I. Peter, v. 8. They resist iii faith and avoid sin, and " they

overcome all spiritual enemies through the blood of the Lamb,"— Eevelations, xii. 11. So that they exclaim joy- fully, " Thanks be to God which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ," — I. Corinthians, xv. 57.
Just as it is dark or bright in the inner man, do the ob- jective impulses clothe themselves in correspondent terms ; as soon as it is quiet within, the outward tempest of the world ceases. "Fear only has its seat," says Schiller, " where heavy and shapeless masses prevail, and the gloomy outlines waver between uncertain boundaries. Man rises superior to every terror of nature as soon as he is able to give it a form, and can make it a definite object. When he begins to assert his independence against nature as an appearance, he also asserts his dignity against nature as a power, and in all freedom stands up boldly before his gods. He tears away the masks from the spectres which terrified his childhood, and they surprise him with his own image, for they are merely his own imaginations."
The idea of the divine and the spiritual adapt themselves to the individual and national mind, and the historical advance of cultivation ; and if e^^ery representation or thought which the mind entertains modify itself according to cii'cumstances, and if every fact be presented in a peculiar light, still the objective foundation which occasions the thought and the represen- tation is not, therefore, wholly inoperative ; or, in other words, the motive to the representation may be an outward spiritual power. Who will assert that man is an isolated being, standing alone in creation ? who will deny a manifold variety of spiritual powers ? and who knows the ways and means through which the Creator and Euler of the world influences mankind ? But spirits and devils are not that which they, for the most part, appear in flesh and in clothes ; they are lifeless shapes of the imagination, and not belonging to space and physics, as they are so often believed to be, for the spiritual excludes the idea of natural space. No spirit can appear in nature as a shade, or as a sensible shape, being destitute of material substance which can act as a reflector of sensation from without. What, then, is the external
138 HiSTOET or :irAGic.
cbarm or the internal germ of the conception and birtli of all the fables and phantasmagoria of all nations and all individuals ?
It was not, In fact, merely the representation of spirits, and their influence on the physical and spiritual nature of man that Christianity has transmitted from the East, but the various species of magic were a heritage from the earliest times from Egypt, the fatherland of magic. Astrology, the casting of nativities, exorcism, are mentioned by Isaiah. " Stand now with thine enchantments, and with the multi- tude of thy sorceries, wherein thou hast laboured from thy youth ; if so be thou shalt be able to profit, if so be thou may est prevail. Thou art wearied in the multitude of thy counsels. Let now the astrologers, the star-gazers, the monthly prognosticators, stand up, and save thee from these things that shall come upon thee," — Isaiah, xvii. 12, 13.
The court magicians of Pharaoh are acknowledged to be real magicians, who turned water into blood, and made frogs and all sorts of vermin appear. How beautifully Isaiah makes answer to this : — " And when they shall say unto you, Seek unto them that have familiar spirits, and unto wizards that peep and that mutter : should not a people seek unto their God ? from the living to the dead ?" — Isaiah, viii. 19.
Very extraordinary things took place in those times during the exorcism of spirits, and especially in remote places ; and equally extraordinary ones occurred in the attempts of female sorcerers, as in that of the Witch of Endor in Samuel, xviii. 7. The penal laws of Moses speak expressly of such women. " A witch thou shalt not suffer to live." Of such men and women togther: — " If a man or a woman be a sorcerer or an astrologer, they shall die the death."
"We will now see how the belief in spirits and in sorcery gradually shaped and completed itself in Christianity, till it finally issued in superstition and unbelief in the witch- period of the Middle Ages.
In the early period of Christianity, men made little difference between the natural and the supernatural. Every- thing extraordinary was to them magical, or everything miraculous was a demoniac or theistic event. The lawa of nature were not understood, and almost everything
THE EAELT CHKISTIAN BELIEF IN DEMOIs^S. 139
unusual, therefore, belonged to the sphere of miracle, which every one explained according to his own ideas. The chief opposition of the heathen, however, originated in the fact that the Christians represented the heathen gods altogether as evil spirits, who occasioned trouble and crime, and, indeed, asserted that the devil, enraged that his kingdom was overthrown by Christ, endeavoured to revenge himself by stirring up all the demon hosts and all heathendom in hostility to it. See Miinscher's History of Dogmas ; Meyer's Historia diaboli, sen comment, de diaboli malo- rumqne spirituum existentia," etc. Tiibingen, 1780.
