Question Two: On Adjuration

S. Th. II-II, q. 90.

759. Adjuration (bezwering), in ecclesiastical speech, is an obtestation or interposition of the divine name by which, by entreating or commanding, we induce someone to do or omit something. It is called:

1. an interposition of the divine name, that is, an invocation or mention of divine authority; whence adjuration taken strictly as an act of religion is made through God, whether immediately, or mediately through the saints or sacred things, insofar as in them God Himself is regarded.

But he who adjures by the saints considered in themselves makes an act of dulia; if by the death, life, love of father or mother, it will not be a religious adjuration of which we now speak.

2. by which we induce someone to do something; whence adjuration is an act of reason, not of will.

For just as a man by a promissory oath orders himself immovably to doing something because of reverence for the divine name which is invoked, so he can order others to doing something, by entreating superiors and commanding inferiors, and confirm this by the name and authority of God, so that because of reverence for Him they may do it.

3. by entreating or commanding, whence oath and adjuration are distinguished.

a) Namely, divine authority is interposed in the former for confirming an assertion or promise; in the latter for confirming a petition or command. b) In the former God is brought forward as witness; in the latter as one requesting or commanding with us. c) In the former God is invoked as infinitely true; in the latter as the object of love or fear, by which the one adjured may be moved to acting.

760. Adjuration is twofold: deprecative and imperative.

1. Deprecative is made by way of benevolent inducement, on account of reverence for some sacred thing: we use this toward God, angels, saints, superiors, and equals. It is often called obsecration (Rom. XII, 1), which the demon himself used (Mk. V, 7). Thus the Church asks all things through Our Lord Jesus Christ.

2. Imperative is made by way of compulsion, which superiors can use toward subjects (Mt. XXVI, 63; Mk. I, 25).

It is not licit to adjure demons deprecatively, nor imperatively for learning something from them or for obtaining something through them, because there can be no benevolence, friendship, submission, or society toward them (I Cor. X, 20); but it is licit imperatively and by rebuke through divine virtue, lest they harm us spiritually or corporally (Mk. XVI, 17; Lk. IX, 1; X, 19). This adjuration is called exorcism (duivelsbezwering); in it it is not licit to do or ask anything except those things which conduce to the expulsion, disgrace, contempt of the demon, or to the glory of God; yet if someone from levity, not employing faith, were to ask one thing or another, not deprecatively but imperatively, it would probably be only venial, because it is not perfect society with the demon: for it is not a perfectly social act, although it is a perfectly human act.

We can adjure irrational creatures (the sun, clouds, locusts, a new house, a bedchamber, hail, storms, water), not directly considered according to themselves, for this would be vain; but insofar as they are moved by some intelligent being, namely, indirectly by adjuring either God that their use may help us (thus miracles), or the demon that he cease to harm us through them.

761. Adjuration is an act of religion, because it is apt for expressing both the submission of the one adjuring to God, whose authority is interposed, and God's excellence: for it belongs to excellence that someone be worthy of love or fear, and that the love or fear owed to him be able to move another. Namely, we profess the name of God to be so venerable that, when it is heard, others are induced to do or omit something.

It is licit, as is clear from its notion and from the use of Scripture and the Liturgy; but only under the due conditions of justice and judgment.

1. Justice requires that both the thing to be obtained through command or petition, and the command and petition itself, be honest. Defect of justice is a grave or light sin, in the same way as in a vow and in a promissory oath.

2. Judgment of discretion requires a sufficient cause; the lack of which of itself is only venial.

Besides these conditions, for adjuration that is not private but solemn, which is made in the name of the Church by ministers and in modes constituted by the Church, legitimate deputation or permission is required (can. 1151).

762. Observation. - Quite commonly authors require a third condition: truth; but it does not seem to be posited as a distinct condition, since adjuration differs precisely from an oath in this, that God is not invoked as witness of truth. They say it is required that the adjuration be made through the true God, that the one adjuring truly intend to obtain the thing, and that the cause on account of which he asks be true, not deceitful, lest he deceive the one adjured. But the first is not a condition of liceity, but is contained in the very essence of adjuration; the second and third can be reduced to the other conditions: if he does not truly intend, the adjuration will be fictitious and vain and judgment is lacking; if the cause is not true, it will be dishonest, as joined to a deceitful and deceptive petition, and thus justice already fails.

763. The effect of adjuration is twofold: a) of moving the one adjured to furnish that which is commanded or asked; b) of moving God, through whom another is adjured, so that He may compel or induce him to the intended effect.

There is a special efficacy in exorcisms performed in the name of the Church, which have force chiefly from the impetration of the Church and the will of Christ communicating His power over demons to the Church.