Part 1

Transcriber's Notes

The original was printed with the Latin on verso and English on recto pages with sections aligned. To preserve as much as possible of this effect, Latin sections are followed immediately by the corresponding translation.

Obvious typographical errors have been silently corrected. Variations in hyphenation spelling and punctuation remain unchanged.

Italics are represented thus _italic_, except in the main Latin text which is almost entirely printed in italic script. Here the italics are unmarked and plain text is indicted thus =plain=.

S. Augustinus (or Augustini) in the Latin text is translated as S. Austin in the English.

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DEMONIALITY OR INCUBI AND SUCCUBI A TREATISE

_wherein is shown that there are in existence on earth rational creatures besides man, endowed like him with a body and a soul, that are born and die like him, redeemed by our Lord Jesus-Christ, and capable of receiving salvation or damnation_,

BY THE REV. FATHER SINISTRARI OF AMENO

(17^{th} century)

_Published from the original Latin manuscript discovered in London in the year 1872, and translated into French by_ ISIDORE LISEUX Now first translated into English With the Latin Text.

PARIS _Isidore LISEUX, 2, Rue Bonaparte._ 1879

PREFACE

TO THE FIRST EDITION (_Paris, 1875, in-8º_)

I was in London in the year 1872, and I hunted after old books:

_Car que faire là bas, à moins qu’on ne bouquine?_[1]

They caused me to live in past ages, happy to escape from the present, and to exchange the petty passions of the day for the peaceable intimacy of Aldus, Dolet or Estienne.

[1] What can one do over there, unless he hunts up old books?

One of my favourite booksellers was Mr Allen, a venerable old gentleman, whose place of business was in the Euston road, close to the gate of Regent’s park. Not that his shop was particularly rich in dusty old books; quite the reverse: it was small, and yet never filled. Scarcely four or five hundred volumes at a time, carefully dusted, bright, arrayed with symmetry on shelves within reach of one’s hand; the upper shelves remained unoccupied. On the right, Theology; on the left, the Greek and Latin Classics in a majority, with some French and Italian books; for such were Mr Allen’s specialties; it seemed as if he absolutely ignored Shakespeare and Byron, and as if, in his mind, the literature of his country did not go beyond the sermons of Blair or Macculloch.

What, at first sight, struck one most in those books, was the moderateness of their price, compared with their excellent state of preservation. They had evidently not been bought in a lot, at so much a cubic yard, like the rubbish of an auction, and yet the handsomest, the most ancient, the most venerable from their size, folios or quartos, were not marked higher than 2 or 3 shillings; an octavo was sold 1 shilling, the duodecimo six pence: each according to its size. Thus ruled Mr Allen, a methodical man, if ever there was one; and he was all the better for it, since, faithfully patronized by clergymen, scholars and collectors, he renewed his stock at a rate which more assuming speculators might have envied.

But how did he get those well bound and well preserved volumes, for which, everywhere else, five or six times more would have been charged? Here also Mr Allen had his method, sure and regular. No one attended more assiduously the auctions which take place every day in London: his stand was marked at the foot of the auctioneer’s desk. The rarest, choicest books passed before his eyes, contended for at often fabulous prices by Quaritch, Sotheran, Pickering, Toovey, and other bibliopolists of the British metropolis; Mr Allen smiled at such extravagance; when once a bid had been made by another, he would not add a penny, had an unknown _Gutenberg_ or _Valdarfer’s Boccaccio_ been at stake. But if occasionally, through inattention or weariness, competition slackened (_habent sua fata libelli_), Mr Allen came forward: _six pence!_, he whispered, and sometimes the article was left him; sometimes even, two consecutive numbers, joined together for want of having separately met with a buyer, were knocked down to him, still for the minimum of six pence which was his maximum.

Many of those slighted ones doubtless deserved their fate; but among them might slip some that were not unworthy of the honours of the catalogue, and which, at any other time, buyers more attentive, or less whimsical might perhaps have covered with gold. This, however, did not at all enter into Mr Allen’s calculation: the size was the only rule of his estimate.