"Demons," says Tatian (Orat. ad Graec), "are the founders of idolatry ; and to satisfy their pride, all(Av them- selves to be worshipped by the heathens as gods." He styles the devil Trporo/wc hainwv. From them proceed all the miracles that are necessary for the authentication of idolatry ; and they are the originators of oracles, by which they mock men with neologic-epigrammatic sentences (Athen. leg. Tertull. apolog. c. 29). By their aid the magical arts are maintained (Clemens Alex, cohort, ad gentes). They strive to injure men in every possible way, by public calamities, failure of crops, dearths, diseases, and aU kinds of disastrous accidents (Origenes advers. Cels. viii. §. 31). The devil and the demons, or heathen gods and their assistants, are incessantly basely endeavouring to seduce men to sin and unbelief (Justin.) According to their fine organization, they are able to act upon the body and the soul (Tertullian). Justin says expressly, that they cherish the most deadly hatred to the Christians, because they will not flatter their pride, because they will not honour them, and because they are able to chase them away in the name, and by the holy cross of Christ."
In the early ages, people had such gross ideas of demons that they regarded them as beings who had need of nourish- ment, which consisted in the smoke and incense of offerings, which even the acute Origen asserted (Exhortat. ad Myst. iii. 572) ; and also earlier teachers, as Tertullian, Athena- goras, etc., perfectly agree with him. The possibility of evil spirits being chased away by exorcism and by the cross was taught by Tertullian, Lactantius, Gregorius, etc. See Horst's Demonology, where is introduced the passage
110 HISTORY or MAGIC.
from Genesis, vi. 2 : " And the sous of God shw that the daughters of men were fair," by which many understand angels and giants.
One daring assertion of the Gnostics and Christians to be found in the three first centuries, is that a demon, or a legion of such, is appointed to each soul at its birth. A class of holy people or priests were maintained, who occupied themselves exclusively with the demon-world and with the possessed, from which miracle upon miracle arose, until the matter became so desperate that St. Augustin declared that miracles must now cease, as Christianity was widely spread, that men might become spiritual and inward, and no longer depend on mere outward things ; and he again returned to this subject in his work " De Civitate Dei," where he relates a multitude of miracles which occurred in his time, and especially of the healing of the possessed.
We spoke, in the sorcery of the ancient times, of a glance, — a magical operation without touch, which in the old language was called the evil eye. The knowing and in- quiring ones, the prophets of the future, had their own pe- cidiar customs, incantations, and forms of blessing; and Grimm says that, as in antiquity, our expressions of cry- ing out, muttering, invoking, and abjuring, are derived from these forms of sorcery ; for example — spells, female utterers of spells, female conjurors, etc. were terms familiar amongst them. Galdra was called a spoken magic, which was not punishable. Galdra, that is,/ascinare, to bewitch, galdercraft, magic, magus, incantare, enchanter, to bewitch by singing. A light recitation, murmur, inmurmurare, was the same as conjuration ; and raunen yet means to speak secretly : susurrare, to conjure, and conjuration, are of like meaning. One mode of conjuration was by casting lots, and prognosticating .by cups. Witch feasts were held on moun- tains and in woods at fixed times, from the earliest times of paganism, where unlawful trials were held. On the first May night the great assembly was held in meadows, under, oaks and linden-trees, but more especially on the Brocken.
