[92] I have used a copy of the French translation,--Le
Monde Enchanté, Amsterdam, 1694. This was made by Bekker’s
direction and revised by him. Each of the four volumes has
a separate dedication, and each dedication (in the Harvard
College copy) is authenticated by Bekker’s autograph
signature.
[93] This concludes Bekker’s First Book.
[94] What precedes is, in substance, Bekker’s Book II.
[95] This is the substance of Bekker’s Third Book.
[96] “De Christelijke Synodus ... heeft, ... met
eenparigheyd van stemmen, den selven Dr. Bekker verklaart
intolerabel als Leeraar in de Gereformeerde Kerke; en
vervolgens hem van sijn Predik-dienst geremoveert” (decree
in W. P. C. Knuttel, Balthasar Bekker de Bestrijder van het
Bijgeloof, the Hague, 1906, p. 315).
[97] Knuttel, p. 319.
[98] Knuttel, p. 357. Strictly speaking, it was not for his
denial of modern witchcraft that Bekker was punished, for
it is in the last two books of his treatise that he deals
particularly with this subject, and these did not appear
until after he had been unfrocked. Still, his Second Book,
which got him into trouble, contains all the essentials.
It denies the power of the devil and wicked spirits to
afflict men, and holds that the demoniacs of the New
Testament were neither possessed nor obsessed, but merely
sufferers from disease. For a full analysis of Bekker’s
work and an account of the opposition which it roused,
see Knuttel, chap. v, pp. 188 ff.; for the ecclesiastical
proceedings against Bekker, see chap. vi, pp. 270 ff. The
various editions and translations of De Betoverde Weereld
are enumerated by van der Linde in his Balthasar Bekker,
Bibliographie (the Hague, 1869), where may also be found a
long list of the books and pamphlets which the work called
forth. There is a good account of Bekker’s argument in
Soldan’s Geschichte der Hexenprozesse, neu bearbeitet von
Dr. Heinrich Heppe (Stuttgart, 1880), II, 233 ff. See also
Roskoff, Geschichte des Teufels, Leipzig, 1869, II, 445 ff.
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