At 01:35 PM 12/09/1999 -0600, you wrote:
>
>demons/demoniacs who cannot lie appear in several
collections of miraculous
>tales, such as the Life of Hildegard of Bingen, Caesarius
of Heisterbach's
>Dialogus miraculorum, and Jacques de Vitry's Historia
occidentalis. Their
>inability to lie is part of their punishment (eg, they
must preach the word
>of God, even though it condemns them) and a shame to
humanity. As one demon
>put it in a tale told by Stephen of Bourbon, "Know that I
am a devil,
>compelled to preach the truth to you so that God may have
more to reproach
>you with on the day of judgment, and I myself may have
more to accuse you
>with; and it will be held against you that you heard the
truth preached by
>the devils themselves." Another means for them to use the
truth to shame
>humanity is their public announcement of a particular
human's sins, but once
>the human has confessed, the demon no longer remembers the
sin and cannot
>simply make one up to condemn him or her. Barbara Newman
discusses this in
>a recent article in Speculum, but I'm not sure of the
title ("Possessed by
>the Spirit"?) or when exactly it came out (sometime in
1998/9).
>
>Maeve
>
>
Barbara Newman, "Possessed by the Spirit: Devout Women,
Demoniacs, and the Apostolic Life in the Thirteenth
Century," Speculum 73/3 (July, 1998): 733-770. This
article is very much on the point for the question, "Can
the devil lie?" One section, "Demonic Authorities"
discusses the various ways in which possessing demons
"confirmed the teachings of the Church." An interesting
article all the way around.
Stephen A. Allen
The Medieval Institute
University of Notre Dame
Notre Dame, IN 46556-5692
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