Things that can befall the human being because of faith.
These things must be grounded upon the teaching of Christ.
For human reason of the kind that flows out of Adam cannot possibly fathom them. And when that teaching is taken up, it must be powerfully maintained in faith. For the powers of faith cannot be fathomed by the human being by himself. For this reason, since He is the highest light in such matters, [God] | 246 | indicates to us the foundation we should understand in faith.
Just as God gives us a foundation so that we can learn in matters of physical medicine, and just as he does the same for herbs, stones, the course of the heavens, and everything of the sort, about all of which we must be amazed, [so that our] research of nature [proceeds in] such amazement, [just so] we are now learning what lies in eufragia1 and in other such things besides.
For all these things are there so that we will look for the true understanding of the cause and mover of these works.
Therefore, you should know that not everything which is placed in such objecta is to be known solely as it concerns the visible body, which is only a part of it all. Instead, we must also consider the words of the most exalted Scripture, in which we find composed that objectum by virtue of which we can research those things concerning my proposal involving faith.2
You know how it is that the Evangelium [Gospel] provides a brief summary of the power and force of faith in offering the following pronouncement: “If only you have faith like a mustard seed and believe in accordance with the same and should say with the force of the same to the mountain:
‘you, mountain, betake yourself off into the sea,’ then that would happen.”3 In this regard you should know that our strength which we possess from our flesh and blood is really a small strength indeed and that our [real] strength lies solely in faith.
And as gently and easily as we might take a mustard seed into our hand and toss it into the sea, so that there is no difficulty at all in doing this, equally gently and softly might we also throw great mountains into the sea by means of our faith. For this reason, we should understand concerning faith what wondrous effects are wrought by it, effects that the visible body cannot conceive in its senses.
For just consider the case of Samson: what did his body amount to? Nothing. His faith was his strength. The same is true of Joshua as well, and of others besides. They all demonstrate to us that our earthly body has no real strength.
Rather, the entire strength that should be at our disposal and for our use resides in [our] faith. And this is how the power of faith, understood in this way, should be regarded, as I am now going to demonstrate.
In these matters, you should also be aware of the following: that it is likewise possible for the spirits to accomplish such things and to cast the Olympus into | 247 | the Red Sea.
Moreover, they can cast the Mare Oceanum up onto Mount Aetna, and do more things still of this kind, if God were to permit this.
You should know in this regard that the spirits have no body, nor do they have blood or flesh, nor do they have strength: It is only the faith which they possess that does these things.
Accordingly, you should realize that that summa of the Gospel reads as if Christus were telling us: “What do you human beings amount to with all your strengths? Nothing. I will tell you, however, from where you should draw your strengths.
You should draw them from your faith. For if you have faith no greater than a mustard seed, then you will see how you are just as strong as the spirits. Even now, though you are [only] human beings, your powers and strengths are equal to [those of] all the spirits, just as it was the case with amson.”
For in this respect you should be aware that by virtue of our faith we also become like spirits. And what we use in order to investigate and account for (handeln)1 the earthly nature is that faith which, when transformed into spirit,2 acts through us; so that we are nothing less than the spirits.
Thus it is as if Christus were saying: “If only you have faith like a mustard seed, and are [only] earthly spirits, how much
greater would it amount to, if you had faith the size of a melon: how greatly would we surpass the spirits, if [your faith] were like the great watermelons?” etc.
You should be aware in all these matters that, though the human being can indeed be capable of such things, he remains [only] human here on this earth.
For by the power of his faith he surpasses the spirits and overcomes them so that all the spirits must come to rest before him.
By means of faith the spirits are combated and placed in check, [the spirits] that would conduct their warfare against us in a different manner. In this case they must come to rest and flee from us, for by virtue of a small faith we can overcome a great deal.1
You can imagine how it would be from the following likeness: It is as if a large loaf of bread lay on a table, and our faith were no greater than the smallest crumb which should break off, even then we would be strong enough
for the spirits: How much greater would it be if we were to break off a big piece of it and swallow it?
And let us then suppose that faith were the size of this loaf. In terms of this it should be understood indeed that from the first creation a faith of this magnitude has been witnessed for us by Moses, Abraham, and their kind, all of whom were maintained in their powers.
