The Phantom World
ved in the apparitions of good angels. The Sadducees, who denied the existence and the apparition of angels, were commonly considered by the Jews as heretics, and as supporting an erroneous doctr
s in the time of our Saviour, as may be seen by the w
Koran: that the genii are of a middle nature, between man and angel;[59] that they eat, drink, beget children; that they die, and can foresee things to come. In consequence of this principle or idea, they believe that there are male and female genii; that the males, whom the Persians call by theat the children of God, having seen the daughters of men, fell in love with their beauty, wedded them, and begot giants of them." Several of the ancient Fathers[61] have adopted this opinion, which is now given up by everybody, with the exception
es, than a substance purely spiritual; but this is not the place to reason on a philosophical question, on which different hypotheses could be freely grounded, and to choose that which should explain these a
body, sometimes appear by the will and with the permission of God: there we must stop; as to the manner of explaining these apparitions, we must, without losing sight of the certain principle of the immateriality of these substances, explain them according to the analogy of t
e assistance of an angel, and went and knocked at the door where the brethren were, they believed that it was his angel and not himself who knocked.[62] And when Corne
espect to the good angels who presided in these assemblies. The same St. Paul reassures those who were with him in danger of almost inevitab
ho appeared to Abraham, as he was about to immolate Isaac his son, and told him that God was satisfied with his obedience;[67] and when the same Abraham sent his servant Eleazer into Mesopotamia, to ask for a wife for his son Isaac, he told him that the God of heaven, who had promi
c stories; there are few saints to whom God has not granted similar favors: we may cite, in particular, St. Frances, a
tno
Orient. Perith. Dives
Gen.
, De Gigantibus. Justin. Apol. Turtul.
cts xi
cts x.
Cor.
s xxvii.
Gen.
n. xxii
en. xx