Kramer & Sprenger, 1486 (Summers,1928, 1948, [Wicca Society, 2001].
GLOSSÁRIO ENDEMONIADO POLIGLOTA
euhemerism: “The philosophy attributed to and named for Euhemerus, a Greek mythographer, holds that many mythological tales can be attributed to historical persons and events, the accounts of which have become altered and exaggerated over time.”
pitonisa: vidente, cartomante
zigurate: templo piramidal com terraplanagem (vários terraços configurando andares)
6 6 6
PREFÁCIOS & INTRODUÇÕES GERAIS
“Estimates of the death toll during the Inquisition worldwide range from 600,000 to as high as 9,000,000 (over its 250 year long course) (…) Thus has it been said that The Malleus Maleficarum is one of the most blood-soaked works in human history, in that its very existence reinforced and validated Catholic beliefs which led to the prosecution, torture, and murder of tens of thousands of innocent people.”
“At the height of its popularity, The Malleus Maleficarum was surpassed in public notoriety only by The Bible. Its effects were even felt in the New World, where the last gasp of the Inquisition was felt in the English settlements in America (most notably in Salem, Massachusetts during the Salem Witch Trials).”
6 6 6
A CARTA DO DIABO
“IN the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, Amen. Know all men by these presents, whosoever shall read, see or hear the tenor of this official and public document, that in the year of our Lord, 1487, upon a Saturday, being the 19th day of the month of May, at the 5th hour after noon, or thereabouts, in the third year of the Pontificate of our most Holy Father and Lord, the lord Innocent, by divine providence Pope, the 8th of that name, in the very and actual presence of me Arnold Kolich, public notary, and in the presence of the witnesses whose names are hereunder written and who were convened and especially summoned for this purpose, the Venerable and Very Reverend Father Henry Kramer, Professor of Sacred Theology, of the Order of Preachers, Inquisitor of heretical depravity, directly delegated thereto by the Holy See together with the Venerable and Very Reverend Father James Sprenger, Professor of Sacred Theology and Prior of the Dominican Convent at Cologne, being especially appointed as colleague of the said Father Henry Kramer, hath on behalf both of himself and his said colleague made known unto us and declared that the Supreme Pontiff now happily reigning, lord Innocent, Pope, as hath been set out above [tá bom, que estilo grogue até para um nOTÁRIO!], hath committed and granted by a bull duly signed and sealed unto the aforesaid Inquisitors (…) granted (…) the power of making search and inquiry into all heresies, and most especially into the heresy of witches, an abomination that thrives and waxes strong in these our unhappy days, and he has bidden them diligently to perform this duty throughout the five Archdioceses of the five Metropolitan Churches, that is to say, Mainz, Cologne, Trèves, Salzburg and Bremen, granting them every faculty of judging and proceeding against such even with the power of putting malefactors to death (…) upon the tenor of the Apostolic bull, which they hold and possess and have exhibited unto us, a document which is whole, entire, untouched, and in no way lacerated or impaired, in fine whose integrity is above any suspicion. And the tenor of the said bull commences thus: <Innocent, Bishop, Servant of the servants of God, for an eternal remembrance. Desiring with the most heartfelt anxiety, even as Our Apostleship requires, that the Catholic Faith should be especially in this Our day increase and flourish everywhere, . . .> and it concludes thus: <Given at Rome, at S. Peter’s, on the 9 December of the Year of the Incarnation of Our Lord one thousand, four hundred and eighty-four, in the first Year of Our Pontificate.>” Ou seja: dois cretinos psicopatas levaram menos de 3 anos e ½ para escreverem esse verdadeiro TRATADO DE LESA-HUMANIDADE!
6 6 6
“There is left no doubt in the reader’s mind that Rev. Summers not only believed in the existence of witches as the Medieval Church perceived them, but felt that the Inquisition, and the Malleus, were both justified and necessary. In both of his introductions (especially the original 1928 introduction), he seems more intent on using the occasion to convince us that the murder of thousands of innocent people, for the crime of witchcraft, during the Inquisition was somehow noble, and that the authors of the Malleus, Heinrich Kramer and James Sprenger, were visionaries of their time. One often finds the text of the introductions reading as if it had been written 500 years previously when the Malleus was originally published and the Inquisition was in full swing.”
“There were 14 editions between 1487 and 1520, and at least 16 editions between 1574 and 1669. There are modern translations as well: Der Hexenhammer, J.W.R. Schmidt, 1906, and this one.”
“This famous document should interest the historian, the student of witchcraft and the occult, and the psychologist who is interested in the medieval mind as it was confronted with various forces which could only be explained as witchcraft.”
“Those readers whose familiarity with The Bible comes from the King James Version may be surprised by the references to these <obscure> books of The Bible, such as Paralipomenon, Apocalypse, Judith, and Tobias. These books were originally a part of The Bible, but were cut from the King James version as it was developed. They exist today primarily as a part of the Douay Rheims Version of The Bible, which is widely used by Catholics.”
DATAÇÃO POR CARBONO-14! “Many participants in this project have questioned my determination to transcribe the text of the Malleus Maleficarum by hand, as opposed to scanning the pages and using Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software to generate the text. While it is certain that the latter would prove more expedient and see the online edition posted much sooner, transcribing the text, while more labor intensive, ensures a more accurate translation to HTML format.” “In an age in which the Malleus Maleficarum could again achieve a relevance in the hands of radical Christian leaders, the accuracy of this online translation is, I believe, all-important.” Lovelace, 1998
6 6 6
SOBRE A BULA DO CULPÊNCIO OITAVO
“It has indeed lately come to Our ears, not without afflicting Us with bitter sorrow, that in some parts of Northern Germany, as well as in the provinces, townships, territories, districts, and dioceses of Mainz, Cologne, Trèves, Salzburg, and Bremen, many persons of both sexes, unmindful of their own salvation and straying from the Catholic Faith, have abandoned themselves to devils, incubi and succubi, and by their incantations, spells, conjurations, and other accursed charms and crafts, enormities and horrid offences, have slain infants yet in the mother’s womb, as also the offspring of cattle, have blasted the produce of the earth, the grapes of the vine, the fruits of the trees, nay, men and women, beasts of burthen, herd-beasts, as well as animals of other kinds, vineyards, orchards, meadows, pasture-land, corn, wheat, and all other cereals; these wretches furthermore afflict and torment men and women, beasts of burthen, herd-beasts, as well as animals of other kinds, with terrible and piteous pains and sore diseases, both internal and external; they hinder men from performing the sexual act and women from conceiving, whence husbands cannot know their wives nor wives receive their husbands; over and above this, they blasphemously renounce that Faith which is theirs by the Sacrament of Baptism, and at the instigation of the Enemy of Mankind they do not shrink from committing and perpetrating the foulest abominations and filthiest excesses to the deadly peril of their own souls, whereby they outrage the Divine Majesty and are a cause of scandal and danger to very many. And although (…) Henry Kramer and James Sprenger (…) have been by Letters Apostolic delegated as Inquisitors of these heretical pravities, and still are Inquisitors, the first in the aforesaid parts of Northern Germany, wherein are included those aforesaid townships, districts, dioceses, and other specified localities, and the second in certain territories which lie along the borders of the Rhine, nevertheless not a few clerics and lay-folk of those countries, seeking too curiously to know more than concerns them, since in the aforesaid delegatory letters there is no express and specific mention by name of these provinces, townships, dioceses, and districts, and further since the 2 delegates themselves and the abominations they are to encounter are not designated in detailed and particular fashion, these persons are not ashamed to contend with the most unblushing effrontery that these enormities are not practised in these provinces, and consequently the aforesaid Inquisitors have no legal right to exercise their powers of inquisition in the provinces, townships, dioceses, districts, and territories, which have been rehearsed, and that the Inquisitors may not proceed to punish, imprison, and penalize criminals convicted of the heinous offences and many wickednesses which have been set forth. Accordingly in the aforesaid provinces, townships, dioceses, and districts, the abominations and enormities in question remain unpunished not without open danger to the souls of many and peril of eternal damnation.”
“We decree and enjoin that the aforesaid Inquisitors be empowered to proceed to the just correction, imprisonment, and punishment of any persons, without let or hindrance, in every way as if the provinces, townships, dioceses, districts, territories, yea, even the persons and their crimes in this kind were named and particularly designated in Our letters.”
“We grant permission to the aforesaid Inquisitors, to one separately or to both, as also to Our dear son John Gremper, priest of the diocese of Constance, Master of Arts, their notary, or to any other public notary, who shall be by them, or by one of them, temporarily delegated to those provinces, townships, dioceses, districts, and aforesaid territories, to proceed, according to the regulations of the Inquisition, against any persons of whatsoever rank and high estate, correcting, fining, imprisoning, punishing, as their crimes merit, those whom they have found guilty, the penalty being adapted to the offence.”
DISSIMULANDIBUS: “excommunication, suspension, interdict, and yet more terrible penalties, censures, and punishment, as may seem good to him, and that without any right of appeal, and if he will he may by Our authority aggravate and renew these penalties as often as he list, calling in, if so please him, the help of the secular arm.
Non obstantibus . . . Let no man therefore . . . But if any dare to do so, which God forbid, let him know that upon him will fall the wrath of Almighty God, and of the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul.”
