Of the Way whereby
a Formal Pact with Evil is made.
The
method by which they profess their sacrilege through an
open pact of fidelity to devils varies according to the
several practices to which different witches are
addicted. And to understand this it first must be noted
that there are, as was shown in the First Part of this
treatise, three kinds of witches; namely, those who
injure but cannot cure; those who cure but, through some
strange pact with the devil, cannot injure; and those
who both injure and cure. And among those who injure,
one class in particular stands out, which can perform
every sort of witchcraft and spell, comprehending all
that all the others individually can do. Wherefore, if
we describe the method of profession in their case, it
will suffice also for all the other kinds. And this
class is made up of those who, against every instinct of
human or animal nature, are in the habit of eating and
devouring the children of their own species.
And this is
the most powerful class of witches, who practise
innumerable other harms also. For they raise hailstorms
and hurtful tempests and lightnings; cause sterility in
men and animals; offer to devils, or otherwise kill, the
children whom they do not devour. But these are only the
children who have not been re-born by baptism at the
font, for they cannot devour those who have been
baptized, nor any without God's permission. They can
also, before the eyes of their parents, and when no one
is in sight, throw into the water children walking by
the water side; they make horses go mad under their
riders; they can transport themselves from place to
place through the air, either in body or in imagination;
they can affect Judges and Magistrates so that they
cannot hurt them; they can cause themselves and other to
keep silence under torture; they can bring about a great
trembling in the hands and horror in the minds of those
who would arrest them; they can show to others occult
things and certain future events, by the information of
devils, though this may sometimes have a natural cause
(see the question: Whether devils can foretell the
future, in the Second Book of Sentences);
they can see absent things as if they were present; they
can turn the minds of men to inordinate love or hatred;
they can at times strike whom they will with lightning,
and even kill some men and animals; they can make of no
effect the generative desires, and even the power of
copulation, cause abortion, kill infants in the mother's
womb by a mere exterior touch; they can at time bewitch
men and animals with a mere look, without touching them,
and cause death; they dedicate their own children to
devils; and in short, as has been said, they can cause
all the plagues which other witches can only cause in
part, that is, when the Justice of God permits such
things to be. All these things this most powerful of all
classes of witches can do, but they cannot undo them.
But it is
common to all of them to practise carnal copulation with
devils; therefore, if we show the method used by this
chief class in their profession of their sacrilege,
anyone may easily understand the method of the other
classes.
There were
such witches lately, thirty years ago, in the district
of Savoy, towards the State of Berne, as Nider tells in
his Formicarius. And there are now some in the
country of Lombardy, in the domains of the Duke of
Austria, where the Inquisitor of Como, as we told in the
former Part, caused forty-one witches to be burned in
one year; and he was fifty-five years old, and still
continues to labour in the Inquisition.
Now the
method of profession is twofold. One is a solemn
ceremony, like a solemn vow. The other is private, and
can be made to the devil at any hour alone. The first
method is when witches meet together in the conclave on
a set day, and the devil appears to them in the assumed
body of a man, and urges them to keep faith with him,
promising them worldly prosperity and length of life;
and they recommend a novice to his acceptance. And the
devil asks whether she will abjure the Faith, and
forsake the holy Christian religion and the worship of
the Anomalous Woman (for so they call the Most Blessed
Virgin MARY), and never venerate the Sacraments; and if
he finds the novice or disciple willing, then the devil
stretches out his hand, and so does the novice, and she
swears with upraised hand to keep that covenant. And
when this is done, the devil at once adds that this is
not enough; and when the disciple asks what more must be
done, the devil demands the following oath of homage to
himself: that she give herself to him, body and soul,
for ever, and do her utmost to bring others of both
sexes into his power. He adds, finally, that she is to
make certain unguents from the bones and limbs of
children, especially those who have been baptized; by
all which means she will be able to fulfil all her
wishes with his help.
