their fighting Ut Zonoras Tomo 3. indicat ARiulphus Duke of Spoleto fighting against the Romans at Camertes and obtaining Victory inquires of his Souldiers who it was that behaved himself so stoutly and gallantly in the battle they answered 't was a Prince Whereupon he replies he was more powerfull then any mortall man for when ever I was assaulted fiercely by the enemy he with a Buckler defended me from their fury then going with all possible speed to Spoleto seeing the Temple wherein the body of Saint Sabinus is intombed he asked what Church it was when they answered It was the Temple of Sabinus he hastily leaps from his horse calling his Souldiers who as they say alwayes waited diligently upon him walks into the Church and seeing his Image he presently with an Oath affirmed 't was he that protected him from the violent assaults of his numerous enemies whereupon 't was presently believed that Sabinus was the most pious Patron of Souldiers Ariulphus would not for any thing have wanted the experience of this Protection of Saints which is so frequent amongst Christians Bonfinius lib. 8. Decad. 1. THe great Sfortia for the honour he bore St. Leonard Christned his Son which he had by Catella Alopa sister to Pandulphus Alopus after his name for that he dreamed he saw Leonard in the same shape he is usually pictur'd in Churches coming to him being a Prisoner with relief breaking the Iron bars of the window of the Prison and with his power loosing his shackles The event proved this Vision to be very true for the day following this blessed dream Jacobus Gallus King by sedition was driven out of the Neopolitan Kingdome and lost both Rule and Liberty and Sfortia was delivered out of Prison and to the great content of all was restored to be Master of the Horse Jovius in vita ejus IN the time of Ferdinand first King of Aragon the City Neopolitane in a most flourishing condition and the Kingdome free from all calamity it is manifest that Cataldus about a thousand years before that time an holy man had been Bishop at Tarentinum and that the Citizens thereof did worship him as their Patron in the middest of the night he again and again appeared to a Minister of holy things who had lately taken the order of Priest-hood having been educated amongst those who vow chastity that he should without delay take out of the ground a little book which he in his life time had writ and hid in a private place wherein some divine writings were and bring it to the King giving little credit to this dream although he saw him in his sleep very oft and alwayes of the same shape and fashion being all alone early in the morning in the Temple he plainly appeared to the Priest with a Mitre in such Bishops weeds as he used in his life time to be aparrelled in advised him as he desired to avoid great punishment that the next day without further delay he should dig for the Book which he had written and which was hidden as he had formerly shewed him by Visions and bring it to the King the Priest and people went the next day to the place wherein for many ages this little book had been hid and found it bound with a leaden cover and locked wherein it appeared that the destruction of the Kingdome miserable calamities and sad times were at hand whereof the King was warned we have learned by experience that this Prophecy was fully executed and shewed it self to be so divine that not long after Ferdinand himself either by the justly incensed wrath of Almighty God or other inscrutable causes of his divine will could avoid what he was so fully admonished of but in the very first appearance of War departed this life and Charls the eight King of France with a strong hand having an huge Army of Neopolitans invaded the Kingdom and Alfonsus the eldest son of Ferdinand after his fathers death having but newly undertaken the government of the Kingdome was thereof deprived basely running away and dying in flight as a banished man shortly the second son of Ferdinand the hopefullnesse of whose youth had endeared him to all men to whom upon the death of his brother the Kingdome fell was intangled with a miserable and fatall War died of an immature death in the very flower of his age afterwards the French and Spaniards obtaining the Kingdome divided it chasing away Frederick another Son of Ferdinand the elder with a larger Army wherewith they invaded the Kingdome took to themselves all whether holy or prophane plundered Towns and Cities laying all waste committing most vile and filthy immanities Alexander ab Alexand. cap. 15. JAmes the son of Zebedee appeared to Charls the Great three seveâ—all nights and did exhort him to drive out of the Countrey of Spain in which his body rested the Saracens and assured him for his labour and travail therein he should obtain an everlasting crown Henricus Erphordiensis ex Turpino Romensi Episcopo refert cap. 68. THe Monks of the Abbey of Florence assured of the expedition of the Normans into France carry the body of Saint Benedict to Aurelia conceiving it a more safe receptacle from the Enemy at the comming of the Normans they burnt the Abbey of Florence and laid it wast the night following Saint Benedict appeared to Count Sigillosus to whom the care and defence of that Monastery was cammitted and in a Vision heavily chideth him because he had not resisted the Normans when they fell upon the Monastery The Earl awakening presently fell to his arms and with a handfull of men pursues the enemies loaden with plunder following them with a swift course fiercely falls upon them and by the help of Saint Benedict kills them every man and redeems all the Prisoners and booty Robertus Ganquinus lib. 5. CHildebert being King of France the Arch-Angell Michael again and again admonished Anbertus the Abrencatensian Bishop that wholly in the Sea which by reason of his eminency is called his Tomb he should build a Church in memory of him requiring such veneration to be given him in the Sea as was exhibited to him in Gorganum in the mean time a Bull which was taken by a Lyon was found bound in that place Whereupon the Bishop was commanded the third time that he should lay the foundation of the Temple where he should find the Bull and as he should observe the ground beaten with the feet of the Bull he should draw the compasse of the Temple which he built in honour of Saint Michael and from that time as in the Mountain Gorganum formerly in that place also now in danger of the Sea the worship of the Angell was begun Sigebert Anno Dom. 799. AGnes Wife to Leopold Marquesse of Austria desired her Husband to design some place wherein to build a Monastery that the prayses of Christ and his Mother might therein be said From a Castle seated in the Mountain Cecium
Ventricle by what art they are carried in certainly by no other then the cunning and deceit of the Devill Joan Langius in his Book 1. Epistle med 28. Vierus Book 3. Chapter 8. Concerning the legerdemain of Devils A Certain religious man an inhabitant of the Town Hesden in a field called Leodren for Religion's sake went to Jerusalem stayed after his companions at Jerusalem that he might celebrate the holy time of Easter there which his other companions omitted and being afraid afterwards lest by that delay he had lost the opportunity of conveying himself to Europe he made haste towards the Sea at Joppa and therefore was weary in his journey and meeting with a Knight who shewed himself so compassionate that he took him up behind him and that very day to the great admiration of all his was carried into his own Town Hesden where it being declared how it happened the Inhabitants thought him mad he went to the Temple of St. James in Spain and returned again before his companions were come back from Jerusalem when that was affirmed by them that he stayed behind them at Jerusalem then what he had told them concerning the celerity of his return was believed Fulgosus Book 1. chap. 6. BOccatius of a Noble Lombard who had entred himself a Souldier for Jerusalem to gain the Holy-land and departing left to his wife part of his ring which had his coat of Arms ingraven upon it with this condition that if he returned not within three years with this earnest and symbol she might marry another Husband he being taken Prisoner in Judaea and carried into Aegypt to the Sultan whom his Father had entertained a good while travelling into Europe though unknown for the Hospitalities sake of his Father his own Wisedome and dignity he presently so pleased the Sultan who by dayly familiarity approveing his behaviour he valued him more then all he had The three years being finished he fell into great sorrow the cause whereof the Sultan having diligently searched out calls a Magitian who took that care that he caused him being fast a sleep in a pretious bed and loaded with a great burthen of Gold and pretious stones to be carried in the last night of the three years into the chief Temple in Joapia a City in Lombardy The Tutor affrighted with the sight flies and with other things of the Vision relates in Aegypt which he saw meeting him making hast to the house of his Wife who was to take home another Husband the next evening JOhan Baptist Port. Neopotalitan in his Book 2. of Natural Magick thus writeth There falleth into my hands a certain woman somewhat old who of her own accord undertook to inform me within a certain time what those things are which suck the bloud of Infants in their Cradles in the form of a night Owl which men call a Scritch Owl she commands all that were come along with me witnesses to go out of dores and casting off her cloathes rubbed her self very much with a certain Oyntment we perceive through the chinks of the dore that by vertue of the soperiferous Oyl she fell into a deep sleep we out of dores discover great beatings and pinings but so great was the force of her deadly sleep that that took her sense from her when the strength of her Physick began to decrease and grow weak we return from without to the place and she being called from her sleep began to tell many raving dotages that she had passed Seas and Mountains giving us many false informations We shew her black and blew sores caused by the beatings which we heard but she most stifly denies THey report Apollonius Tyaneus to have received of Jarcka the Prince of the Indian Philosophers a gift as it were of Divine power that he was partaker of very great secrets every other day Alex. from Alex. book 2. chap. 19. AUgustine concerning the City of God book 18. chap. 18. saith When we were in Italy we heard of certain women keeping Victualling-houses and using evil arts who by cheese given to whom they pleased turn'd them presently into beasts to carry necessary burdens which having performed and returning to their former state could perfectly remember all which in the mean time happened to them Apuleius also himself in his book which he inscribed by the title of The golden Asse reports That it happened to himself having taken poyson his humane soul remaining that he was transformed into an Asse c. but it is manifest that these are legerdemaines and delusions of the Devil deceiving the Soul and senses of men by vain conceit VIncentius reports in his Speculations he tells us in his book 3. chap. 109. and William of Malmsbury Monk in his History in the time of Peter Damianus That there were two old women Inne-holders that is such as gave entertainment to travellers for their money for an Inne is properly called a publick place of entertainment for money which old women living together in the same house and exercising the same art of Witchcraft when a stranger came alone they transformed him into an horse a swine or an Asse and sold him for a certain price to Merchants A certain day a young man appearing by his gesture a Stage-player being entertained of them and eating meat with them was by them transformed into an Asse they gained much by him who shewed many wonderfull tricks to passengers for at the command of the old women or any sign they made he turned or moved which way they pleased for his understanding perished not though his speech ceased whereby the old women got much money which being perceived by a neighbour he for great summe of money bought the Asse but the women conditioned he should so keep him that he should not go into the water His keeper for a long time kept him from the water but at last was so incautelous that he brought him to a pool in the neighbourhood where he a long time wallowing and tumbling he was restored to his own proper shape and when his keeper raised him up to see whether it were his Asse or no he told him who he was the servant told this to his Master his Master telleth the same to Pope Leo the old women being converted confesse it The Pope doubted hereof but a most learned man Petrus Damianus manifested to him that it might be true by the example of Simon Magus who had imprinted upon Faustinius his own image or likenesse MIchael Verdunus and Peter Burgottus Shepherds having contracted with the Devil could when they pleased by the use of a certain oyntment transform themselves into Wolves and killing men and other creatures they ran away amongst other Wolves as people imagined They were burnt alive in the Diocess of Bisnutina in the year of Christ 1521. Vierus book 5. ch 10. concerning the legerdemains of Devils IN the year 1348 on the eighth Calends of February In Norway a most great Earthquake did happen as it
argument against them though as himself confessed they were the chiefest and most excellent in all kind of knowledg and learning And he was not ashamed to stand onely upon his own bare conceit and opinion impudently maintaining without any reason at all against them that were as wise if not more wise then himself and more in number that forsooth nothing at all whatsoever was said or alledged touching Specters ought to be admitted or believed But what reasons I pray you doth he bring to confirm his saying Truly none at all but that onely of his own absolute and uncontrouled authority he will draw to his incredulity all others whom he seeth to be assured and setled in their opinion Notwithstanding that they are certainly resolved of the truth by the exteriour senses with which they have perceived and known that to be true which so constantly they do maintain and defend But how can it possibly be that a man should think without any shew of reason by incredulity and mockery onely to confute and overthrow that which hath been ever of all men and in all ages received and admitted Certainly this is the fashion and guise of mockers and scorners that that which they cannot deny nor yet have a will to confesse they will find the means to put it off with a jest and laughter and so think secretly to insinuate themselves into the minds and conceits of their hearers especially such as look not nor have a regard to the truth and substance of a thing but onely to the outward shadow and grace of words and glorious speeches Such a scorner needeth not any great knowledge because it is sufficient for him to be superficially skilfull in any thing so that he can with a kind of grave and smiling grace shift off the reasons and arguments of those whose knowledge and learning is so exceeding far beyond his as during his whole life he will never attain unto the like Thus did Machiavel carry himself who amongst the learned and men of skill and judgment knew well how to make his profit of his scoffes and pleasant grace in jesting whereby he would many times strike them out of countenance in the sight of them that heard him whereas if he had come to dispute with them by lively reasons and solid Arguments he would at the very first blow have been overthrown and confounded But in the end he discovered himself sufficiently and was reputed of all men no other then a Scoffer and an Atheist as Paulus Jovius testifieth of him But we will cease to speak any further of him of Lucian and of those of their humour and will return to our matter touching Specters the which that we may the better explain now that we have briefly declared the diversity of opinions of those that insist upon the contrary we will answer unto each of them in order as they have been propounded And first as touching the Sadduces the Epicures the Peripateticks we will severally answer their Arguments which they object against us Next we will remove those difficulties which are objected and shew how the Angels and Devils may take upon them a body Afterwards we will shew and discover unto the Scepticks that the humane senses are not so faulty and uncertain as they would make men believe And last of all to the intent we may leave nothing behind we will not forget to shew by what maladies and infirmities the senses may be hurt and troubled and the Imaginative power of man wounded and changed so as all that which is supposed to be seen is meerly false and untrue To come first of all to the Sadduces It is most certain that of all men they were the most grosse and carnall and did not believe that any thing was spirituall but they did Imagine all to be corporall because they said that the Humane Understanding doth alwaies work with the Phantasme and with the thing Imagined And it appeareth that in dreaming of any thing whatsoever we do alwaies imagine it to be corporall whereupon they conclude that all things are corporall and therefore that even God also is a corporal Substance which is the greatest absurdity and Blasphemy that can be imagined in the world For it we should restrain God into a body we must also make him subject to a body so saith Saint John Damascen which in a word is to restrain and shorten the power and omnipotency of God the which being infinitely above all substances both corporall and incorporall is not subject to their Category The reason that moved them to believe that God was corporall was a place of Moses for they did not receive nor admit of any Scriptures but the five Books of Moses as saith Origen wherein it is written That God made Moses to stay in the Cave of a Rock or Mountain and putting his hand upon him did shew him his hinder parts not suffering him to see his face And therefore in regard that Moses attributeth unto God a face a hand and other parts they conclude that God hath a body Of the same opinion also was Tertullian as witnesseth Saint Augustine writing to Optatus and the Bogomiâ—es being certain Heretiques of Bulgary who thought that God was as we are so writeth Enthymus and that from his two eyes out of his brain did issue two beams the one called the Sunne and the other the Holy Spirit which is a most blasphemous and intolerable errour Now the occasion why the Sadduces did so eagerly defend and maintain that God had a body was because they would deny all incorporall substances to which effect they thus argued If God say they have created any substances he created them to his own Image and likenesse and therefore when he made man he said That he made him according to his own Image shewing thereby that he was of a corporall substance because that Man whom he formed to the pattern of his own face is corporall And if God have made nothing but what is corporall It followeth that the Angells and Devills which are said to be Spirits are nothing but meer fables and that there be not any Souls or spirits separated from a corporall substance and by consequence that the Soul of man is mortall as the body and hath no need to be reunited thereunto by the generall resurrection But it is easy to answer them by denying plainly that God is corporall or hath any body For albeit the holy Scripture doth attribute unto God hands feet face eyes and other parts of a body yet this must be understood spiritually and by those corporall and bodily members we must imagine the spirituall vertues of God according as saith S. Gregory as by his eyes we must understand his foresight and his knowledg to the which all things are open and from which nothing is hidden and concealed By his hand is meant his Almighty power and puissance By his face the plenitude and fullnesse of his glory By his hinder parts his
