Letter to Theodosius on the Witch of Endor

To Theodosius, on the Witch of Endor

He who said to his disciples, "Seek and you will find," will surely also give the power to find to those who [search] the [mysteries] eagerly according to the Lord's command. For the one who promised [gifts] beyond [what we ask] is truthful. So "attend to the reading," my child Timothy; for it is fitting, I think, to use the great [apostle's] words to your goodness; "and may the Lord give you understanding in all things," so that you may be enriched in all speech and all knowledge. Now, concerning the things you commanded, I have judged it good to serve your eagerness briefly with whatever the Lord may suggest, so that by this you may learn that we must serve one another through love by doing one another's wishes.

First, then, since the question concerning Samuel was set before the other chapters, I shall set it out as briefly as possible, God granting. Some before us have been pleased to think true that conjuring of Samuel's soul by the sorceress, and they offer some such reasoning in support of their supposition: that Samuel was grieved at Saul's rejection, and was always offering to the Lord what [he wished for Saul]; Saul had cleansed from the people the sorcery practised by the ventriloquists for the deceit of men; and so, when the prophet was vexed that the Lord did not wish to be reconciled [with Saul], they say God allowed the prophet's soul to be brought up by such witchcraft, so that Samuel might know that he had put forward falsehoods to God on Saul's behalf, saying that he was an enemy of the ventriloquists, when at that very time Saul was divining the ascent of his soul by their sorcery.

But I, looking to the chasm of the gospel, which, the patriarch says, or rather the patriarch's Lord, is fixed between the evil and the good, so that it is impossible for the condemned to go up to the rest of the righteous, and for the saints to cross over to the company of the wicked, do not accept such suppositions as true, having been taught to believe that the gospel alone is true. Since, then, Samuel is great among the saints, and sorcery is a wicked possession, I am not persuaded that Samuel, established in such a degree of his own [rest], crossed that impassable chasm to the impious, either willingly or unwillingly. Unwillingly he would not have undergone it, since the demon cannot cross the chasm, come into the company of the holy ones, and move the saint; willingly he would not have done it, since he neither wishes nor is able to mingle with the wicked. For to one who is among goods, passing from where he is to the opposite is not wished. And even if one were to grant that he wished it, the nature of the chasm does not allow the passage.

What, then, do we reckon about these things? The common enemy of all is the foe of human nature, whose every device and effort is to harm man in his vital parts. And what blow against men is so vital as to be cast away from God who gives life, and to desert of one's own will to the destruction of death? Since, then, those who love the body have a certain eagerness in life to have some knowledge of the future, through which they hope either to escape evils or [to attain] what they wish, for this reason, so that men may not look to God, the deceitful [art] of demons has devised many ways of knowing the future: [omens, oracles,] inspirations, and many other such things. And whatever form of foreknowledge someone may think true from some deceit, that deceitful demon makes it appear, to justify the deceived supposition of the one led astray. So the demon arranges that the flight of the eagle agrees with the hope of the one who has observed it, and the throbbing of the liver, and the disturbance of the membranes from flatulence, and the turning of the eyes; and the cunning of the demon shows to the deceived each thing according to the observation marked by the deceit, so that men, standing away from God, may attend to the worship of demons, by whom they believe such things are worked.

One form of deceit, then, was that of the ventriloquists, whose witchcraft was believed to be able to draw the souls of the departed back to the life above. When Saul had come to despair of safety, because the whole foreign host had been stirred against him in full array, and had come to this device, that Samuel might suggest to him some way of safety, the demon that attended the ventriloquist, by whom the wretched woman was deceived by habit, shaped itself shadowily into various forms in the woman's eyes, [though] none [of them was real]. For when she had set her hand to the sorcery and the phantoms were already before the woman's eyes, the demon devised this proof that the appearances were true: to make plain first that he [Saul] was hidden in the form of a disguise, by which Saul was the more astonished, as though the woman, mistaken in nothing, had not failed to recognize the power of [a king] under a private man's dress.

When she said that she had seen gods coming up, and a man standing upright in a double cloak, how will the slaves of the letter establish the historical sense? For if the one seen is truly Samuel, then those seen by the sorceress are truly gods too. But Scripture calls demons gods: "For all the gods of the nations are demons." Is the soul of Samuel, then, with the demons? Far from it. But other spirits [under the demon] escaped notice, for the deceit both of the woman and of Saul, who was deceived through her. It made the demons be thought gods by the ventriloquist, while it shaped itself into the form sought, imitated that man's voice, and, as was likely to be reckoned from what appeared, uttered in the form of prophecy the outcome that would follow in sequence. But the demon also convicted itself, against its will, by speaking the truth: "Tomorrow you and Jonathan will be with me." For if it had truly been Samuel, how could the one condemned in every wickedness have come to be with him? But plainly that wicked demon, seen in place of Samuel, did not lie in saying that Saul would be with itself.

If Scripture says, "And Samuel said," let not such a word trouble the man of understanding; but let him think that "the one thought to be Samuel" is to be understood. For we find that the usage of Scripture in many places tells what seems instead of what is, as in the case of Balaam: at one time he says, "I will hear what God [says] in me"; and afterwards, "And Balaam, knowing that it pleased God not to curse the Israelites, no longer went as usual to meet the omens." For one who does not examine it will think that there too the true God was speaking with Balaam; but what follows shows that Scripture so named the god thought to be God by Balaam, not the God who truly is. So here too the one who seemed to be Samuel imitated the words of the true Samuel, the demon cleverly imitating prophecy from probabilities.

The matter of Elijah needs more contemplation, but not in the question set before us. For when he was commanded to drink water from the brook, he was being counselled by God in a hidden way, so that the sentence of drought which the prophet had pronounced against the Israelites might be undone again through him. For he to whom it was given to drink from the brook alone, when the brook, as was likely, dried up in the drought and no other relief for thirst was found by the prophet, because he was forbidden to drink from elsewhere, had of necessity to ask for rain, so that the water might not fail the brook. And the service of what was necessary for life comes to the prophet from the ravens, God showing the prophet through these that there are many who have remained in the worship of the true God, from whom the food was supplied to the prophet through the ravens; for they would not have brought him defiled bread or meat sacrificed to idols. So that by these Elijah was led to relax something of his anger against the impious, learning by what happened that there are many who look to God, whom it is not just to condemn along with the guilty. And bread is served him in the morning and meat in the evening. Perhaps by a riddle what happens has to do with zeal for the virtuous life, that [lighter food] must be given to beginners, [and solid food] to the more perfect, according to Paul's word, who says, "But solid food belongs to the perfect, who through habit have their senses trained."

As for Moses' veil, you will not be ignorant of what it looks to if you are familiar with Paul's letter to the Corinthians. As for what you asked about the sacrifices, you will do well to examine the whole of Leviticus more diligently and, with greater attention, to contemplate the law in it as a whole. For so the part will be understood together with the whole; by itself alone this could not be made clear before the contemplation of the whole. In what was raised as a difficulty about the opposing power, the solution is plain: that the one who became an apostate was not simply an angel, but was ranked among the archangels. It is plain, then, that together with the rule the rank under it is also shown, so that the inquiry is solved how he was one and is with a multitude; for [he was the leader] of the army under him. The last of [your questions], I mean how the Spirit comes before baptism, [we shall leave aside], since it needs [more] examination and contemplation, having set it out in a treatise of its own, God granting.