Now, one day when, after a considerable auction, he had exhibited in his shop purchases more numerous than usual, I especially noticed some manuscripts in the Latin language, the paper, the writing and the binding of which denoted an Italian origin, and which might well be two hundred years old. The title of one was, I believe: _De Venenis_; of another: _De Viperis_; of a third (the present work): _De Dæmonialitate, et Incubis, et Succubis_. All three, moreover, by different authors, and independent of each other. Poisons, adders, demons, what a collection of horrors! yet, were it but for civility’s sake, I was bound to buy something; after some hesitation, I chose the last one: Demons, true, but Incubi, Succubi: the subject is not vulgar, and still less so the way in which it seemed to me to have been handled. In short, I had the volume for six-pence, a boon price for a quarto: Mr Allen doubtless deemed such a scrawl beneath the rate of type.

That manuscript, on strong paper of the 17^{th} century, bound in Italian parchment, and beautifully preserved, has 86 pages of text. The title and first page are in the author’s hand, that of an old man; the remainder is very distinctly written by another, but under his direction, as is testified by autographic side notes and rectifications distributed all through the work. It is therefore the genuine original manuscript, to all appearances unique and inedited.

Our dealer in old books had purchased it a few days before at Sotheby’s House, where had taken place (from the 6^{th} to the 16^{th} of December 1871) the sale of the books of baron Seymour Kirkup, an English collector, deceased in Florence. The manuscript was inscribed as follows on the sale catalogue:

Nº 145. AMENO (_R. P. Ludovicus Maria_ [Cotta] de). De Dæmonialitate, et Incubis, et Succubis, _Manuscript._ _Sæc. XVII-XVIII._

Who is that writer? Has he left printed works? That is a question I leave to bibliographers; for, notwithstanding numerous investigations in special dictionaries, I have been unable to ascertain any thing on that score. Brunet (_Manuel du libraire_, art. COTTA d’Ameno) vaguely surmises his existence, but confuses him with his namesake, most likely also his fellow-townsman, Lazaro Agostino Cotta of Ameno, a barrister and literary man of Novara. “The author,” says he, “whose real Christian names would seem to be _Ludovico-Maria_, has written many serious works....” The mistake is obvious. One thing is sure: our author was living in the last years of the 17^{th} century, as appears from his own testimony, and had been a professor of Theology in Pavia.

Be that as it may, his book has seemed to me most interesting in divers respects, and I confidently submit it to that select public for whom the invisible world is not a chimera. I should be much surprised if, after opening it at random, the reader was not tempted to retrace his steps and go on to the end. The philosopher, the confessor, the medical man will find therein, in conjunction with the robust faith of the middle ages, novel and ingenious views; the literary man, the curioso, will appreciate the solidity of reasoning, the clearness of style, the liveliness of recitals (for there are stories, and delicately told). All theologians have devoted more or less pages to the question of material intercourse between man and the demon; thick volumes have been written about witchcraft, and the merits of this work were but slender if it merely developed the ordinary thesis; but such is not its characteristic. The ground-matter, from which it derives a truly original and philosophical stamp, is an entirely novel demonstration of the existence of Incubi and Succubi, as rational animals, both corporeal and spiritual like ourselves, living in our midst, being born and dying like us, and lastly redeemed, as we are, through the merits of Jesus-Christ, and capable of receiving salvation or damnation. In the Father of Ameno’s opinion, those beings endowed with senses and reason, thoroughly distinct from Angels and Demons, pure spirits, are none other but the Fauns, Sylvans and Satyrs of paganism, continued by our Sylphs, Elfs and Goblins; and thus is connected anew the link of belief. On this score alone, not to mention the interest of details, this book has a claim to the attention of earnest readers: I feel convinced that attention will not be found wanting.

I. L.

_May 1875._

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The foregoing advertisement was _composed_ at the printer’s, and ready for the press, when, strolling on the quays[2], I met by chance with a copy of the _Index librorum prohibitorum_. I mechanically opened it, and the first thing that struck my eyes was the following article:

De Ameno Ludovicus Maria. _Vide_ Sinistrari.

[2] Paris Embankment.