a good and savoury rellish But at last passing by Viburgus it makes the Lake to be black At this River strange sights are now and then to be seen and when the governours of the Castle or any Souldiers are near death there appears one in the night-time playing upon an Harp in the midst of the waters you may also hear him Olaus lib. 20. cap. 19 20. IN Ilandia an Island under the Artick Pole there is a Promontory which like the hill Aetna is continually burning and there is thought to be the place either to punish and torture or discharge all wretched Souls For there the Visions of all which suffer a violent death do appear so manifest and apparent to any they meet of their own acquaintance as if they were alive they take them by their right hand not knowing they are dead neither do they apprehend themselves to be in an errour till their spirits vanish away The inhabitants of the place do much prognosticate the destiny of their Rulers and Governours and whatsoever is done in the farthest part of the World by the revelations of these appearances Idem lib. 2. cap. 2. ULadislaus the first King of the Polonians besieged Naclus the strong Castle of the Pomerans There in a Moon-shiny night the watches often saw troops as 't were of armed men riding up out of their open camps and rushing upon the camps of the Polonians When they often did thus the Polonians were angry and seem'd to be disquieted but dare not all come forth into open battell On a night when news were brought them that the enemies were come again they came forth on a heap out of their camp all in a rage and running to and fro assaulted them a great way to no purpose They which were besieged fearing of the Polonian riot and having prepared a way for their excursion suddenly brake out upon them and threw wild fire among their works and Cottages which were covered with straw and reed which quickly dispersing it self in many places and few remaining in the Castle to defend it easily burnt their works with a great part of the Castle They affirm that the night-Ghosts representing an Army in a hostile manner were they which by Gods permission vext and perplext the Polonians Being thus worsted the Polonians because Winter was very sharp in those Regions and now at hand and their houses were lost and gone without which they were not able to endure the violence and injury of the winter weather by these affrights likewise and sudden alterations they were made religious but the Nacli went from thence not being able to compasse their design Cromerus lib. 3. Histor Polon IN the Countrey named Cracoviensis at a very spacious Lake by reason of the disturbance of some evill spirits neither fit for fishing nor any other use of Man being very hard frozen in the Winter they say that in the year 1278. the neighbours and Priests came together bringing with them their Colours Crucifixes and some other holy and consecrated things wherewith to force and expell them thence that they might more freely and securely recreate themselves in fishing but throwing in their Net at the first draught the fishermen being at strife one with another they drew forth but three small fishes onely the one of them an ill-shap'd terrible Monster with a Goats head and eyes flaming like fire At which all being in an amaze and running away That spectrall plunged himself under the Ice and running to and fro in the Lake made a terrible noise and outcry and breathing on some of the company they were miserably ulcerated Cromerus lib. 9. JAson Pratensis in his 29th Chapter tells us a story of a distemper'd brain of a Priest which was troubled with the disease called by some Incubus or the Mare and imagined he saw a Woman of his acquaintance coming to him which laying upon him whether he would or no did most grievously afflict and torment him ALexander in his second book of his Merry dayes writes of Alexander that he had an intimate friend of an undoubted credit that took upon him the care of his friends funerall and as he was going from thence to Rome from whence he came night drawing on he turn'd into the next Inne in the road and there being very weary he went to bed And being all alone and not as yet setled to sleep he said he saw on a sudden the similitude or likenesse of his friend which lately died comming â—owards him very pale and lean just like him in the mouth as he last parted from him when he lay sick whom looking wishly upon for very fear that he was in he was not himself he asked him who he was But he answering nothing pull'd off his clothes and wâ—nt as it seems into the same bed where he lay and came close to him as if he would hug him The other almost half dead for fear went to the bed side and would not let him come nigh him he seeing that he was rejected looks upon him with a stern and unusuall aspect and taking up his clothes presently rose out of bed and putting them on and his shooes went away and was never seen again This good man being thus affrighted was deadly sick and even at death's dore To that which hath been already spoken he said likewise that when he was strugling with him in bed he felt his bare foot so cold as no Ice could be colder GOrdian my friend saith the same Alexander a man of an approved trust related to me when with his comrade he went to the City Arezzo in his journey as it fell our they wandred far out of the way by reason of many turnings and by-places so that they saw no plough'd or Arable ground but onely Woods Groves and inaccessible places were in their sight and solitude it self was enough to terrifie them the Sun therefore approaching the Western circuit being weary by their hard travell they sate down together and within a while they thought they heard a mans tongue which going after on the next hill they espy'd three men of a huge wild and terrible form not of the fashion of men in black long Cloaks in a sad and mourning habit their beard and hair hanging down to the ground who calling and making signes to them had almost perswaded and enticed them to them but in that interim greater then these appeared of an immense bulk and stature of body far exceeding mans and another also appeared of the same shape stark naked leaping and skipping up and down most strangely with other unseemly deportments at which sight they being clearly discouraged fled away and passing that rugged and perilous way could scarce find again that homely Inne where they lodg'd THe same Alexander mentions stories of the same nature in his 4th book and 9th chapter in these words A very good friend of mine lately of a good disposition and excellent repute told me what a strange thing and
Picardus and other Divines spent all their Arts to free her but nothing took effect Hollerius Medicus a Physitian laughing at them said she was troubled with the disease Melancholly but afterwards when he saw the wonder in a great multitude with his own eyes and seeing the maiden standing between two or three women to cry out and by and by to see her hands so bound as they could not be loosened and that the bands had need to be cut he acknowledged that it was the evill spirit This appeared to no man onely the Virgin beheld a white cloud when the spirit drew near to bind her Sylvula of Wonderfull Histories and of Magicall and diabolicall Witchcrafts and of divers of the Devills delusions APollonius being in India with the Brachman-Philosophers reports that he saw very strange wonders he said that these Philosophers at their pleasure could make it fair and foul weather bring tempests or make calms and could prepare feasts with all the Vessels fitting for them yea he saith that they did it in his presence when there was none to be seen who make ready the banquet or waited in setting on and taking off the dishes And moreover he said that when they pleased they could make earthquakes the same he affirms that he saw amongst the Gymnosophists in Aethiopia who made the trees bend themselves to the ground and speak Fulgosus ex Philostrato THere are divers Families in Africa which do by their voice onely bewitch those who they immoderately praise Pliny 7th Book cap. 2. ex Isigono and Nymphrodoro hence came the custome amongst us which Aristotle 20. sect Probl. 34. witnesseth that being about to praise any thing we make this Preface lest our words should be to our detriment as God shall save it Gellius 9th Book 4. chap. Isigonus adds that there are things of the same nature among the Triballians and Illyrians who by their sight bewitch and kill some upon whom they look long especially with angry eyes yea one may perceive mischief in their eyes And 't is more remarkable that they have two Apples in each eye Apollonides reported there were divers women in Scythia of this sort which were called Bythyae And there are kind of people in Pontus called Thibians and many other of the like nature whose marks he saith are these in one eye they have a double Pupilla in the other the picture of a Horse and moreover that they cannot sink nor are burthened with any garments Daemon relates a sort of people called Pharnacians in Aethiopia not much unlike to these whose sweat brings rottennesse to those bodies which they touch and there are women which every where infect with their sight having double eyes or pupilla's in them Cicero also is the Authour of it and Pliny in his 7. Book 2. chap. Neuro tells of a people of Scythia who are the greatest enchanters that they Metamorphose themselves from men into Wolves Herodotus in Book 4. RHodus being first named Ophiusa afterwards Telâ—hinis in that the Telchines inhabited the Island some call them Wizzards and say that they are Inchanters and that they sprinkle the water of Styx's lake upon living Creatures and plants on purpose to destroy them and as Diodorus saith 5th book 12. chap. they can cause clouds showers of rain hail snow and change their proper shapes when they will c. Strabo 14 book IN the Ephesian Letters there is mention made of those who with wonderful facility as by a divine inspiration attained to what they desired for they report at Ephesus there are divers Notes and magical voices by the using of which they are victorious in every businesse as Diogenianus Eustachius reports by those Letters That there were divers words like to riddles having no coherence written in the feet girdle and crown of Diana Suidas addes In the Olympian games there was one Milesius set in the Ephesian wrestling-Ring and was able to do nothing in the conflict because that Ephesius had some Ephesian characters written on his ankle Which being together was marked the letters being taken away and Ephesius that had tyred out thirty now laid down himself vide Erasmus adagies But that there were many of the Ephesians that were conjurers may be gathered out of that many of them were converted by the Apostles Sermons and burnt their magical Books being of great value for the Devils power was great in that place because the Idol of Diana was set up there Act. 19. WHen the Goths were travelled out of Scandinavia they marched to Scythia Philimer their King did retain many of their magicall Women in prison as Jordan Gothus writes in that history which sort of women the King accounted most pernitious and by his proclamation banished them into Wildernesses lest they should kill the Souldiers by poysons or weaken their strength being driven away for a long while they wandred about the Woods incestuously committing themselves unto the Embracements of their Incubus spirits from hence they report that the Unnes a cruel generation of men came which used no humane language but a certain Image of speech Bonsinius second Book Dec. 1. THe Northern Bothnici Zappi and Finnones are excellent Magitians also the Biarmi who live under the Pole they assume what shape they will also they know what is done in the other World by their friends or enemies Olaus book 1. chap. 1. and book 2. chap. 18. IT is reported that Zoroastres the King of the Bactrians found out the Art of Magick and hath written a hundred thousand of verses upon them as Pliny witnesseth Some would have this King to be Mizraim the son of Cham others say he was not so he flourished above eight hundred years before the Trojan War which was in Abraham's time But he as we read in Clements Itinerary being willing to contemplate God and much given to Astronomy and minding the Stars did strike out some sparks out of the Stars that the rude multitude might be astonished at the miracle At the last being angry at that spirit which he often did frequent amongst a great company of his disciples as though he were a friend of the gods was hurried away to Heaven in a chariot of lightning Wherefore his name after his death was Zoroastres as much as to say A living Star he lived in the time of King Ninus with whom he fought and foretold when he was dying that if they should keep his ashes their Kingdom should not be destroyed Suidas THe report went that Perses and Aeta two brethren ruled both at one time this in Pontus the other in Taurica both of them being of a truculent and savage disposition Hecate sprung from Perses nothing inferiour in cruelty and immanity to her father which while she was a Virgin used to shoot darts as the custome was then But her greater study was to make poysons some attribute the invention of Henbane to her and was accustomed to experience the nature and strength of poisons upon strangers within a
load of Hay with horses and Cart and all he cut off the head and feet of divers men did put them with their blood into a bason he flew through the Ayr hallowing like a hunter and the like pranks he played Chronicon Hirsaugiense and at last he killed Charls Calvus or the balld the King with poison IT is reported in the family of the Earls of the Andegavensium from whence Henry the second King of England sprung there was a Princess a notable Maga and a Witch who was constrained to worship and reverence the Eucharist who suddenly flew out of the windows of the Temple and was never heard of after Polydor 13. book A Certain Woman of Mediolensis near the Comiensem gate strangled a boy and devoured him and when she was wracked for her cruelty she said She was perswaded by the infernal gods that if she had sacrificed a boy three or four times she might do whatsoever she would Therefore she was bitterly tortured being laid upon the wheels crosse or latticewise and so her bones were broken and she dyed acruel and lingring death Artanus history Mediolan 1 Sect. writes that in his time this happened JOhn Fernelius relates in his first Book of Occult causes that he saw a certain man who by the strength of his words could cause divers sights to be in a glasse and those things which he commanded either in writing or in expresse Images were so lively imprinted that they might quickly and easily be discerned by those that sate by yea and there were holy words heard but filthily bespattered with obscene terms and after this sort they call upon the powers of the Elements and strange uncouth names of the Princes of the East West North and South Vierius book 2. chap. 7. of the Devils deceits FAcius Cardanus the Father of Jeremy Cardanus as he said had an aeriall devill to be his familiar for a long time who a long while used Conjuration and it gave him true answers but when he had shaken it off it returned him false answers he was eight and twenty years a Conjurer but he was freed from his familiar about five years but whilst he retained the spirit it was very profitable to him neither did it alwayes come alone although for the most part it did but sometimes it came with its companions Cardane of the variety of things 16. Book chap. 39. JAmes Jodoci de rosa Cortriensis carried a Ring about with him in which he thought the Devill was tyed by exorcisms and he did speak for five dayes together at the least and did consult with it about strange things and diseases and the manner of curing them At the last being bound and condemned to banishment first his ring in a publique place and a great company looking on was bruised and broken in pieces with the beaâ—ing of an Iron hammer by the Chancellor Done at Arnhemiae 14. July in the year 1548. Vierus Book 5. chap. 1. of the delusions of Devils IN the year of our Lord 1546. The daughter of John Vemerus a Citizen of Eslingensis whose name was Margaret was so swelled by the pains of her belly that the bignesse of her belly almost clouded her face and did seem to be ten palms in circumference she said that there were creatures of divers sorts was fed in her belly when in the mean time she feigned to be recreated and refreshed by sweet odours and delicate sauces those that stood about her Bed heard a crowing of Cocks cackling of Hens a gagling of Geese barking of Dogs bleating of Sheep grunting of Hogs lowing of Cattle and neighing of Horses There came out of her side worms and Serpents of a wonderfull bignesse about a hundred and fifty Many Physitians and Surgeons were enquired of and amongst them Leonhartus Fuchsius Tubingensis archiatrus At length came the Physitians of Charls the 5th Emperour and Ferdinand and the Hungarian King accompanied by some of the Nobles neither found they any thing false or counterfeit When the disease had almost endured for the space of four years and her pains did seem to encrease more and more the Magistrate of Eslingensis sent his Physitian together with three Surgeons and a Nurse that they might open the belly of the maid they tyed her with thongs they found her belly finely moulded up as with hands very artificially stuffed with pillows with divers arches by which the roundnesse of her belly was expressed the Virgin being uncovered had a very beautifull body her belly was brought into Court and reserved in the place of Anathematism The Mother of this daughter was a Witch and being examined upon the rack confessed that by Satans counsell and for gain she had done thus and her neck being first broken she was publickly burned and the daughter having holes boared thorow her knees with a hot Iron was condemned to perpetual imprisonment Lycosthenes in his prodigies IN Creet there was one Moses that went about almost a whole year stirring up the Jews being about to draw them through the Sea no otherwise then Moses of old performed Those Jews gathered up all that they could At the appointed day he drew forth the miserable people a great multitude of men and Women going with him the false Prophet brought them unto a steep place and there sheweth them a promontory unto the Sea and perswaded them to leap into the Ocean that they might swim to him being on the other side And afterwards he promised that they should have a safe journey Most of them leapt in being bewitched by his large promises but some were drowned and perished in the waters others were drawn out of the waves by Fishermen coming that way by chance but many of them followed him excepting those that narrowly escaped who returned to the rest of their company and did tell of the danger and destruction that others suffered In the mean while when these things were transacted the false Prophet vanished therefore they were not much out of their way who judged him to be an evill spirit who by Gods permission did delude that pittifull multitude and destroyed many Socrat. 7. Book 38. chap. ARchas the chief of the Indian Wisemen being instructed by Apollonius did tell his name Parents manners and whatsoever happened to him as if he had been present at all Philostratus WHen the Antiochians desired of Apollonius Antiocheno that he would turn away the Earthquake by which they were afflicted sighing he writ thus in his Tables Wo to thee O miserable City because thou shalt be levelled eeven with the ground by many Earthquakes and the River of Orontes shall wash thee to its banks Cedrenus JAmblicus returned from his sacrifices into City talking with his Schollers and by and by fastning his eyes a while upon the ground saith he Let us go another way because not far from hence lies a dead carcase Some of his Schollers followed him But others amongst whom Aedesius going forward in their journey they met the Cats
that was infected with a grievous Plague by shewing them an old beggar which he commanded should be stoned by the people who afterwards taking away the heap of stones was found in the shape of a dog whom himself affirmed to be a Devil SOme Examples of them who by magicall enchantments continued to the end in torments recitat Vierus lib. 4. cap. 10. de Daemonum praestigiis DUssus King of the Scots was sick of an unknown disease in the night he sweat very much and in the day-time being more at ease he took his rest His body like to one in a Consumption was pined away with a lingring disease His pulse was as before when he was in health likewise his senses and appetite to meat His Physitians were in despair of his recovery In the interim about that time arose a rumour not known by what Author That the King was poysoned by women and that they in a Town of Moravia did practise the black art to destroy the King Messengers were sent to make peace between Duffus the King and the Inhabitants of Moravia and being by night admitted into the Castle are warned of the whole businesse by a Souldier who searcht out the whole matter from his strumpet whose Mother was one of the Witches that poyson'd him Breaking therefore into their houses they found one of the hagges having an Image of wax representing King Duffus which was made by their hellish art fastned on a woodden spit before an hot scorching fire another was found muttering a charm as he poured forth liquor on the statue by little and little They being cast into prison and questioned about the impiety they made answer Whilest the image at the fire was scorching King Duffus was in a sweat but reciting the charm he should be alwayes awake and at the melting of the wax he should waste away but it being utterly consumed the King should instantly die They were hired to do this wicked act by the chief Governours of Moravia When the women were burnt Duffus gave over sweating and was restored to his health Hector Boethus lib. 11. Historiae Scotorum VItolfus cihef Ruler of the Helsingians did so deprive those of their eye-sight whom he pleased that they neither could see houses that were nigh unto them nor certainly to go unto them he knew so well how to dimm their eyes with a cloudy mist Olaus lib. 3. cap. 17. Septentrional THe Lappones and Finni in the Northern parts use to make short artificial javelins of lead the length of ones finger these they shoot at a distance towards them which they wish to be revenged of who having a canker arising on their leg or arm are with extremity of pain dead within 3. dayes after Idem ibidem WHen Isabell King Alphonsus the 11th his daughter was given in marriage to Johannes Galeacius Governour of the City Millain Ludovicus Sfortia seeing her his affection was so ardent towards her that he desired her father to bestow her upon him to be his Wife and on this manner he by his magick art brought it about that Johannes Galeacius for many moneths was uncapable to perform the conjugall mysteries Guicciardinus lib. 1. PYthagoras on a time was seen at Criton and Metapontus on the same day and hour Apollonius in Mirabil historiis APollonius Tyaneus being kept in publique custody at the Palace and accused by Domitianus vanished clear away out of his sight and was the same day found at Puteoli whither he had sent his Comrade before and charged him to wait for his coming thither When this same man had a book in his hand at Tigilla wherein his accusation was included he did miraculously and strangely cause that this book being open could in no place be found written Philostratus JAmblicus a Philosopher of Syria as he was praying was lifted aloft from the ground more then ten cubits his body and vesture was changed into the colour of gold Prayer being ended he came again to his former effigies and fell down to the ground viz. these were the illusions of Magick-contemplations Eunapius in ejus vita IT is reported by Olaus in his History of the Northern folks That Oddo Danicus a grand Pyrate rov'd up and down the deep Sea without the help of a Ship and did often having enchanted a storm overthrow his enemies Shippings and was at last being environ'd by an enemy of greater skill drowned in a gulph who by his sleight and cunning charms did in former times use to dance on the top of the waters OThnius the Magitian brought Hadingus King of Denmark to his own again when he was most sadly deluded by the tricks of the Devil and Magitians and far separated from his company on horseback over a great part of the Sea and Hadingus thorow some slits of his rocket under which he lay trembling palpably saw his horse feet tread the waves to his great admiration Olaus lib. 3. cap. 19. THespetion the General of the Gymnosophistae in Aethiopia by his incantations injoyn'd an Elm Tree that it should salute Apollonius which the Tree did with a very distinct voyce indeed but something like a womans Philostratus in vita Apollonii Volatteranus lib. 13. c. 8. Anthropol THeotecnus the Magitian under Maximinus by the power of magick made the Image of Jupiter to utter Oracles by which the Citizens were incited to persecute the Christians and the Emperour was much â—fferated and exasperated against them At last Licinius having found out his tricks punished him severely Eusebius lib. 9. cap. 3. 