529.
But just at this time, as the eighteenth century was approaching, the theological current was strengthened by a great ecclesiastic--the greatest theologian that France has produced, whose influence upon religion and upon the mind of Louis XIV was enormous--Bossuet, Bishop of Meaux.

There had been reason to expect that Bossuet would at least do something to mitigate the superstition; for his writings show that, in much which before his day had been ascribed to diabolic possession, he saw simple lunacy.

Unfortunately, the same adherence to the literal interpretation of Scripture which led him to oppose every other scientific truth developed in his time, led him also to attack this: he delivered and published two great sermons, which, while showing some progress in the form of his belief, showed none the less that the fundamental idea of diabolic possession was still to be tenaciously held.

What this idea was may be seen in one typical statement: he declared that "a single devil could turn the earth round as easily as we turn a marble."(375) (375) See the two sermons, Sur les Demons (which are virtually but two versions of the same sermon), in Bousset's works, edition of 1845, vol.iii, p.

236 et seq.; also Dziewicki, in The Nineteenth Century, as above.