6 6 6
“Witchcraft was inextricably mixed with politics. Matthew Paris tells us how in 1232 the Chief Justice Hubert de Burgh, Earl of Kent, (Shakespeare’s <gentle Hubert> in King John), was accused by Peter do (sic) Roches, Bishop of Winchester, of having won the favour of Henry III through <charms and incantations>. In 1324 there was a terrific scandal at Coventry when it was discovered that a number of the richest and most influential burghers of the town had long been consulting with Master John, a professional necromancer, and paying him large sums to bring about by his arts the death of Edward II and several nobles of the court. Alice Perrers, the mistress of Edward III, was not only reputed to have infatuated the old king by occult spells, but her physician (believed to be a mighty sorcerer) was arrested on a charge of confecting love philtres and talismans. Henry V, in the autumn of 1419, prosecuted his stepmother, Joan of Navarre, for attempting to kill him by witchcraft, <in the most horrible manner that one could devise.> The conqueror of Agincourt was exceedingly worried about the whole wretched business, as also was the Archbishop of Canterbury, who ordered public prayers for the king’s safety. In the reign of his son, Henry VI, in 1441, one of the highest and noblest ladies in the realm, Eleanor Cobham, Duchess of Gloucester, was arraigned for conspiring with <a clerk>, Roger Bolingbroke, <a most notorious evoker of demons>, and <the most famous scholar in the whole world in astrology and magic>, to procure the death of the young monarch by sorcery, so that the Duke of Gloucester, Henry’s uncle and guardian, might succeed to the crown.¹ In this plot were further involved Canon Thomas Southwell, and a <relapsed witch>, that is to say, one who had previously (11 years before) been incarcerated upon grave suspicion of black magic, Margery Jourdemayne. Bolingbroke, whose confession implicated the Duchess, was hanged; Canon Southwell died in prison; the witch in Smithfield was <burn’d to Ashes>, since her offence was high treason. The Duchess was sentenced to a most degrading public penance, and imprisoned for life in Peel Castle, Isle of Man. Richard III, upon seizing the throne in 1483, declared that the marriage of his brother, Edward IV, with the Lady Elizabeth Grey, had been brought about by <sorcery and witchcraft>, and further that <Edward’s wife, that monstrous witch, has plotted with Jane Shore to waste and wither his body.> Poor Jane Shore did most exemplary penance, walking the flinty streets of London barefoot in her kirtle. In the same year when Richard wanted to get rid of the Duke of Buckingham, his former ally, one of the chief accusations he launched was that the Duke consulted with a Cambridge <necromancer> to compass and devise his death.
One of the most serious and frightening events in the life of James VII of Scotland (afterwards James I of England) was the great conspiracy of 1590, organized by the Earl of Bothwell. James with good reason feared and hated Bothwell, who, events amply proved, was Grand Master of more than 100 witches, all adepts in poisoning, and all eager to do away with the King. In other words, Francis Stewart, Earl of Bothwell, was the centre and head of a vast political plot. A widespread popular panic was the result of the discovery of this murderous conspiracy. In France as early as 583, when the infant son and heir of King Chilperic, died of dysentery, as the doctors diagnosed it, it came to light that Mumolus, one of the leading officials of the court, had been secretly administering to the child medicines, which he obtained from <certain witches of Paris>. These potions were pronounced by the physicians to be strong poisons. In 1308, Guichard, Bishop of Troyes, was accused of having slain by sorcery the Queen of Philip IV of France (1285-1314), Jeanne of Navarre, who died three years before [1305]. The trial dragged on from 1308 to 1313, and many witnesses attested on oath that the prelate had continually visited certain notorious witches, who supplied him philtres and draughts. In 1315, during the brief reign (1314-1316) of Louis X, the eldest son of Philip IV, was hanged Enguerrand de Marigny, chamberlain, privy councillor, and chief favourite of Philip, whom, it was alleged, he had bewitched to gain the royal favour. The fact, however, which sealed his doom was his consultation with one Jacobus de Lor, a warlock [bruxo], who was to furnish a nostrum warranted to put a very short term to the life of King Louis. Jacobus strangled himself in prison.
In 1317 Hugues Géraud, Bishop of Cahors, was executed by Pope John XXII, who reigned 1316-1334, residing at Avignon. Langlois says that the Bishop had attempted the Pontiff’s life by poison procured from witches.
Perhaps the most resounding of all scandals of this kind in France was the La Voison case, 1679-1682, when it was discovered that Madame de Montespan had for years been trafficking with a gang of poisoners and sorcerers, who plotted the death of the Queen and the Dauphan, so that Louis XIV might be free to wed Athénais de Montespan, whose children should inherit the throne. The Duchesse de Fontanges, a beautiful young country girl, who had for a while attracted the wayward fancy of Louis, they poisoned out of hand. Money was poured out like water, and it has been said that <the entire floodtide of poison, witchcraft and diabolism was unloosed> to attain the ends of that <marvellous beauty> (so Mme. de Sévigné calls her), the haughty and reckless Marquise de Montespan. In her thwarted fury she well nigh resolved to sacrifice Louis himself to her overweening ambition and her boundless pride. The highest names in France – the Princesse de Tingry, the Duchesse de Vitry, the Duchesse de Lusignan, the Duchesse de Bouillon, the Comtesse de Soissons, the Duc de Luxembourg, the Marguis de Cessac – scores of the older aristocracy, were involved, whilst literally hundreds of venal apothecaries, druggists, pseudo-alchemists, astrologers, quacks, warlocks, magicians, charlatans, who revolved round the ominous and terrible figure of Catherine La Voisin, professional seeress, fortune-teller, herbalist, beauty-specialist, were caught in the meshes [teias] of law. No less than 11 volumes of François Ravaison’s huge work, Archives de la Bastille, are occupied with this evil crew and their doings, their sorceries and their poisonings. [Livro-pédia que não podemos deixar de perder!]
During the reign of Urban VIII, Maffeo Barberini, 1623-1644, there was a resounding scandal at Rome when it was discovered that <after many invocations of demons> Giacinto Contini, nephew of the Cardinal d’Ascoli, had been plotting with various accomplices to put an end to the Pope’s life, and thus make way for the succession of his uncle to the Chair of Peter. Tommaso Orsolini of Recanate, moreover, after consulting with certain scryers and planetarians, readers of the stars, was endeavouring to bribe the apothecary Carcurasio of Naples to furnish him with a quick poison, which might be mingled with the tonics and electuaries prescribed for the ailing Pontiff, (Ranke, History of the Popes, ed. 1901, Vol. III, pp. 375-6).”
¹ Se essas coisas fossem mesmo dotadas do mais remoto interesse, Shakespeare usaria muito de magia negra para apimentar suas peças, o que, vê-se, passa longe de ser o caso.
“Jean Bodin, the famous jurisconsult (1530-90) whom Montaigne acclaims to be the highest literary genius of his time, and who, as a leading member of the Parlement de Paris, presided over important trials, gives it as his opinion that there existed, not only in France, a complete organization of witches, immensely wealthy, of almost infinite potentialities, most cleverly captained, with centres and cells in every district, utilizing an espionage in ever land, with high-placed adherents at court, with humble servitors in the cottage.”
“Not the least dreaded and dreadful weapon in their armament was the ancient and secret knowledge of poisons (veneficia), of herbs healing and hurtful, a tradition and a lore which had been handed down from remotest antiquity.”
“Little wonder, then, that later social historians, such as Charles MacKay and Lecky, both absolutely impartial and unprejudiced writers, sceptical even, devote many pages, the result of long and laborious research, to witchcraft. (…) The profoundest thinkers, the acutest and most liberal minds of their day, such men as Cardan; Trithemius; the encylcopædic Delrio; Bishop Binsfeld; the learned physician, Caspar Peucer; Sir Edward Coke, <father of the English law>; Francis Bacon; Malebranche; Bayle; Glanvil; Thomas Browne; Cotton Mather; all these, and scores besides, were convinced of the dark reality of witchcraft, of the witch organization.”
“The latest reprint of the original text of the Malleus is to be found in the noble 4-volume collection of Treatises on Witchcraft, <sumptibus Claudii Bourgeat>, 4to., Lyons, 1669.”
“It was implicitly accepted not only by Catholic but by Protestant legislature. In fine, it is not too much to say that the Malleus Maleficarum is among the most important, wisest, and weightiest books of the world.
It has been asked whether Kramer or Sprenger was principally responsible for the Malleus, but in the case of so close a collaboration any such inquiry seems singularly superfluous and nugatory. With regard to instances of jointed authorship, unless there be some definite declaration on the part of one of the authors as to his particular share in a work, or unless there be some unusual and special circumstances bearing on the point, such perquisitions and analysis almost inevitably resolve themselves into a cloud of guess-work and bootless hazardry and vague perhaps. It becomes a game of literary blind-man’s-bluff.
Heinrich Kramer was born at Schlettstadt, a town of Lower Alsace, situated some 26 miles south-west of Strasburg. At an early age he entered the Order of S. Dominic, and so remarkable was his genius that whilst still a young man he was appointed to the position of Prior of the Dominican House at his native town. He was a Preacher-General and a Master of Sacred Theology. P.G. and S.T.M., two distinctions in the Dominican Order. At some date before 1474 he was appointed an Inquisitor for the Tyrol, Salzburg, Bohemia, and Moravia. His eloquence in the pulpit and tireless activity received due recognition at Rome, and for many years he was Spiritual Director of the great Dominican church at Salzburg, and the right-hand of the Archbishop of Salzburg, a munificent prelate who praises him highly in a letter which is still extant.” “In 1495, the Master General of the Order, Fr. Joaquín de Torres, O.P., summoned Kramer to Venice in order that he might give public lectures, disputations which attracted crowded audiences, and which were honoured by the presence and patronage of the Patriarch of Venice. He also strenuously defended the Papal supremacy, confuting the De Monarchia of the Paduan jurisconsult, Antonio degli Roselli. At Venice he resided at the priory of Santi Giovanni e Paolo (S. Zanipolo). During the summer of 1497, he had returned to Germany, and was living at the convent of Rohr, near Regensburg. On 31 January, 1500, Alexander VI appointed him as Nuncio and Inquisitor of Bohemia and Moravia, in which provinces he was deputed and empowered to proceed against the Waldenses and Picards, as well as against the adherents of the witch-society.” “His chief works, in addition to the Malleus, are: Several Discourses and Various Sermons upon the Most Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist, Nuremberg, 1496; A Tract Confuting the Errors of Master Antonio degli Roselli, Venice, 1499; and The Shield of Defence of the Holy Roman Church Against the Picards and Waldenses, an incunabulum, without date, but almost certainly 1499-1500. Many learned authors quote and refer to these treatises in terms of highest praise.”