The proper faith in sorcery and witchcraft, in the sense of later times, dates from about the fourteenth century, in direct contrast to the heathen faith. Angels and devils were now of higher rank, more spiritual, or of a more
STEiraGLE or christiat^ttt and heathenism. 141
supernatural character than the earlier ones who had so much intercourse with man. The devil no longer dwelt voluntarily in the possessed ; man was, to a certain degree, himself responsible for his waywardness and his sins, and became an ally of tl\e wicked one. During the growth of this opinion, however, a singular process of intellectual fermentation was taking place ; the Platonic philosophy, unbelief, freethinking, and superstition, all stirred up, entered, as it were, into a zealous rivalry of attack upon pure Christianity, as a final endeavour to sustain in Europe sinking heathenism. The supernatural power of vrorking miracles in the Christians occasioned even more and more the decline of paganism, and augmented the number of zealous disciples. On the other baud, the heathen exerted all their magical power, and exhibited before the Christians the oracles of their gods, their mysteries and miracles ; and presented a magical champion in opposition to every apostle and martyr. Poth parties vaunted their histories of miracles, but with this difference, that the Christians at- tributed the miracles of the heathen to the devil, their own to the power of Grod. Each party asserted, as proofs of their authenticity, the favour of heaven. The contest was fierce, the fire began already to glow, and many writings also were burnt with the idols ; for instance, those of Epi- curus. Though disbelief and superstition grew, yet Chris- tianity maintained the ascendancy, and its higher, divine spirit rose in the conflict, as well in theoretic as in practical respects, ever more victorious ; but in the fervour of the fullest zeal, it could not entirely cast from it the spots and rags of superstition. Thus, Theodoret relates (Historia eccles. V. c. 21) that the Bishop Marcellus in Syria, in the fourteenth century, with the help of the Prefect, attempted to burn a temple of Jupiter, but a black devil always extin- guished the flame. The Bishop, however, caused a cask of water to be placed on the high altar, and after a prayer and the sign of the cross the water burnt like oil, and the idol temple w^as consumed to ashes.
The power of the saints began also to assert itself over physical substances ; and the Prankish historian, Gregory of Tours, in the sixteenth century, records the miraculous power of a holy oil against cramps and possessions. On
\
1-42 HISTOET OF MA.GIC.
certain festivals demoniacs appeared in the churclies raving, so that they terrified the congregations and broke the lamps. But as sooii as the oil fell upon them the demons departed out of them, and they became themselves ajjain (Histor. Franc, lib. x. Ruinart's Ausg.) Thus were gradually collected the materials for the genuine witch-faith of later times ; for the sorcerers and sorceresses of the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries were unknown in the early period of Christianity.
The fathers of the church had in the meantime, power- fully and publicly, though involuntarily, contributed, by treating demonology according to the ideas of their time, and opening a wide door to the devil. Thus, for in- stance, St. Jerome himself (0pp. T. iv. ; which compare with Horst's Dsemonomagie, i. 55), in the fifth century, liad often, from, his lively temperament, to fight with the devils in an extraordinary manner ; once even they heartily flogged him, because in his beautiful Latin he was rather a Ciceronian than a Christian, which afterwards, in- deed, he treated as a mere dream. He really believed, also, in his narrow cell at Bethlehem that he heard the trumpets of the angels. " That which had a good lesson for future times," says Horst, " was, that authors then began to write in such a style that the devil had no further occasion to chastise them for their elegant diction." The ideas of Augustine had a direct tendency to countenance the belief in the intercourse of witches and devils (De civitate Dei, lib. XV. c. 23). Gregory the Grreat relates incredible things of the possessed (Dialogon, vulg. Thomasius, Historical Inquiry into the Origin of the Witch-Prosecutions.)
