'But Who Can Assure Himselfe Not To Be Deceived in Matters Concerning Spirits??: Discernment As Anti-Demonology in Late XVIth-Century Europe

ISMAEL DEL OLMO

Sixteenth Century Journal

Truman State University Press

Lugar: Missouri; Año: 2021

0361-0160

This paper analyzes the relationship between discernment of spirits and demonology in XVIth century Europe. Discernment was a biblical device employed to distinguish between spirits (divine, demonic, human). As it dealt with pneumatology (the ontology and modes of action of spirits), it was closely coupled with demonological discourse. However, this article highlights a neglected aspect of this relationship. It argues that discernment could also inform epistemological, natural-philosophical, and biblical critiques concerning demonology and its supporters. The Spanish Catholic physician Juan Huarte de San Juan (c. 1529-1588), the English Reformed squire Reginald Scot (c. 1538-1599), and the French Catholic physician Michel de Marescot (1539-1606) advanced such position. A thematic and comparative approach to their works shows their radical emphasis on nature over demonic causality, their instrumentalization of discernment against demonology, their use of biblical stories to support this sceptical stance, and their position in favor of a lay over an ecclesiastical discernment of spirits.