We
Inquisitors had credible experience of this method in
the town of Breisach in the diocese of Basel, receiving
full information from a young girl witch who had been
converted, whose aunt also had been burned in the
diocese of Strasburg. And she added that she had become
a witch by the method in which her aunt had first tried
to seduce her.
For one day
her aunt ordered her to go upstairs with her, and at her
command to go into a room where she found fifteen young
men clothed in green garments after the manner of German
knights. And her aunt said to her: Choose whom you wish
from these young men, and he will take you for his wife.
And when she said she did not wish or any of them, she
was sorely beaten and at last consented, and was
initiated according to the aforesaid ceremony. She said
also that she was often transported by night with her
aunt over vast distances, even from Strasburg to
Cologne.
This is she
who occasioned our inquiry in the First Part into the
question whether witches are truly and bodily
transported by devils from place to place: and this was
on account of the words of the Canon (6, q. 5, Episcopi),
which seem to imply that they are only so carried in
imagination; whereas they are at times actually and
bodily transported.
For when she
was asked whether it was only in imagination and
phantastically that they so rode, through an illusion of
devils, she answered that they did so in both ways;
according to the truth which we shall declare later of
the manner in which they are transferred from place to
place. She said also that the greatest injuries were
inflicted by midwives, because they were under an
obligation to kill or offer to devils as many children
as possible; and that she had been severely beaten by
her aunt because she had opened a secret pot and found
the heads of a great many children. And much more she
told us, having first, as was proper, taken an oath to
speak the truth.
And he
account of the method of professing the devil's faith
undoubtedly agrees with what has been written by that
most eminent Doctor, John Nider, who even in our times
has written very illuminatingly; and it may be
especially remarked that he tells of the following which
he had from an Inquisitor of the diocese of Edua, who
held many inquisitions on witches in that diocese, and
caused many to be burned.
For he says
that this Inquisitor told him that in the Duchy of
Lausanne certain witches had cooked and eaten their own
children, and that the following was the method in which
they became initiated into such practices. The witches
met together and, by their art, summoned a devil in the
form of a man, to whom the novice was compelled to swear
to deny the Christian religion, never to adore the
Eucharist, and to tread the Cross underfoot whenever she
could do so secretly.
Here is
another example from the same source. There was lately a
general report, brought to the notice of Peter the Judge
in Boltingen, that thirteen infants had been devoured in
the State of Berne; and the public justice exacted full
vengeance on the murderers. And when Peter asked one of
the captive witches in what manner they ate children,
she replied: “This is the manner of it. We set our
snares chiefly for unbaptized children, and even for
those that have been baptized, especially when they have
not been protected by the sign of the Cross and
prayers” (Reader, notice that, at the devil's command,
they take the unbaptized chiefly, in order that they may
not be baptized), “and with our spells we kill them in
their cradles or even when they are sleeping by their
parents' side, in such a way that they afterwards are
thought to have been overlain or to have died some other
natural death. Then we secretly take them from their
graves, and cook them in a cauldron, until the whole
flesh comes away from the bones to make a soup which may
easily be drunk. Of the more solid matter we make an
unguent which is of virtue to help us in our arts and
pleasures and our transportations; and with the liquid
we fill a flask or skin, whoever drinks from which, with
the addition of a few other ceremonies, immediately
acquires much knowledge and becomes a leader in our
sect.”
