THE
MALLEUS MALEFICARUM
PART I.
QUESTION I. CONTINUED . . . .
That to deny the existence of witches is contrary to the obvious sense of
the Canon is shown by ecclesiastical law. For we have the opinions of the
commentators on the Canon which commences: If anyone by magic arts or
witchcraft . . . And again, there are those writers who speak of men
impotent and bewitched, and therefore by this impediment brought about by
witchcraft they are unable to copulate, and so the contract of marriage is
rendered void and matrimony in their cases has become impossible. For they
say, and S. Thomas agrees with them, that if witchcraft takes effect in the
event of a marriage before there has been carnal copulation, then if it is
lasting it annuls and destroys the contract of marriage, and it is quite
plain that such a condition cannot in any way be said to be illusory and
the effect of imagination.
Upon this point see what Blessed Henry of Segusio
has so fully written in
his Summa: also Godfrey of Fontaine and
S. Raymond of Peñafort,
who have discussed this question in detail very clearly, not asking whether
such a physical condition could be thought imaginary and unreal, but taking
it to be an actual and proven fact, and then they lay down whether it is to
be treated as a lasting or temporary infirmity if it continued for more than
the space of three years, and they do not doubt that it may be brought about
by the power of witchcraft, although it is true that this condition may be
intermittent. But what is a fact beyond dispute is that such impotency can
be brought about through the power of the devil by means of a contract made
with him, or even by the devil himself without the assistance of any witch,
although this most rarely happens in the Church, since marriage is a most
excellent sacrament. But amongst Pagans this actually does happen, and this
is because evil spirits act as if they had a certain legitimate dominion
over them, as Peter of Palude in his fourth book relates, when he tells of
the young man who had pledged himself in wedlock to a certain idol, and who
nevertheless in the Church the devil prefers to operate through the medium
of witches and to bring about such effects for his own gain, that is to say,
for the loss of souls. And in what manner he is able to do this, and by
what means, will be discussed a little later, where we shall treat of the
seven ways of doing harm to men by similar operations. And of the other
questions which Theologians and Canonists have raised with reference to these
points, one is very important, since they discuss how such impotence can be
cured and whether it is permissible to cure it by some counter-charm, and
what is to be done if the witch who cast the spell is dead, a circumstance
of which Godfrey of Fontaines treats in his Summa. And these
questions will be amply elucidated in the Third Part of this work.
This then is the reason why the Canonists have so carefully drawn up a table
of the various differing penalties, making a distinction between private and
open practice of witchcraft, or rather of divination, since this foul
superstition has various species and degrees, so that anyone who is
notoriously given to it must be refused Communion. If it be secretly
practised the culprit must do penance for forty days. And if he be a cleric
he is to be suspended and confined in a monastery. If he be a layman he
shall be excommunicated, wherefore all such infamous persons must be
punished, together with all those who resort to them, and no excuse at all
is to be allowed.
The same penalty too is prescribed by the civil law. For
Azo, in his Summa upon Book 9 of the Codex,
the rubric concerning sorcerers, 2 after the lex
Cornelia, concerning assassins and murderers, lays down: Let it
be known that all those who are commonly called sorcerers, and those too
who are skilled in the art of divination, incur the penalty of death. The
same penalty is enforced yet again. For this is the exact sentence of these
laws: It is unlawful for any man to practise divination; and is he does so
his reward shall be death by the sword of the executioner. There are others
too who by their magic charms endeavour to take the lives of innocent
people, who turn the passions of women to lusts of every kind, and these
criminals are to be thrown to the wild beasts. And the laws allow that any
witness whatsoever is to be admitted as evidence against them. This the
Canon treating of the defence of the Faith explicitly enjoins. And the same
procedure is allowable in a charge of heresy. When such an accusation is
brought, any witness may come forward to give evidence, just as he may in a
case of lese-majesty. For witchcraft is high treason against God's Majesty.
And so they are to be put to the torture in order to make them confess.