My heart throbbed fast, I must confess. Was I at last on the trace of my author? Was it _Demoniality_ that I was about to see nailed to the pillory of the _Index_? I flew to the last pages of the formidable volume, and read:

SINISTRARI (Ludovicus Maria) de Ameno, De Delictis et Pœnis Tractatus absolutissimus. _Donec corrigatur. Decret. 4 Martii 1709._

_Correctus autem juxta editionem Romanam anni 1753 permittitur._

It was indeed he. The real name of the Father of Ameno was _Sinistrari_, and I was in possession of the title of one at least of those “serious works” which Brunet the bibliographer alluded to. The very title, _De Delictis et Pœnis_, was not unconnected with that of my manuscript, and I had reason to presume that _Demoniality_ was one of the offenses inquired into, and decided upon, by Father Sinistrari; in other words, that manuscript, to all appearances inedited, was perhaps published in the extensive work revealed to me; perhaps even was it to that monography of _Demoniality_ that the _Tractatus de Delictis et Pœnis_ owed its condemnation by the Congregation of the _Index_. All those points required looking into.

But it is necessary to have attempted investigations of that kind in order to appreciate the difficulties thereof. I consulted the catalogues of ancient books that came in my way; I searched the back-shops of the dealers in old books, the _antiquaries_, as they say in Germany, addressing especially to the two or three firms who in Paris apply themselves to old Theology; I wrote to the principal booksellers in London, Milan, Florence, Rome, Naples: all to no purpose; the very name of Father Sinistrari of Ameno seemed to be unknown. I should perhaps have begun by enquiring at our National Library; I was obliged to resort to it, and there at least I obtained an incipient gratification. I was shown two works by my author: a quarto of 1704, _De incorrigibilium expulsione ab Ordinibus Regularibus_, and the first tome of a set of his complete works: _R. P. Ludovici Mariæ Sinistrari de Ameno Opera omnia_ (_Romæ, in domo Caroli Giannini, 1753-1754_, 3 vol. in-folio). Unfortunately that first tome contained but the _Practica Criminalis Minorum illustrata_; _De Delictis et Pœnis_ was the subject matter of the third tome, which, as well as the second, was missing at the Library.

Yet, I had a positive indication, and I pursued my investigations. I might be more fortunate at the Library of St Sulpice Seminary. True, it is not open to the public; but then, the Sulpician Fathers are hospitable: did they not of yore afford a refuge to repentant Des Grieux, and did not Manon Lescaut herself tread the flags of their parlour? I therefore ventured into the holy House; it was half past twelve, dinner was nearly over; I asked for the librarian, and after a few minutes, I saw coming to me a short old man, unexceptionably civil, who, leading me through the common parlour, introduced me into another much narrower, a mere cell, looking into a gallery and glazed full breadth, being thus exposed to every eye. An ingenious provision of which Des Grieux’s escape had fully shown the urgency. I had no small trouble in explaining the object of my visit to the good Father, who was deaf and near sighted. He left me to go to the library, and soon returned, but empty handed: there also, in that sanctuary of Catholic Theology, Father Sinistrari of Ameno was entirely unknown. But one more expedient could I try: namely, to go to his brothers in St Francis, the Capuchin Fathers, in their convent of rue de la Santé! A cruel extremity, it will be granted, for I had but little chance of meeting there, as here, the lovely shadow of Manon.

At last a letter from Milan put an end to my perplexity. The unfindable book was found; I received at the same time the first edition of _De Delictis et Pœnis_ (_Venetiis, apud Hieronymum Albricium, 1700_), and the edition of _Rome, 1754_.

It was a complete treatise, _tractatus absolutissimus_, upon all imaginable crimes, offenses and sins; but, let us hasten to say, in both those voluminous folios, _Demoniality_ occupies scarcely five pages, without any difference in the text between the two editions. And those five pages are not even a summary of the manuscript work which I now give forth; they only contain the proposition and conclusion (N^{rs} 1 to 27 and 112 to 115). As for that wherein lies the originality of the book, to wit the theory of rational animals, Incubi and Succubi, endowed like ourselves with a body and soul, and capable of receiving salvation and damnation, it were vain to look for it.

