Chapter I — The definition and division of superstition. Various cases in which superstition creeps in are explained

I. Question I. What, and of how many kinds, is superstition? Answer. Superstition is a vice opposed to Religion by way of excess — not because it shows more toward the divine worship than true Religion, but because it shows divine worship either to that to which it should not, or in a manner in which it should not, as St. Thomas says, II-II, q. 92, art. 5.

II. First, it is divided into two species. The one worships God in an undue manner; the other attributes to a creature the worship owed to God. The first superstition is divided into other superstitions. The first consists in this, that a false, or pernicious, worship is attributed to God — as if someone should now worship God with the ceremonies of the Jews, or if someone should intend to confirm the catholic Religion with false miracles, or should mix shameful things with the divine offices. The other species of superstition, on the part of the undue manner of worshipping God, is when superfluous worship is attributed to God — as if someone should establish, at his own pleasure, certain manners of praying, such as wishing to pray only after sunset, or only after sunrise; or to hear Mass only of a Priest called Anthony, and no other name; or with just so many candles, no more and no fewer; or of this color, and no other; or if, neglecting the ceremonies prescribed by the Church, he should invent others for himself at his own pleasure — he would be guilty of superstition.

III. The second species of superstition, on the part of the thing worshipped, is when worship is shown to that to which it ought not to be shown — as if worship instituted for divine reverence be attributed to any creature whatever; then it is called idolatry. If, God being spurned, someone consults demons, some pact being entered into either expressly or tacitly, there is had, on the part of the thing worshipped, another species of superstition, which is called divination. The third species of superstition, on the part of the object worshipped, is when the divine worship, which is ordered to the direction of human acts according to the institutions of God, who is worshipped, is offered to the demon, from whom help is sought, and is called vain observance.

IV. Superstition on the part of the manner of worshipping God, by showing him false worship, is by its nature a grave sin. Likewise it is a sin to mix profane and shameful things with divine worship. A most grave crime too is perpetrated by those who preach fictitious miracles, and propose false relics to be adored.

V. Several cases occur in which superstition lurks. 1. Guilty of superstition are those who ring a bell with a pregnant woman's belt, that the delivery may turn out prosperous — as are those who throw an image of a Saint into a river, or hang it on the riverbank, that they may obtain rain, since there is no connection given between cause and effect. It is otherwise if a sacred object were thrown into a river or fire in the hope that, by that Saint's intercession, God might be moved to extinguish the fire, or to check the flooding waters. 2. Superstitious are the prayers by which witches bless Rosaries for women in labor; similarly, to recite certain fixed verses of some Psalm to check a dog's barking, or to stop a flow of blood, or another disease, with a vain credulity of a certain outcome, savors of superstition; it is otherwise if someone recites prayers to implore divine help. 3. Superstitious are the words that are breathed into horses' ears to expel intestinal pains. 4. Superstitious is the gathering of herbs on the day of St. John the Baptist, if it is done with the credulity that these herbs are reckoned to have more virtue because they were gathered on the day of such a Saint. 5. It is superstition to refuse to sit at table if there are thirteen, with the persuasion that one of them will die within that year; and to refuse to cut one's nails on a Friday. 6. Guilty of superstition are those who anoint and treat with medicaments the sword with which they wounded an enemy, that the wounded man may recover his health; likewise those who use a thread hung from the fingers, from which hangs a ring inside a glass vessel or jar, for striking and distinguishing the hours. Finally, the general rule is: when there is no connection between cause and effect, then such actions are at the very least suspect of superstition.

VI. Question II. What is idolatry, and in how many ways is it perpetrated? Answer. It is divine worship shown to a creature, not as it is an image of God, but as it is a creature. There are five ways of perpetrating idolatry: 1. the adoration of simulacra; 2. the adoration of creatures, for instance of the sky, the earth, etc.; 3. the adoration of dead men; 4. the adoration of demons; 5. the adoration of the world, as though animate. The crime of idolatry is most grave.