11. THe Grammarian Appion with the herb Cynocephalaea which in Egypt is called Osirites and prevails against all manner of Witchcrafts but whosoever gathers it dies presently raised the ghost of Homer that he might know of what Country and Parents he was descended But never durst tell what answer he received Plin. lib. 30. cap. 2. APollonius Tyaneus coming to the Tomb of Achilles aver'd that the Ghost of Achilles in his old and known likenesse and posture presented it self before him and that thereupon the Sepulchre did a little tremble or move and presently a young man appeared at first about five cubits high but in a short time he became twelve in stature and seemed handsomer than can be imagined The youth ask't him some frivolous questions and when he began to be somewhat too wanton and obscene Apollonius perceived he was imployed by the Devill He therefore forc't the Devill to depart and when he was gone a certain statue hard by in the likenesse of the said youth fell to the ground Philostratus JAmblicus the Philosopher tegether with his Schollars went to Gadara to certain Baths the best in all Syria or the Roman Empire except onely those of Baja to which no Baths could be compared whilest they were washing there there grew a dispute concerning these Baths amongst the young Gentlemen Jamblicus smiling commanded his pupills to inquire of some of the men that attended the baths of the names of the hot
ones but which were much more pleasant than the rest and had been named particularly for a long time They answer they understand not the meaning of the names but that one of them was called Amor and the other Anterotes The revenger of the Injuries of Lovers He presently touching the water with his hand for he sate perhaps upon the border of the Well where the water overflowed and ran out and mumbling over a few words raised one out of the bottome of the water very fair and of a comely stature with his hair as yellow as gold with a pure white skin upon his back who was in every thing like one that washed or had been bathed The young man being astonished at the novity of the thing he went to the other Fountain and did the like there calling out the other Amor in every thing like the former only that this had darker hair and longer hanging down along his neck Both these familiars or rather Tutelars came to Jamblicus embracing and hugging him as if he had been their own natural father whom he restored to their former stations and so having washt returned from the Bath Eunapius in his life WHen Basilius the Emperour dyed his eldest son Constantinus dyed with him he so passionately loved his father that he would not live after him but desired alwayes to see him alive There was a certain Monk called Theodorus and sirnamed Santabarinus preferred to the Government in the Metropolis of the Enchaitee who being a most just man was in great favour with the King and with whom the King conversed very familiarly which as one he observed to be very devout and a great lover of the truth He promised the King to shew him his son alive sitting upon a horse under a green leavy shade The foolish old man thought the Vision that the minister of the Devil had deceived his eys with had been his son and that he had embraced his son when he had nothing but a Phantasm and so wholly relyed on the credit of this Monk that he in the conceit that his other son was alive brought the King into suspition of his son Leo whom he had crowned and created King insomurh that he imprisoned him and there tormented the poor innocent Prince a long while Cuspinianus out of Zonara A Boy called Lotharingus come of an honest stock being corrupted by the evill example of his equals and companions began to frequent Taverns and tipling-houses all this while Gilbertus a kinsman of Nozerenus to whose care he was committed knowing nothing of it Mean while a young man which proved proved afterwards the Devil in a man he being drinking with his pot-companions drew him aside and promised him he would teach him how by saying a certain verse and some words which he could easily learn he might have money at his pleasure If in his name he would to his host reckon up a Symbol and from his heart believe those things which were in the holy book by him written nor would ever unfold the holy Bible The youth promising him all he desired he told him the sum of his art therein then taking the book in his left hand holding it down with his fore and middle finger of his right hand and muttering out the verse in the French tongue brasse and copper swims about and gold leaps and he shaked off his fingers 60 Crowns the sum he desired The Youth does the like as this his Instructor did before him and with the like successe but in great joy going home with the book and being much taken with the novelty opens it that he might make another by it In the middle there was a sphaerical circle like an Orb divided with two straight diametrical lines crossewayes upon which there was a picture drawn of a most dreadfull shape horned and every way like a Devil on his right hand were two crosses that joyned together on his left were the immodest parts both of a man and a woman most obscenely placed opposite to each other Presently as he beheld these ugly spectacles his eyes began to darken and his head to grow light and whithersoever he went he would look back ever and anon verily believing some body followed him close at the heels His Chamber-fellow a young man who had observed this Prodigy was examined about it and confest all the businesse to his Tutor at whose perswasion the papers were cast into the fire where they remained a full half hour without being toucht by the fire although the matter of them was to all appearance most combustible to the very great terrour of the young man and the amazement of all the standers by Cognatus l. 8. Narrat IN the time of Anastasius the Emperour the Bulgari a people before that time unknown inroded upon Illyrium and Thracia Against whom certain Roman Captains made a voyage with an Army whom these Bulgari using Magicall devices and straragems did bafflle and destroy wholly except a very few that escaped Cuspinianus SIgebert King of France was conquer'd his army destroyed and himself taken prisoner by a people called the Hunni by reason of their inchantments they used against him Gregor Turon lib. 4. cap. 28. HAquinus Prince of Norway being to fight against the Danes by his inchantments so vexed his enemies which were of a stupendious magnitude that their heads were so sore beaten by the storms that their eyes were even sore with wearinesse and lost their sight insomuch that they received more detriment by the Elements than the Enemy The Biarmenses a people very near the Artick Pole fighting in the North with that most powerful King Regnerus by their incantations rose a most violent storm against the Danes and suddenly afterwards a most hot gleam insomuch that between these two extreams the Enemy were both destroyed and conquered Olaus lib. 3. cap. 19. ARngrimus the Swedish Champion persecuting the wood Finni or Tories and in a conflict having put them to flight casting three stones behind their backs they made them appear to the Enemy like so many Mountains so that Arngrimus seeing he was gul'd recalled his forces from the pursuit thinking that by those great mountains their passage had been stopt The very next day combatting with these same again when they were not able to stand it out throwing Snow upon the ground they made the appearance of a River And so frighting the General of their Enemy with this vain shew of waters they again escaped But the third day when they saw their party begin to fail they yielded themselves up into the Conquerours power Olaus lib. 5. cap. 15. THe Magick vesture called Indusium Necessitatis amongst the Germans Nothemâ—t was much esteemed of old with which they used to arm themselves and then they were shot-free and weapon-free and thereby defended from all manner of bodily harms and enabled to undergo any hardship whatsoever untoucht This also was used by women in childbed to procure easie and safe
shepheards thorough the seven gates of the City and the seven high-wayes and afterwards to be let loose that he might return to the fields and pastures wherein he was wont to feed They that were there then said that he lifting up his eyes towards Heaven and making I know not what kind of humming they saw Stars falling and innumerable likenesses of dogs and Wolves and such kinds of living Creatures to fly all about c. Things being finished in this manner the Magitian being returnned to the City took such course with the Roman Magistrates that they commanded by publick edict that no one should of three dayes kill any four-footed beasts the rulers of the City who were then absent when they returned commanded the Greek impostor to be apprehended and cast into Prison scarse escaping the threats of the people he was punished with eternall banishment The Magick book which he used was publickly burnt Gilbert Cognatus lib. 8. of Narrations ANtonius Benevemus lib. 8. concerning the hidden causes of sicknesses thus writeth A Maid of the age of sixteen was pulled with griping grief in the bottom of her belly by infernal spirits and falling into horrid clamours her whole belly did on a suddain so swell that one would have thought she had gone eight moneths with child She had an exhausted voyce and sometimes casting her self upon her bed and joyning her feet to her neck she leaped up and falls upon her feet again casting her self down she immediately again started up this she oft did by turns but by little and little coming to her self and somewhat refreshed she was asked how she did she was wholly ignorant what had passed but we inquiring the causes of this sicknesse thought this evill to proceed from the suffocation of the matrix and evil vapours drawn upwards and then striking the heart and brain But when she could not be helped by Physick she was wonderfull fierce looking about her with a stern countenance fell at length to vomit whereby she cast up long and crooked nayls brasse pins with wax and hairs conglomerated and lastly a gobbet of such magnitude that the gorge of no creature whatsoever could wholly devour and when she had done this often I my self being a spectator conceived her to be possessed with an evil spirit who whilest she did these things amazed the beholders Wherefore being afterwards detected by more manifest signs and arguments she was committed to the Ecclesiastical Physitians for we have heard her prophesie and seen her do those things besides which go beyond the power of sicknesse and exceed humane understanding CAâ—danus relates in his fifteenth book concerning the variety of things of a certain honest Countreyman and friend who might more easily have been deceived then deceive who told to him that he had many years laboured of an unknown disease at what time by his inchantments he vomited glass nailes and hair and though at length he were restored to the very day he relates these things he did affirm that he thought he had a huge heap of broken glasse in his belly and a sound or noise as one should shake a bag full of broken glasse by which he was much vexed and also that he the seventh hour of every eighteenth day although he numbred them not had so many blowes on his heart which was a huge trouble to him for eighteen years since his recovery who sees not the actions legerdemanes and vexations first and last that the Devil puts upon those whom he finds fit by their simplicity for his delusions IN Pago Bevenstestet under the Duke of Brunswick a Maid named Margaret daughter of Henry Achils twenty years old in the year 1562 on the holy day of the Visitation of the blessed Virgin about to wipe or make clean her shooes drawes out her knife and goes to a place fit for that purpose the Maid having lost her strength by a long Feaver was yet weak contrary to her expectation in comes to the house a woman somewhat old and asketh her Whether she were yet troubled with her Feaver and whether she were free from her disease It was answered her by the Maid As yet I have not been able to go out of the house The shooes being made clean she puts the knife in her bosome which when afterwards it was diligently sought by her she saw a black dogg of an horrible shape lying upon his belly under the table which with grinning shewing his teeth went away presently it seemed to the Maid that from her head to her feet did flow something as it were of a cold humour to whom happened also a defect of the Mind or Soul and she becomes as dead without sense to the third day wherein at last she begins to breathe again and affirms that she certainly knew that that knife which she had taken out of the sheath of her Sister did stick fixed in the left side of her own body for that she did perfectly feel pain in that very place by which she was so exercised that being bowed double she was forced to lean upon a staff after three moneths there begun to appear and stand out on her left side above the Spleen betwixt her two lowest spurious ribs an Imposthume of the bignesse of a Cocks egg and like the Moon by whose increment or departure she either swelled or grew quiet The thirtieth of June there issued out of the Ulcer such store of matter that the swelling was somewhat remitted and then as it were the point of a knife appeared the Surgeon of Duke Henry sent for from the Castle of Wolâ—senbuttel took out with instruments the point of the knife standing out under her ribs and cured the Ulcer 10 Vierus lib. 3. cap. 12. concerning the impostures of Devils FRom the Nativity of Christ 1539. in a certain Town of the Bishoprick Erstetting Fugestat Uricus Newsesser a Husbandman when he was tormented about one of the sides of his ribbs with the cruel torments of griefs upon a sudden he feels with his hand an Iron nail under his unhurt skin which a Surgeon a servant there digged out with his knife notwithstanding his griefs ceased not but daily waxed worse and worse wherefore when the wretch saw there was no remedy of his grief but by dearh he taking a knife cut his own throat Therefore being dead he was brought to be buried the third day there were present then Rosenbader of Wissenburg a Town of the Noricks in Germany and John Estentet a servant attending about such businesse who a greater company beholding fell suddenly upon opening the ventricle of the dead Husbandman wherein they found very long and smooth wood four Steel culters partly sharp partly like a Saw with teeth and two rough tools of Iron every one whereof did exceed the length of a span and there was like the cover of a Globe but that thou wilt most admire is how so many and so great tools could be contained in the cavity of his
this time make a seive dance and move at his pleasure And that he had a Familiar to help him is manifest for that when he was gone and another repeated the very same words he could effect nothing of that nature by it Idem Lib. 2. cap. 1. NO Country-man sayes the same Bodinus is ignorant that if two Verses out of the Psalms be recited while the Milk is a câ—urning there will no butter be produced by any Art I was at Chillis of the Valesians when a boy standing at the maids heels hindred the butter to come or gather but she threatning curses from God upon him if he did not cease and remove his Verses made him speak somewhat preposterously and backwards as 't were and then the Butter came after she had spent almost a whole day about it If you put but a little Sugar into the milk it will make no butter for this proceeds from an antipathy in nature and by the same reason if but a little Cyprian-brasse be cast into a Furnace of Iron it will never melt but turn to ashes and therefore the Forge-men when they kindle the fire see that there is none in the Furnace nor any one near the Chimney THere is a diabolicall art called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Ring Magick which is performed by putting a Ring upon a bowl of water This a famous VVitch an Italian born used at Lutetia in the MDLXII year of Christ muttering out with all some kind of words and by this conceit gave answers aright to some that consulted her but most were deceived by it Joachimus Camerensis tells us that Hieronymus the Stage-player whose son became Chancellour of Mediolanum had a ring that spoke or rather a Devill speaking in a Ring which rightly rewarded the Master of it at last for it caused him to be excommunicated and cursed Bodinus Daemonom lib. 2. cap. 1. I Once saw a Physitian of Tolosa exercise 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or rod-Magick and with a low voice murmure out some I know not what words till the two ends of the rod met and touch't each other But when it profited nothing to the cure of the affected he blamed their incredulity and cutting it into pieces he caused it to be put about the necks of those that had the quartane Ague for their remedy Ibidem OF all wicked devices of this nature none arrive to that community and perniciousnesse as that of restraining new-married people doth This the common people call the binding of the Ligula which boyes practise with impunity and with high impudence some bragging of it Nor is this a new thing for we read in Herodotus that Amasis King of Aegypt was so bound in this nature that he could not have to do with his VVife Laodice till with exorcismes and solemn prayers he was freed Paulus Aemilius also testifies in the life of Clotarus the second that his Concubines used this trick against Hermamberga Some Epicurean Philosophers laugh at this miracle because these Artists in knotting the Ligula that are abroad make people wonder when they see that they can by no means cure the same And therefore the Canon sayes thus If at any time by Witchcraft and sorâ—ery through the hidden but alwayes just Judgment of God permitting and the Devill preparing them thy copulation is hindred repair to God by humble confession Out of which place we may note four or five Axioms or undeniable positions First That copulation may be hindered by Witchcraft which all Divines unanimously confirm and Thomas himself upon the fourth book of Sentences in the 24th distinction where he saith That a man may be restrained in that particular as to one woman but not otherwise and in his last chapter of Frigid things The second is That it is done occultly but by the permission of God in just Judgment The third That it is performed absolutely by the Devill The fourth That in this case God is to be repaired to in Fasting which last head is chiefly to be observed least those that are troubled with these things as many do and as the Devill desires and intends they should run to Diabolical means for remedy ESpecially it is strange that little boyes by pronouncing some words should be able most exquisitely to perform this inchantment I remember Rioleus general Embassadour to the Blesenses told me that a little boy was seen tying this knot under his hat whilest Matrimony betwixt two was celebrated in the Church and that the boy being seized on escaped with the knot Whilest at Pictavium I acted as Vice-Procurator in the year 1567 there was brought a case before me of this nature which when I told to my Landlady a very vertuous woman she as if most skill'd in that Art in the presence of Jacobus Bauvasius an Attorney in the cause declared there were above fifty wayes of tying this knot whether to tye a married man or a woman onely that the one despising the other's infirmity might run after adultery but that the man for the most part was bound but seldom and hardly the woman and that they might be bound for a day a year or ever or for as long as the knot should last unlesse it were dissolved That there was a knot whereby one might be brought to love another and not to have reciprocal returns but extream hatred and that there was another way to make two love one the other most affectionately but if they came to lye together that they should scratch with their nails and beat one the other most inhumanely As I heard at Tholosa there were two thus illigated for three years space and then reconciled and had a very fine child And which I most admire the woman whilest she was ligated declared she had little tumours like warts rose upon her as signs of children she should have had but for this ligature She said there were knots to be made to hinder procreation and not hinder copulation that there were men could not be ligated and some that might before marriage and some after but those few and the Urines of men might be stopt by this trick whereof they were not few that dyed I found a poor boy almost dead with this thing and the man that did the feat loos'd again the knot and so gave his urine vent And not many moneths after this very Sorcerer dyed of a like ligature THis mischief proceeding to a community in the Countrey of the Picts the chief Quaestor of Niortum when a new-married wife accused a Neighbour of hers for restraining her husband in the year of the VVorld 1560 he caused her to be cast into a very loathsome prison threatening her she should never come thence till the man were loosed and after two dayes the imprisoned woman gave leave to the married people to enjoy each others bed and when the Judge heard the man was freed he freed the woman from prison THis is worthy our observation That it passes the skill and
