Page:The history of Witchcraft and demonology.djvu/111

 one can only fall back upon the sentence of S. Augustine: “Hane assidue immunditiam et tentare et efficere, plures talesque asseuerant, ut hoc negare impudentiæ uideatur.” In which place the holy doctor explicitly declares: “Seeing it is so general a report, and so many aver it either from their own experience or from others, that are of indubitable honesty and credit, that the sylvans and fawns, commonly ealled incubi, have often injured women, desiring and acting carnally with them: and that certain devils whom the Gauls call Duses, do continually practise this uncleanness, and tempt others to it, which is affirmed by such persons, and with such confidence that it were impudence to deny it.”

The learned William of Paris, confessor of Philip le Bel, lays down: “That there exist such beings as are commonly called incubi or succubi and that they indulge their burning lusts, and that children, as it is freely acknowledged, can be born from them, is attested by the unimpeachable and unshaken witness of many men and women who have been filled with foul imaginings by them, and endured their lecherous assaults and lewdness.”

S. Thomas and S. Bonaventura, also, speak quite plainly on the subject.

Francisco Suarez, the famous Jesuit theologian, writes with caution but with directness: “This is the teaching on this point of S. Thomas, who is generally followed by all other theologians. … The reason for their opinion is this: Such an action considered in its entirety by no means exceeds the natural powers of the demon, whilst the exercise of such powers is wholly in accordance with the malice of the demon, and it may well be permitted by God, owing to the sins of some men. Therefore this teaching cannot be denied without many reservations and exceptions. Wherefore S. Augustine has truly said, that inasmuch as this doctrine of incubi and succubi is established by the opinion of many who are experienced and learned, it were sheer impudence to deny it.” The Salmanticenses—that is to say, the authors of the courses of Scholastic philosophy and theology, and of Moral theology, published by the lecturers of the theological college of the Discalced Carmelites at Salamanca—in their weighty Theologia Moralis state: “Some deny this, believing it impossible that demons should perform the carnal