This is why they were wondrous men | 248 | and [why they] have acted, wondrously surpassing human nature. Therefore, too, you should know about those who did not have faith, but instead consoled themselves with earthly strength, wisdom, and force.
They have been vanquished by the spirits that have brought the human being to the point of bending his knee before them, as if before a very powerful king: and this being has been worshipped by them as if they were God.
They have turned themselves into idols. Is that not a fine sort of strength, to be able to oppress the human being and bring him to such a pass, and to do so without flesh or blood and
without any sort of weapon? What can this strength be other than the faith of the spirits? Otherwise they have nothing going for them.
Now you should also be aware regarding this strength that it resides in the devil as well. In this matter take note that interpretation might
go two ways. They all have faith.1 From this arises their strength.
From this it follows that there are two [kinds of strength through belief]: proper use and misuse. The proper use is a matter unto itself. Misuse is that of which I will speak further.
The devils have abused their faith. This is why they have been expelled. Yet their faith was not taken away [from them]. It is only the case that the judgment of God has been placed upon them.
Because their faith was not taken away from them, they have been able to cast mountains into the sea and do other things of this kind. Through the faith they have, they have also been able to heal and make ill.
For just as the sun shines above good and evil alike, upon the one as well as the other, the devil can exert effects upon the human being in this sense.
This is why he can effect good or evil signs. For as long as he retains faith, he has power over such things. In the same way that faith is understood with respect to the spirits, it is also to be understood with respect to the human beings: we can slay one another by invisible means.
We can use faith properly or improperly—whatever God allows us to do. Actions of this kind which occur by virtue of such powers are to be understood and asserted no differently than in the way that Samson exerted himself when he killed that great number of people with a jawbone.
2 Slaying of this sort [results from] a judgment of God. And [the same applies to] anyone who has the faith of Samson. There are many of those in whom God has wanted | 249 | to perfect their strength upon earth. But this is not [always] necessary.
Even though faith would enable us to chase devils and spirits and cast mountains into the sea employing that same strength, nevertheless we should not [seek to] do so: we should believe and let our faith suffice.
Samson believed, and for this reason it came to pass. It was necessary.
And if even now there were the same need, there would be more Samsons in the world. But we should simply believe the Scriptures and the Evangelium and thereby know that we would be capable of this, and not behave in accordance with the measure of the one who plucks out his eye because if offends him.1 What we believe is not in need of works.
For whoever rushes to find works rushes away from faith and covets damnation. For God has not spoken in the sense that we should long for things to happen, but rather that we should know in what sort of power the faith within us stands.
There are many accounts that prove this by the ancients of the Old Testament and also by the more recent ones in the New Testament, through whom [God] has revealed the power of faith.
And even though we walk [embodied] in the flesh upon the earth, so great is the faith we have in the Creator of all things that no one can express it; moreover, it is taken away from no one except from him who casts it away of himself.
This is why it acts in two ways: in good human beings for good things; in evil human beings for evil things. About the good nothing need be written here.
However, about the evil ones, take note of what follows here.
If we have a faith and fall into evil affairs with it, which the Holy Scripture refers to in German as “temptation,”2 then we are tempting God; and we are attempting to use faith for purposes for which it has not been given. We are trying it out in such a way as if to see whether it is real or not; and yet we should not be tempting in this way.
We should, however, believe as if it had been attempted [and thereby proved], and not pay heed to the works of words. Under those circumstances, we remain pure in our faith.
Now of course this is the special prayer to God: Lead us not into temptation.3 This means, do not direct temptation toward us.
For whoever has the desire of his temptation brought about by | 250 | God should watch out for his soul. For this reason, that which does not happen and has no issuance represents a deliverance from evil.
For God does not allow the spirits to accomplish their will either; for then no work would remain in his place.4
Nevertheless, they have a capacity of this kind and so do we. We are capable of moving all mountains and hills from the roadway and walking on level ground; but this will not happen.
For God wants them there. God grants you should go forward as you like. It is the same as with a carpenter: he is capable of building a house, and he has the capacity to do so and knows how on a pasture or meadow: [but] only to the degree that the master of that place allows him to; otherwise it should not happen.
That is one point about the misuse of the powers of faith.
How Faith Makes the Body Ill.
