The Demon and the Prophet

He thinks such things are happening. But the Lord, acting worthily of God, silenced the mocker with patience, for it is God's own property to bear all things without resentment. If then he considered it nothing to attribute such words to the Lord, how is it not clear that he was acting as one desiring to worship the demon as equal to God?

This, I think, is clear to all who think well: that through a woman, the entranced one deceived the foolish ruler into bowing to him beyond what is due. Furthermore, these things should be taken in order. As Saul bowed to the apparition, immediately the deceiver pretends to have suffered violence, responding in the likeness of Samuel; then, with more irony, he answers more gloomily, saying, 'Why have you hindered me from going up?' (Acts 16:16). Fabricating these things, he intended without doubt to signify that even without the prophet, the demon was able to be transported, and has such authority over him.

Then some blunt the matter, as if one could not perceive that all who sincerely think the things of Christ are driving the demons away by the Divine Name, and not, on the contrary, as if they, being subject to these, while being unconscious, were ascending from Hades to be transported to them? If anyone thinks that the demon of the belly-diviner is never driven away, let him run to the Acts of the Apostles, and having entered into those passages, let him see how the itinerant preacher Paul arrived at Philippi.

How he enlightened Lydia, called to the knowledge of piety; and just so, he was making sounds by opening prayers, and it is said, 'it happened that a little girl met someone having a spirit of Python, which provided much profit to her masters by fortune-telling' (Acts 16:16). And indeed, this girl, having followed Paul and those around him, had cried out: 'These men are servants of the Most High God, who announce to you the way of salvation' (Acts 16:17); and she did this for many days.

But while the demon, being twisted by an invisible scourge, was forced to make such cries, Paul, realizing most correctly that the testimony of that one was not reliable, being distressed, spoke by the Spirit, saying, 'I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her.' Then the writer, recounting the matter, brings it forward, saying, 'and she came out immediately.'

11.7 Thus, when the masters of the slave-girl saw their hope of profit departing from their work, 'they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace before the rulers,' having become causes of outrage and beatings by raising up slanders.

11.8 If then Paul, having rebuked the Python by the Spirit, drove it out of her in that very moment, the spirit fled by the power of the word, being unable to endure the sound of the tongue; let it be said that, appearing openly, the one describing such a thing with a certain rule, by what kind of virtue or power was he calling back Samuel, who is of the same mind as Paul, though the demon was pulling him up from Hades?

11.9 But he could not demonstrate anything true of these things; so that through these very things it is very easy to see that the deceiver, having transformed himself, said to Saul, 'Why have you vexed me?' (Acts 13:21). For it was suggested that he was ascending by will and pain, not willing, but by necessity and force, just as he had been transferred by the Higher one having been commanded.

11.10 But the powerful one, having brought this up, said, 'I am greatly distressed, and the foreigners are warring against me, and God has departed' (1 Sam 15:24), he says, 'from me and has not heard me again, neither in the hand of the prophets nor in dreams; and now I have called you to make known to me what I shall do.' Again, therefore, it must be replied: if Samuel, the well-known one, happened to be a prophet, would he not have been prudent in admonishing the man?

11.11 Would he not have said to him first: 'Tell me, are all men in trouble, if the foreigners have stood by for war, opposing one another in faction, if God has departed from you and has not heard you at all, nor have prophets ministered on your behalf, nor has a dream or a waking state revealed to you what is necessary? Would you not have better benefited by repenting, submitting to God, and having distributed alms to atone for the causes of your transgressions, rather than fleeing to a belly-diviner and exchanging the symbols of piety for a mad divination, and thus doubling the increase of your passion?'

11.12 For was it not to be understood that God explicitly forbade such pollutions in the Levitical law, having spoken through Moses: 'You shall not follow the...'