In this apology the editors are careful to affirm that they
_collected_, rather than _furnished_, their materials originally,
and give as their venerable authorities the names of Dionysius
the Areopagite, Chrysostom, Hilary, Augustin, Gregory I.,
Remigius, Thomas Aquinas, and others. The writers exult in the
consciousness of security, in spite of the attempts of the
demons, day and night, to deter them from completing their
meritorious labours. Stratagems of every sort are employed in
vain. In their judgment the worst species of human wickedness
sink into nothing, compared with apostasy from the Church and, by
consequence, alliance with hell. A genuine or pretended dread of
sorcery, and an affected contempt for the female sex, with an
extremely low estimate of its virtues (adopting the language of
the Fathers), characterises the opinions of the compilers.
Ennemoser has made an abstract from the 'Demonomagie' of Horst
(founded on Hauber's original work), of the 'Hexenhammer,' under
its three principal divisions. The third part, which contains the
Criminal Code, and consists of thirty-five questions, is the most
important section. It is difficult to decide which is the more
astonishing, the perfect folly or the perfect iniquity of the
Code: it is easier to understand how so many thousands of victims
were helplessly sacrificed. The arrest might take place on the
simple rumour of a witch being found somewhere, without any
previous denunciation. The most abandoned and the most infamous
persons may be witnesses: no criminal is too bad. Even a witch or
heretic (the _worst_ criminal in the eye of ecclesiastical law)
is capable of giving evidence. Husbands and wives may witness one
against the other; and the testimony of children was received as
good evidence.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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