“James Sprenger was born in Basel, 1436-8 [que parto longo]. He was admitted a novice in the Dominican house of this town in 1452. His extraordinary genius attracted immediate attention, and his rise to a responsible position was very rapid. According to Pierre Hélyot, the Franciscan (1680-1716), Histoire des Ordres Religieux, III (1715), ch. XXVI, in 1389 Conrad of Prussia abolished certain relaxations and abuses which had crept into the Teutonic Province of the Order of S. Dominic, and restored the Primitive and Strict Obedience. He was closely followed by Sprenger, whose zealous reform was so warmly approved that in 1468 the General Chapter ordered him to lecture on the sentences of Peter Lombard at the University of Cologne, to which he was thus officially attached. A few years later he proceeded Master of Theology, and was elected Prior and Regent of Studies of the Cologne Convent, one of the most famous and frequented Houses of the Order. On 30 June, 1480, he was elected Dean of the Faculty of Theology at the University. His lecture-room was thronged, and in the following year, at the Chapter held in Roma, the Master General of the Order, Fra Salvo Cusetta, appointed him Inquisitor Extraordinary for the Provinces of Mainz, Trèves, and Cologne. His activities were enormous, and demanded constant journeyings through the very extensive district to which he had been assigned. In 1488 he was elected Provincial of the whole German Province, an office of the first importance [ah, o século!]. It is said that his piety and his learning impressed all who came in contact with him. In 1495 he was residing at Cologne, and here he received a letter from Alexander VI praising his enthusiasm and his energy.” “Among Sprenger’s other writings, excepting the Malleus, are The Paradoxes of John of Westphalia Refuted, Mainz, 1479, a closely argued treatise; and The Institution and Approbation of the Confraternity of the Most Holy Rosary, which was first erected at Cologne on 8 September in the year 1475. Sprenger may well be called the Apostle of the Rosary. None more fervent than he in spreading this Dominican elevation.”
“Certain it is that the Malleus Maleficarum is the most solid, the most important work in the whole vast library of witchcraft. One turns to it again and again with edification and interest: From the point of psychology, from the point of jurisprudence, from the point of history, it is supreme. It has hardly too much to say that later writers, great as they are, have done little more than draw from the seemingly inexhaustible wells of wisdom which the two Dominicans, Heinrich Kramer and James Sprenger, have given us” “What is most surprising is the modernity of the book. There is hardly a problem, a complex, a difficulty, which they have not foreseen, and discussed, and resolved.”
“The Malleus Maleficarum is one of the world’s few books written sub specie aeternitatis.
Montague Summers.
7 October, 1946.”
6 6 6
“Sometimes, no doubt, primitive communities were obliged to tolerate the witch and her works owing to fear; in other words, witchcraft was a kind of blackmail; but directly Cities were able to coordinate, and it became possible for Society to protect itself, precautions were taken and safeguards were instituted against this curse, this bane whose object seemed to blight all that was fair, all that was just and good, and that was well-appointed and honourable, in a word, whose aim proved to be set up on high the red standard of revolution; to overwhelm religion, existing order, and the comeliness of life in an abyss of anarchy, nihilism, and despair. In his great treatise De Civitate Dei S. Augustine set forth the theory, or rather the living fact, of the two Cities, the City of God, and the opposing stronghold of all that is not for God, that is to say, of all that is against Him. [humanity itself]”
“and nations who had never heard the Divine command put into practice the obligation of the Mosaic maxim: Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live. (Vulgate: Maleficos non patieris vivere. Douay: Wizards thou shalt not suffer to live. Exodus, 22:18.)” // “A feiticeira não deixarás viver.” Êxodo 22:18
“It is true that both in the Greek and in the earlier Roman cults, worships often directly derived from secret and sombre sources, ancient gods, or rather demons, had their awful superstitions and their horrid rites, powers whom men dreaded but out of very terror placated; fanes [templos] men loathed but within whose shadowed portals they bent and bowed the knee perforce in trembling fear. Such deities were the Thracian Bendis [a nova Ártemis; ver referências aos jogos e festivais incluindo corridas de cavalos noturnas n’A República], whose manifestation was heralded by the howling of her fierce black hounds, and Hecate the terrible <Queen of the realm of ghosts>, as Euripides calls her, and the vampire Mormo [espécie de bicho-papão da Antiguidade: mas pelo menos era uma mulher! Posteriormente, Lamia] and the dark Summanus who at midnight hurled loud thunderbolts and launched the deadly levin [relâmpago] through the starless sky [Curiosa espécie de anti-Zeus, o Deus do Trovão Diruno. Milton e Camões equiparam-no a Hades.]. Pliny tells us that the worship of this mysterious deity lasted long, and dogs with their puppies were sacrificed to him with atrocious cruelty, but S. Augustine says that in his day <one could scarce find one within a while, that had heard, nay more, that had read so much as the name of Summanus> (De Civitate Dei, 4:23). (…) Towards the end of the 5th century, the Carthaginian Martianus Capella boldly declares that Summanus is none other than the lord of Hell, and he was writing, it may be remembered, only a few years before the birth of S. Benedict(*); some think that he was still alive when the Father of All Monks was born.”
(*) “The Medal of S. Benedict has been found to be extremely potent against all evil spells.”
“many strange legends attached to the island of Lemnos, which is situated in the Aegaean Sea, nearly midway between Mt. Athos and the Hellespoint. It is one of the largest of the group, having an area of some 147 square miles. Lemnos was sacred to Hephaestus, who is said to have fallen here when hurled by Zeus from Olympus.” “It should further be noted that the old Italian deity Volcanus, with whom he was to be identified, is the god of destructive fire – fire considered in its rage and terror, as contrasted with fire which is a comfort to the human race, the kindly blaze on the hearth, domestic fire, presided over by the gracious lady Vesta. It is impossible not to think of the fall of Lucifer when one considers the legend of Hephaestus. Our Lord replied, when the disciples reported: Domine, etiam daemonia subiiciuntur nobis in nomine tuo (Lord, the devils also are subject to us in Thy Name), Videbam Satanam sicut fulgur de coelo cadentem (I saw Satan like lightning falling from Heaven); and Isaias says: Quomodo cecidisti de coelo, Lucifer, qui mane oriebaris? Corruisti in terram qui vulnerabas gentes? (How art thou fallen from Heaven, O Lucifer, who didst rise in the morning? How art thou fallen to the earth, that didst wound the nations?). Milton also has the following poetic allusion:
Nor was his name unheard or unador’d
In Ancient Greece; and in Ausonian land
Men called him Mulciber; and how he fell
From Heav’n, they fabl’d, thrown by angry Jove
Sheer o’er the Chrystal Battlements: from Morn
To Noon he fell, from Noon to dewy Eve,
A Summers day; and with the setting Sun
Dropt from the Zenith like a falling Star,
On Lemnos th’Ægæan Ile: thus they relate,
Erring; for he with his rebellious rout
Fell long before; nor aught avail’d him now
To have built in Heav’n high Towers; nor did he scape
By all his Engines, but was headlong sent
With his industrious crew to build in hell.”
Paraíso Perdido, 1:738-51
Levar poeta a sério é pedir pra se queimar na fogueira de São João!
“Hephaestus, especially in later days, is represented with one leg shortened to denote his lameness; and throughout the Middle Ages it was popularly believed that his cloven hoof was the one feature which the devil was unable to disguise. In this connexion with Loki, the Vulcan of Northern Europe, will be readily remembered.”
É Hefesto o Lúcifer pagão ou não seria apenas Lúcifer o Hefesto cristão, que não saberá nunca dar a volta por cima? Mas na verdade ele tinha amores, era excelente ferreiro, e foi afinal perdoado e regressou ao Olimpo, pleno de honras!
“There were also dark histories of murder and blood connected with Lemnos. When the Argonauts landed here they found it inhabited only by Amazons, who, having murdered all their husbands, had chosen as their queen Hypsipyle, daughter of Thoas, whom she secretly preserved alive. When this was discovered the unfortunate woman was compelled to leave the island, and being subsequently captured by pirates she was sold to Lycurgus, king of the sacred groves that surrounded the temple of Zeus Nemeus in a remote Argive valley. Hypsipyle here became the nurse of the mysterious child Archemorus, the Forerunner of Death, who was bitten by a magic serpent and vanished, portending the doom of the Seven who went against Thebes.”
“It is curious to remark that a certain red clay (terra Lemnia) found on the island was, as Pliny tells us, employed as a remedy for wounds, and especially the bite of a snake.”