VII. Question III. What, and of how many kinds, is divination? Answer. Divination is the foretelling of future things. Future things can be foreknown in one way in their causes, in another way in themselves. Of causes, some are natural and necessary, which necessarily produce effects. He who knows these causes cannot be ignorant of the effects. Other causes produce effects not necessarily, but probably, or for the most part. These effects can only be foreknown by probable conjecture. The contingent effects of free causes are known by God alone. The prediction of future things from divine revelation is called prophecy. The prediction of future things by force of natural causes is called natural divination. The prediction of future things which is made neither by force of natural causes, nor by God revealing, but by the help of the demon alone, is properly divination, which constitutes a species of superstition, and is defined as the foreknowledge of future things by the help of the demon. Demons know all the effects that necessarily depend upon natural causes; those that do not necessarily depend upon them they can only conjecture. But they can in no way know what depends upon the sole will of God, or the free choice of man. Yet because in man the order of liberty is in some way connected with natural causes, demons are wont to predict conjecturally some things that pertain to free causes. Demons instruct their diviners in various ways: namely either with express words, or by producing words in the air, and sometimes with the voice of animals. Similarly diviners sometimes expressly invoke demons, renouncing Religion; sometimes they invoke the demon with certain formulas prescribed by that same demon. In both ways the pact is express. The pact is implicit when someone tries to know things that flee the keenness of the human mind, and uses vain, incongruous means forbidden by God, even though he does not wish help to be brought him by the demon: since, by the very fact that he applies the aforesaid vain and insane things, he wills in very deed to be taught by the demon. For the demon of himself mixes himself into such vain signs and chimerical observations, beyond the man's intention. All these things pertain to the implicit pact.

VIII. St. Thomas recounts various species of divination, II-II, q. 95, art. 3, which are made by an express pact. 1. There is prestige, accomplished by certain apparitions: for by these specters the eyes of men are struck. 2. It is done through dreams, and is called the divination of dreams. 3. It is through the apparition of some dead person, and is called necromancy. 4. It foretells future things through living men, and is called divination through pythons. 5. It uses iron, wood, stone, and other inanimate things, and is called geomancy. 6. It uses water, and is called hydromancy. 7. It uses air, and is called aeromancy. 8. It applies fire, and is called pyromancy. 9. It foretells future things through the entrails of animals sacrificed to demons, and is called haruspicy.

IX. Divination which is made without an express invocation of the demon...

*is divided into two kinds. The first kind foreknows future things in causes altogether disparate, and is divided into six species. 1. There is genethlialogy, which pertains to astrologers called genethliac, who from the movement of the stars predict the births of men and their outcomes. 2. There is augury, which is done from the chattering of birds. 3. Auspice, by which future things are predicted from the flight of birds, or from the movement of other animals. 4. It is called an omen, and is a prediction from words of men uttered without intention. 5. There is chiromancy, from the lines of the hands. 6. It is called spatulamancy, when divination is made from certain signs appearing in the shoulder-blades of animals.

X. To the second kind of divination without express invocation of the demon pertain two other species: through the consideration of figures. The first is geomancy, which foretells future things from the drawing of points. The other is called through figures which arise from lead melted and thrown into water, or from certain slips of paper written and hidden secretly, or from unequal straws set out, or from the throwing of dice — all of which go under the name of "lots."

XI. Divination with a pact, whether express or tacit, is a mortal sin, as all teach. What must be said of those who set up computations of numbers and verses, and practice what is commonly called the Cabala in games, that they may divine future numbers? That these sin mortally when, with faith placed in it, they practice this Cabala, no one can deny.

XII. Question IV. What is judicial astrology? Answer. It is divination through the stars; and the Theologians distinguish a twofold kind. One natural, by which men, from the position, rising, movement, and setting of the stars, foretell things that happen naturally, such as rains, storms, eclipses. That this is licit no one denies. Yet this astrology can only predict effects that necessarily follow. For if the discourse be of storms, of drought, of rain, of fair weather, this astrology is for the most part vain, on account of the unknown force of the stars, and on account of the obstacles of winds and vapors, which often impede the influences of the stars. The Ephemerides, which come out each year, and which bewitch the unlearned and empty their purses, show by experience the fallacy of their predictions.

XIII. The other is judicial astrology, by which men, from the movement of the stars, the aspect of the planets, and the course of the heavenly bodies, divine certain future things — namely contingent and fortuitous events depending upon liberty alone. And this is fourfold. 1. That which from the aspect of the stars foretells the sterility of the earth, the abundance of goods, the diseases and deaths of men. This is superstitious, if such things are predicted not as certain, but only as conjectural. 2. There is the genethliac, which foretells the dignities and grades of men. 3. There is that of elections, by which in every business it is divined what is to be done, what to be omitted, when one should go out of doors, that fortunate outcomes may correspond. 4. There is that of fabricated images, by which astrologers make figures, numbers, and characters, and compare them with the figures which they fancy are found in the sky, and from the comparison and mutual sympathy predict future events.

XIV. That these last three divinations are superstitious and forbidden, all Catholics affirm. To predict future free things even probably is a sin: because probable assent is determinate. Nor can astrologers predict future free things even conjecturally.

