The Spiritual World: On the Existence of Demons (4)

The Death of Simon Magus according to the Acts of Peter and Paul

...continued from part three.

8. About the So-Called Miracles of the Devil

"Is the idea that the devil can perform miracles admissible from a theological point of view?"

This was one of the questions that was proposed for discussion at the Society of Lovers of Spiritual Enlightenment on March 11, 1899. The very possibility of the question in such a formulation and its proposal for public discussion at the aforementioned meeting clearly shows that not all of our theologians adhere to the same and completely definite answer to it. This, indeed, was indicated during the oral discussion of the question. Finally, in the printed answer of one of the members of the Society, Archimandrite Amphilochios, on the one hand, the idea of the possibility of the devil performing miracles is rejected, on the other hand, it is supposedly allowed (provided that the word "miracle" is combined with a broader concept).

Is it really impossible to answer with certainty, precisely and definitively, the question: “Can or cannot the devil perform miracles?” In our opinion, not only is it entirely possible, but from a theological point of view, in this case the very grounds for raising such a question are not entirely clear.

The Spiritual World: On the Existence of Demons (3)

...continued from part two.

6. The Good Purpose of God's Providence in Allowing Evil Spirits

The actions of evil spirits on man are hostile, malicious and destructive; but one cannot help but see in them the good purpose of Divine Providence for man. Man's struggle with evil spirits protects him from carelessness and negligence in the exploits of salvation, encourages him to unceasing spiritual vigilance over himself and gives him the opportunity to develop and strengthen that virtue which demons attack. Their various temptations teach man, even one perfect in virtue, humility, encouraging him not to rely on his own strength, but to turn for help to the conqueror of hades and all the power of the enemy, the Lord Jesus Christ. Victory over the temptations of the devil increases the power and glory of the name of Christ. "When I fight you," says the demon to Saint Pachomios, "I am more profitable to you than I am guilty of vanity."

The Spiritual World: On the Existence of Demons (2)

...continued from part one.

2. The Fall of Evil Spirits

God, teaches Saint Anthony the Great, has not created any evil; not from His will or from their nature did the demons receive the beginning of evil, but from their own will. They were created good at first, because they were created by the Good God; but for their pride they were cast down from Heaven to earth. The evil angel, said the Holy Martyrs Eustratios, Mardarios, and others, who had power among the other angels, by his own will departed from Him who created him and, becoming proud, fell away from his rank and from God, and God deprived him of angelic glory.

The Spiritual World: On the Existence of Demons (1)

The Spiritual World: On the Existence of Bodiless Powers

Chapter Two: On the Existence of Demons

By Archpriest Grigory Dyachenko

1. The Existence of Evil Spirits

Tradition has preserved in all nations the concept of evil spirits. Such, for example, is the teaching of the Persian religion about the evil principle – Ahriman and evil spirits; such is the teaching of the Greek religion about the Furies, etc. The Egyptians believed that at birth each person is given a guardian demon. The Chinese Buddhists also recognize evil spirits.

It goes without saying that all these beliefs, as not sanctified by Divine Revelation, are distorted; but the very existence of these beliefs among the nations shows that the existence of evil spirits does not contradict the principles of common sense, just as the existence of good spirits does not.

Indeed, firstly, if there are many different objects in the world visible to us, then why not admit that rational and moral beings are not limited to the human race? Secondly, if we notice a gradualness in creatures that proceeds from lower to higher forms, then a similar gradualness is assumed in moral creatures – in relation to God. That is why Plato the philosopher taught that "there are spirits intermediate between man and God, who withdraw from evil people and help the good; they cannot be visible, although they are present with us" (Plato's Dialogues: "Timaeus"). The actions of spirits are possible in themselves, just as there are actions of one person on another, the actions of a person's soul on his body. Therefore, only corrupt people deny good spirits, because they are far from them, and evil spirits, because, without noticing it, they are their slaves.

A Case of Exorcism Performed by Saint John Maximovitch

A father talks about the healing of his son from demonic possession:

My son was possessed, he hated everything holy, all holy icons and crosses, he split them into the thinnest sticks and was very happy about it. I took him to Vladyka John, and he put him on his knees, placing either a Cross or the Gospel on his head. My son was very sad after this, and sometimes ran away from the cathedral. But Vladyka told me not to despair. He said that he will continue to pray for him, and over time he will get better, but for now let him continue to be treated by doctors: “Don’t worry, the Lord is not without mercy.”

This went on for several years. One day he was reading the Gospel at home. His face was bright and joyful. And he told his father that he needed to go to Minhon (30-40 km from Shanghai), in a mental hospital, where he sometimes went: “I need to go there, there the Spirit of God will cleanse me from the spirit of evil and darkness, and I then I will go to the Lord,” he said. They brought him to Minhon. Two days later, his father came to visit him and saw that his son was restless, constantly moving on the bed, and suddenly began shouting: “Don’t, don’t come near me, I don’t want you!”

The Real Origins of Carnival (which has nothing to do with Ancient Paganism)

The Fight between Carnival and Lent, Pieter Bruegel, 1559

By John Bossy

Sin required penance from the individual, as Dante had expounded it; it also, as a stain on the community of Christians, required penance from the population at large, collective ascetic rituals of which the most important was the annual season of Lent. Though generally felt to be essential to individual salvation and public prosperity, penance remained a daunting prospect: the task of persuading people to enter upon it was likened by the Strassburg preacher John Geiler to getting a horse on to a small boat. The horse might pass more readily if its steps were guided by the formalities of a rite of passage. So by the sixteenth century the moment at which the population passed from its carnal into its penitential state had become a time for the vigorously cultivated rites of separation generally known as Carnival. These were, despite some appearances, Christian in character, and they were medieval in origin: although it has been widely supposed that they continued some kind of pre-Christian cult, there is in fact no evidence that they existed much before 1200. The Italian term carnevale derived from the dominica carnelevalis or Quadragesima Sunday, the feast which in the Roman and Milanese liturgies marked for the clergy the passage from the normal to the penitential regime, and signified the abolition of meat or flesh; those words in use in other vernaculars (antruejo/introitus, carême-entrant) referred to the entrance into Lent. As a period of time and a moral conception Carnival was one half of an entity of which the other half was Lent. The unity-in-opposition of the pair, which seems a notable instance of the structural anthropology practised by Claude Levi-Strauss, was the theme of the French and Spanish poems which diffused the conception in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, and also of a line of pictorial representations memorably concluded in the middle of the sixteenth by The Fight between Carnival and Lent of Pieter Bruegel.

A Miracle of Saints Cyrus and John for Theopompos Who Was Demon Possessed

 

The Miracles of Saints Cyrus and John

Miracle 14

On Theopompos Who Was Demon Possessed

By St. Sophronios of Jerusalem

There was a certain Theopompos who was gravely possessed by a demon and there was nobody who would not cry looking at him. Generally people are more despondent about those who have this kind of malady of the soul; likely because it does not concern the body, which is subject to natural diseases and to corruption due to its origin of the tree of transgression in the paradise (to xylon tes parakoes eiso paradeisou). However, the malady of the soul which is against nature. For it is a kind of alteration of the soul's incorruptible nature created by the grace of God, and a suffering resulting from a demonic machination.