Thus, after so many endeavours, I had settled all the points which I had intended to elucidate: I had discovered the identity of the Father of Ameno[3]; from the comparison of the two editions of _De Delictis et Pœnis_, the first condemned, the second allowed by the Congregation of the _Index_, I had gathered that the printed fragments of _Demoniality_ had nothing to do with the condemnation of the book, since they had not been submitted to any correction; lastly, I had become convinced that, save a few pages, my manuscript was absolutely inedited. A happy event of a bibliographical Odyssey which I shall be excused for relating at length, for the “jollification” of bibliophiles “and none other”.

[3] _Vide_ biographical notice at the end of this volume.

ISIDORE LISEUX.

_August 1875._

DEMONIALITY

OR

INCUBI AND SUCCUBI

DÆMONIALITAS

=Vocabulum Dæmonialitatis= primo inventum reperio a Jo. Caramuele in sua Theologia fundamentali, nec ante illum inveni Auctorem, qui de hoc crimine tanquam distincto a =Bestialitate= locutus sit. Omnes enim Theologi Morales, secuti D. Thomam, 2.2., q. 154. in corp., sub specie Bestialitatis recensent omnem concubitum cum re non ejusdem speciei, ut ibi loquitur D. Thomas; et proinde Cajetanus, in Commentario illius quæstionis et articuli, 2.2., q. 154., ad 3. dub., coitum cum Dæmone ponit in specie Bestialitatis; et Cajetanum sequitur Silvester, vº =Luxuria=, Bonacina, =de Matrim.=, q. 4., et alii.

The first author who, to my knowledge, invented the word _Demoniality_ is John Caramuel, in his _Fundamental Theology_, and before him I find no one who distinguished that crime from _Bestiality_. Indeed, all Theological Moralists, following in the train of S. Thomas (2, 2, question 154), include, under the specific title of _Bestiality_, “_every kind of carnal intercourse with any thing whatever of a different species_”: such are the very words used by S. Thomas. Cajetanus, for instance, in his commentary on that question, classes intercourse with the Demon under the description of Bestiality; so does Sylvester, _de Luxuria_, Bonacina, _de Matrimonio_, question 4, and others.

2. Sed revera D. Thomas in illo loco considerationem non habuit ad coitum cum Dæmone: ut enim infra probabimus, hic coitus non potest in specie specialissima =Bestialitatis= comprehendi; et ut veritati cohæreat sententia S. Doctoris, dicendum est, quod in citato loco, quando ait, quod peccatum contra naturam, =alio modo si fiat per concubitum ad rem non ejusdem speciei=, =vocatur Bestialitas=: sub nomine =rei non ejusdem speciei= intellexerit animal vivens, non ejusdem speciei cum homine: non enim usurpare potuit ibi nomen =rei= pro =re=, puta, ente communi ad animatum et inanimatum: si enim quis coiret cum cadavere humano, concubitum haberet ad rem non ejusdem speciei cum homine (maxime apud Thomistas, qui formam corporeitatis humanæ negant in cadavere), quod etiam esset si cadaveri bestiali copularetur; et tamen talis coitus non esset bestialitas, sed mollities. Voluit igitur ibi D. Thomas præcise intelligere concubitum cum re vivente non ejusdem speciei cum homine, hoc est cum bruto, nullo autem modo comprehendere voluit coitum cum Dæmone.

2. However it is clear that in the above passage S. Thomas did not at all allude to intercourse with the Demon. As shall be demonstrated further on, that intercourse cannot be included in the very particular species of _Bestiality_; and, in order to make that sentence of the holy Doctor tally with truth, it must be admitted that when saying of the unnatural sin, “_that committed through intercourse with a thing of different species, it takes the name of Bestiality_”, S. Thomas, by _a thing of different species_, means a living animal, of another species than man: for he could not here use the word _thing_ in its most general sense, to mean indiscriminately an animate or inanimate being. In fact, if a man should fornicate _cum cadavere humano_, he would have to do with a thing of a species quite different from his own (especially according to the Thomists, who deny the form of human corporeity in a corpse); similarly _si cadaveri bestiali copularetur_: and yet, _talis coitus_ would not be bestiality, but pollution. What therefore S. Thomas intended here to specify with preciseness, is carnal intercourse with a living thing of a species different from man, that is to say, with a beast, and he never in the least thought of intercourse with the Demon.