“In Rome black magic was punished as a capital offence by the Law of the Twelve Tables, which are to be assigned to the 5th century B.C., and, as Livy records, from time to time Draconian statutes were directed against those who attempted to blight crops and vineyards or to spread rinderpest amongst flocks and cattle. Nonetheless it is evident from many Latin authors and from the historians that Rome swarmed with occultists and diviners, many of whom in spite of the Lex Cornelia almost openly traded in poisons, and not infrequently in assassination to boot. Sometimes, as in the Middle Ages, a circumstance of which the Malleus Maleficarum most particularly complains, the sorcerers were protected by men of wealth and high estate. This was especially the case in the terrible days of Marius and of Catiline, and during the extreme decadence of the latest Caesars. Yet, paradoxical as it may appear, such emperors as Augustus, Tiberius, and Septimius Severus, whilst banishing from their realms all seers and necromancers, and putting them to death, in private entertained astrologers and wizards among their retinue, consulting their art upon each important occasion, and often even in the everyday and ordinary affairs of life.”
“stern and constant official opposition to witchcraft, and the prohibition under severest penalties, the sentence of death itself, of any practice or pursuit of these dangerous and irreligious arts, was demonstrably not a product of Christianity, but had long and necessarily been employed in the heathen world and among pagan peoples and among polytheistic societies. Moreover, there are even yet savage communities who visit witchcraft with death.”
“If the disease is universal, the medicine must be sharp.”
“a song or a country dance mayhap, innocent enough on the surface, and even pleasing, so often were but the cloak and the mask for something devilish and obscene, that the Church deemed it necessary to forbid and proscribe the whole superstition even when it manifested itself in modest fashion and seemed guileless, innoxious, and of no account.”
“I knok this rage upone this stane
To raise the wind in the divellis name,
It sall not lye till I please againe.”
Cântico de bruxas escocesas
“A pagan diviner or haruspex could only follow his vocation under very definite restrictions. He was not allowed to be an intimate visitor at the house of any citizen, for friendship with men of this kind must be avoided. The haruspex who frequents the houses of others shall die at the stake, such is the tenor of the code. It is hardly an exaggeration to say that almost every year saw a more rigid application of the laws; although even as today, when fortune-telling and peering into the future are forbidden by the Statute Book, diviners and mediums abound, so then in spite of every prohibition astrologers, clairvoyants, and psalmists had an enormous clientèle of rich and poor alike.”
“The early legal codes of most European nations contain laws directed against witchcraft. Thus, for example, the oldest document of Frankish legislation, the Salic Law (Lex salica), which was reduced to a written form and promulgated under Clovis, who died 27 November, 511, mulcts (sic) those who practise magic with various fines, especially when it could be proven that the accused launched a deadly curse, or had tied the Witch’s Knot. This latter charm was usually a long cord tightly tied up in elaborate loops, among whose reticulations it was customary to insert the feathers of a black hen, a raven, or some other bird which had, or was presumed to have, no speck of white. This is one of the oldest instruments of witchcraft and is known in all countries and among all nations. It was put to various uses. The wizards of Finland sold wind in the three knots of a rope. If the first knot were undone a gentle breeze sprang up; if the second, it blew a mackerel gale; if the third, a hurricane. But the Witch’s Ladder, as it was often known, could be used with far more baleful effects. The knots were tied with certain horrid maledictions, and then the cord was hidden away in some secret place, and unless it were found and the strands released the person at whom the curse was directed would pine and die. This charm continually occurs during the trials. Thus in the celebrated Island-Magee case, March 1711, when a coven of witches was discovered, it was remarked that an apron belonging to Mary Dunbar, a visitor at the house of the afflicted persons, had been abstracted. Miss Dunbar was suddenly seized with fits and convulsions, and sickened almost to death. After most diligent search the missing garment was found carefully hidden away and covered over, and a curious string which had nine knots in it had been so tied up with the folds of the linen that it was beyond anything difficult to separate them and loosen the ligatures. In 1886 in the old belfry of a village church in England there were accidentally discovered, pushed away in a dark corner, several yards of incle braided with elaborate care and having a number of black feathers thrust through the strands. It is said that for a long while considerable wonder was caused as to what it might be, but when it was exhibited and became known, one of the local grandmothers recognized it was a Witch’s Ladder, and, what is extremely significant, when it was engraved in the Folk Lore Journal an old Italian woman to whom the picture was shown immediately identified it as la ghirlanda delle streghe.”
“In 578, when a son of Queen Fredegonde died, a number of witches who were accused of having contrived the destruction of the Prince were executed. (…) what else was there left for the Church to do?” Yea, what else?
HISTERIA COLETIVA: “In 814, Louis le Pieux upon his accession to the throne began to take very active measures against all sorcerers and necromancers, and it was owing to his influence and authority that the Council of Paris in 829 appealed to the secular courts to carry out any such sentences as the Bishops might pronounce. The consequence was that from this time forward the penalty of witchcraft was death, and there is evidence that if the constituted authority, either ecclesiastical or civil, seemed to slacken in their efforts the populace took the law into their own hands with far more fearful results.”
MEDIDAS PROFILÁTICAS: “It is quite plain that such a man as Frederick II, whose whole philosophy was entirely Oriental; who was always accompanied by a retinue of Arabian ministers, courtiers, and officers; who was perhaps not without reason suspected of being a complete agnostic, recked little whether heresy and witchcraft might be offences against the Church or not, but he was sufficiently shrewd to see that they gravely threatened the well-being of the State, imperilling the maintenance of civilization and the foundations of society.”
QUANTA BONDADE ECLESIÁSTICA, DEIXAR A PENA DE MORTE PARA O ESTADO! “It may be well here very briefly to consider the somewhat complicated history of the establishment of the Inquisition, which was, it must be remembered, the result of the tendencies and growth of many years, by no means a judicial curia with cut-and-dried laws and a complete procedure suddenly called into being by one stroke of a Papal pen. In the first place, S.[atan] Dominic was in no sense the founder of the Inquisition. Certainly during the crusade in Languedoc he was present, reviving religion and reconciling the lapsed, but he was doing no more than S. Paul or any of the Apostles would have done. The work of S. Dominic was preaching and the organization of his new Order, which received Papal confirmation from Honorius III, and was approved in the Bull Religiosam vitam, 22 December, 1216. S. Dominic died 6 August, 1221, and even if we take the word in a very broad sense, the first Dominican Inquisitor seems to have been Alberic, who in November, 1232, was travelling through Lombardy with the official title of Inquisitor hereticae pravitatis. The whole question of the episcopal Inquisitors, who were really the local bishop, his arch-deacons, and his diocesan court, and their exact relationship with the travelling Inquisitors, who were mainly drawn from the two Orders of friars, the Franciscan and the Dominican, is extremely nice and complicated; whilst the gradual effacement of the episcopal courts with regard to certain matters and the consequent prominence of the Holy Office were circumstances and conditions which realized themselves slowly enough in all countries, and almost imperceptibly in some districts, as necessity required, without any sudden break or sweeping changes. In fact we find that the Franciscan or Dominican Inquisitor simply sat as an assessor in the episcopal court so that he could be consulted upon certain technicalities and deliver sentence conjointly with the Bishop if these matters were involved. Thus at the trial of Gilles de Rais in October, 1440, at Nantes, the Bishop of Nantes presided over the court with the bishops of Le Mans, Saint-Brieuc, and Saint-Lo as his coadjutors, whilst Pierre de l’Hospital, Chencellor of Brittany, watched the case on behalf of the civil authorities, and Frère Jean Blouin was present as the delegate of the Holy Inquisition for the city and district of Nantes. Owing to the multiplicity of the crimes, which were proven and clearly confessed in accordance with legal requirements, it was necessary to pronounce two sentences. The first sentence was passed by the Bishop of Nantes conjointly with the Inquisitor. By them Gilles de Rais was declared guilty of Satanism, sorcery, and apostasy, and there and then handed over to the civil arm to receive the punishment due to such offences. The second sentence, pronounced by the Bishop alone, declared the prisoner convicted of sodomy, sacrilege, and violation of ecclesiastical rights. The ban of excommunication was lifted since the accused had made a clean breast of his crimes and desired to be reconciled, but he was handed over to the secular court, who sentenced him to death, on multiplied charges of murder as well as on account of the aforesaid offences.”
“Today the word heresy seems to be as obsolete and as redolent of a Wardour-street vocabulary as if one were to talk of a game of cards at Crimp or Incertain, and to any save a dusty mediaevalist it would appear to be an antiquarian term.” MORTE AOS COMUNAS! “The heretics were just as resolute and just as practical, that is to say, just as determined to bring about the domination of their absolutism as is any revolutionary of today. The aim and objects of their leaders, Tanchelin, Everwacher, the Jew Manasses, Peter Waldo, Pierre Autier, Peter of Bruys, Arnold of Brescia, and the rest, were exactly those of Lenin, Trotsky, Zinoviev, and their fellows.”
“Their objects may be summed up as the abolition of monarchy, the abolition of private property and of inheritance, the abolition of marriage, the abolition of order, the total abolition of all religion. It was against this that the Inquisition had to fight, and who can be surprised if, when faced with so vast a conspiracy, the methods employed by the Holy Office may not seem – if the terrible conditions are conveniently forgotten – a little drastic, a little severe? There can be no doubt that had this most excellent tribunal continued to enjoy its full prerogative and the full exercise of its salutary powers, the world at large would be in a far happier and far more orderly position today. Historians may point out diversities and dissimilarities between the teaching of the Waldenses, the Albigenses, the Henricans, the Poor Men of Lyons, the Cathari, the Vaudois, the Bogomiles, and the Manichees, but they were in reality branches and variants of the same dark fraternity, just as the Third International, the Anarchists, the Nihilists, and the Bolsheviks are in every sense, save the mere label, entirely identical.”