in the presence of one another after which Triscalanus did to whom Charls the Ninth gave leave and liberty that he might discover his fellows He told him being in a great assembly of young men That there were many there that adored and worshipped a Goat in their meetings and kissed his very posteriours or arse-hole in plain English if you will have it so Then by reason his back was towards them he not seeing them they danced together and the devils copulated together in men and womens shapes After their dancing the tables were covered and furnished with meat the woman then moved the man to salute the Prince and sitting down with the rest of the company to the table seeing the table furnished with meat he called for salt and when salt was brought to the table before he tasted any thing he said grace which being ended presently men meats and table vanished away and he was left desolate alone being very cold and not knowing where he was As soon as it was day he came to some shepherds of whom being asked Whether he knew where he were He answered That he knew himself to be in the Beneventanian Earldom in the royal command of the Pope These things were done a thousand miles from Rome from whence travelling he was forc'd to beg his meat and rayment and at length coming home upon the eighth day after poor and lean he apprehended his Wife by whom many more being accused and confessing the truth they were all hanged THere is in the same Author in the year 1535 that a young Maid in the Dukedome of Spoleto of the age of thirteen said that she was brought by an old woman into the company of Witches and seeing the convention of them to be so wonderfully numerous she cryed out Blessed God what meaneth this which as soon as she had pronounced all vanished away and the poor girle being found early in the morning by a Shepherd told the whole businesse to him who bringing her home the Witch was accused by the Maid and being found guilty put to death by fire THe same Paulus Grillandus in his Book de Sortilegiis writeth that being invited by a certain Nobleman to the Castle of Saint Paul in the Dukedome of Spoleto coming thither he told him of three sage matrons one whereof trusting in his promise that she might freely speak without danger confessed that fifteen years since she was brought by a sage old Woman into the company of Witches where the Devill being present obliged them by an oath to renounce God their Creator Faith and Religion and to be faithfull to him and that with their hands laid upon a book of most obscure writing he also bound them to some solemn services to him in the night and that they should whenever he commanded them upon Holidayes or set dayes come whithersoever he should conduct them the Devil on the other side promised to them mirth and felicity eternall she confessed further that at that time she killed four men many Cattle and brought much hurt to the fruits of the Earth and if it happened at any time that she came not to their meeting without she were able to give good reason for it she was so vexed that she could neither sleep nor take any rest when She came to their meetings She heard the voice of a Man which called the Devill little Lord and sometimes Mr. Martinetus and as soon as ever She had anointed her self with a certain unction She mounted a Goat that stood ready at the door and held by the hair and tail by which Goat She was suddenly conveighed unto the great coverture of Beneventum where She found a very great company of Witches and Inchanters There when She had vow'd allegiance to the Devill She danc't sate at Table and last of all every Devill concopulated with her or him they had to their peculiar protection and when they had thus done every one getting upon their own Devills returned particularly with the same incredible swiftnesse that they came thither and that also they did privately at home adore the Devill when this was all confest and compared to the confessions of two more there were many others accused who acknowledged the crime and together with their oyntments and powders they were all burnt alive ALso in the third book of Tarquamadas of Spain amongst others you have this more modern story That a Magitian being very importunate at last perswaded a companion of his that he would be a most happy man if he would but be of his Faith and come to their meetings And when he had given him his consent he on a night took him by the hand and speaking some words they were both carried through the Ayre to a great company of Witches in which an incredible company of both men and women compassed a Throne whereon sate the greatest of the Devills in the shape of a Goat to whom all of them went to kisse en la parte masuzia quatenta which to those that understand Spanish is those parts which are not fit to be named in English When this new-comer saw this he said to his companion that he could no longer patiently behold these things and presently calling upon God with a loud voice they all disappeared with a great tempest and Whirlwind and left him alone there who was three whole years before he could reach his own countrey again BOdinus also writeth That Joanna Halveria born at Verberium in the Countrey of the Compedoensians did confesse that by the decree of the Council by the confirmation of the Judge Sansifianus his Mother was condemned to the fire and that he being twelve years of age was offered by his Mother to the Devil in form of a black man with sable apparrel boots and spurs and a sword at his side having a black horse at the door and using words to this purpose Behold my daughter which I have espoused to thee and to her Behold thy Love in whom thou shalt be happy And that from that time she renounced God and her Religion and that he lay with her as men use to do with women and she found no difference 'twixt him and other men but that his seed was cold and that the Devil once asked her Whether she would be gravidated by him which she refused lib. 2. cap. 7. WEE find in writing that at a great Sessions for examination of the Potezanian Witches held by Andreas Fertius the Kings Deputy over the Laodunensians where divers were burnt out of whose confessions some things follow Margaret of Bremontinus Wife of Noeles Lavertus walking with Mary his Mother the Munday next after into the convent at Franquisanum near Lognium which standeth in a Meadow her Mother putting a Broom betwixt her legs and speaking some words here omitted suddenly both She and her Mother were carried to a place where they found Joanna Roberta Joanna Guillimina and Maria the Wife of Simon Agnus Guilelina the Wife of one
Grussus with whom were six Devills of humane shape horrid to behold c. And after some dancing with them the Devils lay with them and had to do with them and that one that took her to dance with him after he had saluted her twice lay with her for half an hour together and that the seed he spent was very cold Joanna Guillemina assents with her in these things confessing that it was very true that at least half an hour they were in copulation and that the seed she received was very cold WE read also in the 16th book of Johannes Meyerus who most accurately wrote the History of Flanders That in the 1459th year of Christ there was a very great company of both men and Women burnt in the Town Atrebantium who mutually accused one another that they met in the night danced and lay with the Devill Likewise Jacobus Sprangerus and four of his colleagues also tell us that from the mouths of many wise and good men they have been confirmed that many Witches had at the stake in Germany confessed and in particular at Constantia and Ratisbon in the year 1485 that the Devill lay with them after they had by his instigation denied both God and all Religion And that not a few had repented and turned off themselves from that wickednesse and confessed that whilst they were Witches the Devill had often to do with them It is written likewise that very many came and freely acknowledged though no man accused them that they had been guilty formerly of commerce with the Devill being Witches to these things Spangeus adds that Witches did very oft copulate with the Devill in the sight of the Sun or clear day and did strip themselves in fields and Woods and were often seen naked in the fields and were sometimes taken by their husbands in the manner with devils which they conceiv'd to be men and therefore they set upon them with Swords whereby they could do no execution upon them Paulus Gralandus a Lawyer of Italy who knew very many VVitches doth declare in his book de Sortilegiis that he was commended by an Abbot of St. Paul's at Rome in the year 1526. in the Moneth of September to take cognisance of three Witches who amongst other things confessed that every sorceresse had a particular Familiar to commerce withall in the History of St. Bernard we read there was a Witch who usually copulated with the Devil her Husband not perceiving her though he lay in the same bed with her IN the flourishing Garden of Antonius concerning Turquomeda of Spain I found another History concerning a noble Spanish woman who related that she was induced by an old Witch when she was eighteen years of age and from that time she had to do with the Devil which was burned alive and unpenitent being a Cerdenate The same doth declare that another did repent and was put into a Monastery Adamus Martinus the Laodunensian Proctour of Confession told me saith Bodin that he had a Witch of Biebra that is a Village two miles distant from Laodune in question in the Jurisdiction of D. Boan the Captain of the Verumandians in the year 1556. who was first condemned to be hanged and afterwards to be burnt but she was delivered alive to the fire by the fault of the Hang-man or rather the just Judgment of God who did so demonstrate that the punishment should be equall to the offence neither was there any mischievous act that did more deserve fire Therefore she confessed that Satan whom she called her companion was wont to have to do with her and that she did feel his cold seed WHen I was at the great meetings of Pictavius in the year 1567. performing my office amongst the under servants of the general Proctour I took two filthy and beggarly Magitians which did beg alms at a rich mans house who being denied did cast in Witchcrafts and all the houshold being driven into fury died mad Daemonum libro 3. capite 1. THere was a crafty Taylor at Lutetia a Magitian who onely touching with his hand did cure a Quartane Feaver but he was in no wise cured that would not believe that he could cure him And there was a certain Italian old woman at Audes curing diseases in the year 1573. who when she was inhibited by the Judge to cure any more diseases called a Court of Parliament her cause was pleaded Eloquently and likewise Learnedly by D. Johannes Baltruus Lawyer to plead the cases of the Parliament fellow officer with the Lord of Matratius and my Countreyman but it is proved that the means by which she cured did disagree with nature as with the Brains of a Cat which is poysoned the head of a Crow and other such like things which things do plainly convince that it was not done by the strength of the excellent Oyl or of the healthfull Oyntment which many good men and lovers of the poor do make but by means beyond Nature or by charms of healing JOdocus Darmudanus doth write in Praxi crim cap. 37. that there was a Witch at Bruga in Flanders having the greatest repute of Holinesse because she could cure innumerable diseases but first she did take care for this that they should believe that she could cure them afterwards she did make known fasting dayes and commanded that Pater noster should be said divers times and that they should go to Compostella at St. James's or to St. Arnolds but at length she was convinced of many Magicall charms and deservedly punished Johanna Harvilleriae which as we said before was cast alive into the fire confessed that she cast in charms that she might kill a man which had beaten his daughter but he having excelled her witchcrafts suddenly felt pain in his loyns and his whole body But when as she was greatly renowned for the fame of her Art it was told the man that the grief could not come to him from any other person then she promised that She would work means whereby he should recover and took him into her custody to that end She did require it earnestly of the Devill by intreaties and She did labour by many means which it doth not concern us to describe for his healing which Satan answered it could not be done And therefore She saying to him that for that cause he should come no more to her the Devil answered her that he would not come A little after the sick man died and the Witch hid her self but although she was hid she is found and suffered deserved punishment for her wickednesse BOdin writeth that he saw a certain Arvernian Captive at Lutetia in the year 1579 sometimes curing Horses and men with whom was found a very large book full of the hairs of Horses Cattel and other beasts of all colours This man if at any time he cast his Charms on a horse he consulted and having the hair of that so he did cure him that he might deliver his Witchcrafts to
December in the year 1558. the Heaven being fair and clear as it is wont to be in Halcyon dayes And we at the same time saw thorough the battlements of the next house that were cast down and the porch broken to the Shop Bodin Daemonomaniae Lib. 3. cap. 3. MElancthon doth bring a History very like to this Ten men were overwhelmed by the ruine of the Tower Magdeburg when they did dig to find treasure which Satan had shewed them Gregorius Agricola in his Book de Spiritibus subterraneis writeth that at Annaeberg in that ruine which is called the Town of Roses there was a spirit in the shape of a Horse that killed twelve men and made them withdraw from the mine full of Silver which Magitians found by the help of Satan I Heard of a certain Lugdunensian in the Temple of the Virgin Mary that there was Campellanus of Lutetia who with his companions revealed the treasure of Arcolius near Lutetia by Magick-Art but when they thought to have the Chest in which it was hidden it was carried away with a Whirl-wind but part of the wall fell upon him by which he was made lame for the whole term of his life And when the Noribergensian Priest had found the treasure by the help of Satan and long ago was about to open the box the house was abolished with a fall I Heard also from a Lugdunensian practitioner in the Law that he with his companions went in the night that they might seek out a treasure by uttering Conjurations and when they began to dig they heard a voice as it were of a man which was put on the wheel most horribly crying to the thieves so they were turned to flight but evill spirits in the very same moment pursuing them slew them even to that house from whence they came and they entered it with so great a noise that the Host thought it had thundered and from that time he swore that he would never seek after treasure Bodin BOdin also proves by an example that sorcerers can bewitch mens eyes and move laughter and make the spectators astonished concerning Triscalanus that Magitian which said of a certain Curat all the Parish Priests being present See ye that Hypocrite who feigning to bring a Register doth bring play-papers Then the Curate willing to shew that he brought a Register he seemed to himself to have play-papers and whosoever were present seemed to themselves to see papers so that the curate cast away his book of account and went away ashamed But others coming a little after gathered up the Register book being freed from that likenesse of Papers by which thing it was manifest that Satan did delude men in many things and also bind fast every ones eyes For those which were not present at the former action when the sorcerer cast his delusions before the eyes of those that were present did see a true book of account when others on the contrary did perceive but an appearance of papers c. THe Germanes being about to search what Witch had made a horse feeble and decaying did draw the bowels of another horse to certain houses and not entring the gates but a Cellar or Cave under ground did burn those bowels Then the Sorceress which had committed that evil feeling the pain of the Collick all within She runneth streightway to the houses where the bowels were burn'd that she might ask for a burning cole and her pain did cease But if the doors were not opened the houses were darkened ringed with horrible thunder and threatned ruine unlesse those that were within would open the door which Sprangerus writeth that he observed and saw in Germany I Heard from D. Antonius Lonanius the King 's general Legate that there was a Sorcerer at Ribemont who having pronounced certain words did discover another by a sieve All the names of those that were suspected were brought and when the name of that man who was in the fault was brought the sieve did move uncessantly and the Magitian accessary to the same fault came which being found the Sorcerer was condemned Bodin lib. 3. cap. 4. I Remember that D. Bodin the King 's general Procurator sometimes related to me When all his cattel remained in a Village at Moldena that it was told his Wife that a certain beast must be slain which here it doth not please me to declare and he ought to hang it with the feet upward under the threshold of the stable with pronouncing certain words which it is not needfull here to insert this being done there did none of his cattel perish Idem ibid. JOhannes Martinus performing his turn of Ruler of Laodunum declared to me that when he was to try a Witch by the Authority of S. Proba for she had tormented a Mason with so great sickness that his head did hang down almost between his legs his body being crooked which evill he did suspect to come to him from the sorceresse the Judg having regarded it well he commanded that word should be brought to the Witch that she by no other means could save her life then by healing the Mason And therefore she commanded a swathing band to be brought home by her daughter she calls upon the Devill casting her countenance on the ground she muttered certain charms before them all and delivering the swathing band to the Mason she gave commandment that he should be washed in a bath and that which was shut in the swathing band should be put into the Bath with these words Get thou gone in the Devills name She said that there was this and no other means of recovery These things being done the Mason was cured But yet before those things were seen in the Bath she being willing to know what was in the swathing band which she had forbidden to be done they found three little corns in it But the Mason while he was in the bath perceived as it were three great fishes in it when he came forth of it although they did seek them very diligently yet neither the fish nor the arm was found The sorceresse was burned alive and remained without repentance Idem lib. 3. cap. 5. WE read in horto Antonii de Tarquamedia lib. 3. of a certain Magitian who said to a rustick man whom he saw bitten by a mad-dogg That he was one that delivered from harm that he might not lose his life And when he prick'd his nose thrice to let forth blood he was cured CAâ—olus Martinus Governour of Laodunum being certified that a poor woman in the valley that was the name of the Laodunensian Suburbs was bewitched by a Sorceress her Neighbour and taking pity of her he threatned death to the Witch unlesse she took away the disease from her Neighbour She fearing promised to heal her and therefore she came to the beds feet looked steadfastly on the Earth joyned her hands called on the greatest Devil with a loud voice afterwards renewed her prayers repeating some unknown words and
