Fr. Gabriele Amorth is the Chief Exorcist of Rome and one of the world's foremost authorities on demonology. This article was excerpted from An Excorcist Tells His Story, Ignatius, 1999.
I really want to read that book.
One of the saddest sermons I ever heard was by a young--perhaps some would say brilliant--priest who had majored in psychology in the seminary. The Gospel concerned the expulsion of a demon from a man possessed. His homily centered on how the Church no longer focused on demonic possession and how this was probably an allegory in which Christ healed someone with a deep psychological problem or a disease like epilepsy that was unknown at the time. I had read the books of Fr. Amorth and wanted to weep. To think that he was so deluded and then preached this from the pulpit!
As Verbal Kint (Kevin Spacie) says in the movie "The Usual Suspects," "the greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was in convincing us he didn't exist."
Frank
quickly. The author references some statements he attributes to demons which occurred during an exorcism and concludes that fallen angels made hell.
If one studies the greek word PISTIS for faith, it also may be translated as 'doctrine'. The belief being attributed to demons might also be described as a 'doctrine of demons' which is also made reference to as being a false doctrine in Scripture.
The truth of those beliefs is not verified by their statement, so their veracity is in doubt and to a greater extent, possibly just 'good for nothing'. An interesting sidenote is that PONEROS also happens to describe the category of those fallen angels who are cast into the lake of fire which was created for them by God (PONEROS means good for nothingness as discernible from evil or vile or chaotic).
Is this guy suggesting that he's believing the testimonies of demons? That he believes their words? Maybe I'm misreading it. The Bible says that hell was created for the devil and his demons. Not that the demons made up the whole thing, and one day God decided to go along with it. Demons never have any words to be believed, therfore, using them for spiritual truths is ridiculous
[We cannot omit a reflection about the Virgin Mary. If the firstborn creature is the Word become flesh, she who would be the means of the Incarnation must also have been present in the divine thought before every other creature. From this stems Mary's unique relationship with the Holy Trinity.]
Not scriptual. She was saved as all who are saved are, she was the mother of the body that God indwelled , Jesus the Christ. "There is no other name given under heaven by which we must be saved."
[We must also mention the influence that Christ has on angels and demons. Concerning angels, some theologians believe that the angels were admitted to the beatific vision of God only by virtue of the mystery of the Cross. Many Fathers also make interesting statements. For instance, Saint Athanasius writes that the angels owe their salvation to the blood of Christ.
Not scriptual. Angels were created by God before mankind and apparantly a third rebelled against God. They can not be saved and the Lake of Fire was created primarily for them. God the Father sent the Christ to bear our sins on the tree and overcome death, hell and the grave for us in the Ressurection of Jesus Christ. Only men can be saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ and His ressurection on the third day.
Why do so many add and take away from the Word of God? This is my question?
This article, and the tone of its exorcist author, put me in mind of this little story related by Sulpitius Severus in his Concerning the Virtues of the Monks of the East
"A certain saint, then, endowed with almost incredible power in casting out demons from the bodies of those possessed by them, was, day by day, performing unheard-of miracles. For, not only when present, and not merely by his word, but while absent also, he, from time to time, cured possessed bodies, by some threads taken from his garment, or by letters which he sent. He, therefore, was to a wonderful degree visited by people who came to him from every part of the world. I say nothing about those of humbler rank; but prefects, courtiers, and judges of various ranks often lay at his doors. Most holy bishops also, laying aside their priestly dignity, and humbly imploring him to touch and bless them, believed with good reason that they were sanctified, and illumined with a divine gift, as often as they touched his hand and garment. He was reported to abstain always and utterly from every kind of drink, and for food (I will whisper this, Sulpitius, into your ear lest our friend the Gaul hear it), to subsist upon only six dried figs. But in the meantime, just as honor accrued to the holy man from his excellence, so vanity began to steal upon himfrom the honor which was paid him. When first he perceived that this evil was growing upon him, he struggled long and earnestly to shake it off, but it could not be thoroughly got rid of by all his efforts, since he still had a secret consciousness of being under the influence of vanity. Everywhere did the demons acknowledge his name, while he was not able to exclude from his presence the number of people who flocked to him. The hidden poison was, in the meantime, working in his breast, and he, at whose beck demons were expelled from the bodies of others, was quite unable to cleanse himself from the hidden thoughts of vanity. Betaking himself, therefore, with fervent supplication to God, he is said to have prayed that, power being given to the devil over him for five months, he might become like to those whom he himself had cured. Why should I delay with many words? That most powerful man,—he, renowned for his miracles and virtues through all the East, he, to whose threshold multitudes had gathered, and at whose door the highest dignitaries of that age had prostrated themselves—laid hold of by a demon, was kept fast in chains. It was only after having suffered all those things which the possessed are wont to endure, that at length in the fifth month he was delivered, not only from the demon, but (what was to him more useful and desirable) from the vanity which had dwelt within him."
St. Thomas' (as usual) enlightening take on the subject.
bttt