language, which gives
the name of things themselves to that which is but their image or
representation in painting or in sculpture.

If it should be asked how this phantom could discover the future, and
predict to Saul his approaching death, we may likewise ask how the
demon could know Jesus Christ for God alone, while the Jews knew him
not, and the girl possessed with a spirit of divination, spoken of in
the Acts of the Apostles,[335] could bear witness to the apostles, and
undertake to become their advocate in rendering good testimony to
their mission.

Lastly, St. Augustine concludes by saying that he does not think
himself sufficiently enlightened to decide whether the demon can, or
cannot, by means of magical enchantments, evoke a soul after the death
of the body, so that it may appear and become visible in a corporeal
form, which may be recognized, and capable of speaking and revealing
the hidden future. And if this potency be not accorded to magic and
the demon, we must conclude that all which is related of this
apparition of Samuel to Saul is an illusion and a false apparition
made by the demon to deceive men.

In the books of the Maccabees,[336] the High-Priest Onias, who had
been dead several years before that time, appeared to Judas Maccabaeus,
in the attitude of a man whose hands were outspread, and who was
praying for the people of the Lord: at the same time the Prophet
Jeremiah, long since dead, appeared to the same Maccabaeus; and Onias
said to him, "Behold that holy man, who is the protector and friend of
his brethren; it is he who prays continually for the Lord's people,
and for the holy city of Jerusalem." So saying, he put into the hands
of Judas a golden sword, saying to him, "Receive this sword as a gift
from heaven, by means of which you shall destroy the enemies of my
people Israel."

In the same second book of the Maccabees,[337] it is related that in
the thickest of the battle fought by Timotheus, general of the armies
of Syria, against Judas Maccabaeus, they saw five men as if descended
from heaven, mounted on horses with golden bridles, who were at the
head of the army of the Jews, two of them on each side of Judas
Maccabaeus, the chief captain of the army of the Lord; they shielded
him with their arms, and launched against the enemy such fiery darts
and thunderbolts that they were blinded and mortally afraid and
terrified.

These five armed horsemen, these combatants for Israel, are a