a great multitude of Carians and led them toward Memphis and pitched his Camps beside the Temple of Isis in the Pallace which was distant from the City five furlongs and a fight being begun he got the victory From these Carians a certain part of Memphis was called Caro-memphites Polynaeus book 7. Herodotus SYbill foretold That the warlike glory of the Macedonians gotten Philip the son of Amyntas reigning in the times of another Philip should go backward The glory of Macedon's people of Arcadia's Kings What Philip reigning sometimes profits sometimes losses brings For one the greater of the two his Captains shall impose On people strange and Cities but forsooth by Western foes The lesse shall tamed be in years to come and by and by Illustrious honours he shall lose by Eastern destiny For the Romans who are to the West by the ayd of Attalus and the Mysians who lye toward the rising of the Sun deprived Perseus the son of Philip both of his Kingdom and life Pausanias in Achaick affairs UNder Boleslaus the chaste Prince of the Polanders in the Territory of Cracovia a certain Man-child having teeth on the same day in which he was born spake distinctly and point by point untill being a young beginner in Christian Religion he lost both his teeth and the use of speech But another six moneths old in the City of Cracovia spake That the Tartarians should come and he foretold they should cut off the heads of the Polonians and being asked he answered he knew that thing from God and that evil hung over his own head also which after the twelfth year came to passe HAlâ— Abenragell makes mention That in the King's Pallace he saw an Infant borâ— which scarce as yet twenty four hours were finished began to speak and make signs with the hand At which thing the King being exceedingly astonished a greater miracle happened For he saith The King standing by and my self also with many others the Infant cryed out saying I am unhappily born to disclose the losse of the Kingdom and the destruction and desolation of the Nation Which words being pronounced he fell down dead Coelius book 29. chap. 14. PHerecides the son of Bades a Syrian a heater of Pittacus walking on the Samian shore when he had seen a certain Ship running with full sayls he foretold That a little after it should be sunk and it happened he beholding it Laertius and Apollonius in their History of wonderful things Also Apollonius the Tyanean having gotten a Vessel fit enough to sail in when he had reached Leucas about to go to Achaia Let us go down saith he out of this Ship But she although then quiet a little after was overwhelmed Philostratus Mithridates besieging Cyzicum Aristagoras said he had received from Minerva that he being a pleasant singer would bring the Trumpeter into the Lybick Sea therefore he bade the Citizens to be of good courage And straightway the South-wind blowing more strongly Mithridates his Navy was troubled and their warlike Engines for the most part cast asunder Coelius book 20. chap. 24. THey tell that Pherecydes sometimes thirsting in the Island Scyrus desired water from one of his Schollars the which when he had drank he pronounced That after three dayes there was to be an Earthquake in that Island which saying as the end proved it true he brought back great glory Apollonius History of Wonders GLaucus the son of Epicydides a Spartan when as he had received a great sum of money from Milesius a guest under the name of a depositum or pledge and after his death his sons had required the money Glaucus after four moneths avouched that he would give an answer In the mean time he enquired of the Oracle at Delphos Whether by denying through a suborned oath the money laid up with him he should make a gain Pythia answered It may indeed for bold-fac'd Glaucus turn to present gain Thus by an oath to conquer and by robbery to detain The moneys Afterward 't is death to swear but he the man That consciously regards an oath sustaineth with his hand But of the oath the Lad is alway mindful neither hee With hands nor feet as swift doth make approach but if of thee He taketh hold will all thy house and progeny destroy But th'after stock of swearer just shall better things enjoy Glaucus being affrighted with that answer prayed for pardon or leave But Pythia affirmed the same is to tempt God and to do it Glaucus indeed being returned home restored the money to the young men of Milesim but not long after his whole house and off-spring was wholly put out Herodotus book 6. ALphonsus King of Arragon and Sicily besieged Neapolis a certain man came to him of a reverend countenance and foretold that he should conquer the City about the Calends of June but not much after a doubtfull battle was to be in which the Captain should be taken perswading him that he would not commit himself to so great danger The former part of the Prophecie was true For on the 4th of Nones of June he reduced the City into his power A little after being about to fight in battle against Anthony at Caudola in the Campanian field his friends disswading him and objecting unto him the Prophesie he answered Death indeed will not affrighten a valiant man much lesse doubtfull Oracles A battel being made he was overcome and taken at Caudola Aen. Sylv. book 2. Com. on Panormitan's Alphonsus AGathius in his second book of the Gothish War saith that the Germanes to have used sometime women for Prophetesses likewise with a most true event Plutarch in Caesar calls them holy women and they guessed at things to come by the whirlpools and noyse of Rivers Coelius book 18. chap. 20. ABaris the son of Seuthias a divine of the Hyperboreans or those above the North-wind wrote Oracles in the Countries which he wandred thorow which are at this day extant He also foretold earth-quakes Plagues and the like and heavenly things They say when he had come to Sparta that he warned the Laconians of turning away evills by holy things which things being finished no Plague afterward was at Lacedemon Apollonius in Hist of Wonders AeDesius the son of Chrysanthius a Philosopher of Sardis had a body so nimble that it exceeded the belief of all and was plainly carried up on high There was such a nearnesse to him with a god that there was no need of a Crown of bayes to be placed on his head but true Oracles and framed to the proper likenesse of a spirit blown up by a power He onely beholding the Sun would powre forth speech although he neither knew the Law or order of Verses nor yet well knew the Rules of Grammar Eunapius THere is at Sparta before the Altar of Augustus in the Market place a brazen portrayture of Agias They say this Agias to have divined unto Lysander that he should conquer the navy of the Athenians at the
River Aegos besides 10. Gallies with Oares which by flight betook themselves into Cyprus Pausan in Laâ—on PHilumena a soothsaying maid whose familiarity Apelles the heretick or as some will Severus used To this maid the Devill by an Apparition in the habit of a boy answered sometimes saying he was Christ sometimes Paul He also wrought miracles amongst which that is a chief that he cast a great loaf of bread into a glasse-viall of a most narrow mouth and lifted him up with the tops of his fingers unhurt and with that bread alone as with meat given her from God he said she should be contented Augustine is witnesse THe same blessed Augustine in his first book against the Academicks delivereth that there was a man at Carthage by name Albigerius of a reproachfull life who had known all secrets so that when he was asked a question by a Scholler of Romantian unto whom Augustine writeth for trialls sake what thing he though of He answered a Verse of Virgil. when he was again asked by the same Scholler what Verse he repeated that Cardane of diversenesse of things Book 8. ch 43. ISaac Angell Emperour of the Greeks going to Radaestum a Sea-City came to Basilacius a man of an unaccustomed life and who had obtained that opinion amongst all as that he could foresee and foretell things to come He uttered words confused disagreeing among themselves and doubtfull The paps of women comming to him being searched and their Ankles handled he drew out dark Oracles or speeches and to many questions he answered nothing and finished his divinations with runnings to and fro and mad gestures There stood little old women by him his kins-women who explained to those that asked Counsell what those behaviours of Basilacius might foreshew of things to come and interpreted his silence as a wise speech He answered nothing to the Emperours saluting him neither gave he thanks by a silent nod of his head but leaping hither and thither like a mad man cursed those that came to him Constantine of Mesopotamia especially who was then most familiar with Isaac At length with a walking staffe which he carried in his hands the eyes of the Emperours Image which was painted in the wall of his privy Chamber of speaking being scraped out he also endeavoured to take the cap off from his head The Emperour despising him as a doting or raving person returned But not long after he was by his brother Alexius deprived of both eyes and Empire and the opinion of Basilacius was confirmed the which had been at the first uncertain and doubtfull in many things Nicet book 3. HEctor Boethius in the Scottish affairs saith it was a common report that Merline was begotten by the copulation of a spirit called Incubus and a British woman of a Noble bloud of whom Vincent in 21. book History 30. thus telleth King Vortiger counsell being taken what he ought to do for defence of himself commanded cunning workmen to be called unto him who should build a most strong Tower But when as the Earth swallowed up their works they perswaded the King that he should search out a man without a father with whose bloud the stones and morter might be sprinkled as if by that means the morter would be made firm Therefore the young man Merline by name was found who with his Mother is brought before the King who confesseth he was conceived by a spirit in Mans shape This Merline revealed many dark things and foretold things to come For he opened that under the foundation there was a lake under the Lake two Dragons lay hid whereof one being red did signify the people of the Brittains but the other being white of the Saxons and he also prophesied that Aurelius Ambrose Hengist being overcome and Vortiger burnt should reign Vier b. â— ch 46. of the Delusions of Devills Coelius writeth there was in his Countrey a poor desolate woman in a low or obscure place named Jacoba out of whose belly he himself and indeed an innumerable company of others not onely at Rodigium but also almost all Italy heard the voice of an unclean spirit very small in deed but yet when he would distinct and altogether to be understood when as the mind of the great ones that was greedy of that which was to come desired oftentimes this belly-speaking woman to be sent for and stripped of all her cloathing lest any thing of secret deceit should lye hid The name of the Devill was Cincinnatulus He much delighting in this name a little after answered to one calling for him If thou shalt demand of things past and present what things might be most hidden he gave oftentimes wonderfull answers If of things to come alwaies most false But also his ignorance he sometimes more truly discovered by an uncertain muttering or humming Coelius Book 8. ch 10. of old readings ADrian Turneb the Kings professour of the Greek tongue testified that he saw Peter Brabantius a crafty man very like to Euriclus Aristophanes who as often as he would so often he spoke from the nethermost part of his body with unmoved lips and by this imposture or cousenage of the Devill he blinded the eyes of many in many places For when he would be love-sick for a certain beautifull maid of Paris nor could perswade her mother that he might espouse her to himself at length when they willingly and on both sides talk together of this matter he uttereth a voice out of his body in which the dead husband of the poor woman seemed to complain of the greatnesse of the punishments which he should endure in Purgatory for the mistrustfullnesse of his Wife because she denyed her daughter so often desired by Brabantius a most excellent man with which complaints she being affrighted and pittying her Husband assented to the request of the Knave who notwithstanding it sufficiently appeared sought not so much after the daughter as a dowry appointed her by her Father in his will For six Moneths after when as he had wasted the maids goods the wife and Mother in Law being left he fled away to Lugdunum There he had understood that a certain Merchant and very rich banker dyed Who seeing he was accounted a most unjust man for that he had scraped together all things by right and wrong in his life time he commeth to his Son Cornutus his onely heir walking in a Porch behind the Church-yard and intimates that he was sent thither that he might teach him what was needfull for him to do But while he saith he was to think rather of his father's Soul and good name than of his death while they speak a voice resembling his father is unexpectedly heard the which when Brabantius gave out of his belly he feigned himself neverthelesse to be in a wonderfull manner astonied But his son was moved with this voice into what condition his father had fallen by his injustice and with what torments of Purgatory both for his own and his
sake he should be troubled for that he had left him an heir of unjust goods and which could by no means be pardoned unlesse by a just satisfaction made by his son and due alms conferred on them who at that time chiefly wanted and those were the Christians taken by the Turks Therefore the man who when he spake he should believe that this was sent by Godly men to Constantinople to redeem them and that he was sent therefore to him from God for that thing 's sake Cornutus no ill man although these words heard of gifts he regarded not yet because that of money seemed a hard word he answered he would take deliberation and bad Brabantius return to the same place the next day In the mean time being sorrowfull he a little doubted of the place in which he had heard the voice that it was shady and dark and fit for mens lying in wait and an Eccho Wherefore the day after when he brought him into another open plain place and letted with no brambles or shades where neverthelesse the same song was repeated while they spake this also being added that six thousand French Crowns being presently numbred to Brabantius he should repay three Masses every day for his fathers salvation otherwise there would be no redemption out of Hell From whence his son being tyed in Conscience and Religion although with grief yet he committed so many to the faithfull dealing of Brabantius all lawfull witnesse of the thing received and payed being neglected His father being freed from the fires and Vulcans stroaks for the future was quiet nor any more called upon his son But wretched Cornutus Brabantius being let go when as he was more merry then usuall and his other Tablers could not sufficiently admire it straightway as soon as he declareth the cause to those enquiring it he was presently so laughed at by all that for grief after some dayes he dyed and followed his father to enquire the truth of the thing from him Vierus Book 2. chap. 12. Of the Delusions of Devills AMphiaraus son of Oicleus a Soothsayer and Prophet whom when Adrastus King of the Greeks called Argivi would lead unto War against the Thebanes he refused and that he might not be compelled hid himself because he foresaw that he should there perish yet by the deceit of his wife Eriphile whom he had corrupted with a Jewell he was betrayed and being against his will drawn to War in Baeotia in that place which afterwards was called Harma he was by the gaping of the earth with his Chariot and Horses swallowed up Statius in Thebaides ACtius Navius a Lad and that thou mayest laugh the more a Shepherd Priscus Tarquinius reigning taking on himself the use of a Sooth-sayer's crooked staffe becoming indeed suddenly an Augur from the Swine-herd through the report of the thing divulged he was called forth to the King Whom the King beholding and perchance scorning both his age and habit tryed in this manner Whether saith he that which is now in my minde may be done or may not I ask Navius when he had finished his divination answered It might be done But the King thinking to mock him But saith he I did meditate that I might cut this whetstone with a razor He with wonderful constancy replyed Thou mayst therefore And the razour being snatched up in the sight of the King standing amazed and the people he cut the whetstone From thence divination was sacred to the Romans WHen L. Sylla was at Nola that he might encounter with Marius the Elder his mind being very much troubled because he thought it a very hard thing Posthumius the Soothsayer who did do a divine thing he being present both his hands being stretched out to Sylla said That he should command him to be bound and after that to be slain else the victory of that battle would remain in his power and he should get a happy successe because he had been bidden then by an Augural knowledge to foresee it For the day after Sylla entring into the City of Rome drave out Marius from thence and fulfilled his mind as he had wished Fulgosus in book 8. chap. 11. out of Plutarch in Sylla SPurina had foretold to C. Julius Caesar That he should beware of the 30 next dayes as fatal whose last was the Ides of March. And when by chance both had come in the morning into the house of Calvus Domitius to the office Caesar saith to Spurina What knowest thou that the Ides of March are now come And he What knowest thou that those are not yet past The one had cast off fear as though the time mistrusted was finished the other thought that indeed the utmost part of it was not void of danger Would God the divination had rather deceived the Soothsayer than security the Father of his Country Vâ—lerius book 8. Suetonius AGrippa the Nephew of Great Herod of the son of Aristobulus being cast into bonds by Tiberius Emperour because he seemed to favour Caius stood before the Pallace among certain others a like bound leaning for grief on a certain Tree on which when as an Owl had sate one of those that were bound by Nation a German beholding the Bird enquired of the Souldier Who that Man in purple was And having known that it was Agrippa a most noble man of the Jews he asked the Souldier that he might have leave to come nearer unto him for he desired to know some things concerning his Country Which being obtained by request and an interpreter taken he saith O young man so sudden and unexpected change of fortune indeed makes thee sad neither wilt thou easily believe thy escape to be nigh at hand divine providence so ordering thy affairs But I call thy Country-gods to record that I go not about to flatter thee nor to feed thee with vain comfort It cannot be but that the course of things being changed thou shalt escape forthwith out of these bonds and come both unto the largest dignity and power even to the envy of those unto whom thou hast seemed miserable Thou art to have also a happy departure of life children being left in the succeeding of wealth But remember when thou shalt again see this Bird that the fifth day from it shall be destinous unto thee These are the things which the heavenly ones shew to thee by sending this Bird Therefore I intreat thee that as soon as thou shalt perceive that happinesse to be shown thee do thy endeavour that we also may be taken out of these adversities He was a true Prophet For six moneths after Tiberius dyed Caius succeeded in the Empire who made Agrippa King Josephus book 18. chap. 8. THe Spaniards call a people Adelittans and Almagonens who from the flying of Birds from the voyce from the meeting of wild beasts and of very many other things do divine what good or evil thing is to happen lastly they have books most diligently written with all prognosticall divinations
