were commonly considered by
the Jews as heretics, and as supporting an erroneous doctrine. Jesus
Christ refutes them in the Gospel. The Jews of our days believe
literally what is related in the Old Testament, concerning the angels
who appeared to Abraham, Lot, and other patriarchs. It was the belief
of the Pharisees and of the apostles in the time of our Saviour, as
may be seen by the writings of the apostles and by the whole of the
Gospel.

The Mahometans believe, as do the Jews and Christians, that good
angels appear to men sometimes under a human form; that they appeared
to Abraham and Lot; that they punished the inhabitants of Sodom; that
the archangel Gabriel appeared to Mahomet, and revealed to him all
that is laid down in his Koran: that the genii are of a middle nature,
between man and angel;[59] that they eat, drink, beget children; that
they die, and can foresee things to come. In consequence of this
principle or idea, they believe that there are male and female genii;
that the males, whom the Persians call by the name of _Dives_, are
bad, very ugly, and mischievous, making war against the _Peris_, who
are the females. The Rabbis will have it that these genii were born of
Adam alone, without any concurrence of his wife Eve, or of any other
woman, and that they are what we call _ignis fatuii_ (or wandering
lights).

The antiquity of these opinions touching the corporality of angels
appears in several _old_ writers, who, deceived by the apocryphal book
which passes under the name of the _Book of Enoch_, have explained of
the angels what is said in Genesis,[60] "_That the children of God,
having seen the daughters of men, fell in love with their beauty,
wedded them, and begot giants of them._" Several of the ancient
Fathers[61] have adopted this opinion, which is now given up by
everybody, with the exception of some new writers, who desire to
revive the idea of the corporality of angels, demons, and souls--an
opinion which is absolutely incompatible with that of the Catholic
church, which holds that angels are of a nature entirely distinct from
matter.

I acknowledge that, according to their system, the affair of
apparitions could be more easily explained; it is easier to conceive
that a corporeal substance should appear, and render itself visible to
our eyes, than a substance purely spiritual; but this is not the place
to reason on a philosophical question, on which different hypotheses
could be freely grou