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THE VAMPIRE

Allacci, at any rate, had no hesitation about declaring his own views, and he thoroughly believed in the vampire. He says, and says with perfect truth: “It is the height of folly to attempt to deny that such bodies are not infrequently found in their graves incorrupt and that by use of them the Devil, if God permit him, devises most horrible complots and schemes to the hurt and harm of mankind.” Father François Richard, reference to whose important work has been made above, distinctly lays down that particularly in Greece the devil may operate by means of dead bodies as well as by sorcerers, all this being allowed by some inscrutable design of providence. And there can be no doubt that the vampire does act under satanic influence and by satanic direction. For the wise words of S. Gregory the Great, although on another occasion,[61] may most assuredly be applied here; “Qui tamen non esse incredibilia ista cognoscimus, si in illo et alia facta pensamus. Certe iniquorum omnium caput diabolus est: et huius capitis membra sunt omnes iniqui.” All this, of course, under divine permission. The authors of the Malleus Maleficarum in the First Part teach us how there are “Three Necessary Concomitants of Witchcraft, which are the Devil, a Witch, and the Permission of God.” So are these three necessary concomitants of Vampirism, to wit, the Devil, the Dead Body, and the Permission of God. Father Richard writes: “The Devil revitalizes and energizes these dead bodies which he preserves for a long time in their entirety; he appears with the actual face and in the likeness of the dead, stalking abroad up and down the streets, and presently he will parade the country roads and the fields; he bursts his way into men’s houses, filling many with awful fear, leaving others dumb with horror, whilst others are even killed; he proceeds to acts of violence and blood, and strikes terror into every heart.” The good Father proceeds to say that at first he believed these appearances to be merely ghosts from Purgatory returning to ask for help, masses and pious prayers[62]; but on learning the details of the case he soon found that he had to deal with something very other, for such ghosts never commit excesses, violent assaults, wreaking the destruction of cattle and goods, and even causing death. These appearances then are clearly diabolical, and the matter is taken in hand by the priests who assemble on a Saturday, that being the only