Page:A history of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, volume 3.djvu/463

 DREAMS.-IMPRECATORY MASSES. 447 the observer of dreams in its denunciations ; on the other there were the examples of Joseph and Daniel, and the formal assertion of Job " when deep sleep falleth upon man, in slumberings upon the bed, then he openeth the ears of men and sealeth their instruc- tion" (Job xxxiii. 15, 16). In the twelfth century the expounding of dreams was a recognized profession which does not seem to have been forbidden. John of Salisbury endeavors to prove that no reliance is to be placed on them ; Joseph and Daniel were in- spired, and short of inspiration no divination from dreams is to be trusted. This, at least, was a more sensible and practical solution than the conclusion reached by Thomas Aquinas that divination from dreams produced by natural causes or divine revelation is licit, but if the dreams proceed from daemonic influence it is illicit. Tertullian had long before ascribed to the pagans the power of sending prophetic dreams through the agency of demons, but un- fortunately, no one could furnish a criterion to distinguish between the several classes of visions, and as a rule the dream-expounders were regarded as harmless.* There was another class of cases which puzzled the casuists, for the bounds which divided sacred from goetic magic were very vague. There was a practice of celebrating mortuary masses in the name of a living man, under the belief that it would kill him. As early as 694 the seventeenth Council of Toledo prohibits this, under pain of degradation for the officiating priest and perpetual exile for him and for his employer; and in the middle of the fifteenth century the learned Lope Barrientos, Bishop of Cuenca, condemns it unreservedly. Yet a MS. of uncertain date, printed by Wright, while pronouncing it sin if done through private malice, for which the officiating priest should be deposed unless he purge himself with due penance, states that for a public object it is not a sin, because it manifests humility in placating God. Somewhat similar was a question which arose during a quarrel between Henry, Bishop of Cambrai, and his chapter in 1500. As a mode of revenge the dean, provost, and canons suspended divine service, for which they were excommunicated by the Archbishop of Reims. Under this pressure they resumed their holy functions, but varied them by introducing in the canon of the mass a sort of impreca- xcv. 6.— Tertull. Apol. 23.
 * Johann. Saresberiens. Polycrat. c. xiv.-xvii.— Th. Aquin. Summ. Sec. Sec.