Here is
another very clear and distinct example. A young man and
his wife, both witches, were imprisoned in Berne; and
the man, shut up by himself apart from her in a separate
tower, said: “If I could obtain pardon for my sins, I
would willingly declare all that I know about
witchcraft; for I see that I ought to die.” And when
he was told by the learned clerks who were there that he
could obtain complete pardon if he truly repented, he
joyfully resigned himself to death, and laid bare the
method by which he had first been infected with his
heresy. “The following,” he said, “is the manner
in which I was seduced. It is first necessary that, on a
Sunday before the consecration of Holy Water, the novice
should enter the church with the masters, and there in
their presence deny Christ, his Faith, baptism, and the
whole Church. And then he must pay homage to the Little
Master, for so and not otherwise do they call the
devil.” Here it is to be noted that this method agrees
with those that have been recounted; for it is
immaterial whether the devil is himself present or not,
when homage is offered to him. For this he does in his
cunning, perceiving the temperament of the novice, who
might be frightened by his actual presence into
retracting his vows, whereas he would be more easily
persuaded to consent by those who are known to him. And
therefore they call him the Little Master when he is
absent, that through seeming disparagement of his Master
the novice may feel less fear. “And then he drinks
from the skin, which has been mentioned, and immediately
feels within himself a knowledge of all our arts and an
understanding of our rites and ceremonies. And in this
manner was I seduced. But I believe my wife to be so
obstinate that she would rather go straight to the fire
than confess the smallest part of the truth; but, alas!
we are both guilty.” And as the young man said, so it
happened in every respect. For the young man confessed
and was seen to die in the greatest contrition; but the
wife, though convicted by witnesses, would not confess
any of the truth, either under torture or in death
itself; but when the fire had been prepared by the
gaoler, cursed him in the most terrible words, and so
was burned. And from these examples their method of
initiation in solemn conclave is made clear.
The other
private method is variously performed. For sometimes
when men or women have been involved in some bodily or
temporal affliction, the devil comes to them speaking to
them in person, and at times speaking to them through
the mouth of someone else; and he promises that, if they
will agree to his counsels, he will do for them whatever
they wish. But he starts from small things, as was said
in the first chapter, and leads gradually to the bigger
things. We could mention many examples which have come
to our knowledge in the Inquisition, but, since this
matter presents no difficulty, it can briefly be
included with the previous matter. A Few
Points are to be Noticed in the Explanation of their
Oath of Homage.
Now there are certain points to be noted concerning the
homage which the devil exacts, as, namely, for what
reason and in what different ways he does this. It is
obvious that his principal motive is to offer the
greater offence to the Divine Majesty by usurping to
himself a creature dedicated to God, and thus more
certainly to ensure his disciple's future damnation,
which is his chief object. Nevertheless, it is often
found by us that he has received such homage for a fixed
term of years at the time of the profession of perfidy;
and sometimes he exacts the profession only, postponing
the homage to a later day.
And let us
declare that the profession consists in a total or
partial abnegation of the Faith: total, as has been said
before, when the Faith is entirely abjured; partial,
when the original pact makes it incumbent on the witch
to observe certain ceremonies in opposition to the
decrees of the Church, such as fasting on Sundays,
eating meat on Fridays, concealing certain crimes at
confession, or some such profane thing. But let us
declare that homage consists in the surrender of body
and soul.
And we can
assign four reasons why the devil requires the practice
of such things. For we showed in the First Part of this
treatise, when we examined whether devils could turn the
minds of men to love or hatred, that they cannot enter
the inner thoughts of the heart, since this belongs to
God alone. But the devil can arrive at a knowledge of
men's thoughts by conjecture, as will be shown later.
Therefore, if that cunning enemy sees that a novice will
be hard to persuade, he approaches her gently, exacting
only small things that he may gradually lead her to
greater things.
Secondly, it
must be believed that there is some diversity among
those who deny the Faith, since some do so with their
lips but not in their heart, and some both with their
lips and in their heart. Therefore the devil, wishing to
know whether their profession comes from the heart as
well as from the lips, sets them a certain period, so
that he may understand their minds from their works and
behaviour.
Thirdly, if
after the lapse of a set time he find that she is less
willing to perform certain practices, and is bound to
him only by word but not in her heart, he presumes that
the Divine Mercy has given her the guardianship of a
good Angel, which he knows to be of great power. Then he
casts her off, and tries to expose her to temporal
afflictions, so that he gain some profit from her
despair.
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