{"author":null,"canonical_references":[],"database_sha256":"8cfbe7284c6936871d57c02dc6aa63ebbdfd4722422d539dd9f716e46e91112e","date_end":null,"date_start":null,"edition_year":null,"id":"sermonindex-ecf-2681","native_reference":{"book_number":510,"chapter_from":16,"chapter_to":16,"system":"MyBible module coordinates (mapping unverified)","verse_from":16,"verse_to":16},"public_import_allowed":false,"record_kind":"verse-keyed-module-record","review_required":["English edition and exact text","author/work attribution","dating","verse mapping and citation kind","reuse and attribution","split author quotations and deduplicate"],"review_status":"unreviewed","source_html":"<p><b>Ammonius of Alexandria</b>: It should be noted that Christ was announced through demons, in which the Gentiles were believing. It was also these that gave witness and said that the apostles were servants of God, that their preaching was saving and that Jesus was God and not a mere man. That was the proclamation of the ones concerning Paul and Silas.… After the demon had repeatedly testified that the message of the apostles was saving, Paul ordered him to come out in order to demonstrate to those who believed him, that every believer was stronger than the demon, and to show that each had power both to allow the demon to stay as one subject to the believer and to release him. See how powerful the words of the servants of Christ were: as soon as they gave a command, the demons came out.<br/><i>— CATENA ON THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES 16.17</i></p><p><b>Bede</b>: A certain girl having a spirit of divination. What pythonic divination entails in terms of knowledge, we find in the book of Kings, where, at Saul's request, a witch summoned either the soul of Samuel or rather an unclean spirit in his stead from the underworld. This kind of magical fantasy, discovered by Apollo Pythius and named after him, is thus called. But the Hebrew name also fits, who call the Python the mouth of the abyss.<br/><i>— Commentary on Acts</i></p><p><b>Bede</b>: As we were going to prayer, a girl having a spirit of Python met us. He who mercifully gathered the believing purple seller to the members of the holy Church, soon afterward strictly judged and removed the wicked art from the pythoness proclaiming the great deeds of God with an unclean mouth. For this is the power which the holy apostles received from the Lord, when He said: \"Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven\" (Matthew 18). However, what I wrote in the previous book, that python could mean \"mouth of the abyss\" in Hebrew, I wrote because I found it in the book of Hebrew names. But let the reader know that this name is Greek and forcibly interpreted according to the Hebrew language, which even the interpreter of Hebrew names, Jerome, did not remain silent about, as if it were said \"Fythona\": for the Hebrews do not have the letter p, but use f instead of it in foreign words. Indeed, it should be noted that in this reading, where it is written that the girl met us, for the Latin \"obviare\" it is written in Greek ὑπαντῆσαι, which I thought should be mentioned, so that the reader may notice that the Lord's feast, which is called the Presentation of the Lord, took its name from this in Greek, because, when the Lord was brought to the temple, Simeon, Anna, and the other faithful and chosen ones who were there came to meet Him with devout heart and homage.<br/><i>— Retractions on Acts</i></p><p><b>Cyprian</b>: But if any one is moved by this, that some of those who are baptized in sickness are still tempted by unclean spirits, let him know that the obstinate wickedness of the devil prevails even up to the saving water, but that in baptism it loses all the poison of his wickedness. An instance of this we see in the king Pharaoh, who, having struggled long, and delayed in his perfidy, could resist and prevail until he came to the water; but when he had come thither, he was both conquered and destroyed. And that that sea was a sacrament of baptism, the blessed Apostle Paul declares, saying, \"Brethren, I would not have you ignorant how that all our fathers were under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea; \"and he added, saying, \"Now all these things were our examples.\" And this also is done in the present day, in that the devil is scourged, and burned, and tortured by exorcists, by the human voice, and by divine power; and although he often says. that he is going out, and will leave the men of God, yet in that which he says he deceives, and puts in practice what was before done by Pharaoh with the same obstinate and fraudulent deceit. When, however, they come to the water of salvation and to the sanctification of baptism, we ought to know and to trust that there the devil is beaten down, and the man, dedicated to God, is set free by the divine mercy. For as scorpions and serpents, which prevail on the dry ground, when cast into water, cannot prevail nor retain their venom; so also the wicked spirits, which are called scorpions and serpents, and yet are trodden under foot by us, by the power given by the Lord, cannot remain any longer in the body of a man in whom, baptized and sanctified, the Holy Spirit is beginning to dwell.<br/><i>— Epistle LXXV</i></p><p><b>Irenaeus</b>: It appears probable enough that this man possesses a demon as his familiar spirit, by means of whom he seems able to prophesy, and also enables as many as he counts worthy to be partakers of his Charis themselves to prophesy. He devotes himself especially to women, and those such as are well-bred, and elegantly attired, and of great wealth, whom he frequently seeks to draw after him... On the woman replying, \"I have never at any time prophesied, nor do I know how to prophesy;\" then engaging, for the second time, in certain invocations, so as to astound his deluded victim, he says to her, \"Open thy mouth, speak whatsoever occurs to thee, and thou shalt prophesy.