Those called "_maleficiati_" by the ancients were often considered bewitched. These charms were very ancient, and as there were some to take away virility, so there were others to restore it; both of which are alluded to in Petronius. This illusion lasted a long time among us, who exorcised instead of disenchanting; and when exorcism succeeded not, the marriage was dissolved. The canon law made a great question of impotence. Might a man who was prevented by sorcery from consummating his marriage, after being divorced and having children by a second wife--might such man, on the death of the latter wife, reject the first, should she lay claim to him? All the great canonists decided in the negative--Alexander de Nevo, Andrew Alberic, Turrecremata, Soto, and fifty more. It is impossible to help admiring the sagacity displayed by the canonists, and above all by the religious of irreproachable manners in their development of the mysteries of sexual intercourse. There is no singularity, however strange, on which they have not treated. They have discussed at length all the cases in which capability may exist at one time or situation, and impotence in another. They have inquired into all the imaginary inventions to assist nature; and with the avowed object of distinguishing that which is allowable from that which is not, have exposed all which ought to remain veiled. It might be said of them: "_Nox nocti indicat scientiam_." Above all, Sanchez has distinguished himself in collecting cases of conscience which the boldest wife would hesitate to submit to the most prudent of matrons. One query leads to another in almost endless succession, until at length a question of the most direct and extraordinary nature is put, as to the manner of the communication of the Holy Ghost with the Virgin Mary. These extraordinary researches were never made by anybody in the world except theologians; and suits in relation to impotency were unknown until the days of Theodosius. In the Gospel, divorce is spoken of as allowable for adultery alone. The Jewish law permitted a husband to repudiate a wife who displeased him, without specifying the cause. "If she found no favor in his eyes, that was sufficient." It is the law of the strongest, and exhibits human nature in its most barbarous garb. The Jewish laws treat not of impotence; it would appear, says a casuist, that God would not permit impotency to exist among a people who were to multiply like the sands on the seashore, and to whom he had sworn to bestow the immense country which lies between the Nile and Euphrates, and, by his prophets, to make lords of the whole earth. To fulfil these divine promises, it was necessary that every honest Jew should be occupied without ceasing in the great work of propagation. There was certainly a curse upon impotency; the time not having then arrived for the devout to make themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven.