of
Christians are to be ascribed to these demons; chiefly do they torment
fresh-baptized Christians, yea, even the guiltless, newborn infants."
Tertullian insisted that a malevolent angel is in constant attendance
upon every person. Gregory of Nazianzus declared that bodily pains are
provoked by demons, and that medicines are useless, but that they are
often cured by the laying on of consecrated hands. St. Nilus and
St. Gregory of Tours, echoing St. Ambrose, gave examples to show
the sinfulness of resorting to medicine instead of trusting to the
intercession of saints. St. Bernard, in a letter to certain monks,
warned them that to seek relief from disease in medicine was in harmony
neither with their religion nor with the honour and purity of their
order. This view even found its way into the canon law, which declared
the precepts of medicine contrary to Divine knowledge. As a rule, the
leaders of the Church discouraged the theory that diseases are due to
natural causes, and most of them deprecated a resort to surgeons and
physicians rather than to supernatural means.(300)

(300) For Chaldean, Egyptian, and Persian ideas as to the diabolic
origin of disease, see authorities already cited, especially Maspero
and Sayce. For Origen, see the Contra Celsum, lib. viii, chap. xxxi. For
Augustine, see De Divinatione Daemonum, chap. iii (p.585 of Migne, vol.
xl). For Turtullian and Gregory of Nazianzus, see citations in Sprengel
and in Fort, p. 6. For St. Nilus, see his life, in the Bollandise Acta
Sanctorum. For Gregory of Tours, see his Historia Francorum, lib. v,
cap. 6, and his De Mirac. S. Martini, lib. ii, cap. 60. I owe these
citations to Mr. Lea (History of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages,
vol. iii, p. 410, note). For the letter of St. Bernard to the monks of
St. Anastasius, see his Epistola in Migne, tom. 182, pp. 550, 551. For
the canon law, see under De Consecratione, dist. v, c. xxi, "Contraria
sunt divinae cognitioni praecepta medicinae: a jejunio revocant,
lucubrare non sinunt, ab omni intentione meditiationis abducunt." For
the turning of the Greek mythology into a demonology as largely due
to St. Paul, see I Corinthians x, 20: "The things which the Gentiles
sacrifice, they sacrifice to devils, and not to God."

Out of these and similar considerations was developed the vast system of
"pastoral medicine," so powerful not only through the Middle Ages, but
even in modern times, both among Catholics and