3. Coitus igitur cum Dæmone, sive Incubo, sive Succubo (qui proprie est =Dæmonialitas=), specie differt a Bestialitate, nec cum ea facit unam speciem specialissimam, ut opinatus est Cajetanus: peccata enim contra naturam specie inter se distingui contra opinionem nonnullorum Antiquorum, et Caramuelis, =Summ.=, Armill., v. =Luxur.=, n. 5., Jabien., eo. v. n. 6., Asten. lib. 2. tit. 46. art. 7., Caram. =Theol. fundam.= post Filliucium, et Crespinum a Borgia, est opinio communis; et contraria est damnata in proposit. 24. ex damnatis ab Alexandro VII.; tum quia singula continent peculiarem, et distinctam turpitudinem repugnantem castitati, et humanæ generationi; tum quia quodlibet ex iis privat bono aliquo secundum naturam, et institutionem actus venerei, ordinati ad finem generationis humanæ; tum quia quodlibet ipsorum habet diversum motivum, per se sufficiens ad privandum eodem bono diversimode, ut optime philosophatur Filliuc., tom. 2. c. 8. tract. 30. q. 3. nº 142; Cresp., q. mor. sel. contro.; Caramuel., q. 5. =per tot.=

3. Therefore, intercourse with the Demon, whether Incubus or Succubus (which is, properly speaking, _Demoniality_), differs in kind from Bestiality, and does not in connexion with it form one very particular species, as Cajetanus wrongly gives it; for, whatever may have said to the contrary some Ancients, and later Caramuel in his _Fundamental Theology_, unnatural sins differ from each other most distinctly. Such at least is the general doctrine, and the contrary opinion has been condemned by Alexander VII: first, because each of those sins carries with itself its peculiar and distinct disgrace, repugnant to chastity and to human generation; secondly, because the commission thereof entails each time the sacrifice of some good by its nature attached to the institution of the venereal act, the normal end of which is human generation; lastly, because they each have a different motive which in itself is sufficient to bring about, in divers ways, the deprivation of the same good, as has been clearly shown by Fillucius, Crespinus and Caramuel.

4. Ex his autem infertur, quod etiam Dæmonialitas specie differt a Bestialitate: singula enim ipsarum peculiarem et distinctam turpitudinem, castitati ac humanæ generationi repugnantem, involvit; siquidem Bestialitas est copula cum bruto vivente, ac sensibus et motu proprio prædito: Dæmonialitas autem est commixtio cum cadavere (stando in sententia communi, quam infra examinabimus), nec sensum, nec motum vitalem habente; et per accidens est, quod a Dæmone moveatur. Quod si immunditia commissa cum brutali cadavere, vel humano, differt specie a Sodomia et Bestialitate, ab ista differt pariter specie etiam =Dæmonialitas=, in qua, juxta communem sententiam, homo cum cadavere concumbit accidentaliter moto.

4. It follows that Demoniality differs in kind from Bestiality, for each has its peculiar and distinct disgrace, repugnant to chastity and human generation. Bestiality is connexion with a living beast, endowed with its own peculiar senses and impulses; Demoniality, on the contrary, is copulation with a corpse (according at least to the general doctrine which shall be considered hereafter), a senseless and motionless corpse which is but accidentally moved through the power of the Demon. Now, if fornication with the corpse of a man, a woman, or a beast differs in kind from Sodomy and Bestiality, there is the same difference with regard to _Demoniality_, which, according to general opinion, is the intercourse of man with a corpse accidentally set in motion.

5. Et confirmatur: quia in peccatis contra naturam, seminatio innaturalis (hoc est, ea ad quam regulariter non potest sequi generatio) habet rationem generis; subjectum vero talis seminationis est differentia constituens species sub tali genere: unde si seminatio fiat in terram, aut corpus inanime, est mollities; si fiat cum homine in vase præpostero, est Sodomia; si fiat cum bruto, est bestialitas: quæ absque controversia inter se specie differunt, eo quod terra, seu cadaver, homo, et brutum, quæ sunt subjecta talis seminationis, specie differunt inter se. Sed Dæmon a bruto non solum differt specie, sed plusquam specie: differunt enim per corporeum, et incorporeum, quæ sunt differentiæ genericæ. Sequitur ergo quod seminationes factæ cum aliis differunt inter se specie, quod est intentum.