The nature of the vision

He is a man, and she gives him a sign by pronouncing, 'and this one appeared double-faced.' If the hypotheses of unlawful divination happened to be a man, did Saul not see him? Unless you would say that his physical sight was blinded, just as his spiritual understanding was also ignored.

But perhaps you will say, as a jest: the very organ of the soul was shaped like a human being according to the time, so that it might declare the future with a clear prophetic message, just as sometimes spirits and souls stand over men in dreams, showing human forms most clearly; not indeed, but bearing various and diverse garments and signs of scales or types or blemishes or wounds.

If, therefore, you determine that a soul is to be carried up only, but not a man with his body (for he does not give you the letter if he wishes), fighting against himself and devising things without perceiving, someone else bearing this against you will say: 'When did the woman say: I saw a prophetic soul, but on the contrary, an upright man?' For he spoke to you in such a way: 'And why,' saying, 'is it not said: the woman saw a demon pretending to be Samuel?' With this word I would have appeared to have countered you: for what reason, if it were so, has she not said she saw a soul, but instead from the opposites, a 'man' and this 'upright one', which is a sign of bodily well-being?

For the madwoman did not say she saw a man who was bent or stooped, but an upright one, tense, directed toward war, always fresh around the cycles of evil; and deceiving the fool by a falsehood, she first persuaded him by a sign that the one coming from the earth is a man, but it seemed that he had appeared 'double-faced.' So what (if someone were to say), if he happened to appear as a man with his body, did Saul not then see him, but does he wish to learn from another what kind of man he is, having been struck by invisibility? Surely the facts have cried out that he was not a man, but some kind of shadow that seemed invisible; for he would not have been invisible.

But if you think, Origen, that the soul of Samuel happened to be there, why then was the apparition seen being enwrapped in double clothing? For it is clearly made manifest by the significance that all the garments and coverings of the raiment are more for bodies than for souls. For I do not suppose you would say, without hypocrisy and wavering, that the double clothing has remained upon the tomb for so many days until this very day, so that the soul of the prophet might wear it, lest it should perhaps wander about walking naked. Even if someone were to say that no one is so ignorant as to not know that for the saints there are incorruptible garments from heaven, shining with light-bearing gleams, they are not fabrics of raiment of various colors.

If, however, you define the one seen to be the soul of Samuel, yet you say that a priestly garment is seen according to a concept, in order that the manner of the liturgy might be manifest (though both these things are properties of mental things), it has come to pass that the madwoman reported nothing healthy or true. For she was saying other things apart from what actually exists, misrepresenting the names of sensible things and demonstrating the matters of the intelligible. For instance, calling a 'man' an 'upright garment,' and introducing an invisible, phantom-like spirit through the opposite of a hand-woven garment of clothing.

Tell me then, O best of dogmatists, how did Saul know that this very person happened to be Samuel, when he saw not even a fragment of a shadow, not even an image of a man? But you have not spoken correctly: 'It was necessary that it be written; and Saul thought that he was Samuel. But now it has been written: "Saul knew"' 1 Sam 28:13-15. Furthermore, that the demonized man knew by hearing from the demonizing woman, you say both above and below; but that he did not see at all, you hide in silence. You do not bring the refutation into the midst anywhere; you seem to set aside the truth thinking to deceive men, yet you prop up a finding of divination against all the ungodly. For the knowledge of the demonized man was of the value of the proclamation of her who was also ministering the words to him.

But with skill and understanding, you would say that he knew without seeing, but rather he thought so. For every man receives a matter more by hearing than by sight and thinks and supposes it, not knowing the clear truth, even if he hears it from a person being demonized; for only the words of God are established for precise apprehension and the strength of faith. And indeed, if the diviner said concerning men: 'I said in my ecstasy: every man is a liar' Ps 146:6, how much...