The recent discovery of two previously unknown sermons by St. Augustine on the biblical story of the Witch of Endor puts to rest claims by spiritualists that the story proves mediums can summon the dead.Fox News is reporting on the newly unearthed sermons which were found on a Medieval manuscript discovered by Christian Tornau, a Latin professor at the University of Wurzburg in Germany. The sermons were believed to have been copied at Bad Doberan Abbey in present-day Germany during the 12th century from an earlier manuscript that has since been lost. After two years of research, the sermons were determined to be authentic.
As for the content of the sermons, they explore the Old Testament story of the Witch of Endor in which King Saul consults a witch before a battle against the Philistines. In it, the witch allegedly summons the prophet Samuel who tells Saul he will lose the battle and die, a prophecy that comes true the following day. This story has long been used by spiritualists as proof that witches and mediums are capable of summoning the dead.
St. Augustine’s first sermon on the biblical story addresses the theological dilemma of why, if the apparition was truly Samuel, would God permit a witch to summon a prophet. Or was the apparition a deception or illusion allowed with God’s providence?
Instead of settling the issue in the first sermon, he delivers a second sermon two days later in which he continues the discussion and weighs several interpretations.
First, rather than insisting that Samuel did appear, the saint posits that IF Samuel appeared and it was truly Samuel, it was only because God permitted it, not because the Witch of Endor had any power to summon the prophet from the dead.
Second, he also believed it was possible that the apparition was not Samuel but a demonic apparition permitted by God.
A third possibility – that the Witch of Endor did indeed summon Samuel from the dead – was rejected which is in keeping with Church teaching that the souls of the righteous belong to God, not to the control of sorcerers or demons.
In passages found in his other works, Augustine repeatedly teaches that demons can deceive the senses and imitate appearances, but they cannot command the souls of the blessed.
Comparing these sermons to the writings of St. Thomas Aquinas on the same subject, we find that Thomas approved of Augustine’s premises. In the Summa Theologiae, Aquinas cites Augustine’s explanation of the Witch of Endor as authoritative.
He writes: “There is nothing absurd in believing that the spirit of the just man, being about to smite the king with the divine sentence, was permitted to appear to him, not by the sway of magic art or power, but by some occult dispensation of which neither the witch nor Saul was aware. Or else the spirit of Samuel was not in reality aroused from his rest, but some phantom or mock apparition formed by the machinations of the devil, and styled by Scripture under the name of Samuel."
In the same passage, Thomas comes to the practical conclusion: "No temporal utility can compare with the harm to spiritual health that results from the research of the unknown by invoking the demon."
Although some theologians believe Aquinas favored the premise that the apparition was a deception of the devil, Thomas accepts Augustine's two alternatives while emphasizing that, in either case, the witch exercised no magical power over Samuel.
This is one of the clearest medieval statements in existence that the Endor narrative does not validate necromancy.
Even if God, in His providence, allowed Samuel to appear, Saul's act of consulting the medium remained gravely sinful.
In conclusion, Aquinas follows Augustine in teaching that either Samuel appeared by God's hidden permission or a demonic apparition appeared; in neither case did the witch summon Samuel by her own occult power.
These new sermons eliminate the claim made by spiritualists that the Witch of Endor proves mediums can summon the dead. Both of the most brilliant minds of the Church say that if Samuel truly did appear it was an exceptional act of divine providence, not a demonstration of the efficacy of necromancy.
© All Rights Reserved, Living His Life Abundantly®/Women of Grace® http://www.womenofgrace.com
Send your New Age questions to newage@womenofgrace.com
