in us; but despite this, he no longer has the power to seize us at the hour of our death, because we have become members of Him in Whom that one has nothing”332.