Of these some are Dukes and as it were Masters others Earls and Schollars There is also another cunning of these to search out the passage not onely of horses and beasts but also of men by a cloathed or covered by a naked by a hard ground by small stones by great stones as that the number of those who passed by doth not at any time almost deceive them who by a fit word may be called Searchers These shewed forth a notable example of their Art in the Warr which Ferdinand waged against the Moors For when as a hundred Saracen's horsemen had avowed to their King never to return unless they had shewn forth some famous act against the Christians and had privily come through wayes unpassible and to fall upon the Christians garrison The Searchers somewhat perceiving their way and number made the Watch acquainted of their lying in wait and they having followed the horsemen they constrained them being shut in on both sides to yield themselves in the channel of a brook being tyed together in a long rank with one rope Laurent Valla book 1. of Histories ALexander Emperour in the year of the Lord 904 as Sigebert writeth was idle being given to riot and Magick He having demanded of his Juglers Whether he was to live long he received an answer If he had taken away from the brazen Boar in the Theatre his teeth and privy members By which saying they did signifie that he was given to gluttony and lusts from the which if he did not abstain he would hasten his death that which fell out For after bathing yielding himself to banquets and sports a vein being broken he dyed with an issue of bloud Zonaras Cedrenus SImeon Duke of Bulgarians had brought War on the Crobatians it is told to Lacapenus a Roman Emperour there was an Image placed in the top of Xerolophus his vault toward the West that was turned into the shape of Simeon the head of which Image if it be cut off the death of Simeon should not be far off That being done the same hour it was told the Emperour he to have dyed of a pain of the stomach Zonaras IN the Gades there is an old stone in the brink of the Sea most excellently graven upon the passage with Saracens work downward broad and squared upward narrowed and of so great an heighth as a Crow is wont to fly on high upon which is the Image of a man lifted up of Copper raised up on his feet having his face toward the South and a great Club holding in his right hand Which club as the Saracens deliver shall fall out of his hand in the year in which a King to be in France shall be boâ—n who in the last times shall subject all Spain unto Christian Lawes And straightway as soon as the Saracens shall see the Club fallen they shall all flee from their treasures laid in the earth The Saracens deliver That Mahomet while he was yet alive built that Idol and engaged a certain Legion of devils thither by the Art of Magick the which holds it so strongly that it could never be broken by any neither doth it suffer Christians to come to it without danger but onely Mahometans and that Birds sitting on it it suddenly killeth them Turpine of Rhemes with Eufordiensis chap. 68. AMong the Biarmians Laplanders Bothnians Finlanders Northern people there is this often kind of magicall divining The Magitian goeth into a closet content with one companion and his wife he smiteth a brazen Frog or Serpent with an hammer upon an anvil with certain stroaks and turns up and down hither and thither with a muttering of verses and straightway falling is snatched into a trance and layeth along for a short time as dead In the mean time he is most diligently kept by his foresaid companion lest a fly gnat or any other living creature should touch him Being returned to himself he sheweth a ring or little knife in token of his dispatched embassage and declareth unto his hires by certain signs what is done Olaus book 5. chap. 17. JAnnes the Master of Theophilus the Emperour was wont to foretell things to come by the prophesie and juglings of a bason When as sometime the Barbarians making use of three Leaders did annoy the Roman power the Emperour bade him hope well Between brazen Images which were in Euripus of the Circle a certain Image with three heads was reported to stand Therefore Jannes commanded three brazen hammers to be framed and them to be delivered to men of strong hands who at an appointed hour of the night came with him unto that Image and when he had commanded them they should valiantly smite the heads while they as it were with one stroke and force should cast down on the earth those heads A great part of the night being now finished Jannes came with those men unto the Image and repeating a magick verse taketh away the strength that was in the Image he bade the men with all their force to smite the heads of the Image By two of their most strong stroaks two heads of the Image shook off the third striking something more slackly he bended indeed yet plucked not away the head wholly from the body After the same manner was it done with the Captains of that Nation For an inbred sedition arising two of the Captains were slain the third received a wound but not deadly The Barbarians therefore being deprived of their strength returned home Cedrene APollonius Tyaneus when he disputed in Ephesus being almost separated from his soul and with inbent eyes as if he had been in the present thing said often Smite the sinner Stephen smite him And at last added The Tyrant is dead who was heard with the great admiration of all that were present afterward they received that on the same day and the very moment of hour Domitian the Emperour was slain at Rome by a man whose name was Stephen as Apollonius had then declared Fulgosus book 1. chap. 9. Xiphiline in Domitian STephen the Hagio-Christophorite it is the name of an office but for his wickednesse otherwise called Antichristophorite after that he knew from the Devil by Sethus a Magitian destruction to hang over the head of Andronicus Comnenus by him whose name had its beginning J. S. he appointed Isaac Angell whom Andronicus despised as a low-spirited man to be laid hold of and first to commit him to custody and then by the Judgment of Andronicus the Tyrant to kill him Therefore entring into the Chamber of Isaac in the evening he commanded Isaac to come down and to follow him But he delaying he brought force Isaac defending himself kills Stephen and going into the Temple with his sword drawn he goeth up into that Seat where Manslayers explaining their wicked deed desire pardon from those that go in and out But a multitude of the City in great number presently flow together unto the Temple The Uncle of Isaac helpeth him
found with a numerous company of young which she had brought forth in the night to have confirmed the truth of the Oracle The Tomb therefore was fenced with work done in haste in which afterward Ascanius who succeeded his Father Aeneas built the City Alba that is white so called from the colour of a Sow Sabellicus Book 7. Of the first Ennead TArquinius Superbus or the proud King of the Romans began to found the Temple of Jupiter Juno and Minerva vowed by his grandfather in the Sabine Warr in the high and rocky part of the Tarpeian hill the roughnesse of the place being first corrected But when he had determined to consecrate the floor according to the custome and the compass of this space had embraced certain Chappels of most ancient work which because they were to be unhallowed that the workmen all fear of Religion being taken away might demolish they say that then there were mockings of evil Daemons or devils that other power had yielded up their divination to Jupiter and the Goddesses onely Terminus some add also Juventa could not be moved from their seat And that thing being taken for a token of a stable and remaining Empire A chappel to have afterwards remained unmoved in the middle part of the Temple There is also a certain greater wonder offered to the workmen A man's head was found with a fresh gore by those who wrought in the lowest part Tarquine for none thought not that to be wonderful asketh counsel of houshold-prophets These referring all the praise of that kind of learning unto the Hetruscians brought tydings to the King that he should send into Hetruria to enquire The Hetruscian Prophet answered It would be that the Tower of the Empire and the head of affairs should be there where that wonder had appeared and now from thence the place began from Tarpeium to be called the Capitol Sabellicus book 5. Ennead 2. ALexander the Great moving his Camps from Troas came to the Temple of Minerva There is a Priest Alexander by name when he had seen before the house of Ariobarzan who was President of Phrygia an Image struck down on the ground and other strange sights of no small moment he came to the King and in a great horse-exercise confirmed That he should be a Conquerour especially if he did joyn his companies in battel about Phrygia He added thereto also That he should kill the Captain of his enemies with his own hands But all those things were shewn to him by the gods themselves and chiefly from Minerva which was to be an help to him for the performing things prosperously Alexander received the foretelling of this Priest with a joyfull mind and presently honoured Minerva with most large sacrifice and dedicated his bucklet unto her and by and by brought out another that was most firm for him With which he being armed entred the first fight where he carried away a famous victory Diodore book 17. WHen the Grecians had gathered Ships together in Aulis a Haven of Eubaea to go to Troy and an Altar being built they sacrificed under a Plain Tree a Serpent of a wonderful bignesse creeping under the Altar went up into the top of the Plain-Tree and inclosing a Sparrow's nest hanging on an outmost bough he devoured eight young ones and the mother her self taken by the wing and presently himself stiffned into a stone Calchas a Prophet interpreted the divination The Greeks should besiege Troy nine years in vain at length in the tenth year to take and overthrow it the glory of such a deed to remain for ever Ulysses in Homer Iliad 2. repeats the History ALexander the Great assaulting Gaza a Crow flying over a certain turf or lump of earth being let down from on high smote the shoulder of Alexander and then sitting on a Towr besmeared with slime she being infolded by the tough matter was taken by the wings Plutarch saith she sate in an Engine and there being ensnared in a knot of ropes to have stuck fast Aristander the deviner beholding that thing said it would be that the City would be in a short time taken but it is a danger lest some wound the King would receive that day And both indeed happened Sabellicus book 4. Ennead 4. COelius Pontius when a Pye had sate on his head declaring the law and the Soothsayers had answered the Bird being let go there would be a victory of the enemies but she being killed of the Commonwealth yet he who had oppressed it should dye he presently killed that bird From which it fell out that Coelius himself with fourty others was slain Volatteran book 14. chap. 2. Anthro pol. ALexander the Great an Expedition into Asia being undertaken after he moved to the Warr both other wonders of the gods were shewn and also a sign of Orpheus at the hill Libethrum there was a Cyprus Tree which issued forth about that season with a plentiful sweat All being affrighted with that wondrous sign Aristander bade him be of good courage he should carry on thing never to be blotted out and famous which should afford much sweat and pains to Poets and Musitians singing them forth Plutarch in Alexander The same Alexander besieged Tyre now the seventh moneth and while he refresheth almost the whole Army from their former labours but brings a few to the walls that his enemies might not have respite Aristander the diviner sacrifices being slain when he lookt into the intrails he confidently affirmed by the Crow That that City was without doubt to be vanquished Which receiving his saying with a mock and laughter because it was the last day the King seeing him troubled and favouring alwayes his Prophesies forbade hereafter that to be numbred the thirtieth day but the twenty eighth of the moneth and a sign of the Trumpet being given he set upon the wall more sharply than from the beginning he had begun to do When the City was not sloathfully assaulted neither those that were in the Camps were at rest but ran together to bring help the Tyrians were broken and Alexander took the City that day Plutarch in Alexander THe Syracusans being besieged by Nicias went up to the Temple of Hercules because they had not a long time performed solemn rites to Hercules and they offered sacrifice The Priests being Soothsayers declared unto the Syracusans joyfull intrails and victory if they did not begin the conflict but beat back their force For Hercules in defending himself being first forced overcame all And so going forward they made a very great and sharp Sea-battel in the very Harbour and overcame the Athenians Plutarch in Nicias L. Sylla when he was sent with an Army to the Sociall War at Laverna a tempest lighted into a great bosome of earth and out of it a great fire brake and lifted up a light flame to Heaven But the fortune-tellers told That an excellent man and excelling in beauty and famous was to let loose the City unto present storms when he
much glory By which dream the most valiant man most thirsty after glory yet not so much affrighted as encouraged unto the desire of his promised end began to decline no kind of danger and being admonished by friends that he should fight the more warily he opened unto them his dream and purpose Then notwithstanding being beyond thought unhurt he brought the army out safe from the jaws of their enemies But after three years passed between the late truth was brought to sleep For in the Latine War himself being Consull sacrificed himself for the Common-wealth and being brought into the middle of the enemies Armies he dyed with such glory that he stirred up his son unto the like desire of an hereditary death These almost after this manner are both written in the Annals of Rome and related by Tully C. Gracchus saw the shape of his brother Tiberius who was killed in the sedition of the field Law in his sleep saying He might delay as much as he would yet he must perish with the same death by which he had died Which also happened For when after most destructive Lawes published he had possessed the Mount of Aventine with an armed multitude by Lucius Opimius he was slain Cicero in Book 1. Of Divination Plutarch in the life of the Gracchians CAlpurnia the Wife of Julius Caesar saw in her rest that night which was the last he lived on the Earth that he was slain with many wounds laying in her bosome and being exceedingly affrightned through the cruelty of the dream ceased not to intreat him that the next day he would abstain from the Court But he not moved with a Womans dream thought to do that he earnestly desired to go to the Senate in which the hands of Parricides were brought on him where by Brutus and Cassius he was slain Valerius Book 1. chap. 3. L. Cornelius Sylla not onely foresaw his death but also wrote somewhat of it For in the twenty second Commentary of deeds done by him two dayes before he deceased he set to the last hand and saith the Chaldeans foretold him That where he had famously lived he was to depart in the flowr of happiness He telleth also That his son who had dyed a little before Metella was seen in a dream to stand by him in an unusual garment and to have prayed his father that he would lay aside cares and would go forward with him to his Mother Metella there with her to live in rest Plutarch in Sylla A Beholder of Playes who standing in the place of beholding had mused in his sleep that he was slain by a sword-player who seemed to be present by and by he told the sitters by that he had seen the Dream so being killed by him with an Eel-spear he taught by experience the vain dream to be true by a miserable issue Alexander book 3. chap. 26. GReat Sfortias the day before he departed from Orthona against Braccius who besieged the City Aquila in the year 1425 dreamed about the morning That being overwhelmed with a deep heap of waters was conversant in the greatest danger of his life and to have beheld a man in a Gyant-like shape very like to D. Christopher of whom even with a great and often repeated voyce he besought help in vain But he being nothing warned by his dream departing by Orthona in the crosse passage of the small River Aternus which at this day hath its name from the Town Piscaria while he brought help unto a Lad his Armour-bearer being in jeopardy his right hand being stretched forth pitching in the muddy Foord his horse although famous failed in his hinder legs and so his armour weighing him down he was drowned Jovius in his Life MAlpaga an Archer was not an unacceptable servant unto Galeatius Sfortias Duke of Mediolum among his household-servants This man the day before that Galeatius was killed he saw in the night at the time of rest as if himself had been present at the thing him being thrust thorow with wounds made to be put together with his father in the same Coffin That which afterwards he waking beheld to be done Galeatius being dead while a proper coffin was made for him Which sight the same Malpaga before the Duke was killed being through fear astonished had told unto his Earls Fulgosus B. 1. ch 5. Of Examples MArk-Anthony Taurell Earl of Guastella when he warred in the Kingdom of Neapolis in that War which Ferdinand the Elder King of Arragon waged with Renatus King of Andegavia in the standing Camps which he had in the Country of the Brutians arising in the morning from his bed he told those his Souldiers who had stood about him that he saw in his sleep that he was drowned in the water and therefore decreed to abstain from swimming to which he had accustomed himself But when at noon-day after sleep being cloathed with a Souldiers warlike garment naked from above he had come to walk to the neighbouring Lake and saw some of his Souldiers swimming being unmindfull of his night-dream and perchance the destinies so drawing him letting himself down with some others into the Lake to swim according to the dream that he had seen he was drowned when as none of his Souldiers could bring him help Fulgosus book 1. chap. 5. HOrace Perusine servant of the Feasts or Junkers unto Alexander of Medices Duke of the Florentines a little before that he was killed by Lawrence of Medices was vexed with a Feaver from a vapour as is meet to be believed of black choler he had a sight thrice in the night in the which he beheld the Prince to be stabbed by Lawrence Which images of things drave the sick-man that he told it to Paschall the Prince's Physitian to be related to the Prince But Paschall carefully doing duty found the Prince in that mind that he said it was a fable of a dreaming sick man admiring why the whole house had conspired together for hatred of Lawrence The Supply of Sabellicus book 22. out of Jovius BAptista of Cardanum studying at Papia on a certain night as soon as he arose tryed to kindle a sparkle of fire In the mean time he heareth this voyce Go my son go to Rome And he saw a great brightnesse like a bundel of burning chaff He being affrighted his fire-light being laid aside lay hid under the bed untill his chamber-fellows returned out of the University When they returned thinking him to be sick they knock at the door he openeth it Straightway to them enquiring the cause he answereth He thought his Mother to be dead and told what he had seen and heard and also wept They turned the thing into a jest partly laughing at him partly comforting him The day following when as yet he had not received a message concerning his Mothers sicknesse he was certified of her death that she breathed out her soul in that very hour wherein he had perceived these things The Town of Cardanum is
absent from Papia fourty two miles Cardane Of the variety of things book 15. chap. 84. tells this of his Kinsman ULysses after his return into his Countrey being affrighted with often contrary dreams called together most skillfull Interpreters telling that a certain Image was seen by him of a very laudable beauty between the countenance of a man and a god suddenly to be sent forth out of the same place The which to him desiring to embrace with the greatest desire and stretching forth his hand it was answered unto him in a man's voyce That such a conjoyning was wicked because it was of the same bloud and birth for thereby the one would destroy the others work And then to him more eagerly asking it and desiring to learn perfectly the causes of that thing a certain sign arising from a male came between his sight and that second power or jurisdiction of his cast upon him to have disjoyned both Which thing all who were present pronounced to be destructive with one mouth warning him to take heed of the layings in wait of his son So Telemachus by his fathers will is banished into the fields which were in Cephalenia He himself going apart into hidden and separated places endeavoured to avoid the force of the Dreams At the same time Telegonus whom being sprung from Ulysses Circe had brought up at the Island Acaea when he was of ripe years going to search out his father came to Ithaca bearing in his hands a certin spear whose top was armed with the bone of a Sea tortle to wit a token of honour of that Island in which he had been brought up Being instructed where his father Ulysses lived by the keepers of the ground being at his first passage more mistrusted is forbidden when as he more eagerly resisteth he is on the contrary repulsed he begins to cry out It was an unworthy act that he should be forbidden from the embracement of his father So Telegonus being thought to come to bring force on the King he is more sharply resisted for it was not certainly known to any that Ulysses had also another son But the young man when he saw himself the more exceedingly and by force to be repulsed being raised up through grief killeth or being greatly wounded weakeneth many of the keepers Which things after they were known to Ulysses he thinking the young man to have been sent by Telemachus going forth of doors casts the Lance which he had wont to carry for his own defence against Telegonus After that the young man escaped this stroak he sends a notable dart against his present father When Ulysses fell down with the stroak he gave thanks for his fortune and confessed it was very well done by him because being slain by the force of a strange man he had freed Telemachus a most dear son to him from the wickednesse of parricide And holding back the residue he asketh the young man who he was and from what place risen who durst kill Ulysses the son of Laertes famous for counsel and war Telegonus then knowing it was his father tearing his head with both his hands uttered a most lamentable weeping being exceedingly tormented for the death brought by him on his father Dictys in book 6. PIndare a Lyrick Poet his age being now finished seemed to see Persephone to stand by him in his sleep and to complain That she onely of all the gods was not adorned with his verses But when he had come unto her he should also make an hymn on her Indeed a little after and even before the tenth day from that dream he finished the duties of life There was at Thebes a certain old woman joyned to Pindare by kin and very much exercised in singing forth many of his songs Pindare shewing himself to her at the time of rest sung a song on Persephone She being presently awakened wrote down all things which she had heard Pindare singing through a vision in her sleep Truly in that song amongst other sirnames of the hell-goddess is Chrysenius to wit from the golden rains which thing it is sufficiently manifest to have served for the snatching away of Proserpina Pausanias in his Boeoticks UNto Phayll King of the Phocians after the Temple of Delphos spoyled he scarce as yet having come to his command such a shew by a dream was set before him Among the things offered to Apollo there was a very old image of brass of a man whose flesh being consumed his bones alone were left They of Delphos said it was dedicated by Hippocrates the Physitian Phayll seemed to see himself made like to this And a few dayes after pining away with leanness he fulfilled the issue of the dream Pausanias in his Photicks A Little before the destruction of Messena in the twenty first year of the War Aristodemus King of the Messenians seemed at the time of rest to see when as now arms being taken up he was to go forth to battle the intrails of sacrifices being placed on a table his daughter whom six years before being sacrificed for the safety of his Country he had slain with his own hands standing by him in a black or mourning garment and her breast being naked shewing her wounds and then the intrails being removed from the table the weapons being withdrawn her self to be endowed with that golden crown and white garments He therefore thought this dream to betoken death unto him because the Messenians lift up the Nobles being crowned and covered with a white garment And without delay when by the devoting of his daughter he saw he could nothing profit his Country at his daughter's Tomb he brought death on himself Plutarch in Cleomenes ALexander King of Macedonia first knew by a dream that the right hand of Cassander would prove mortal to him before that in the end he felt it For he thought himself to be killed by him when as he had never seen him At then sometime coming between after that he had come into view the image of his night-fear being disclosed as soon as he knew it to be the son of Antipater a Greek verse being added which raiseth up the truth of the dreams he beat back the suspition of poysoning now prepared against his head whereby it is reported he was slain with the hand of Cassander Valerius Maximus book 1. chap. 7. Sabellicus book 6. Ennead 4. ALcibiades taking a sleep thought himself in his sleep to be covered with the cloak of his Concubine The truth whereof straightway followed For Critias when he saw Alcibiades very much to prevail in favour and authority endeavoured to take him out of the midst of them Therefore he sent Tisimen or as others name him Susametres and Bagous that they might kill him He when he was with his Leamond being killed in her bosome and was cast away unburied was covered with the garment of his Concubine Justine book 5. Plutarch Probus in his Life THat was an effectual Image of rest which