The first trace of a formal pact with the devil, in a judicial sense, is to be found in the sorcery period of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries ; and according to Schmager and Thomasius, in Basilius the Great, who had a slave who had made a pact with the devil, and whom he again " in integrum restituisti." The idea of the possibility of such an agree- ment existed, however, much earlier, — an agreement in which a mutual bond was entered into, the soul being given up to the evil one for money, honour, and riches. Thus had even St. Theophilus (Acta SS. 4 Febr. : compare with Semler and Horst) made himself over voluntarily to
TLYIXG MAGICIAJfS, WITCHES, ETC. 143
tlie devil, but on his earnest prayer to the Holy Virgin he finally got the fatal manuscript back again, at the sight of which he was seized with horror and consternation. Such individual cases, though rare, occur very early, and scattered the seed of the later growth of belief in infernal magic, though in the twelfth century the heathenish delusion of men having intercourse with devils was rejected by the Christians. The magic offerings, the conjuration of the dead, the divining by dreams and stars, were then zealously denounced as relics of heathenism, and, therefore, it was a great mistake to enact punishments for such nonsense, such delusion, or such simplicity. The true faith in witch-sorcery, the cruel witch inquisitions, and the punishment of compacts with the devil, may, however, be traced from this period.
The stories of the flying forth and riding about of magi- cians in the air, usually by night, but sometimes by day, appear in the fifteenth century, and are of old heathenish origin, and connected with women of bad character. Amongst the resolutions of the Council of Ancyra, in the middle of the fifteenth century, is one concerning women who profess to ride about at night on all kinds of beasts with Diana and Herodias. (See Council of Ancyra, in Mans ; Semler, Th. i. p. 138 ; Fuchs, Bibl. of Assemblies of the Church, Th. ii., where it treats of the miracles of the pagan demons in wells, trees, and stones.)
Grrimm, indeed, traces the general assemblies of witches for play and lewdness, for cooking and feasting, to an earlier period. The Salic laws speak of witch-kettles and witch- kettle-carriers. They held their assemblies especially at snit springs, and Tacitus himself says (Ann. xiii. 57j, "If the women or priestesses attended to the preparation of salt, the salt-kettles also stood under their care, and thus the people of after ages connected the boiling of salt and witchcraft. On certain festival days the witches assembled in the sacred wood on the mountain, where the salt boiled up, bringing with them cooking vessels, spoons, and forks. Their salt-pans, however, were boiled at night. Halle in Austrian means Salzaha, Sala, or the huts at the salt-springs ; w^hence the popular belief that the fiends rode on besoms, oven-forks, or faggots, over hill and dale to Halle" (Grrimm, 58U). Grrimm also points out these nocturnal flights in
144 HISTORY or M VOIC.
the Edda. The Scandinavian sorceresses are there stated to have ridden on wolves, and to have tamed snakes. Grimm gives, from authentic sources, many interesting particulars of these witch-journeys and gatherings.
Horst, in his " Daemonomagie," treats at great length of the sorcery-period from the sixth to the thirteenth century. All kinds of belief in magic shaped themselves, through so many centuries, even more fantastically and richly, till they were finally worked into a complete system in the Hexen- hammer. The characteristic feature of this period seems to be, the more determinate form and the greater distinctness with which the devil, who earlier had been a creature of the fancy, now pushed himself forward bodily, and placed himself by the side of the saints in all his power and influence. In- stead of giving many quotations, Horst singles out the terrible devils of the pious Guthlac, according to his own description of them — " They had thick, broad, and large heads, long necks, thin yellow faces, long, dirty beards, horse- teeth, fiery eyes like burning coals (the black eyes glowing like embers appear more frequently in the annihilating pro- cess of the Templars), fiery throats, wide mouths, swelled knees, crooked legs, and feet turned backwards." And now behold the contest with these repulsive beings ! When Gruthlac prayed or gave himself up to pious contemplations, they hauled him out of his cell, plunged him into bogs, dragged him through hedges and thorn-bushes, lashed him with iron whips, bore him on their hideous wings now high into the air, now down into the depths of the earth, then deep into the waters, or again into the fire-caves, where they torment the souls of men. By fervent calling upon St. Bartholomew, he at length rescued himself from these tor- menting devils. The apparitions of the devil to other hermits, and their temptations, particularly those of St. Anthony and Macarius, are well known.
