Of the Method by
which they can Inflict Every Sort of Infirmity,
generally Ills of the Graver Kind.
But
there is no bodily infirmity, not even leprosy or
epilepsy, which cannot be caused by witches, with God's
permission. And this is proved by the fact that no sort
of infirmity is excepted by the Doctors. For a careful
consideration of what has already been written
concerning the power of devils and the wickedness of
witches will show that this statement offers no
difficulty. Nider also deals with this subject both in
his Book of Precepts and in his Formicarius,
where he asks: Whether witches can actually injure men
by their witchcraft. And the question makes no exception
of any infirmity, however incurable. And he there
answers that they can do so, and proceeds to ask in what
way and by what means.
And as to the
first, he answers, as has been shown in the First
Question of the First Part of this treatise. And it is
proved also by S. Isidore where he describes the
operations of witches (Etym. 8, cap. 9), and says
that they are called witches on account of the magnitude
of their crimes; for they disturb the elements by
raising up storms with the help of devils, they confuse
the minds of men in the ways already mentioned, by
either entirely obstructing or gravely impeding the use
of their reason. He adds also that without the use of
any poison, but by the mere virulence of their
incantations, they can deprive men of their lives.
It is proved
also by S. Thomas in the Second Book of Sentences,
dist. 7 and 8, and in Book IV, dist. 34, and in general
all the Theologians write that witches can with the help
of the devil bring harm upon men and their affairs in
all the ways in which the devil alone can injure or
deceive, namely, in their affairs, their reputation,
their body, their reason, and their life; which means
that those injuries which are caused by the devil
without any witch, can also be caused by a witch; and
even more readily so, on account of the greater offence
which is given to the Divine Majesty, as has been shown
above.
In Job
i and ii is found a clear case of the injury in temporal
affairs. The injury to reputation is shown in the
history of the Blessed Jerome, that the devil
transformed himself into the appearance of S. Silvanus,
Bishop of Nazareth, a friend of S. Jerome. And this
devil approached a noble woman by night in her bed and
began first to provoke and entice her with lewd words,
and then invited her to perform the sinful act. And when
she called out, the devil in the form of the saintly
Bishop hid under the woman's bed, and being sought for
and found there, he in lickerish language declared
lyingly that he was the Bishop Silvanus. On the morrow
therefore, when the devil had disappeared, the holy man
was scandalously defamed; but his good name was cleared
when the devil confessed at the tomb of S. Jerome that
he had done this in an assumed body.
The injury to
the body is shown in the case of the Blessed Job, who
was stricken by the devil with terrible sores, which are
explained as a form of leprosy. And Sigisbert and
Vincent of Beauvais (Spec. Hist. XXV, 37) both
tell that in the time of the Emperor Louis II, in the
diocese of Mainz, a certain devil began to thrown stones
and to beat at the houses as if with a hammer. And then
by public statements, and secret insinuations, he spread
discord ad troubled the minds of many. Then he excited
the anger of all against one man, whose lodging, where
he was resting, he set on fire, and said that they were
all suffering for his sins. So at last that man had to
find his lodging in the fields. And when the priests
were saying a litany on this account, the devil stoned
many of the people with stones till he hurt them to
bleeding; and sometimes he would desist, and sometimes
rage; and this continued for three years, until all the
houses there were burned down.
Exampled of
the injury to the use of the reason, and of the
tormenting of the inner perceptions, are seen in those
possessed and frenzied men of whom the Gospels tell. And
as for death, and that they deprive some of their lives,
it is proved in Tobias vi, in the case of the
seven husbands of the virgin Sara, who were killed
because of their lecherous lust and unbridled desired
for the virgin Sara, of whom they were not worthy to be
the husbands. Therefore it is concluded that both by
themselves, and all the more with the help of witches,
devils can injure men in every way without exception.
But if it is
asked whether injuries of this sort are to be ascribed
rather to devils than to witches, it is answered that,
when the devils cause injuries by their own direct
action, then they are principally to be ascribed to
them. But when they work through the agency of witches
for the disparagement and offending of God and the
perdition of souls, knowing that by this means God is
made more angry and allows them greater power of doing
evil; and because they do indeed perpetuate countless
witchcrafts which the devil would not be allowed to
bring upon men if he wished to injure men alone by
himself, but are permitted, in the just and hidden
purpose of God, through the agency of witches, on
account of their perfidy and abjuration of the Catholic
Faith; therefore such injuries are justly ascribed to
witches secondarily, however much the devil may be the
principal actor.
Therefore
when a woman dips a twig in water and sprinkles the
water in the air to make it rain, although she does not
herself cause the rain, and could not be blamed on that
account, yet, because she has entered into a pact with
the devil by which she can do this as a witch, although
it is the devil who causes the rain, she herself
nevertheless deservedly bears the blame, because she is
an infidel and does the devil's work, surrendering
herself to his service.
So also when
a witch makes a waxen image or some such thing in order
to bewitch somebody; or when an image of someone appears
by pouring molten lead into water, and some injury is
done upon the image, such as piercing it or hurting it
in any other way, when it is the bewitched man who is in
imagination being hurt; although the injury is actually
done to the image by some witch or some other man, and
the devil in the same manner invisibly injures the
bewitched man, yet it is deservedly ascribed to the
witch. For, without her, God would never allow the devil
to inflict the injury, nor would the devil on his own
account try to injure the man.
But because
it has been said that in the matter of their good name
the devils can injure men on the own account and without
the co-operation of witches, there may arise a doubt
whether the devils cannot also defame honest women so
that they are reputed to be witches, when they appear in
their likeness to bewitch someone; from which it would
happen that such a woman would be defamed without cause.