Any person, whatsoever his rank or position, upon such an accusation may be
put to the torture, and he who is found guilty, even if he confesses his
crime, let him be racked, let him suffer all other tortures prescribed by
law in order that he may be punished in proportion to his offences.
Note: In days of old such criminals suffered a double penalty and were often
thrown to wild beast to be devoured by them. Nowadays they are burnt at the
stake, and probably this is because the majority of them are women.
The civil law also forbids any conniving at or joining in such practices,
for it did not allow a diviner even to enter another person's house; and
often it ordered that all their possessions should be burnt, nor was anyone
allowed to patronize or to consult them; very often they were deported to
some distant and deserted island and all their goods sold by public auction.
Moreover, those who consulted or resorted to witches were punished with exile
and the confiscation of all their property. These penalties were set in
operation by the common consent of all nations and rulers, and they have
greatly conduced to the suppression of the practice of such forbidden arts.
It should be observed that the laws highly commend those who seek to nullify
the charms of witches. And those who take great pains that the work of man
shall not be harmed by the force tempests or by hailstorms are worthy of a
great reward rather than of any punishment. How such damage may lawfully
be prevented will be discussed in full below. Accordingly, how can it be
that the denial or frivolous contradiction of any of these propositions can
be free from the mark of some notable heresy? Let every man judge for himself
unless indeed his ignorance excuse him. But what sort of ignorance may
excuse him we shall very shortly proceed to explain. From what has been
already said we draw the following conclusion; It is a most certain and
most Catholic opinion that there are sorcerers and witches who by the help
of the devil, on account of a compact which they have entered into with him,
are able, since God allows this, to produce real and actual evils and harm,
which does not render it unlikely that they can also bring about visionary
and phantastical illusions by some extraordinary and peculiar means. The
scope of the present inquiry, however, is witchcraft, and this very widely
differs from these other arts, and therefore a consideration of them would
be nothing to the purpose, since those who practise them may with greater
accuracy be termed fortune-tellers and soothsayers rather than sorcerers.
It must particularly be noticed that these two last errors are founded upon
a complete misunderstanding of the words of the Canon (I will not speak of
the first error, which stands obviously self-condemned, since it is clean
contrary to the teaching of Holy Scripture). And so let us proceed to a right
understanding of the Canon. And first we will speak against the first error,
which says that the mean is mere illusion although the two extremes are
realities.
Here it must be noticed that there are fourteen distinct species which come
under the genus superstition, but these for the sake of brevity it is hardly
necessary to detail, since they have been most clearly set out by
S. Isidore in his Etymologiae, Book 8,
and by S. Thomas in his Second of the Second, question 92. Moreover, there will be
explicit mention of these rather lower when we discuss the gravity of this
heresy, and this will be in the last question of our First Part.
The category in which women of this sort are to be ranked is called the
category of Pythons, persons in or by whom the devil either speaks or
performs some astonishing operation, and this is often the first category
in order. But the category under which sorcerers come is called the category
of Sorcerers.
And inasmuch as these persons differ greatly one from another, it would not
be correct that they should not be comprised in that species under which so
many others are confined: Wherefore, since the Canon makes explicit mention
of certain women, but does not in so many words speak of witches; therefore
they are entirely wrong who understand the Canon only to speak of imaginary
voyages and goings to and fro in the body and who wish to reduce every kind
of superstition to this illusion: for as those women are transported in their
imagination, so are witches actually and bodily transported. And he who
wishes to argue from this Canon that the effects of witchcraft, the
infliction of disease or any sickness, are purely imaginary, utterly mistakes
the tenor of the Canon, and errs most grossly.
Further, it is to be observed that those who, whilst they allow the two
extremes, that is to say, some operation of the devil and the effect, a
sensible disease, to be actual and real, at the same time deny that any
instrument is the means thereof; that is to say, they deny that any witch
could have participated in such a cause and effect, these, I say, err most
gravely: for, in philosophy, the mean must always partake of the nature of
the two extremes.