“There is an apparent absence of motive in this seemingly aimless campaign of destruction to extermination carried on by the Bolsheviks in Russia, which has led many people to inquire what the objective can possibly be. So unbridled are the passions, so general the demolition, so terrible the havoc, that hard-headed individuals argue that so complete a chaos and such revolting outrages could only be affected by persons who were enthusiasts in their own cause and who had some very definite aims thus positively to pursue. The energizing forces of this fanaticism, this fervent zeal, do not seem to be anymore apparent than the end, hence more than one person has hesitated to accept accounts so alarming of massacres and carnage, or wholesale imprisonments, tortures, and persecutions, and has begun to suspect that the situation may be grossly exaggerated in the overcharged reports of enemies and the highly-coloured gossip of scare-mongers.” EUREKA!
“Nearly a century and a half ago Anacharsis Clootz(*), <the personal enemy of Jesus Christ> as he openly declared himself, was vociferating God is Evil, To me then Lucifer, Satan! whoever you may be, the demon that the faith of my fathers opposed to God and the Church. This is the credo of the witch.”
(*) Bases constitutionnelles de la République du genre humain, Paris, 1793
Revolucionário francês de tendências cosmopolitas (globais) à frente de seu tempo.
“Naturally, although the Masters were often individuals of high rank and deep learning, that rank and file of the society, that is to say, those who for the most part fell into the hands of justice, were recruited from the least educated classes, the ignorant and the poor [já vi isso em algum lugar…]. As one might suppose, many of the branches or covens in remoter districts knew nothing and perhaps could have understood nothing of the enormous system. Nevertheless, as small cogs in a very small wheel, it might be, they were carrying on the work and actively helping to spread the infection. It is an extremely significant fact that the last regularly official trial and execution for witchcraft in Western Europe was that of Anna Göldi, who was hanged at Glaris in Switzerland, 17 June, 1782(*). Seven years before, in 1775, the villian Adam Weishaupt, who has been truly described by Louis Blanc as <the profoundest conspirator that has ever existed,> formed his <terrible and formidable sect>, the Illuminati. The code of this mysterious movement lays down: <it is also necessary to gain the common people (das gemeine Volk) to our Order. The great means to that end is influence in the schools.>” “So in the prosecutions at Würzburg we find that there were condemned boys of 10 and 11, two choir boys aged 12, <a boy of 12-years-old in one of the lower forms of the school>, <the two young sons of the Prince’s cook, the eldest 14, the younger 12>, several pages and seminarists, as well as a number of young girls, amongst whom <a child of 9 or 10 and her little sister> were involved.”
(*) Nota corretiva (do próprio reverendo na segunda edição?): “The last trial and judicial execution in Europe itself was probably that of two aged beldames, Satanists, who were burned at the stake in Poland, 1793, the year of the Second Partition, during the reign of Stanislaus Augustus Poniatowski.” Mas parece que a correção do reverendo estava errada, prevalecendo a primeira versão, conforme wiki e outras fontes…
“In England in the year 1324 no less than 27 defendants were tried at the King’s Bench for plotting against and endeavouring to kill Edward II, together with many prominent courtiers and officials, by the practice of magical arts. A number of wealthy citizens of Coventry had hired a famous <nigromauncer>, John of Nottingham, to slay not only the king, but also the royal favourite, Hugh le Despenser, and his father; the Prior of Coventry; the monastic steward; the manciple; and a number of other important personages. A secluded old manor-house, some 2 or 3 miles out of Coventry, was put at the disposal of Master John, and there he and his servant, Robert Marshall, promptly commenced business. They went to work in the bad old-fashioned way of modelling wax dolls or mommets of those whom they wished to destroy. Long pins were thrust through the figures, and they were slowly melted before a fire.(*) The first unfortunate upon whom this experiment was tried, Richard de Sowe, a prominent courtier and close friend of the king, was suddenly taken with agonizing pains, and when Marshall visited the house, as if casually, in order that he might report the results of this sympathetic sorcery to the wizard, he found their hapless victim in a high delirium. When this state of things was promptly conveyed to him, Master John struck a pin through the heart of the image, and in the morning the news reached them that de Sowe had breathed his last. Marshall, who was by now in an extremity of terror, betook himself to a justice and laid bare all that was happening and had happened, with the immediate result that Master John and the gang of conspirators were arrested. It must be remembered that in 1324 the final rebellion against king Edward II had openly broken forth on all sides. A truce of 13 years had been arranged with Scotland, and though the English might refuse Bruce his royal title he was henceforward the warrior king of an independent country. It is true that in May, 1322, the York Parliament had not only reversed the exile of the Despensers, declaring the pardons which had been granted their opponents null and void, as well as voting for the repeal of the Ordinances of 1311, and the Despensers were working for, and fully alive to the necessity of, good and stable government, but nonetheless the situation was something more than perilous; the Exchequer was well-nigh drained; there was rioting and bloodshed in almost every large town; and worst of all, in 1323 the younger Roger Mortimer had escaped from the Tower and got away safely to the Continent. There were French troubles to boot; Charles IV, who in 1322 had succeeded to the throne, would accept no excuse from Edward for any postponement of homage, and in this very year, 1324, declaring the English possessions forfeited, he proceeded to occupy the territory with an army, when it soon became part of the French dominion. There can be not doubt that the citizens of Coventry were political intriguers, and since they were at the moment unable openly to rebel against their sovran lord, taking advantage of the fact that he was harassed and pressed at so critical a juncture, they proceeded against him by the dark and tortuous ways of black magic.”
(*) “This is certainly one of the oldest and most universal of spells. To effect the death of a man, or to injure him by making an image in his likeness, and mutilating or destroying this image, is a practice found throughout the whole wide world from its earliest years. It is common both in Babylon and in the Egypt of the Pharoahs, when magicians kneaded puppets of clay or pitch moistened with honey. If it were possible to mingle therewith a drop of a man’s blood, the parings of his nails, a few hairs from his body, a thread or two from his garments, it gave the warlock the greater power over him. In ancient Greece and Rome precisely the same ideas prevailed, and allusions may be found in Theocritus (Idyll II), Virgil (Eclogue VIII, 75-82), Ovid (Heroides, VI, 91, sqq.; Amores, III, vii, 29, sqq.), and many more. (See R. Wunsch, Eine antike Rachepuppe, Philologus, lxi, 1902, pp. 26-31.) We find this charm among the Ojebway Indians, the Cora Indians of Mexico, the Malays, the Chinese and Japanese, the aborigines throughout Australia, the Hindoos, both in ancient India and at the present day, the Burmese, many Arab tribes of Northern Africa, in Turkey, in Italy and the remoter villages of France, in Ireland and Scotland, nor is it (in one shape and form or another) yet unknown in the country districts of England.”
“An astrologer, attached to the Duke’s house-hold, when taken and charged with <werchyrye of sorcery against the King,> confessed that he had often cast the horoscope of the Duchess to find out if her husband would ever wear the English crown, the way to which they had attempted to smooth by making a wax image of Henry VI and melting it before a magic fire to bring about the king’s decease. A whole crowd of witches, male and female, were involved in the case, and among these was Margery Jourdemain, a known a notorious invoker of demons and an old trafficker in evil charms.”
“In the days of Edward IV it was commonly gossiped that the Duchess of Bedford was a witch, who by her spells had fascinated the king with the beauty of her daughter Elizabeth, whom he made his bride, in spite of the fact that he had plighted his troth to Eleanor Butler, the heiress of the Earl of Shrewsbury. So open did the scandal become that the Duchess of Bedford lodged an official complaint with the Privy Council, and an inquiry was ordered, but, as might have been suspected, this completely cleared the lady.”
O Edward, Edward! fly and leave this place,
Wherein, poor silly King, thou are enchanted.
This is her dam of Bedford’s work, her mother,
That hath bewitch’d thee, Edward, my poor child.
Heywood
“Her ascendancy over the king was attributed to the enchantments and experiments of a Dominican friar, learned in many a cantrip and cabala, whom she entertained in her house, and who had fashioned 2 pictures of Edward and Alice which, when suffumigated with the incense of mysterious herbs and gums, mandrakes, sweet calamus, caryophylleae, storax, benzoin, and other plants plucked beneath the full moon what time Venus was in ascendant, caused the old king to dote upon this lovely concubine. With great difficulty by a subtle ruse the friar was arrested, and he thought himself lucky to escape with relegation to a remote house under the strictest observance of his Order, whence, however, he was soon to be recalled with honour and reward, since the Good Parliament shortly came to an end, and Alice Perrers, who now stood higher in favour than ever, was not slow to heap lavish gifts upon her supporters, and to visit her enemies with condign punishment.”
“There was nobody more thoroughly scared of witchcraft than Henry VIII’s daughter, Elizabeth, and as John Jewel was preaching his famous sermon before her in February, 1560, he described at length how <this kind of people (I mean witches and sorcerers) within these few last years are marvellously increased within this Your Grace’s realm;> he then related how owing to dark spells he had known many <pine away even to death.> <I pray God,> he unctuously cried, <they may never practise further than upon the subjects!> This was certainly enough to ensure that drastic laws should be passed particularly to protect the Queen, who was probably both thrilled and complimented to think that her life was in danger. It is exceedingly doubtful, whether there was any conspiracy at all which would have attempted Elizabeth’s personal safety.”
“That it was a huge and far-reaching political conspiracy is patent form the fact that the lives of Louis XIV, the Queen, the Dauphin, Louise de la Vallière, and the Duchesse de Fontanges had been attempted secretly again and again, whilst as for Colbert, scores of his enemies were constantly entreating for some swift sure poison, constantly participating in unhallowed rites which might lay low the all-powerful Introduction of Minister.”
