prophets, and kings whom
they saw on the mountain of Gerizim, does not prove either that the
Jews believed that the spirits of the dead could come back, since it
was only a vision proceeding from the spirit in ecstasy, which
believed it saw what it saw not truly; all those who compose this
appearance were persons of whose holiness the Jews were persuaded.
What Jesus Christ says to his apostles, that the spirits have 'neither
flesh nor bones,' far from making us believe that spirits can come
back again, proves on the contrary evidently, that they cannot without
a miracle make us sensible of their presence, since it requires
absolutely a corporeal substance and bodily organs to utter sounds;
the description does agree with souls, they being pure substances,
exempt from matter, invisibles, and therefore cannot _naturally_ be
subject to our senses.

"The Provincial Council held in Spain during the pontificate of
Sylvester I., which forbids us to light a taper by day in the
cemeteries of martyrs, adding, as a reason, that we must not disturb
the spirits of the saints, is of no consideration; because besides
that these words are liable to different interpretations, and may even
have been inserted by some copyist, as some learned men believe, they
only relate to the martyrs, of whom we cannot doubt that their spirits
are blessed.

"I make the same reply to a passage of St. Jerome, because arguing
against the heresiarch Vigilantius, who treated as illusions all the
miracles which were worked at the tombs of the martyrs; he endeavors
to prove to him that the saints who are in heaven always take part in
the miseries of mankind, and sometimes even appear to them visibly to
strengthen and console them.

"As for the decrees which have annulled the leases of several houses
on account of the inconvenience caused by ghosts to those who lodged
therein, it suffices to examine the means and the reasons upon which
they were obtained, to comprehend that either the judges were led into
error by the prejudices of their childhood, or that they were obliged
to yield to the proofs produced, often even against their own superior
knowledge, or they have been deceived by imposture, or by the
simplicity of the witnesses.

"With respect to the apparitions, with which all such stories are
filled, one of the strongest which can be objected against my
argument, and to which I think myself the more obliged to reply, is
that which is affirmed to hav