ek the
means of explaining it.

For the rest, several of the ancients, as Tertullian[535] and
Lactantius, believed that the demons were the only authors of all the
magicians do when they evoke the souls of the dead. They cause
borrowed bodies or phantoms to appear, say they, and fascinate the
eyes of those present, to make them believe that to be real which is
only seeming.

Footnotes:

[521] Exod. iv. 24, 25.

[522] Exod. xii. 12.

[523] 1 Cor. x. 10; Judith viii. 25.

[524] Numb. xxii.

[525] Tob. iii. 7.

[526] Psa. xxxiv. 7.

[527] 1 Cor. xi. 30.

[528] 1 Tim. i. 20.

[529] John xiii.

[530] 1 Sam. ii. 6.

[531] Matt. xxiv. 24.

[532] Clem. Alex. Itinerario; Hegesippus de Excidio Jerusalem, c. 2.

[533] Apulei Flondo. lib. ii.

[534] AElian, de Animalib. lib. ix. c. 77.

[535] Tertull. de Anim. c. 22.

CHAPTER XXXV.

INSTANCES OF PHANTOMS WHICH HAVE APPEARED TO BE ALIVE, AND HAVE GIVE
MANY SIGNS OF LIFE.

Le Loyer, in his book upon spectres, maintains[536] that the demon can
cause the possessed to make extraordinary and involuntary movements.
He can then, if allowed by God, give motion to a dead and insensible
man.

He relates the instance of Polycrites, a magistrate of AEtolia, who
appeared to the people of Locria nine or ten months after his death,
and told them to show him his child, which being born monstrous, they
wished to burn with its mother. The Locrians, in spite of the
remonstrance of the spectre of Polycrites, persisting in their
determination, Polycrites took his child, tore it to pieces and
devoured it, leaving only the head, while the people could neither
send him away nor prevent him; after that, he disappeared. The
AEtolians were desirous of sending to consult the Delphian oracle, but
the head of the child began to speak, and foretold the misfortunes
which were to happen to their country and to his own mother.

After the battle between King Antiochus and the Romans, an officer
named Buptages, left dead on the field of battle, with twelve mortal
wounds, rose up suddenly, and began to threaten the Romans with the
evils which were to happen to them through the foreign nations who
were to destroy the Roman empire. He pointed out in particular, that
armies would come from Asia, and desolate Europe, which may designate
the irruption of the Turks upon the domains of the Roman empire.

After that, Buptages climbed up an oak tree, and foretold that he was
about t