“As early as 600 S. Gregory I had spoken in severest terms, enjoining the punishment of sorcerers and those who trafficked in black magic. It will be noted that he speaks of them as more often belonging to that class termed servi, that is to say, the very people from whom for the most part Nihilists and Bolsheviks have sprung in modern days.” Não consigo encontrar referências para os serui – segundo a grafia moderna poderiam ser os servi, os sérvios? Dostoievsky é o epítome da literatura niilista pré-Revolução Russa. Mas e daí? Ele queimou alguém na fogueira? Na verdade até onde eu sei era um beato (viciado em jogo, mas um beato). Nenhuma pista, só um palpite.
“On 13, December, 1258, Pope Alexander IV (Rinaldo Conti) issued a Bull to the Franciscan Inquisitors bidding them refrain from judging any cases of witchcraft unless there was some very strong reason to suppose that heretical practice could also be amply proved. On 10 January, 1260, the same Pontiff addressed a similar Bull to the Dominicans.”
DEFENDENDO O INDEFENSÁVEL: “Sixtus IV was an eminent theologian, he is the author of an admirable treatise on the Immaculate Conception, and it is significant that he took strong measures to curb [restrain] the judicial severities of Tomás de Torquemada [que bonzinho], whom he had appointed Grand Inquisitor of Castile, 11 February, 1482. During his reign he published three Bulls directly attacking sorcery, which he clearly identified with heresy, an opinion of the deepest weight when pronounced by one who had so penetrating a knowledge of the political currents of the day [ó!]. There can be no doubt that he saw the society of witches to be nothing else than a vast international of anti-social revolutionaries. (sic!!!)”
“It has been necessarily thus briefly to review this important series of Papal documents to show that the famous Bull Summis desiderantes affectibus, 9 December, 1484, which Innocent VIII addressed to the authors of the Malleus Maleficarum, is no isolated and extraordinary document, but merely one in the long and important record of Papal utterances, although at the same time it is of the greatest importance and supremely authoritative. It has, however, been very frequently asserted, not only by prejudiced and unscrupulous chroniclers, but also by scholars of standing and repute, that this Bull of Innocent VIII, if not, as many appear to suppose, is actually the prime cause and origin of the crusade against witches, at any rate gave the prosecution and energizing power and an authority which hitherto they had not, and which save for this Bull they could not ever have, commanded and possessed.” “a Bull is an instrument of especial weight and importance, and it differs both in form and detail from constitutions, encyclicals, briefs, decrees, privileges, and rescripts. It should be remarked, however, that the term Bull has conveniently been used to denote all these, especially if they are Papal letters of any early date. By the 15th century clearer distinctions were insisted upon and maintained.”
“Alexander VI published two Bulls upon the same theme, and in a Bull of Julius II there is a solemn description of that abomination the Black Mass, which is perhaps the central feature of the worship of Satanists, and which is unhappily yet celebrated today in London, in Paris, in Berlin, and in many another great city.” “Leo X, the great Pope of Humanism, issued a Bull on the subject; but even more important is the Bull Dudum uti nobis exponi fecisti, 20 July, 1523, which speaks of the horrible abuse of the Sacrament in sorceries and the charms confuted by witches.”
“There is a Constitution of Gregory XV, Omnipotentis Dei, 20 March, 1623; and a Constitution of Urban VIII, Inscrutabilis iudiciorum Dei altitudo, 1st April [hehe], 1631, which – if we except the recent condemnation of Spiritism in the19th century – may be said to be the last Apostolic document directed against these foul and devilish practices.”
“The noble and momentous sentences are built-up word by word, beat by beat, ever growing more and more authoritative, more and more judicial, until they culminate in the minatory and imprecatory clauses which are so impressive, so definite, that no loophole is left for escape, no turn for evasion. <Nulli ergo omnino hominum liceat hanc paganim nostrae declarationis extentionis concessionis et mandati infringere vel ei ausu temeraris contrarie Si qui autem attentate praesumpserit indignationem omnipotentis Dei ac beatorum Petri et Pauli Apostolorum eius se noverit incursurum.> If any man shall presume to go against the tenor let him know that therein he will bring down upon himself the wrath of Almighty God and of the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul.”
“infallibility is claimed on the ground, not indeed of the terms of the Vatican definition, but of the constant practice of the Holy See, the consentient teaching of the theologians, as well as the clearest deductions of the principles of faith.” “Without exception non-Catholic historians have either in no measured language denounced or else with sorrow deplored the Bull of Innocent VIII as a most pernicious and unhappy document, a perpetual and irrevocable manifesto of the unchanged and unchangeable mind of the Papacy. From this point of view they are entirely justified, and their attitude is undeniably logical and right. The Summis desiderantes affectibus is either a dogmatic exposition by Christ’s Vicar upon earth or it is altogether abominable.” Choose for the second!
“It is all the more amazing to find that the writer of the article upon Witchcraft in the Catholic Encyclopaedia quotes Hansen with complete approval and gleefully adds with regard to the Bull of Innocent VIII, <neither does the form suggest that the Pope wishes to bind anyone to believe more about the reality of witchcraft than is involved in the utterances of Holy Scripture,> a statement which is essentially Protestant in its nature, and, as is acknowledged by every historian of whatsoever colour or creed, entirely untrue. By its appearance in a standard work of reference, which is on the shelves of every library, this article upon Witchcraft acquires a certain title to consideration which upon its merits it might otherwise lack. It is signed Herbert Thurston, and turning to the list of <Contributors to the Fifteenth Volume> we duly see <Thurston, Herbert, S.J., London.> Since a Jesuit Father emphasizes in a well-known (and presumably authoritative) Catholic work an opinion so derogatory to the Holy See and so definitely opposed to all historians, one is entitled to express curiosity concerning other writings which may not have come from his pen. I find that for a considerable number of years Fr. Thurston has been contributing to The Month a series of articles upon mystical phenomena and upon various aspects of mysticism, such as the Incorruption of the bodies of Saints and Beati, the Stigmata, the Prophecies of holy persons, the miracles of Crucifixes that bleed or pictures of the Madonna which move, famous Sanctuaries, the inner life of and wonderful events connected with persons still living who have acquired a reputation for sanctity. This busy writer directly or incidentally has dealt with that famous ecstatica Anne Catherine Emmerich; the Crucifix of Limpias; Our Lady of Campocavallo; S. Januarus; the Ven. Maria d’Agreda; Gemma Galgani; Padre Pio Pietralcina; that gentle soul Teresa Higginson, the beauty of whose life has attracted thousands, but whom Fr. Thurston considers hysterical and masochistic and whose devotions to him savour of the <snowball> prayer; Pope Alexander VI; the origin of the Rosary; the Carmelite scapular; and very many themes beside. Here was have (sic) a mass of material, and even a casual glance through these pages will suffice to show the ugly prejudice which informs the whole. The intimate discussions on miracles, spiritual graces and physical phenomena, which above all require faith, reverence, sympathy, tact and understanding, are conducted with a roughness and a rudeness infinitely regrettable. What is worse, in every case Catholic tradition and loyal Catholic feeling are thrust to one side; the note of scepticism, of modernism, and even of rationalism is arrogantly dominant. Tender miracles of healing wrought at some old sanctuary, records of some hidden life of holiness secretly lived amongst us in the cloister or the home, these things seem to provoke Fr. Thurston to such a pitch of annoyance that he cannot refrain from venting his utmost spleen. The obsession is certainly morbid. It is reasonable to suppose that a lengthy series of papers all concentrating upon certain aspects of mysticism would have collected in one volume, and it is extremely significant that in the autumn of 1923 a leading house announced among Forthcoming Books: The Physical Phenomena of Mysticism. By the Rev. Herbert Thurston, S.J. Although in active preparation, this has never seen the light. I have heard upon good authority that the ecclesiastical superiors took exception to such a publication. I may, of course, be wrong, and there can be no question that there is room for a different point of view, but I cannot divest my mind of the idea that the exaggerated rationalization of mystical phenomena conspicuous in the series of articles I have just considered may be by no means unwelcome to the Father of Lies [é coisa do demo usar a cabeça]. It really plays into his hands: first, because it makes the Church ridiculous by creating the impression that her mystics, particularly friars and nuns, are for the most part sickly hysterical subjects, deceivers and deceived, who would be fit inmates of Bedlam; that many of her most reverend shrines, Limpias, Campocavallo, and the sanctuaries of Naples, are frauds and conscious imposture; and, secondly, because it condemns and brings into ridicule that note of holiness which theologians declare is one of the distinctive marks of the true Church.” Finalmente alguém sensato na parada!
INFALIBILIDADE DOS DEMÔNIOS EM PELE DE CORDEIRO: “and Fr. Thurston for 15 nauseating pages insists upon <the evil example of his private life>. This is unnecessary; it is untrue; it shows contempt of Christ’s Vicar on earth.”
“For a full account of the Papal Bulls, see my Geography of Witchcraft, 1927” Deve ser um livro interessantíssimo. Um catálogo das páginas mais execráveis já escritos por homens de autoridade na era dos domínios de Deus-Filho sobre a superfície da redonda terra.