XV. Diviners are bound to restore the price received, for the reason that they predicted future contingent free things. Too lax is the opinion which Fr. Sanchez defends, book 2 on the Decalogue, chapter 38, number 96, saying: "But if that astrologer or diviner applied his labor, and by the devil's art the thing so came to pass, he is not bound to restore the price, because he applied his labor, even though shameful," etc. The diabolical art, then, is to be valued at a price!

XVI. Question V. Is it licit to divine future free things through dreams? Answer. All deny it, because future free things depend upon the will alone. Physicians licitly observe dreams which proceed from natural causes, that they may search out the causes of diseases from the abundance of humors, from the quality of the temperament. He who from dreams he has had takes occasion sometimes to moderate his morals, without placing faith in them, commits no superstition. Care must nevertheless be taken lest this happen frequently, because then there would be danger at least of superstition. Extremes are to be avoided.

XVII. Question VI. Is it licit to predict future things from the song, flight, and movement of birds? Answer. That natural effects can be gathered from this without the mark of superstition, all affirm. For the song and flight of birds are sometimes signs of natural effects. But it is manifest superstition to predict future contingent free things from the aforesaid signs of birds and of any animals whatever.

XVIII. Superstitious too is the prediction of future contingent things from human voices uttered by chance, or from the members of men. There are three, namely the head, the hands, and the feet, which astrologers are wont to observe. Prediction from the observation of the lines of the hand is called chiromancy; that from the lines of the feet, podomancy; that from the quality of the forehead and countenance, metoposcopy; that from the whole body is called physiognomy. To divine future contingent free things from all these is superstitious. It is otherwise if from the aforesaid someone should conjecture, by mere natural astrology, temperament, health, diseases. Wherefore those sin gravely who place faith in Egyptians, commonly called Gypsies.

XIX. Question VII. Is the use of lots licit in the election to ecclesiastical benefices or secular dignities? Answer. There is a threefold lot: divisory, consultative, divinatory. Divisory lots are licit, since they are nothing else than a mutual pact by which men agree that, from the outcome of the lots, it be decided to whom honor, dignity, or property is owed. Wherefore lay dignities, when merits are equal, can licitly be conferred by lots; not so ecclesiastical benefices, because this is guarded against in the chapter Ecclesia, extra, On lot-casting. Yet this election to ecclesiastical benefices by lots is illicit only, not invalid. But the election of a Prelate of the Church, who has jurisdiction both in criminal and in civil matters, made by the ministry of lots, is null: because this is so determined in the chapter Quia propter, On elections. It is similarly licit to settle lawsuits about temporal goods by force of lots; not so lawsuits about elections to ecclesiastical benefices, unless this be done by public authority to declare an obscure matter.

XX. Question VIII. Is consultative lot-casting licit? Answer. There is a twofold cause of consultative lot-casting, namely God, or the demon. If the outcome of consultative lot-casting is awaited from the demon, it is called divinatory lot-casting, which is superstitious. If the knowledge of a future event is implored from God, it is licit, as is established by many testimonies of divine Scripture, the conditions of urgent necessity, obedience to God, and the exclusion of anything profane being kept.

XXI. Question IX. What, and of how many kinds, is vain observance? Answer. Vain observance is a superstition which uses vain and inept instruments to produce some exterior effect. This is threefold: 1. notorial; 2. observance of health; 3. observance of future events. The notorial is both illicit and vain, because it uses inept means for acquiring knowledge, as St. Thomas teaches, II-II, q. 96; and so it needs the help of the demon, and an implicit pact intervenes with the demon. The healing art, or observance of health, similarly applies disparate means — namely ceremonies, astronomical images, arbitrary prayers for curing diseases, no hope being had in God; and therefore it is full of superstition. For if sacred images and the relics of Saints are applied to the sick, and prayers are recited to implore divine aid, any vain observance being excluded, then the matter is not only licit, but even commendable.

XXII. It is a superstitious thing to utter sacred words for...

moving a ring hanging from a thread, because these words have no virtue for producing such a movement. Wherefore if movement occurs, it is from the demon. Superstition is also committed by those who wear hung about the neck amulets, or ligatures of remedies, which are by their own nature inept for driving away diseases.

XXIII. Observance of future events is the prediction of prosperous or adverse fortune from signs altogether vain for foreknowing such things — as if someone should observe days, times, chance meetings with men, and things of that kind, and be moved by these to do or omit something as ill-omened. St. Augustine, book 2 On Christian Doctrine, recounts several species of this kind of superstition.