brake the courage of King Croesus first with the greatest fear and then also with grief For of his two sons he thought that Atys the more excelling both in great nimbleness and endowments of body and ordained for the succession of the Empire was taken away from him by the sword Therefore whatsoever did belong to avoid the bitternesse of a denounced slaughter the father's care in no part ceased to turn away The young man was wont to be sent to wage Wars he was kept at home He had an Armory filled with plenty of all kinds of weapons that also he commanded to be removed His Earls used to be girded with the sword they were forbidden to come near Yet necessity made way for mourning For when a wild Boar of huge bigness wasted the tilled places of the Mountain Olympus with often destruction of the Country-people and help was humbly besought of the King against the unaccustomed evill the son wrested by force from his father that he might be sent to slay him indeed so much the easier because the cruelty not of the tooth but of the sword was laid up in fear But while all were diligently bent on a sharp endeavour of killing the swine a stubborn chance of a hovering force turned the launce sent from Adrastus that he might smite the wild beast out of the right way into him and indeed would have that right-hand especially aspersed with the fault of a wicked murder unto whom the defence of the son was committed by the father Valer. Maximus book 1. chap. 7. Herodotus book 1. POlycratis daughter of a Tyrant of the Samians she seemed to see at the time of rest her father to be on high in the ayr who should indeed be washed by Jupiter but anointed by the Sun She being affrighted with this vision warned her father that he should not go to Oraetes the Governour of Cambyses at Sardis But he obeying not the saying was fastned to a crosse by Oraetes Herodotus book 1. UNto Hipparchus the son of Pisistratus was presented in his sleep the image of a tall man pronouncing these verses 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Bear Lyon things unsufferable suffer with bearing mind There is no wicked man to whom hee 'l not repay in kind In the morning he would refer these words to the Interpreters of dreams But straightway the Vision being despised he neglected it and went away into the solemn fight where by Aristogiton and Harmodius Gephyraeans he was killed Herodotus book 5. SImon of Athens when as he moved an expedition against the Persians his Navy being now ready he had such a dream An angry Bitch seemed to bark at him and to utter thereupon a voyce mixed of a man's voyce and a dog's barking in these words Be gone thou art to be a friend To me and to my whelpish kind Astyphilus Posidoniates therefore a divining man and familiar friend of Simon affirmed death to be foretold him using this argument The dog is an enemy to him whom he barks at but to an enemy none is dear or a friend but when he dyeth Moreover the mixed voyce sheweth the Mede an enemy whose Armies are mixt of Greeks and Barbarians The end proved the dream to have been true for not much time after Simon dyed of a disease in the siege of Citium Plutarch in his Life WHen as a certain one had seemed to repeat a verse of Homer's unto Socrates 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Thou shalt indeed on the third day To Phthia come full fraught with clods of clay He said to Aeschines I shall dye on the third day Phthia was the Country of Achilles And his friends endeavoured to perswade Socrates that he should flee into Thessaly because there he had good friends But he drew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to kill or corrupt And the third day after Hemlock being drunk in prison he perished Laertius in his Life ATterius Ruâ—â—us a Roman Knight when a Sword-play was set forth by the Syracusans he saw himself in the time of sleep to be thrust thorow by the hand of Retiarius And the next day he told it in the place of beholding unto the sitters by Afterwards it fell out that in the next place from the Knight Retiarius was brought in by the Sword-player Whose face when he had seen the same man said he thought he should be slain by that Retiarius and forthwith he would depart thence They his fear being shaken off by their speech brought the cause of destruction to the miserable man For the Sword-player being compelled into that place and cast down while he endeavours to strike him lying along kills Atterius being thrust thorow with his Sword Valerius Maximus in the first Book chap. 7. JUlius Caesar not much before he died in his sleep sometimes he seemed to himself to fly above the Clouds sometimes to joyn his right hand to Jupiter Moreover in the same night when he lay in his bed all the dores of his Chamber and likewise the Windowes being set open he was affrighted both with a noise and light and the Moon shining bright he marketh Calphurnia being fast asleep to utter dark words and undistinct sighings She imagined that she lamented him whom she held thrust thorow in her bosome Others deny that sight to have been set before her But when as a Pinnacle had been by the decree of the Senate adjoyned unto Caesars house as Livy is Author as it were for an Ornament and enlarging it Calphurnia having imagined at the time of rest that to have slidden down she seemed to her self therefore to mourn and weep But when light had approached she asked Caesar if by any means it might be brought to passe that he might not go forth but might adjourn the Senate unto another time But if he did esteem her dreams but as a lock of Wool yet he should ask Counsell of the Soothsayers and Sacrifices concerning things hanging over his head Whence there was some suspition and fear set before him also as it seemeth For he took notice of no superstition before the woman was grieved or vexed for that thing which she then saw But assoon as the Soothsayers told him satisfaction could not be made many sacrifices being now slain he determined Anthony being sent to dismisse the Senate In the mean time Decius Brutus surnamed Albine whom Caesar for the trust which he had to him had written amongst his second heirs seeing he was a companion of the conspiracy of the other Brutus and Cassius fearing lest if Caesar should passe away that day the matter would have been told abroad he mocked the Soothsayers and reproved Caesar and being taken by the hand led him forth And so that day in the Court being thrust thorow with many wounds he was wretchedly slain Plutarch CAesar being slain the people diligently sought after the conspirators being hidden Helius Cinna the Poet one of Caesars friends had the
him because he deferred to bring War on Greece The thing being talked of with Artabanus he constrained Artabanus cloathed with the King's garments to take a sleep in the King's Throne The same resemblance was also presented before the eyes of Artabanus Therefore he incensed Xerxes unto the Warr of Greece with no less diligence than before he had withstood indeed the evil fate of Xerxes so urging it that the most proud King might pay the punishments of his rashness and pride The same Xerxes seemed to himself to be crowned with an Olive-grass with the boughs of which Olive the whole Earth was overwhelmed and presently the Crown tyed fast about his head vanished This dream was more famous and sure than the former Xerxes had affrighted the world with Warlike preparation and now seemed to triumph over Greece Athens being taken when as he was by the diligence of Themistocles broken he was forced by a shamefull flight to shift for his life Herodotus book 7. THe Spartans Callicratidas being Captain were to fight at Arginusa in a Sea-battell with the Athenians the diviners on both sides disswading them For the head of a sacrificed beast lying on the shore dispersed the Lacedemonians being drawn through the rage of a wave the Soothsayers shewed all these things betokened that the Pretor of the Navy was to perish in that combat Which thing being heard they say Callicratidas answered he should withdraw nothing from the Spartane worthinesse if by fighting he should fall But unto Thrasibulus the Athenian who being then Pretor led the Navy and to whom that day the top of Royall Authority had come by lot by night this dream appeared It seemed to him together with six other Praetors to act the Tragedy of Euripides whose title is inscribed Phoenissas in the common Theatre But it seemed his adversaries acting the Tragedy whose name is Supplices the Cadmean Victory to have happened to them and all to have perished by imitating the Captains who had pitched their Tents for the assaulting of Thebes These things being heard a Prophet being called to interpret they so expounded it that seven Captains were to fall in that battell But the holy things otherwise openly promising Victory he bade the Captains that it may be shewed unto their companions alone concerning every ones death but that they divulge a Victory betokened by those very holy things throughout the whole Army A battell being joyned Callicratidas some Ships of the Enemies being first overcharged dyed the conquest remained in the power of the Athenians 25. Ships being lost 77. of the Enemies sunk They fought on both sides with little lesse then four hundred Ships and that battel is mentioned to be the greatest of all which indeed Greeks with Greeks ever fought Diodore in Book 13. UNto Pyrrhus King of the Epirots besieging Sparta such a dream was offered All Lacedemon being stricken with a Thunderbolt seemed to him thereby to be set on fire and he thereupon to leap for joy He being stirred up with gladnesse commands his Captains that they set the Souldiers in order and expoundeth the dream to his friends as if he was to vanquish the City Unto which thing when as others wonderfully agreed the sight pleased not Lysimachus He saith he feared least as the places that were blasted with Thunderbolt remain inaccessible so the god signified to Pyrrhus that he was not to enter the City When as Pyrrhus answered this man Those were meer delusions and full of uncertainty but that every man holding weapons in his hands ought to bring into his remembrance Optimum id augurium pro Pyrrho exponere vitam Of Divination that 's the chief For Pyrrhus to adventure life In the first of the morning he sets upon the City But the Lacedemonians not sluggishly and beyond their strength defending themselves he was constrained to loose the siege Plutarch in Pyrrhus CN Pompey having followed King Mithridates unto Euphrates fell by night At which time it is blazed by report that Mithridates saw a resemblance in his sleep which foreshewed him things to come It seemed to him to sail in the Pontick Sea with a prosperous wind and now to foresee Bosphorus and courteously to speak to those that were carried together with him as who rejoyceth in his sure and undoubted safety but suddenly he was found forsaken by all and tossed in a small broken piece of a Ship His friends standing by stirred him up being busied with those troubles and Images shewing that Pompey was at hand A fight therefore instead of a bulwark being begun he was overcome Far more then ten thousand were slain and the Camps were taken Mithridates himself with a draught of eight hundred Horsemen with him brake through the Romans By and by the rest sliding away he is left alone with three among whom was the Harlot Hipsicratia who had alway been of a manly boldnesse Wherefore the King called her Hispicratia But then she being cloathed with a man's Persian garment and carried on a Horse neither seemed she to be weary in body from the tediousnesse of the flight neither the Kings body and horse being taken care of was he tired untill they came unto the Towre or Castle Inor where the Kings Money and Treasures were heaped up Thence Mithridates took his pretious stones which he distributed unto those that assembled unto him out of the flight Moreover he gave a deadly poyson to a certain friend of his to be carried with him lest any one should come into the enemies hands From thence he strives to go into Armenia to Tigranes Which thing when he forbade him and had pronounced a hundred talents on his head the Springs of Euphrates being passed by he bends his flight through Colchis Plutarch in Pompey BEfore the Pharsalian fight it seemed to Cn. Pompey by night in his sleep he entering into the Theatre the people to applaud him and that he adorned the Temple of Venus the Conqueresse with many spoils This sight partly raised him up partly made him carefull fearing somewhat least Grace and famousnesse should come from him unto Caesars family chanting on Venus and some Panick fears awakened him out of sleep In the fourth watch over Caesars Camps where all things were quiet a great light shined out A flaming Torch kindled thereby was brought into Pompey's Camps Caesar himself said he saw this while he went about the Watches The same Author in the same place HEcuba being great with young she seemed to bring forth a burning Torch which burned Asia and Europe She not long after brought forth Paris by whose unchast loves the country of Troy being destroyed their forces being wasted Greece was consumed by a long war and undone Sabellicus book 1. ch 1. Volatteran book 18. Anthropol CAmbyses King of Persians saw Smerdes in his sleep sitting in the Kings Throne to touch the Heaven with his Crown He for that thing fearing lest his Brother Smerdes should possesse the kingdome sent Prexaspes to kill
him Neither yet could he avoid even this by his brother-killing Murther whereby Smerdes the Magitian who feigned himself to be the true Smerdes Son of Cyrus should the lesse invade the Kingdome Cambyses going up to horse being wounded in the Thigh with a Sword died Herodotus Book 3. DArius had moved out of Susa against Alexander being supported with a multitude of Armies for he had six hundred thousand Souldiers under his Ensigns trusting to a certain dream the which the Magitians flattering him had interpreted more than according to the likenesse of truth The troop of the Macedonians seemed to shine together with a great brightnesse of fire But Alexander to wait on him in the habit wherewith he had been cloathed when he was Ascandes that is a Messenger or Ascantes that is Chamberlain to the King And when he had entred into the Temple of Belus to have been withdrawn from before his eyes By these things in my opinion God foreshewed that the Macedonians were to carry on honourable and famous matters and Alexander to obtain Asia as Darius had enjoyed it being of a Messenger or Chamberlain made King but in a short time to lay down his life with his glory Plutarch in Alexander Curtius hath delivered that the King imagined the Camps to shine with a great brightnesse Sabellicus Book 4. Ennead 4. THey report Domitian to have dreamed that a bunch sprang out from him behind a Golden neck and to have had it for certain that a more blessed and joyfull condition of the Common-wealth was foreshewn to be after him As indeed it so fell out in a short time through the abstinence and moderation of following Princes Sueton. EZeline surnamed Monk a bloudy and most cruel Tyrant at his rest saw the fortune of his sons that night in which he first came together with his wife who was by name Adela a Tuscian of the stock of the ancient Earls of Montaion For he seemed to himself to see a little hill in which a Roman Town was in the Patavine field placed the which he commanded and was thence called Romanus or a Roman so to be carried up and exalted that it touched heaven with its top and the same a little after to be melted as Snow and so to be let down that it could no more stand up The chances of his sons brought this effect For the elder Son and he Ezeline by name possessed the rule of Verona Patavium Vincentia Feltrium and Cividal and Marchia But the younger Alberick entred on the Kingdom of Tarvisium and other places But afterwards fortune changing in the two hundred fifty and sixth year above the thousandth of salvation when as the Pope and the Guelphians together had moved war against Ezeline his son he lost Patavium with the whole land But when he trusted that he should possesse the City of Mediolum by craft and for that thing had passed over the River Abdua being besieged by his enemies overcome in battell a wound being received being taken nigh to Soncinum in that very same place he died and was buried His brother Alberick being strucken with fear by this chance when as he distrusted that he could keep Tarvisium he betook himself into the Castle of Saint Zeno. Where in the year of Salvation 1200. being betrayed by his own Souldiers he came into the power of his enemies There having beheld six sons to be killed before him and his wife Margaret with two young maids to be burnt he himself being cut through all his limbs by piece-meal he saw as his father had in his dreams his Roman stock or nation to be ended Fulgosus book 1. chap. 5. THe Mother of Phalaris saw Mercury whose Image holding a goblet in his hand she worshipped at her own house among the shapes of gods in her dreams to sprinkle bloud on the ground out of that goblet and being dashed on the pavement to bubble back untill by little and little it overflowed all the house up to the top That which was seen in one the bloudy cruelty of her son made true in many houses Ponticus Heraclidus is the Author of this Vision a learned man as saith Tully and Scholler of Plato Petrarcha AMilcar Captain of the Carthaginians besieging Syracusa seemed to hear in his sleep that the next day after he should sup within the walls of the besieged City By that thing being turned to a hope of Conquest he being chearfull set the Army in order in the morning to besiege the City Unto him considering and attempting such enterprises as often comes to passe a great uproar arose in the Camps the Carthagenians and Sicilians disagreeing among themselves The Townes-men laying hold of the occasion come suddenly forth of the Gates and their enemies being scattered the Conquerours take their Captain desiring to succour their ranks being disturbed and therefore neglecting himself And so being brought into the City supping in fetters he understood what a false expounder of the dream he had been Valer. Max. Book 1. chap. 7. and Cicero Book 1. Of Divination Artemidore writeth a shew was presented to a certain one in his sleep as that he should sup with Saturn and it so happened that the day following he was cast into Prison Caelius Book 13. chap. 21. Of Book of Antiq. JUpiter commanded T. Latinus a man of the common people in his sleep that he should tell the Consulls that he was not pleased with the neighbouring Circean playes of the leaders of the dance which thing unlesse being heeded it were satisfied by the renewing of sports no small danger of the City was to follow He fearing least with some disprofit unto his Religion he should extoll the highest command kept silence And straightway his Son being taken with the sudden force of a disease died He also at the time of sleep being asked by the same whether he had sufficiently weighed the great punishment of his royall command neglected continuing in his purpose was recompenced with a weaknesse of his body And then at length by the counsell of his friends being brought in a horse-litter unto the Consuls Judgment-seat and from thence to the Senate the order of his whole chance being explained with the great admiration of all the strength of his members being recovered he returned home on his feet Valerius in book 1. chap. 7. Cicero in book 1. Of Divination And Livy book 2. Decad. 1. THe Tartars inhabit beyond the Mountain Belgia the Sea lying between Changius or their fiâ—st Emperour saw again a white horseman who had foretold unto him the Empire in his sleep that it was the will of the immortal god That in the Mountain Belgia being passed over they should go forward into the West and subdue all Kingdoms But as soon as they had come to the Mountain Belgia in that part which the Sea floweth on the Mountain that they should go down and their faces being turned toward the East they with nine bowings of the knee worship the
