sent his servant Eleazer into
Mesopotamia, to ask for a wife for his son Isaac, he told him that the
God of heaven, who had promised to give him the land of Canaan, would
send his angel[68] to dispose all things according to his wishes.
Examples of similar apparitions of tutelary angels, derived from the
Old Testament, might here be multiplied, but the circumstance does not
require a greater number of proofs.

Under the new dispensation, the apparitions of good angels, of
guardian spirits, are not less frequent in most authentic stories;
there are few saints to whom God has not granted similar favors: we
may cite, in particular, St. Frances, a Roman lady of the sixteenth
century, who saw her guardian angel, and he talked to her, instructed
her, and corrected her.

Footnotes:

[59] D'Herbelot, Bibl. Orient. _Perith. Dives_, 785. Idem, 243, p. 85.

[60] Gen. vi. 2.

[61] Joseph. Antiq. lib. i. c. 4. Philo, De Gigantibus. Justin. Apol.
Turtul. de Anima. _Vide_ Commentatores in Gen. iv.

[62] Acts xii. 15.

[63] Acts x. 2, 3.

[64] 1 Cor. xi. 10.

[65] Acts xxvii. 21, 22.

[66] Gen. xvi. 9.

[67] Gen. xxii. 11, 17.

[68] Gen. xxiv. 7.

CHAPTER V.

OPINION OF THE GREEKS AND ROMANS ON THE APPARITIONS OF GOOD GENII.

Jamblichus, a disciple of Porphyry,[69] has treated the matter of
genii and their apparition more profoundly than any other author of
antiquity. It would seem, to hear him discourse, that he knew both the
genii and their qualities, and that he had with them the most intimate
and continual converse. He affirms that our eyes are delighted by the
appearance of the gods, that the apparitions of the archangels are
terrible; those of angels are milder; but when demons and heroes
appear, they inspire terror; the archontes, who preside over this
world, cause at the same time an impression of grief and fear. The
apparition of souls is not quite so disagreeable as that of heroes. In
the appearance of the gods there is order and mildness, confusion and
disorder in that of demons, and tumult in that of the archontes.

When the gods show themselves, it seems as if the heavens, the sun and
moon, were all about to be annihilated; one would think that the earth
could not support their presence. On the appearance of an archangel,
there is an earthquake in every part of the world; it is preceded by a
stronger light than that which accompanies the apparition of the
angels; at the appearance of a dem