* * *
Verbete W I K I sobre Thurston:
“Thurston wrote more than 150 articles for the Catholic Encyclopedia (1907-1914), and published nearly 800 articles in magazines and scholarly journals, as well a dozen books. He also re-edited Alban Butler’s Lives of the Saints (1926-1938). Many of Thurston’s articles show a skeptical attitude towards popular legends about the lives of the saints and about holy relics. On the other hand, his treatment of spiritualism and the paranormal was regarded as <too sympathetic> by some within the Catholic community.” “Thurston attributed the phenomena of stigmata to the effects of suggestion.” Livro que parece o mais interessante como inicial: The Physical Phenomena of Mysticism (1952). Vemos, portanto, que o livro foi “enrolado”, mas saiu, após a segunda e nefastérrima edição do Malleus do reverendinho SummersWinters!
* * *
VOLTANDO ÀS PATACOADAS…
“It should be borne in mind too that frequent disturbances, conspiracies of anarchists, and nascent Bolshevism showed that the district was rotted to the core, and the severities of Kramer and Sprenger were by no means so unwarranted as is generally supposed.” “Unfortunately full biographies of these two remarkable men, James Sprenger and Henry Kramer, have not been transmitted to us, but as many details have been succinctly collected in the Scriptores Ordinis Praedicatorum of Quétif and Echard, Paris, 1719, I have thought it convenient to transcribe the following accounts from that monumental work.”
PAPAS PROCRIADORES (MAS SANTOS): (*) “Burchard was only aware of two children of Innocent VIII. But Egidio of Viterbo wrote: <Primus pontificum filios filiasque palam ostentavit, primus eorum apertas fecit nuptias.>”
(*) “One writer, professing himself a Christian, declares that it is at least doubtful whether Our Lord instituted The Holy Sacrifice of the Altar. This, of course, is tantamount to a denial of Christ.”
6 6 6
“The British Museum has five editions of the 15th century: 4to., 1490? (IA 8634); folio, 1490 (IB 8615); 4to., 1494 (IA 7468); folio, 1494 (IB 5064); 4to., 1496 (IA 7503).” “Malleus Maleficarum, 8vo., Paris, an edition to which the British Museum catalogue assigns the date of <1510?>.”
“Malleus Maleficarum . . . per F. Raffaelum Maffeum Venetum et D. Jacobi a Judeca instituti Servorum summo studio illustratis et a multis erroribus vindicatus . . . Venetiis Ad Candentis Salamandrae insigne. 1576, 8vo. (This is a disappointing reprint, and it is difficult to see in what consisted the editorial care of the Servite Raffaelo Maffei [Rafael Má-fé!], who may or may not have been some relation of the famous humanist of the same name (d. 25 January, 1522)(*), and who was of the monastery of San Giacomo della Guidecca. He might have produced a critical edition of the greatest value, but as it is there are no glosses, there is no excursus, and the text is poor. For example, in a very difficult passage, Principalis Quaestio II, Pars II, where the earliest texts read <die dominico sotularia ivuenum fungia . . . perungunt,> Venice, 1576, has <die dominica sotularia ivuenum fungia . . . perungent.>)” (*) Não é Raffaello Sanzio, que morreu em 1520.
“Malleus Maleficarum, 4 vols., <sumptibus Claudii Bourgeat,> 4to., Lyons, 1669. This would appear to be the latest edition of the Malleus Maleficarum”
6 6 6
“The derivation of Femina from fe minus is notorious, and hardly less awkward is the statement that Diabolus comes <a Dia, quod est duo, et bolus, quod est morsellus; quia duo occidit, scilicet corpus et animam.>”
O show de horrores continua…
“Possibly what will seem even more amazing to modern readers is the misogynic trend of various passages, and these not of the briefest nor least pointed. However, exaggerated as these may be, I am not altogether certain that they will not prove a wholesome and needful antidote in this feministic age, when the sexes seem confounded, and it appear to be the chief object of many females to ape the man, an indecorum by which they not only divest themselves of such charm as they might boast, but lay themselves open to the sternest reprobation in the name of sanity and common-sense. For the Apostle S. Peter says: Let wives be subject to their husbands: that if any believe not the word, they may be won without the word, by the conver[sa]tion of the wives, considering your chaste conversation with fear. Whose adorning let it not be the outward plaiting of the hair, or the wearing of god, or the putting on of apparel; but the hidden man of the heart is the incorruptibility of a quiet and meek spirit, which is rich in the sight of God. For after the manner heretofore the holy women also, who trusted God, adorned themselves, being in subjection to their own husbands: as Sara obeyed Abraham, calling him lord: whose daughters you are, doing well, and not fearing any disturbance.”
(*) “The extremer Picards seem to have been an off-shoot of the Behgards and to have professed the Adamite heresy. They called their churches Paradise whilst engaged in common worship stripped themselves quite nude. Shameful disorders followed. A number of these fanatics took possession of an island in the river Nezarka and lived in open communism. In 1421 Ziska, the Hussite leader, practically exterminated the sect. There have, however, been sporadic outbreaks of these Neo-Adamites. Picards was also a name given to the <Bohemian Brethren>, who may be said to have been organized in 1457 by Gregory, the nephew of Rokyzana.”
“Montague Summers.
In Festo Expectationis B.M.V.
1927.”
Já vai tarde, martelador de coisas erradas!
6 6 6
“It was published in 1487, but two years previously the authors had secured a bull from Pope Innocent VIII, authorizing them to continue the witch hunt in the Alps which they had already instituted against the opposition from clergy and secular authorities. They reprinted the bull of December 5, 1484 to make it appear that the whole book enjoyed papal sanction.
Anybody with a grudge or suspicion, very young children included, could accuse anyone of witchcraft and be listened to with attention; anyone who wanted someone else’s property or wife could accuse; any loner, any old person living alone, anyone with a misformity, physical or mental problem was likely to be accused. Open hunting season was declared on women, especially herb gatherers, midwives, widows and spinsters. Women who had no man to supervise them were of course highly suspicious. It has been estimated by Dr. Marija Gimbutas, professor of archaeology at the University of California, that as many as 9 million people, overwhelmingly women, were burned or hanged during the witch-craze. For nearly 250 years the Witches’ Hammer was the guidebook for the witch hunters, but again some of the inquisitioners had misgivings about this devilish book. In a letter dated November 27, 1538 Salazar advised the inquisitioners not to believe everything they read in Malleus Maleficarum, even if the authors write about it as something they themselves have seen and investigated (Henningson, p.347).”
Edo Nyland – The Witch Burnings: Holocaust Without Equal
6 6 6
TRADUÇÃO ORIGINAL DO REVERENDO CATÓLICO QUE DEVE TER VIVIDO BASTANTES “VERÕES”
“every alteration that takes place in a human body – for example, a state of health or a state of sickness – can be brought down to a question of natural causes, as Aristotle has shown in his 7th book of Physics. And the greatest of these is the influence of the stars. But the devils cannot interfere with the stars. This is the opinion of Dionysius in his epistle to S. Polycarp. For this alone God can do. Therefore it is evident the demons cannot actually effect any permanent transformation in human bodies; that is to say, no real metamorphosis. And so we must refer the appearance of any such change to some dark and occult cause.”
“For devils have no power at all save by a certain subtle art. But an art cannot permanently produce a true form. (And a certain author says: Writers on Alchemy know that there is no hope of any real transmutation.) Therefore the devils for their part, making use of the utmost of their craft, cannot bring about any permanent cure – or permanent disease.”
“But the power of the devil is stronger than any human power” (Job 40) Ou a tradução para Português perde muito do sentido original ou o autor se equivoca muito ao interpretar os versos de Jó XL como sobre o demônio, quando só falam de Deus onipotente, do homem impotente e, no máximo, do animal beemote, que é um crente, age com sabedoria, não se desespera, porque conhece a própria fraqueza melhor do que o homem.
“For the imagination of some men is so vivid that they think they see actual figures and appearances which are but the reflection of their thoughts, and then these are believed to be the apparitions of evil spirits or even the spectres of witches.”
#títulodelivro
DESBATIZADO
“an infidel and worse than a heathen”
tempstation du mal, ô Être!
Deuteronômio 18: “Este, pois, será o direito dos sacerdotes, a receber do povo, dos que oferecerem sacrifício, seja boi ou gado miúdo; que darão ao sacerdote a espádua e as queixadas e o bucho.”
Ça ser dote ou não ser, eis a questão
“Entre ti não se achará quem faça passar pelo fogo a seu filho ou a sua filha, nem adivinhador, nem prognosticador, nem agoureiro, nem feiticeiro;
Nem encantador, nem quem consulte a um espírito adivinhador, nem mágico, nem quem consulte os mortos;
Pois todo aquele que faz tal coisa é abominação ao Senhor; e por estas abominações o Senhor teu Deus os lança fora de diante de ti.
(…)
estas nações, que hás de possuir, ouvem os prognosticadores e os adivinhadores; porém a ti [descendente sacerdotal] o Senhor teu Deus não permitiu tal coisa. [Daí estaria implícito que a adivinhação e o ato de aconselhar [?] estão permitidos para todas as tribos não-sacerdotais; são simplesmente naturais dentre o povaréu. Não deveriam ser os e as possuidoras de tantos e atípicos talentos vítimas de apedrejamento, apenas deixad@s em sua ‘cegueira espiritual inerente’, para serem julgad@s na Esfera competente Quando de competência!]”
“Porém o profeta que tiver a presunção de falar alguma palavra em meu nome, que eu não lhe tenha mandado falar [um Genocídio teria de advir], ou o que falar em nome de outros deuses, esse profeta morrerá.” Não disse de quê.
“Quando o profeta falar em nome do Senhor, e essa palavra não se cumprir, nem suceder assim; esta é palavra que o Senhor não falou; com soberba a falou aquele profeta; não tenhas temor dele.” Jesus tem ainda uns 30 mil anos de crédito, relaxai…
Levíticos 19: “The soul which goeth to wizards and soothsayers to commit fornication with them, I will set my face against that soul, and destroy it out of the midst of my people.”
