On Witches

...so that he might deceive men, he fashions it thus. In the same place likely referring to a patristic source like Augustine or Tertullian: Souls are in a fixed place and await judgment, nor can they move themselves from there.

Furthermore, Samuel had been dead for more or less two years, and even if his body had not entirely rotted away, it is certain that it would have been so deformed that he could not have appeared in that excellent living form by which he was previously known, and in which this manufactured Samuel now presents himself. Any person knows that a corpse-like body could not reflect the magnificence of "gods"—yet the divinatrix A woman practicing divination, specifically the Witch of Endor. claimed she saw "gods ascending from the earth," much less that such a body could speak and prophesy.

2 Corinthians 11.

For what purpose would the body of Samuel, that most pious prophet buried so long ago, have taken up his accustomed cloak—uncorrupted and at that very moment—at the command of an impious and sorcerous little woman? He did not take the cloak into the grave with him, nor was he clothed in it when dead. I will not deny that it was easy for that one Satan—who transforms himself into an angel of light—to display a specter of that most holy man, especially before a wicked king and a lost little slave-girl of Satan.

Furthermore, the history itself testified shortly before that God refused to give answers to the stubborn and dejected King Saul when he consulted Him—neither through living prophets, nor priests, nor dreams. Much less would God answer through a holy prophet raised from death (whom Saul refused to hear even when he was alive), or through an angel sent from the heavens to a king whom He had utterly repudiated in His fury. It was for this very reason that Saul, moved by desperation, chose to consult the Pythia A term for a medium or witch, derived from the "Pythoness" of the Delphic Oracle. in an wicked manner—a woman who, by her profession, was exiled from Israel by public edict according to God’s will, but who was hiding in secret. It was as if his indignant mind had resolved:

If I cannot bend the powers above, I will stir up the underworld. original: Flectere si nequeo superos, Acheronta mouebo. A famous line from Virgil's Aeneid, Book VII, line 312, spoken by the goddess Juno.

Therefore, God could not but hate and curse this deed. By a just judgment, He punished Saul’s impiety—which was carried out against God's own precepts and the testimony of Saul's own conscience—by leaving him to a wretched demonic illusion. He deservedly permitted the devil's spell to enter the mind of the headstrong Saul. This is nothing new or unheard of; when God foresees and foreknows men of persistent impiety, He is often accustomed to blind them, harden them, leave them to a lying spirit, and hand them over to a reprobate mind. Let the example be the unconquerable persistence of Pharaoh, the trust given to lying spirits, and the extreme punishment that followed.

Furthermore, as for the history recording that the old man Samuel, clothed in a cloak, took it poorly that he had been stirred from his rest and that he spoke and prophesied to King Saul: this does not prove that this specter was the true Samuel. It is not difficult for the devil—a spirit of a thousand crafts—to counterfeit any form, to devise and simulate anything, and to predict future events that had already been revealed through previous prophecy. This is especially true of things for which clear preludes and signs of an indubitable outcome were already visible at the very gates.

Nor was Satan ignorant of the fact that the things the man of God, Samuel, had prophesied to Saul were most certain. Therefore, he merely repeated what Samuel had predicted before. He was also able to make a shrewd guess based on the enemy's magnificent preparation and their drawn-up forces, as well as from the words, deeds, and other circumstances of the present war, regarding what a harsh fate Saul would meet in that conflict. This was especially likely since he held Saul in his power—a man rejected by God, unrepentant, and finally consulting a Pythian prophetess, a slave of the devil—and could drive him according to his will...