In the eighth century, when people already began to work out the dogmatic system, superstition kept pace with it, and advanced to the utmost absurdity. John of Da- mascus, at first in the service of a Saracenic Caliph, after- wards a monk in the monastery of Saba in Jerusalem, a writer of high reputation, speaks of the devils as no other than flying dragons, as burning, long serpents thick as pine-
WITCH METAMORPHOSES. 145
trees, wlio speed tbrougli the air, and enter through win- dows, and have communication with those in alliance with them. He also speaks, completely in the spirit of the after witch-times, of sorcery by which men and beasts are tor- mented, by which children are bewitched even in their mothers' wombs, who are destroyed at the time of birth ; and of others whose livers are entirely eaten away. Some, how- ever, attribute these accounts to spurious manuscripts.
The stories of witches carrying on their plans of sorcery by changing themselves into the shapes of beasts, were extant much earlier than the middle ages, though in a more undetermined and fanciful form, — as bears' heads and war-wolves. In the Templar prosecutions, the cat and he-goat metamorphoses showed themselves ; and also those into other natural productions, — such as apples, toads, etc. These animal metamorphoses, in which a vast deal of haunt- ing and wickedness took place, are mentioned, amongst others, by Luitprand, who was first Bishop of Cremona, and at that time imperial ambassador at Constantinople, and in the year 963 interpreter at Eome (Descriptio legiitionis ad Niceph. Phocam, published by Baroui, Canisius, etc.) Bewitching was common amongst the Bulgarians, and par- ticularly bewitching of women. Clear-headed men, how- ever, were not wanting, who endeavoured to check the progress of this devil-practice. Amongst these was Ea- therius, Bishop of Verona in the tenth century ; and his exposures of these absurdities shone like sparks of fire, says Horst, in the general darkness of the time (Extracts from his "Writings by Dachery, Spicileg. t. i.)
The power and number of the devils grew in proportion to the increasing numbers and authority of the saints ; and we might almost say that the history of the devils is the most interesting one of the time. In science and in art, in labour and conflict, in Anctory and enterprise, the devils at this period played the chief part in the world, and it was as much matter of faith to believe in the miracles performed by the devil as in those performed by God the Father and Son. Thence it came that people rather consented to enter, as it were, silently into the alliance of the devil than to expose themselves to his wrath and persecution. In the compacts with the devil men promised to serve him for ever, to do as
• YOL. II. L
146 ' HISTOET OF MAGIC.
mucli mischief and evil as they could ; and, on the other hand, the devil promised all possible protection and pros- perity, and immunity from the influence of friends or ene- mies. The contract was generally signed with the blood of the mortal contractor, and on the other part the devil marked him with a mole, that made the possessor of it invulnerable to stabs, blows, or gunshots. These moles the executioners of the Inquisition had to discover. The devil was accus- tomed to give to the breath of those in compact with him a magic power which no maiden was able to resist. They became mad with love of him who possessed this power, as soon as his breath had touched their nostrils. This practice seems to have been discovered in France, and to have been more particularly in vogue there. The faith in such com- pacts and base practices continued firm till the seventeenth century. Even in 1689 a celebrated teacher at Jena wrote " De nefando Lamiarum cum diabolo coitu."
Such compacts were also formed on a large scale ; even cities and communities entered into agreement to pay yearly sums to the sorcerers and dealers in the black-art, that the weather-makers, chiefly women, and often miserable old women, might protect their fields against damage from hail and failure of crop. In the writings of Agobard, the bishop of Lyons in 841, " Contra Judicia Dei," in Henke's Church History, Th. ii., we find a description of this period, and of the most zealous endeavours to put a stop to the super- stition which died away like a voice in the wilderness. Other heads of the church also attacked this general and increasing madness, — as Hincmar, Archbishop of Eheims, Eabanus Maurus, Archbishop of Mainz, etc., who left many writings behind them, amongst which those " De Magicus Artibus" are most to our present purpose. Amongst those magic arts people of that time reckoned the production of vermin, worms, and maggots. By exorcism, however, they believed that these and other productions of the devil might be destroyed, since the power of God and of his saints was the greater. Horst gives examples from Maynald and Dell* Ossa, how people at Lausanne, and afterwards at Troyes in France, in the fifteenth century, expelled by the bann, through the prayers of the Holy Church, mischievous beasts which devoured the gardens and orchards, but which were
THE DEYIL OF THE FIFTEENTH CEXTTJET. 147
compelled to take their departure at the striking of one o'clock, to seek their prey in other countries.