\" She then, vainly puffed up and elated by these words, and greatly excited in soul by the expectation that it is herself who is to prophesy, her heart beating violently [from emotion], reaches the requisite pitch of audacity, and idly as well as impudently utters some nonsense as it happens to occur to her, such as might be expected from one heated by an empty spirit. (Referring to this, one superior to me has observed, that the soul is both audacious and impudent when heated with empty air.) ... But already some of the most faithful women, possessed of the fear of God, and not being deceived (whom, nevertheless, he did his best to seduce like the rest by bidding them prophesy), abhorring and execrating him, have withdrawn from such a vile company of revellers. This they have done, as being well aware that the gift of prophecy is not conferred on men by Marcus, the magician, but that only those to whom God sends His grace from above possess the divinely-bestowed power of prophesying; and then they speak where and when God pleases, and not when Marcus orders them to do so. For that which commands is greater and of higher authority than that which is commanded, inasmuch as the former rules, while the latter is in a state of subjection. If, then, Marcus, or any one else, does command,-as these are accustomed continually at their feasts to play at drawing lots, and [in accordance with the lot] to command one another to prophesy, giving forth as oracles what is in harmony with their own desires,-it will follow that he who commands is greater and of higher authority than the prophetic spirit, though he is but a man, which is impossible. But such spirits as are commanded by these men, and speak when they desire it, are earthly and weak, audacious and impudent, sent forth by Satan for the seduction and perdition of those who do not hold fast that well-compacted faith which they received at first through the Church.<br/><i>— Against Heresies Book I</i></p><p><b>John Chrysostom</b>: \"And it came to pass,\" it says, \"as we went to prayer, a certain damsel possessed with a spirit of divination met us, which brought her masters much gain by soothsaying: the same followed Paul and us, and cried, saying, These men are the servants of the most high God, which show unto us the way of salvation.\" What may be the reason that both the demon spoke these words, and Paul forbade him? Both the one acted maliciously, and the other wisely: the demon wished in fact to make himself credible. For if Paul had admitted his testimony, he would have deceived many of the believers, as being received by him: therefore he endures to speak what made against himself, that he may establish what made for himself: and so the demon himself uses accommodation in order to destruction. At first then, Paul would not admit it, but scorned it, not wishing to cast himself all at once upon miracles; but when it continued to do this, and pointed to their work \"who preach unto us the way of salvation,\" then he commanded it to come out.</p><p>\"A certain damsel possessed with a spirit of Python.\" Say, what is this demon? The god, as they call him, Python: from the place he is so called. Do you mark that Apollo also is a demon? And the demon wished to bring them into temptation: therefore to provoke them, \"the same followed Paul and us, and cried, saying, These men are the servants of the most high God, which show unto us the way of salvation.\" O thou accursed, thou execrable one! if then thou knowest that it is \"His way of salvation\" that \"they show,\" why dost thou not come out freely? But just what Simon wished, when he said, \"Give me, that on whomsoever I lay my hands, he may receive the Holy Ghost,\" the same did this demon: since he saw them becoming famous, here also he plays the hypocrite: by this means he thought to be allowed to remain in the body, if he should preach the same things. But if Christ \"receive not testimony from man,\" meaning John, much less from a demon. \"Praise is not comely in the mouth of a sinner,\" much less from a demon.<br/><i>— Homily on Acts 35</i></p><p><b>Oecumenius</b>: Python is said to be a woman who used to sit upon the tripod of Apollo with its legs spread, then in this way a corrupt spirit from below entering her and passing through her genital parts would fill the woman with madness, and with her hair unbound would set her to rave beneath this, and force foam from her mouth, and therefore in the state of wickedness, utter the words of madness. But why did this demon also speak these things? It wished to make its testimony believable concerning the future. For if Paul had accepted that, he would certainly have deceived many even of the believers, as though received by him. Therefore he permits those things to be said which act against him in order to establish his own; and by the relinquishing of his own he makes use of it for the ruin of others. Accordingly Paul at first did not indeed admit, but despised, unwilling to rashly rush forward to the standards. But when he persisted in doing this, and had made the matter his own, then he ordered him to go out. [CHRYSOSTOM]<br/><i>— Commentary on Acts</i></p><p><b>Tertullian</b>: In the outcasting, accordingly, when the unclean creature was upbraided with having dared to attack a believer, he firmly replied, \"And in truth I did it most righteously, for I found her in my domain.<br/><i>— De Spectaculis</i></p>","source_html_sha256":"7c9b8474b5f020e768d9fbbf8a5523e7450eaa24cd6dcd019d8d85c97cb39888","source_module":"ECF","source_row_id":2681,"source_url":"https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/ecf/","text_sha256":"6e5c89369c58a1968e6c6e607944d85482bb51220f234461f516913f34de6d90","translator":null,"work":null}