Our adversary the Devil not only strives with all his might to strip the dying of faith and hope and to lead them into heresy and despair; he also contends to separate the friends of God from His friendship, and to induce them into hatred of God, and into blasphemies and the magic arts. These men for the most part fear neither death nor the punishments of hell. For they hope that they will lead a happy life in the world below, as companions of the demons, who they suppose reign in the lower regions.
Grillandi writes on this matter in his book on sorceries, question 9, number 2, and after him Martin del Rio in book VI of the Investigations into Magic, chapter 1, section 3. These authors therefore speak thus: after the sorcerers have been captured, as he himself has often testified, the Devil then busies himself with nothing else, nor labors at anything, except persuading them to persist in their purpose even unto death. Though they be led to the place of execution and the fire kindled, he will, he tells them, openly snatch their bodies from both the noose and the flames, and will cause them to feel no pain at the touch of the flames. And should it befall them to die in the fire, that death will be free of torment: they will pass from the miseries of this life without any sense of punishment, so as to be carried over into the beatitude of the life to come; there they shall be like the demons, endowed with the same strength, knowledge, riches, power, and pleasure in which the demon himself abounds and exults — and that they shall never be damned. Such are the promises of the lying Devil.
There are, moreover, certain others who, though they are not properly sorcerers or magicians, are nevertheless so blinded by avarice that they differ very little indeed from unbelievers. For not without cause did the blessed Apostle call avarice the service of idols (Eph. 5:5; Col. 3:5).
I myself once visited a sick man who was near death; and when I began to speak with him about preparing for his departure from this present life, he answered with a resolute mind and without any fear, saying: « Father, I wished to speak with you — not for myself, but for my wife and my children; for I am hastening to hell, and there is no need for you to do anything for me. » And he uttered these words with a tranquil mind, as though he were speaking of a journey to some country house or town. So completely had the Devil made his soul subject to himself that the man neither desired nor wished to be torn away from him. Yet he was no magician or necromancer, but practiced a very dangerous art; and intent upon gain by fair means or foul, he seemed to have forgotten not only God, but even his own soul. In short, though with many words I tried to call him back to a better mind, I could accomplish nothing.
Someone will perhaps wish to know what art it was that he practiced. I will tell, so that his ruin may profit other men of the same art — if any there be like him — and bring them to their senses. He was an attorney in causes, one of those who trouble themselves little whether the cause they undertake to defend be just or unjust; and meanwhile they do wrong to both parties, provided only they fill their own purse. I will add one thing that befell me when I once fell upon this subject. A certain eminently learned man was conversing with me; and when I said to him of a certain cause, « You seem to me to be defending an unjust cause, » he assented and answered: « I am not the advocate of truth or of justice, but of my client; it is mine to set forth the merits of the cause, not to declare on which side sentence should be pronounced. » But I said: I would not have you give credence to me, but to St. Thomas Aquinas (Part II-II, q. 71, art. 3), a most great and most holy Doctor; for in the second part of the Summa Theologiae he speaks thus: « I answer that it is unlawful for anyone to cooperate in the doing of evil by any manner of consent; for to counsel and to assist is in some sort to do the deed. Hence the Apostle also says, writing to the Romans, that they are worthy of death who not only commit sin, but also consent to them that do it (Rom. 1). Wherefore, as has been said above, all such are bound to make restitution. Now it is evident that an advocate gives his aid and counsel to the party whose cause he undertakes; wherefore, if he knowingly defends an unjust cause, he sins grievously without a doubt, and is bound to make restitution for the loss which the other party, contrary to justice, incurs through his aid; but if he unknowingly defends an unjust cause, thinking it to be just, he is excused in the measure in which ignorance can excuse. » So far St. Thomas. Cardinal Cajetan, moreover, explains the last words of St. Thomas, saying: « He who defends a cause outright, not knowing it to be unjust — not through ignorance, but with an ignorance which does not excuse — pleads unjustly. And they who do not care to discern and search out whether the cause they undertake be just or unjust manifestly neglect to know what they are bound to know. » So far he.
To these temptations may be added another, which does not so much harm as profit, although the Devil makes use of it to do harm. For the enemy of the human race is himself wont for the most part to be present, and to show himself with a terrible countenance to the dying, so that, if he cannot deceive them, he may at least hinder them from eagerness and devotion in prayer. So Sulpitius Severus writes of St. Martin that, as he lay dying, the Devil appeared to him, and that St. Martin said to him: « Why do you stand here, bloodthirsty beast? You will find nothing in me, deadly one. » The Venerable Peter Damian also writes, in his Life of St. Odilo, that a little before his death the Devil appeared to the aforesaid Odilo in a most hideous form; of which the Blessed Odilo himself is said to have spoken thus: « In the very hour of my crisis, in that corner » — for he pointed, as it were, with his finger to the place — « I saw a figure most fierce and terrible, which, for all the horror of its most hideous aspect, could do me no harm by any attack, the power of Christ strengthening me. » For St. Adelhelm of Séez writes (April 22, in the Life of St. Opportuna the Virgin) that as St. Opportuna lay dying, the Devil appeared to her in the form of an Ethiopian of the blackest hue, whose hair and beard dripped as it were with hot and liquid pitch; his eyes were like glowing iron drawn sparkling with many sparks from the furnace; and from his mouth and nostrils issued flame and a sulfurous vapor.
Why God permits holy men to be tried by visions of this kind is taught by the Angel of the Lord in the Life of St. Aichard, which is found in Laurentius Surius under the fifteenth day of September. For when the Devil was in a certain monastery intent upon his prey, the holy Angel, the guardian of that monastery, said to the Devil: « You shall have a ministry here — fruitful indeed for the monks, but not profitable for yourself: for them unto expiation, but for you unto confusion. » And when the Devil answered, « Am I, then, a debtor for their salvation to these, or to any worshippers of Christ? » the Angel replied: « In this, said he, they are your debtors; for if there is anything in them that must be cut away, it is expiated by the horror of your sight. » After this the same Angel said to St. Aichard concerning the Devil: « Do not fear his countenance; no power to do harm has been given him in this family of Christ, save that to souls about to depart from the body the sight of him instills a terror that works expiation, so that if there is anything in them which must be cut away, it may be expiated by the terror of that horrid vision. »