But not merely were bribes given, punishment was severely enacted against these conjurations ; which appears far the more natural, since wicked men and cheats, under the pretence of being possessed or mad, made the streets and highways dangerous, and committed robberies, violence, and murders. Never, as it appears, has the corruption of morals reached a higher pitch than in the ninth and tenth cen- turies. The most audacious contempt of all law and order, perjury, shameless defiance of honour and good manners, especially in the southern countries and in Italy, were the order of the day ; and the discipline of the church was at the same time in the most deplorable condition. The sword of justice, alas ! rarely struck the guilty ; and the base sorcerers of the time increased in proportion to the wretched condition of the courts of law. The Ordeal was brought into use as the judgment of Grod, which was to discover innocence, on the principle that Grod will not allow it to perish: but horrible abuse and delusion took the place of just judgment and calm enquiry. Everything which deviated from ordi- nary life was set down as sorcery, and every one who dis- tinguished himself in any manner was condemned as a master of the black art : learned men were not rarely accused as such ; nay, once even a Pope, Sylvester II., was declared to have seized on the papal tiara by means of this black art.
After absurdity had thus reached its acme, the moral and intellectual horizon began in the eleventh and twelfth cen- turies to grow lighter. Many external attractions, as the Crusades, increase of knowledge, and religious enlightenment, and often, indeed, wit, expelled the terrible devils and the frightful sorcery. The devil was generally represented in fables, ballads, and spiritual comedies, as a cunning wag, who, as a subtle deceiver, carried on much sport ; but who by the help of a saint, or the exhibition of relics, or the making the sign of the cross, was easily expelled.
The devil, however, did not long tolerate this subjection : in the thirteenth century he began again to rage more mightily. New kinds of heretics came forth with new names, as Beguins, Lollards, Spiritualists, Waldenses, Tex erants, or Weavers, etc. A young girl belonging to the '
148 HISTOET or MAGIC.
Texerants of the neiglibourhood of Trier, which country was especially notorious for sorcery, was burnt in the fourteenth century, though her ^vitch-instructress and reckless seducer escaped by means of a piece of twine out of the window. Old women were now particularly the object of suspicion, because they would not confess that they occasionally appeared as toads, or that they had witnessed such transformations ; for toads now came forward as disguised demons in the arena of witchcraft. Trier particularly distinguished itself at that time, for many deviations from the orthodox faith existed there. In a Synod held there in 1231 against heresy the question was, — "tribus in ea urbe scholis eorum r"
The devil now first appeared amongst the male heretics in the form of tom-cats and he-goats ; amongst the women as toads and geese, and finally as cats. Gregory IX. writes of such toads and geese to Prince Henry, the son of the Emperor Frederick, as " the outwardly evil shapes, because his inner person was overcome by Jesus Christ." After many witches and three wizards had been burnt at Trier, the burning of such people, according to Semler, spread extensively in those countries, quite to the Ehine, so that at length earnest complaints were made in Mainz, that many totally innocent people had been burnt, because they would not confess that they were occasionally toads ; and one Ansfried there confessed that he had him- self put many innocent people to death for that reason. And now the frenzy passed over from old women and common people to nobles and counts, and they were accused of witch- craft with such unsparing violence that the evil was obliged to be put an end to. An example of false wit, of the great- ness and universality of the heretical faith, is shewn by the following passage in a bull of Pope G-regory IX., wliere it is said : — " Xovitio praecedenti occurrit miri palloris homo, nigerrimos habens oculos, adeo extenuatus et macer, quod consumptis carnibus sola cutis relicta videtur ossibus super- ducta. Hunc novitius osculatus sensit frigidum sicut glaciem, et post osculum catholicse memoria fidei de ipsius corde totaliter evanescit." In the same vein he proceeds : — " Com- pleto convivio,per quondam statuam,qu8e in scholis hujusmodi esse solet, descendit retrorsum, ad modura canis mediocris,
WITCH PEESECUTION OF THE riFTEENTH CEIs^TUET. 149
cattus niger, retorta cauda, quern a posterioribiis primo novitius (thus the bishop first, infecting the others) post magister, deinde singuli per ordinem osculantur, qui tamen digni sunt et perfecti. Et tunc per loca sua positis, dic- tisque quibusdam carminibus, ac versus cattuni capitibus inclinatis — parce nobis, dicit magister, etc. Is ita peractis, extinguuntur can delaB et piroceditur foetidissimum opus luxurige," etc. (Horst, a. a. O. S. 94 and iii.)
