is, a
Joanne Christophoro Herenbergio_; "Philosophical and Christian
Thoughts upon Vampires, by John Christopher Herenberg," at
Gerolferliste, in 1733, in 8vo. The author names a pretty large number
of writers who have already discussed this matter; he speaks, _en
passant_, of a spectre which appeared to him at noonday. He maintains
that the vampires do not cause the death of the living, and that all
that is said about them ought to be attributed only to the troubled
fancy of the invalids; he proves by divers experiments that the
imagination is capable of causing very great derangements in the body,
and the humors of the body; he shows that in Sclavonia they impaled
murderers, and drove a stake through the heart of the culprit; that
they used the same chastisement for vampires, supposing them to be the
authors of the death of those whose blood they were said to suck. He
gives some examples of this punishment exercised upon them, the one in
the year 1337, and the other in 1347. He speaks of the opinion of
those who believe that the dead eat in their tombs; a sentiment of
which he endeavors to prove the antiquity by the authority of
Tertullian, at the beginning of his book on the Resurrection, and by
that of St. Augustine, b. viii. c. 27, on the City of God, and in
Sermon xv. on the Saints.

Such are nearly the contents of the work of M. Herenberg on vampires.
The passage of Tertullian[465] which he cites, proves very well that
the pagans offered food to their dead, even to those whose bodies had
been burned, believing that their spirits regaled themselves with it:
_Defunctis parentant, et quidem impensissimo studio, pro moribus eorum
pro temporibus esculentorum, ut quos sentire quicquam negant escam
desiderare proesumant._ This concerns only the pagans.

But St. Augustine, in several places, speaks of the custom of the
Christians, above all those of Africa, of carrying to the tombs meats
and wine, which they placed upon them as a repast of devotion, and to
which the poor were invited, in whose favor these offerings were
principally instituted. This practice is founded on the passage of the
book of Tobit;--"Place your bread and wine on the sepulchre of the
just, and be careful not to eat or drink of it with sinners." St.
Monico, the mother of St. Augustine,[466] having desired to do at
Milan what she had been accustomed to do in Africa, St. Ambrose,
bishop of Milan, testified that he did not approve of this practice,
w