But here I find myself telling about these things, though I have not yet come to my proposed theme of how it happens that faith can make the body ill.
For until now I have treated of the powers and strengths of faith: [But] now I intend to come to another point, that of the abuse. It is like this. Imagine a physician.
He has at his disposal good medications. In accordance with his character, he will apply himself with these. He can either help the patient with the medications or he can use them to kill the patient.
He can apply the balm of melissa officinalis2 to bring about health or he can administer arsenic to cause death. So how is the present illustration to be understood?
It means nothing less than that we human beings, through the power of our faith, are capable of effecting good or evil in someone else. It is as if the master were to allow the carpenter to have his will.
Thus our faith is no different from the instrument of a craftsman. The same craftsman might forge a knife to slay his neighbor and wound his body, whereby without the knife he would be unable to strike at him. You should understand in terms of this likeness that if we abuse faith and fall away from the purpose | 251 | for which it has been given to us, and apply the power of our faith toward false purposes, and depart from the true one; and if we willfully believe this is so or that is so, then under these conditions the abuse arising from the powers of faith will result in our effecting what we say should happen.
It will forge the weapon that brings about that which we believe should be so. Next you should be aware that this same forged object, which physical art calls a weapon, might properly be called a spirit.
For without hands and feet a spirit can perform what is done by a human being. The reason that it can act in this way is that it is like one. But now we need a brief explanation of this forging, [which occurs because] faith wants a certain order of things to come about.
When we know of a certain disease in a particular country and conclude that it is a [matter of] penance, vengeance, or plague, then the truth of the matter is as follows.
Even though this lies [in the realm of the] natural, faith makes it into something [that operates in the realm of the] nonnatural.
A state of affairs comes about in which no one can recollect anything about it using natural signs. The result is that all natural help seems lost. What then results is that weapon that is forged by faith.
If we are able to bring about good through [faith], we can also bring about evil through it. Just as the mountain was cast into the sea, that which grows out of faith is here thrust into [our affairs].
For faith in itself is capable of producing [the effect of] every kind of herb: an invisible nettle, an invisible celandine (Schölkraut),1 [or] an invisible globe-flower (Trioll).2 Thus every sort of thing that grows in earthly nature may likewise produce the strengths of faith.
In the same way faith can cause all diseases. Nonetheless, it would be an error and a false supposition to think that God gives [us] this force and power and that no one uses it in this way.
We indeed have the power to stab one another to death and to prove that we can do much harm to one another,
but we should [still] not do such things. The same thing applies to the powers of faith. Physical things offer us examples of the way in which the same things are capable of causing all sorts of good or all sorts of harm. It is precisely the same with the powers of faith. For we
become [by way of faith] just like those spirits to which all things are possible and that can do the things invisibly which the body does visibly.
As has been explained, faith is something that does not stem from us. It yields an instrument which is comparable to any other weapon.
In the same ways that the earth can wound the human being, it can also poison him. All of this comes about by the power of faith—by virtue of that same faith by means of which we [could] cast mountains into the sea. For that might be a harmful sort of casting, to submerge a mountain in the sea.
And if we should abuse faith, and our faith should be directed to the purpose that harm should befall our neighbor, then it will happen precisely that way.
By virtue of our intense faith, people can be put to death by prayer, [or made] crippled and lame. Natural diseases are perverted into unnatural ones. When such superstitions abound in a country, what the physician encounters is like that which Christus experienced in his own fatherland:
1 He did not want to effect very many signs in such a place. For their belief was not the sort of faith that remains in itself. Rather, they believed in such a way as to make one another ill-fated. He let it remain that way. For God wants us to proceed with the true faith.
If we do proceed that way, we are capable of making ourselves healthy by believing, but even this is not what God intends.
Rather, he wants us bear the faith within us and to believe that the possibility lies within us, but not that we have to exhibit it outwardly to the eyes.
And because he does want to have it held in mystery, by which I mean in faith, and not tested out, for this very reason medications have been created for us.
These should bear out the works of divine love toward us, letting faith rest alone with its works of the kind that would allow us to walk on water without getting our feet wet.
As to why God has ordained that by means of faith we should be able to cause diseases in one another, to cause illness and health with such superstition, that is for God to judge. ~Paracelsus, Essential Writings, Page 738-753 [German text omitted]
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