In answering
this we must premise a few remarks. First, it has been
said that the devil can do nothing without the Divine
permission, as is shown in the First Part of this work
in the last Question. It has also been shown that God
does not allow so great power of evil against the just
and those who live in grace, as against sinners; and as
the devils have more power against sinners (see the
text: When a strong man armed, etc.) so they are
permitted by God to afflict them more than the just.
Finally, although they can, with God's permission,
injure the just in their affairs, their reputation, and
their bodily health, yet, because they know that this
power is granted them chiefly for the increase of the
merits of the just, they are the less eager to injure
them.
Therefore it
can be said that in this difficulty there are several
points to be considered. First, the Divine permission.
Secondly, the man who is thought to be righteous, for
they who are so reputed are not always actually in a
state of grace. Thirdly, the crime of which an innocent
man would be suspected; for that crime in its very
origin exceeds all the crimes of the world. Therefore it
is to be said that it is granted that, with God's
permission, an innocent person, whether or not he is in
a state of grace, may be injured in his affairs to this
particular crime and the gravity of the accusation (for
we have often quoted S. Isidore's saying that they are
called witches from the magnitude of their crimes), it
can be said that for an innocent person to be defamed by
the devil in a way that has been suggested does not seem
at all possible, for many reasons.
In the first
place, it is one thing to be defamed in respect of vices
which are committed without any expressed or tacit
contract with the devil, such as theft, robbery, or
fornication; but quite another matter to be defamed in
respect of vices which it is impossible to accuse a man
of having perpetrated unless he has entered upon an
expressed contract with the devil; and such are the
works of witches, which cannot be laid at their door
unless it is by the power of devils that they bewitch
men, animals and the fruits of the earth. Therefore,
although the devil can blacken men's reputations in
respect of other vices, yet it does not seem possible
for him to do so in respect of this vice which cannot be
perpetrated without his co-operation.
Besides, it
has never hitherto been known to have happened that an
innocent person has been defamed by the devil to such an
extent that he was condemned to death for this
particular crime. Furthermore, when a person is only
under suspicion, he suffers no punishment except that
which the Canon prescribes for his purgation, as will be
shown in the Third Part of this work in the second
method of sentencing witches.
And it is set
down there that, if such a man fails in his purgation,
he is to be considered guilty, but that he should be
solemnly adjured before the punishment due to his sin is
proceeded with and enforced. But here we are dealing
with actual events; and it has never yet been known that
an innocent person has been punished on suspicion of
witchcraft, and there is no doubt that God will never
permit such a thing to happen.
Besides, He
does not suffer the innocent who are under Angelic
protection to be suspected of smaller crimes, such as
robbery and such things; then all the more will He
preserve those who are under that protection from
suspicion of the crime of witchcraft.
And it is no
valid objection to quote the legend of S. Germanius,
when devils assumed the bodies of other women and sat
down at table and slept with the husbands, deluding the
latter into the belief that those women were in their
own bodies eating and drinking with them, as we have
mentioned before. For the women in this case are not to
be held guiltless. For in the Canon (Episcopi 26.
q. 2) such women are condemned for thinking that they
are really and actually transported, when they are so
only in imagination; although, as we have shown above,
they are at times bodily transported by devils.
But our
present proposition is that they can, with God's
permission, cause all other infirmities, with no
exception; and it is to be concluded from what we have
said that this is so. For no exception is made by the
Doctors, and there is no reason why there should be any,
since, as we have often said, the natural power of
devils is superior to all corporeal power. And we have
found in our experience that this is true. For although
greater difficulty may be felt in believing that witches
are able to cause leprosy or epilepsy, since these
diseases arise from some long-standing physical
predisposition or defect, none the less it has sometimes
been found that even these have been caused by
witchcraft. For in the diocese of Basel, in the district
of Alsace and Lorraine, a certain honest labourer spoke
roughly to a certain quarrelsome woman, and she angrily
threatened him that she would soon avenge herself on
him. He took little notice of her; but on the same night
he felt a pustule grow upon his neck, and he rubbed it a
little, and found his whole face and neck puffed up and
swollen, and a horrible form of leprosy appeared all
over his body. He immediately went to his friends for
advice, and told them of the woman's threat, and said
that he would stake his life on the suspicion that this
had been done to him by the magic art of that same
witch. In short, the woman was taken, questioned, and
confessed her crimes. But when the judge asked her
particularly about the reason for it, and how she had
done it, she answered: “When that man used abusive
words to me, I was angry and went home; and my familiar
began to ask the reason for my ill humour. I told him,
and begged him to avenge me on the man. And he asked
what I wanted him to do to him; and I answered that I
wished he would always have a swollen face. And the
devil went away and afflicted the man even beyond my
asking; for I had not hoped that he would infect him
with such sore leprosy.” And so the woman was burned.
And in the
diocese of Constance, between Breisach and Freiburg,
there is a leprous woman (unless she has paid the debt
of all flesh within these two years) who used to tell to
many people how the same thing had happened to her by
reason of a similar quarrel which took place between her
and another woman. For one night when she went out of
the house to do something in front of the door, a warm
wind came from the house of the other woman, which was
opposite, and suddenly struck her face; and from that
time she had been afflicted with the leprosy which she
now suffered.
And lastly,
in the same diocese, in the territory of the Black
Forest, a witch was being lifted by a gaoler on to the
pile of wood prepared for her burning, and she said:
”I will pay you”; and blew into his face. And he was
at once afflicted with a horrible leprosy all over his
body, and did not survive many days. For the sake of
brevity, the fearful crimes of this witch, and many more
instances could be recounted, are omitted. For we have
often found that certain people have been visited with
epilepsy or the falling sickness by means of eggs which
have been buried with dead bodies, especially the dead
bodies of witches, together with other ceremonies of
which we cannot speak, particularly when these eggs have
been given to a person either in food or drink.
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