Moreover, it is useless to argue that any result of witchcraft may be a
phantasy and unreal, because such a phantasy cannot be procured without
resort to the power of the devil, and it is necessary that there should be
made a contract with the devil, bu which contract the witch truly and
actually binds herself to be the servant of the devil and devotes herself to
the devil, and this is not done in any dream or under any illusion, but she
herself bodily and truly co-operates with, and conjoins herself to, the devil.
For this indeed is the end of all witchcraft; whether it be the casting of
spells by a look or by a formula of words or by some other charm, it is all
of the devil, as will be made clear in the following question.
In truth, if anyone cares to read the words of the Canon, there are four
points which must particularly strike him. And the first point is this: It
is absolutely incumbent upon all who have the cure of souls, to teach their
flocks that there is one, only, true God, and that to none other in Heaven
or earth may worship by given. The second point is this, that although these
women imagine they are riding (as they think and say) with Diana or with
Herodias, in truth they are riding with the devil, who calls himself by some
such heathen name and throws a glamour before their eyes. And the third
point is this, that the act of riding abroad may be merely illusory, since
the devil has extraordinary power over the minds of those who have given
themselves up to him, so that what they do in pure imagination, they believe
they have actually and really done in the body. And the fourth point is this:
Witches have made a compact to obey the devil in all things, wherefore that
the words of the Canon should be extended to include and comprise every act
of witchcraft is absurd, since witches do much more than these women, and
witches actually are of a very different kind.
Whether witches by their magic arts are actually and bodily transported from
place to place, or whether this merely happens in imagination, as is the case
with regard to those women who are called Pythons, will be dealt with later
in this work, and we shall also discuss how they are conveyed. So now we
have explained two errors, at least, and we have arrived at a clear
understanding of the sense of the Canon.
Moreover, a third error, which mistaking the words of the Canon says that all
magic arts are illusions, may be corrected from the very words of the Canon
itself. For inasmuch as it says that he who believes any creature can be
made or transformed for the better or the worse, or metamorphosed into some
other species or likeness, save it be by the Creator of all things Himself,
etc . . . . he is worse than an infidel. These three propositions, if they
are thus understood as they might appear on the bare face of them, are clean
contrary to the sense of Holy Scripture and the commentaries of the doctors
of the Church. For the following Canon clearly says that creatures can be
made by witches, although they necessarily must be very imperfect creatures,
and probably in some way deformed. And it is plain that the sense of the
Canon agrees with what S. Augustine tells us concerning the magicians at
the court of Pharao, who turned their rods into serpents, as the holy
doctor writes upon the 7th chapter of Exodus, ver. II, - and Pharao called
the wise men and the magicians . . . . We may also refer to the commentaries
of Strabo, who says that devils hurry up and down over the whole earth, when
by their incantations witches are employing them at various operations, and
these devils are able to collect various species to grow. We may also refer
to Blessed Albertus Magnus, De animalibus.
And also S. Thomas, Part I, question 114, article 4. For the sake of conciseness we will not
quote them at length here, but this remains proven, that it is possible for
certain creatures to be created in this way.
With reference to the second point, that a creature may be changed for better
or worse, it is always to be understood that this can only be done by the
permission and indeed by the power of God, and that this is only done in
order to correct or to punish, but that God very often allows devils to act
as His ministers and His servants, but throughout all it is God alone who
can afflict and it is He alone who can heal, for “I kill and I make
alive” (Deuteronomy xxxii, 39). And so evil angels may and do perform
the will of God. To this also S. Augustine bears witness when he says: There
are in truth magic spells and evil charms, which not only often afflict men
with diseases but even kill them outright. We must also endeavour clearly to
understand what actually happens when nowadays by the power of the devil
wizards and witches are changed into wolves and other savage beasts. The
Canon, however, speaks of some bodily and lasting change, and does not
discuss those extraordinary things which may be done by glamour of which
S. Augustine speaks in the
18th book and the 17th chapter of Of the City of God, when he
reports many strange tales of that famous witch Circe, and of the companions
of Diomedes and of the father of Praestantius. This will be discussed in
detail in the Second Part.
Page 2 of 3
Question I continued . . .
This chapter was transcribed by Wicasta Lovelace.
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