Towards the end of the thirteenth century there existed already many books on witchcraft in various languages, es- pecially in the Netherlands and in Germany, the essential contents of which consisted in the art of expelling the devil. By this means the fear of the devil, superstition, and belief in the apparition of spirits, became universal. As the cere- monies of religion were abused by their almost entire appli- cation to controlling of spirits, so did the discharge of justice consist chiefly in the Inquisition. In the growing ascendancy of monastic life, fanaticism and the world of dreams flourished luxuriantly, and the phenomena of saints and devils reached their widest development. According to the accounts of Baynald, Aimericus,Param,etc.,the absurdities of that period stood on a very broad and lofty platform. A nun named Marcella, for instance, was extremely persecuted by the devil, but the angel Gabriel brought her a piece of wood out of Paradise, with the smoke of which she drove away the devil.
The Arhbishop Edmund of Canterbury was greatly perse- cuted by the devil, when a child appeared to him with the inscription on its brow, — Jesus Nazae: Eex Jud^oeum. There are no end of such stories told by the monks. It is remarkable that the visions of saints and angels diftused an odour of sanctity ; but those of bestial shapes and devils, on the contrary, brought with them a certain falling away from God. flow widely diff'used witchcraft then was, is evinced by the account of Eaynald, w'ho says, " that in Germany and Italy especially, such numbers of men were seduced to sorcery that the whole earth was overflowed by it, and would have been laid waste by the devil, had they not in both countries burnt some thirty thousand heretics."
It may here be seen that the witch persecution has been falsely attributed to the later Pope Innocent VIII. and his witch-bull; which accusation in part Thomasius and Becker
1 oO HISTORY or MAGIC.
have themselves brought forward as the most hardy an- tagonists of the witch-faith. That the process of perse- cution already in the fourteenth century, when the faith in witchcraft was very common, was considered a valid and, as it were, a Christian right, is proved amongst other things, by the acts of the Templars in the beginning of the fourteenth century ; and many writers, as Semler, Becker, Gottfried AVahrlieb, in his " Justice of the supposed Witch- craft and of the Witch-trials," Halle, 1720: by Kohler, in the ''Trial of Joh. Eaust," Leipzig, 1791; and especially by Tiedemann in his learned Inquiry, " Disputatio de quaestione quae fuerit artium magic, origo," Marb, 1784.
From this time forward heresy and witchcraft were placed in the same category. Seeing or having a vision of the devil was deemed the same as ha\ang intercourse with him, and a falling from the faith. Eaynald has a remarkable passage on this head : — " Yalde rationabiliter posset ecclesia statuere, quod talia facieutes, etsi non haberent errorem fidei in intellectu, si facerent haec prsecise propter aliquod pactum cum daemone habitum, velut haeretici punirentur, et forsitan expediret, et propter gravitatem pcene homines a talibus arcerentur."
Any deviation from the orthodox faith was sufficient to class a person amongst the heretics, as the Albigenses, the Waldenses, the Stedingses, the Manicheans, etc. ; under which all varieties of opinion were placed. To these belongs the persecution of the Templars, and their judicial arraign- ment, which was the cause of the annihilation of this cele- brated order. There were two principal classes of accusa- tions brought forward, which had the effect of abohshing the order. 1st. The denial of G od and of Christ, in the articles I. —