MODERN INSTANCES OF DEMONIACAL POSSESSION 159 

 MODERN INSTANCES OF DEMONIACAL POSSESSION. 



By Prof. E. P. EVANS. 



PERHAPS few persons are fully aware of the official attitude 

 of the Papal See toward beliefs which modern science has 

 rejected as absurd, and toward institutions which the progress of 

 civilization has abolished as injurious. In a recent review of 

 Cesare Cantii's voluminous Universal History, the Jesuit Fa- 

 ther Giuseppe Brunengo criticises this popular work from a 

 Catholic point of view, and censures its deviations from the 

 teachings of the Church.* 



Cantii, now in the eighty-eighth year of his age, is himself a 

 devout Catholic, and scrupulously abstained from reading any 

 books condemned by the Congregation of the Index, however 

 necessary they might be to his historical researches, until he had 

 obtained permission from the Pope. He also submitted his His- 

 tory to the scrutiny of the aforesaid Congregation, and declared 

 his willingness to expunge any passages that should not be re- 

 garded as strictly orthodox. Indeed, he performed this unpleasant 

 and onerous task in 1867, and again in 188G, and won thereby the 

 warm commendation of Leo XIII, formally expressed in an apos- 

 tolical brief dated June 3, 1880. But the Holy Office, more papal 

 than the Pope, was not satisfied with the expurgations that had 

 been so gratifying to his Holiness. 



In a series of articles first printed in the Civilta Cattolica, 

 and now republished in a separate volume, Brunengo re-examines 

 Cantu's work, and, while praising in general the " Christian and 

 catholic spirit " which pervades it, points out many statements 

 and conclusions at variance with the doctrines of the Church. In 

 the first place, he seems to think that no Catholic historian should 

 record anything derogatory to the character of any pope ; at least, 

 he blames Cantu for not speaking well of Sergius III, John X, 

 and John XI, notoriously licentious pontiffs of the tenth century, 

 whose rule is known in ecclesiastical history as the pornocracy, 

 and reproves him for not emphasizing the wickedness of Savona- 

 rola in opposing Alexander VI. On the other hand, no Catholic 

 historian should praise -a Protestant or a heretic ; and in accord- 

 ance with this principle Cantii is severely reprehended for admit- 

 ting that Calvin was a man of pure morals and improved by his 

 teaching and example the morals of the Swiss ; that Scipio Ricci, 

 Bishop of Pistoia, was " pious and learned " ; that the Jansenists 

 were not wholly devoid of good qualities ; and that Dollinger was 



* Osservazioni sopra la storia universale di Cesare Cantu del P. Giuseppe Brunengo, 

 D. C. D. G. Rome, 1891, pp. 150. 