Lord 1330 invaded Italy falling sick of the Gowt underwent great perill in his affairs circumvented by the unfaithfull dealing of his couzen german General Leodrisius who leading the Rhaetian and Helvetian cohorts and with a strong hand gathering together all banished men came to Abdua Actius though troubled with the Gowt raised Souldiers in every place and left his Garrisons well fortified to the care of Governours till such time as his expected recruits should come to him And committing the Van-guard of his Army to his Lievtenant Nervianus the Leodrisianians had prevailed against them had not St. Ambrose the Mediolanensian guardian Saint been seen by many of the City in form of an Horseman succouting them apparently in their distress for there came at that time to their relief Hector Panicus with a wing of Cataphractans Albrogians sent by Ludovicus Subaudius father-in-law to Actius which overcame the Rhaetians unseasonably exulting and resting themselves disorderly putting them to the sword and took Leodrisius himself prisoner there being slain at that time above four hundred thousand men And in the field where this Victory was obtained a Temple was built to St. Ambrose in memory thereof where yearly upon the twenty fourth of February the Mediolanensian people coming together in great pomp with the Praetor and Counsellors celebrated his Feast with sacred solemnities Jovius in Actio But Fulgosus lib. 1. cap. 6. writeth That the Auxiliaries which came to relieve Actius as soon as they began battel clearly saw Ambrose with a whip to fall upon the Barbarians which Martinus Scaliger led being hired thereunto by Leodrisius and in memory of this Victory Ambrose was pictured with a whip in his hand ever after this IN the battle wherein Ramirus King of Spain fought against the Saracens before Calugurium James the Apostle was seen by all who were there leading the Christian Army and putting the Saracens to flight NIcephorus lib. 8. cap. 23. reporteth That Chrysanthus and Musonius being Bishops who sate in the Nicene Council and dying before they had subscribed those Articles of Faith which were there agreed upon the Fathers of the Council therefore went to their Monuments and holding a writing in their hands which contained in it the Articles they spoke to them as if they had been living men hearing them Holy Fathers you have fought a good fight with us you have finished your course and kept the faith if therefore what we have done ought to be allowed and confirmed it is meet and needfull that you who are illustrated by the splendour of the Trinity whose beatificall Vision frees you from all obscurity and hindrance which lets us from the clear and perfect discerning of things with us subscribe this little book who when they had spoke these words laid it down before the Tomb sealed and going to their rest that night and returning in the morning they found the book sealed with the seals inviolated and their subscriptions inserted with the rest which they perceived to be newly written in these words We Chrysanthus and Musonius with all the Fathers in the first holy Oecumenical and Nicene Council do agree and although translated from our bodies yet with our own proper hands we have subscribed the Articles in this book PLergilis a Priest prayed That he might see what species laid hid under the form of bread and wine and whilest he continued his supplications for the same an Angel from Heaven appearing to him speaketh saying Arise quickly if thou desire to see Christ he is present cloathed with that body which the holy Mother of God bore he therefore casting his eyes upon the Altar seeth the child the onely begotten Son of the Father whom with trembling arms he takes and kisses and presently restores again to the top of the Altar and falling prostrate upon his knees again he implored Almighty God again that he would turn him again into his pristine species and as soon as he had finished his prayer he found the body of Christ returned to his wonted form as by prayer he had desired Rabbanus de Sacramento Eucharistiae cap. 30. Paschasius in libro de corpore et sanguine Domini cap. 41. A Certain Souldier in the City of Rome extinct by the Plague when he revived said That he saw a narrow bridge under which ran a River ugly and caliginous which sent forth an incredible stinking savour but on the other side of the bridge upon the bank-side of the River he saw pleasant places which with the variety of flowers which grew therein sent forth such fragrant odours as much delighted the smelling faculty and habitations all about which were of a certain divine form and splendour but amongst the rest one was greater and excelled in glory for that it was wholly built with golden bricks but for whom it was built he could not understand but he considered that he observed that the just most securely passed that bridge and that the unjust and reprobate fell into the River then he saw as he said a stranger a Priest who inoffensively passed through those streights having quietly and contentedly suffered the going thorow the turnings therein for that he had lived piously in this world but amongst those which he saw fall whom the whirlpool of the froathy snatching stream tossed about he saw Peter chief Bishop of the Ecclesiasticall Family who four years since coming that way infolded with Iron chains and in vain striving to swim through the horrible hollow passage he therefore had a warrant as a punishment to him to punish those that hereafter should be guilty rather severely then indulgently Marulus lib. 6. cap. 14. IN the Castle of the seven holy brethren Albericus a certain Noble child when he attained the tenth year of his age afflicted with sicknesse was brought even to deaths-door at which time he lay immoveable without sense as if he had been quite dead seven dayes and nights In which interval brought by the blessed Apostle Peter and two Angels he cometh to the infernal gulph at length he was brought to see the pleasant things of Paradise and lifted up into the aerie Heaven he was sufficiently instructed by Peter of things contained in the Old Testament of the punishments due to sinners and the glory of Saints he saw certain secret things which he was forbid to speak and so for seventy dayes he being led about the Provinces by him he was restored to life Chronicon Cassionense lib. 4. cap. 68. VIncentius hath a long Narration extant in his book 27. chap. 99. of Tundalus whose soul was led by an Angel as well to the infernal place of punishments as purgatory where he saw many whom he knew at his first entrance amongst the blessed he met with a multitude of men and women enduring the misery of rains and winds pining away with hunger and thirst but injoying light molested with no stink who as the Angel told me had not lived very honestly nor had been charitable to the poor were
did not terrifie him from evill-doing He was wont to tell that he was then carried to Hell and saw those formidable things which formerly he had heard and would not believe and that while he stood as one guilty before the Tribunal of the Judge it was commanded that he should be dismissed and their mistake who had convented him was reprehended for that it was commanded that not he but Stephen the Smith should be led thither The same hour the Smith departing this life caused this to be believed a reall Vision and not reputed an idle dream Marulus lib. 6. cap. 14. WIlliam a boy of fifteen years of age had a Vision in the Night wherein there appeared to him a certain glorious man who led him to a place of torments and seeing men excrutiated after various manners at last was brought to the Devill himself who in his fiery Mansion amidst the flames sate as a Judge in his Tribunal presently a certain ugly spirit leapt up accusing the boy Saith he I have ever suggested evill things to this boy but of those sins which he committed lately he made no mention at all to the Priest at his confession he that led the boy perswaded him to sign himself with the sign of the Cross which done all his fear of damnation was taken away Vincentius lib. 27. cap. 84. IT is reported That in the Sabine Province there was a certain Nunne who strictly observed chastity but defiled her tongue with foolish procacity and when she past her last day being buried in the Church the Priest coming into the Church at midnight saw her distended before the Altar cut through the middle her higher part burnt with fire and her lower part left untouched in the morning therefore telling to his brethren what he saw as he looked upon the place in which he saw her burnt he sheweth to them the marks which he found in the Marble of the scorching fire Gregorius Magnus lib. 4. Dialog cap. 50. The End of the Second Book The Opinions and Arguments of the Sadduces and Epicures by which they would prove that the Angels and Devils do not appear unto Men Confuted MAny there have been at all times and in all Ages which have impugned and stifly denied the Apparitions of Devills Angells and Spirits But some have done it in one sort and some in another For there be some who to ridde themselves altogether from the question and disputation that might be made concerning particular and speciall matters which are often alledged in regard of the Apparition of Specters do bend themselves against them all in generall That so by cutting off the root and undermining the foundation of a Principle well grounded they may the more easily cause the overthrow and downfall of all that which dependeth upon the same They deny therefore that there are any Angells or Devils at all or any Spirits severed and abstracted from a corporall substance or body to the end that by consequence they may infer and conclude that there are not likewise any Specters nor Apparitions of Spirits Such were the Sadduces as we may read in the Acts of the Apostles and the Epicures and the greatest part of the Peripateticks and all sorts of Atheists whatsoever Of which last there are at this day more huge numbers abounding within this our Realm of France then would be tolerated These men would not stick to affirm if they durst and were it not for fear of the Magistrate that it is free for men to abandon themselves to all kind of iniquity impiety and dissolute living for so do they murmure and mumble when they are alone and by themselves that there is not either God or any Spirits at all good or evill nor yet any Hell where the Souls of men should suffer any pains or punishment but that they dye together with the body And that all whatsoever is said or alledged touching Hell-torments is nothing but a vain and superstitious toy and fable onely to make babes and Children afraid and to wrap and tye the greatest persons of the World in certain bonds of a Religious superstition for so are the words of Lucretius in this behalf And I do believe that they do often say in their hearts that which Pythagoras the Samian is alledged in Ovid to have said to the Inhabitants of Crotona in Italy Why stand you thus in fear of Styx and such vain dreamings Of Manes and of Spirits which are nought else but leasings Certainly he that should take upon him to instruct these Athiests should but â—ose his time because they will admit of no reasons no not of those that are meerly naturall For seeing they do not believe him which hath the command and rule of Nature how can they yield any credit or belief unto those reasons that are drawn from nature it self Other persons there are who being more religious and honester men then those former yet have no lesse denyed the essence of Angels Devils and Spirits Howbeit they have been of this opinion that by reason both of the distance between them and us and of the difficulty of appearing in a humane body they cannot possibly present themselves unto us Others also there have been who have referred all that which is spoken of the vision of Spirits unto the naturall and perpetuall depravation of the humane senses Such were the Sceptikes and the Aporreticks who were the followers of the Philosopher Pirrhon as also the second and third Academy who held That the senses were they never so sound could not imagine any thing but falsly and untruly Again some others with more appearance of reason then the Scepticks have affirmed that abundance of Melancholly and Choller adust Frenzy Feavers and the debility or corruption of the senses be it naturally or by accident in any body may make them to imagine many things which are not And they do infer that such as happen to be attainted with these maladies do think that they have seen Devills and other such like Specters They adde moreover that the fear superstition and credulity of many is such that they will most commonly suffer themselves to be drawn into a belief and perswasion of that which is quite contrary to truth To make short Others there be wise enough and fine conceited yet neverthelesse being great mockers and incredulous because they themselves did never happen to see any Vision nor have ever heard or touched any supernaturall thing they have been of this opinion that nothing could appear unto men that exceeded or went beyond the course of nature And of this number Lucian was one who being also as great an Infidell as any could be said I believe no part of all these Apparitions because I onely amongst you all did never see any of them And if I had seen of them assure your selves I would believe them as you do Notwithstanding for all this he opposed himself against all the famous and renowned Philosophers of his time and held
glory is shadowed as under the vail of some certain form and similitude And whereas they say that the Understanding doth work with the Imagination and that we do Imagine God to be a corporal substance This hath no reason nor any appearance of truth at all but is an errour common to them with the Epicures to the which we will answer anon And as touching the Angels I do greatly marvell how the Saduces can deny the being of them seeing that Moses in many places doth make mention of them and of their Apparition We may therefore very well say of them that they use the Books of Moses as men use their Stirrops in lengthening and shortning them at their pleasures This is the reason why Justine Martyr did not reckon them in the number of the Jews and that worthily but reputed them as Hereticks not allowing them any place in the Jewish Church by reason of the fond and absurd opinions which they held not onely of God but also of the Angels Devils and Souls of men which they affirmed to be mortall But as concerning this latter point we shall speak more hereafter Let us now consider the Arguments of the Epicures The first errour of the Epicures is that God hath a body as the Saduces did believe likewise And their first Argument was That nature it self forsooth did teach and admonish us to believe that both God and all Celestiall essences were corporall for two reasons The former was because the Gods are not figured in any other then in a humane form And the second because whether it be in sleeping or in waking when we dream or imagine of the Gods no other form doth present it self unto our Imaginations but a humane shape And therefore they conclude that the Gods are in figure like unto men But unto this Argument Cicero answereth sufficiently That such humane shape and form is attributed unto the Gods by the invention of men and that either it proceedeth from the wisedome of the Antients who thought thereby they should the more easily draw the spirits and minds of the ignorant to the knowledg of spirituall and supernatural things and that they should the sooner bring and reduce them into the way to live well and vertuously Or else that the same had its beginning and first footing from a blind superstition which doth most easily allure men to adore those gods which are portrayed and carved in a form most pleasing and agreeable unto men Or else that it is but a fiction of Poets and Painters who have alwaies been audacious to fain and devise any thing rather then that which should be according to truth and verity And this last point may well serve to answer that which the Epicures say that be it in sleeping or in waking the gods do not present themselves unto us in any other then a humane form For this is certain that by the portraiture and pictures which we see of the gods in those forms which are common and familiar unto us we do imagine though falsly that which may resemble unto us the same which we have seen to be painted Insomuch that Jupiter seemeth unto us to have a face and countenance terrible with his hair black and hanging backward as Phidias did engrave him And Minerva had her eyes blew or of an azure colour as Homer describeth her Mercury was painted like a young man having his eyes alwaies open as one that was ever waking with bright yellow hair and a yellow down upon his chin and cheeks as if it did but newly begin to frizzle or to curl Venus had her eyes delicate and wanton and her locks of Gold yellow Juno had grosse and thick eyes rising up towards her head like unto the eyes of an Oxe And so generally were the rest of the Gods painted by the Gentiles in divers forms and fashions Notwithstanding all this proceeded of nothing else but from the errour of our Imagination which suffereth it self to be deceived and seduced by the painting which imprinted in it a kind of false notion I say a notion because the ignorant common sort of people is perswaded of the same and suffereth it to take place in their mind or Understanding which is as easy also to be deceived as is their Imagination But a man of Wisedome and Judgment who hath his understanding more clear and open is not easily therewithall seduced but notwithstanding all paintings and fictions his Intellect or understanding power pierceth through the imagination as the Sun pierceth or shineth through the Clouds and spreading it self with her light doth easily believe in a spirituall manner that God and the Angels are Spiritual The second Argument of the Epicures touching the humane body of God was that God took upon him that form which was or could be imagined to be the most beautifull in the whole World And they say that the humane form or shape is of all others the most goodly and excellent And therefore we ought to think that God is carnall and corporall as men are Hereunto needeth no answer to be made because the consequence of their Argument is not good viz. That God should retain unto himself the figure of a man because the same is the most excellent of all other creatures in the World For the Divinity of God neither is nor can be in any corporal substance but it is an incorporeall and spirituall essence which hath nothing common with that substance which is proper unto these Earthly Creatures The third and last Argument of these Philosophers is a Gradation or heaping up of Syllogisms which kind of Argument the Greeks call a Sorites and they frame it in this sort It is held and confessed of all that God and all other celestiall powers are exceedingly happy But no person can be happy without vertue And vertue cannot be present in any without reason and reason can be in none but in the figure and shape of man Therefore it must be granted that the Gods which have the use of reason have the form of man also But the whole frame of this Argument may soon and easily be dissolved by denying that reason can be in no other then in a humane shape For both God and the Angels who have a divine and spirituall understanding have the use of reason notwithstanding that they be not of a corporall substance And reason in man commeth not of the humane body but from the Soul of man which is Spiritual and Divine made unto the likenesse of God and capable of reason of prudence and of Wisedome Now whereas it might be objected to the Epicures That in making their Gods to have a humane body they do therein make them subject to death and dissipation To avoid this absurdity they do tumble into a greater affirming that their body is as a body and their bloud as bloud not having any thing but the lineaments and proportion of a man and being exempted from all crassitude and thicknesse which