Levíticos 20: “A man, or woman, in whom there is a pythonical or divining spirit dying, let them die: they shall stone them.”
IV Kings I // 2 Reis 1: “His brother and successor, Joram, threw down the statue of Baal, erected by Achab”
“(…) Ide, e perguntai a Baal-Zebube, deus de Ecrom, se sararei desta doença.
Mas o anjo do Senhor disse a Elias, o tisbita: Levanta-te, sobe para te encontrares com os mensageiros do rei de Samaria, e dize-lhes: Porventura não há Deus em Israel, para irdes consultar a Baal-Zebube, deus de Ecrom?
E por isso assim diz o Senhor: Da cama, a que subiste, não descerás, mas sem falta morrerás. Então Elias partiu.
(…)
Então o rei (…) disse-lhe: Homem de Deus, o rei diz: Desce.
Mas Elias respondeu, e disse ao capitão de cinqüenta: Se eu, pois, sou homem de Deus, desça fogo do céu, e te consuma a ti e aos teus cinqüenta. Então fogo desceu do céu, e consumiu a ele e aos seus cinqüenta.
(…)
E tornou a enviar um terceiro capitão de cinqüenta, com os seus cinqüenta; então subiu o capitão de cinqüenta e, chegando, pôs-se de joelhos diante de Elias, e suplicou-lhe, dizendo: Homem de Deus, seja, peço-te, preciosa aos teus olhos a minha vida, e a vida destes cinqüenta teus servos.
Eis que fogo desceu do céu, e consumiu aqueles dois primeiros capitães de cinqüenta, com os seus cinqüenta; porém, agora seja preciosa aos teus olhos a minha vida.
Então o anjo do Senhor disse a Elias: Desce com este, não temas. E levantou-se, e desceu com ele ao rei.
(…)
Assim, pois, morreu, conforme a palavra do Senhor, que Elias falara (…)”
I Paralipomenon 10 (Bíblia Vulgata, English translation – equivalente a 1 Crônicas 10): “Saul is slain for his sins: he is buried by the men of Jabes. Now the Philistines fought against Israel, and the men of Israel fled from before the Philistines, and fell down wounded in mount Gelboe. And the Philistines drew near pursuing after Saul, and his sons, and they killed Jonathan, and Abinadab, and Melchisua the sons of Saul. And the battle grew hard against Saul and the archers reached him, and wounded him with arrows. And Saul said to his armour-bearer: Draw thy sword, and kill me: lest these uncircumcised come, and mock me. But his armour-bearer would not, for he was struck with fear: so Saul took his sword, and fell upon it. [réprobo dos réprobos!] And when his armour-bearer saw it, to wit, that Saul was dead, he also fell upon his sword and died. So Saul died, and his 3 sons, and all his house fell together. And when the men of Israel, that dwelt in the plains, saw this, they fled: and Saul and his sons being dead, they forsook their cities, and were scattered up and down: and the Philistines came, and dwelt in them. And the next day the Philistines taking away the spoils of them that were slain, found Saul and his sons lying on mount Gelboe. And when they had stripped him, and cut off his head, and taken away his armour, they sent it into their land, to be carried about, and shown in the temples of the idols and to the people. And his armour they dedicated in the temple of their god, and his head they fastened up in the temple of Dagon. And when the men of Jabes Galaad had heard this, to wit, all that the Philistines had done to Saul, All the valiant men of them arose, and took the bodies of Saul and of his sons, and brought them to Jabes, and buried their bones under the oak that was in Jabes, and they fasted 7 days. So Saul died for his iniquities, because he transgressed the commandment of the Lord, which he had commanded, and kept it not: and moreover consulted also a witch, And trusted not in the Lord: therefore he slew him, and transferred his kingdom to David the son of Isai.”
“I will not mention those very many other places where S. Thomas in great detail discusses operations of this kind. As, for example, in his Summa contra Gentiles, Book 3, c. 1 and 2, in part one, question 114, argument 4. And in the Second of the Second, questions 92 and 94. We may further consult the Commentators and the Exegetes who have written upon the wise men and the magicians of Pharaoh, Exodus 7. We may also consult what S. Augustine says in The City of God, Book 18, c. 17. See further his second book On Christian Doctrine. Very many other doctors advance the same opinion, and it would be the height of folly for any man to contradict all these, and he could not be held to be clear of the guilt of heresy. For any man who gravely errs in an exposition of Holy Scripture is rightly considered to be a heretic.”
“For they say, and S. Thomas agrees with them, that if witchcraft takes effect in the event of a marriage before there has been carnal copulation, then if it is lasting it annuls and destroys the contract of marriage, and it is quite plain that such a condition cannot in any way be said to be illusory and the effect of imagination.”
DSM-0 (IMPOTENCIAS FEITICIRIVS): “they lay down whether it is to be treated as a lasting or temporary infirmity if it continued for more than the space of 3 years”
“Any person, whatsoever his rank or position, upon such an accusation may be put to torture, and he who is found guilty, even if he confesses his crime, let him be racked, let him suffer all other tortures prescribed by law in order that he may be punished in proportion to his offences.
Note: In days of old such criminals suffered a double penalty and were often thrown to wild beast to be devoured by them. Nowadays they are burnt at the stake, and probably this is because the majority of them are women.”
A tênue linha entre a Mãe Diná, David Copperfield e o Capeta.
“Here it must be noticed that there are fourteen distinct species which come under the genus superstition, but these for the sake of brevity it is hardly necessary to detail, since they have been most clearly set out by S. Isidore in his Etymologiae, (*) Book 8, and by S. Thomas in his Second of the Second, question 92.” “The category in which women of this sort are to be ranked is called the category of Pythons, persons in or by whom the devil either speaks or performs some astonishing operation, and this is often the first category in order.”
(*) “Throughout the greater part of the Middle Ages it was the text-book most in use in educational institutions. Arevalo, who is regarded as the most authoritative editor of S. Isidore (7 vols., Rome, 1797-1803), tells us that it was printed no less than ten times between 1470 and 1529.”
“it is necessary that there should be made a contract with the devil, by which contract the witch truly and actually binds herself to be the servant of the devil and devotes herself to the devil, and this is not done in any dream or under any illusion”
CAVALGAR, ASSUNTO FEMININO POR EXCELÊNCIA: “although these women imagine they are riding (as they think and say) with Diana or with Herodias, in truth they are riding with the devil, who calls himself by some such heathen name and throws a glamour before their eyes. (…) the act of riding abroad may be merely illusory, since the devil has extraordinary power over the minds of those who have given themselves up to him, so that what they do in pure imagination, they believe they have actually and really done in the body.” “Whether witches by their magic arts are actually and bodily transported from place to place, or whether this merely happens in imagination, as is the case with regard to those women who are called Pythons, will be dealt with later in this work, and we shall also discuss how they are conveyed.”
The Evil Damnation
Devi[l-]da[-]mente orden[h]ado
“that God very often allows devils to act as His ministers and His servants, but throughout all it is God alone who can afflict and it is He alone who can heal, for <I kill and I make alive> (Deuteronomy 32:39).”
(*) “<Lex Cornelia.> De Sicariis et Ueneficis. Passed circa 81 B.C. This law dealt with incendiarism as well as open assassination and poisoning, and laid down penalties for accessories to the fact.”
“Yet perhaps this may seem to be altogether too severe a judgement mainly because of the penalties which follow upon excommunication: for the Canon prescribes that a cleric is to be degraded [?] and that a layman is to be handed over to the power of the secular courts, who are admonished to punish him as his offence deserves. Moreover, we must take into consideration the very great numbers of persons who, owing to their ignorance, will surely be found guilty of this error. And since the error is very common the rigor of strict justice may be tempered with mercy. And it is indeed our intention to try to make excuses for those who are guilty of this heresy rather than to accuse them of being infected with the malice of heresy. It is preferable then that if a man should be even gravely suspected of holding this false opinion he should not be immediately condemned for the grave crime of heresy. (See the gloss of Bernard upon the word Condemned.)”
“since an idea merely kept to oneself is not heresy unless it be afterwards put forward, obstinately and openly maintained, it should certainly be said that persons such as we have just mentioned are not to be openly condemned for the crime of heresy. But let no man think he may escape by pleading ignorance. For those who have gone astray through ignorance of this kind may be found to have sinned very gravely. For although there are many degrees of ignorance, nevertheless those who have the cure of souls [padres?] cannot plead invincible ignorance, as the philosophers call it, which by the writers on Canon law and by the Theologians is called Ignorance of the Fact.” “For sometimes persons do not know, they do not wish to know, and they have no intention of knowing. For such persons there is no excuse, but they are to be altogether condemned.”
“If it be asked whether the movement of material objects from place to place by the devil may be paralleled by the movement of the spheres, the answer is No. Because material objects are not thus moved by any natural inherent power of their own, but they are only moved by a certain obedience to the power of the devil, who by the virtue of his own nature has a certain dominion over bodies and material things; he has this certain power, I affirm, yet he is not able to add to created material objects any form or shape, be it substantial or accidental, without some admixture of or compounding with another created natural object.”
“The planets and stars have no power to coerce and compel devils to perform any actions against their will, although seemingly demons are readier to appear when summoned by magicians under the influence of certain stars. It appears that they do this for two reasons. First, because they know that the power of that planet will aid the effect which the magicians desire. Secondly, They do this in order to deceive men, thus making them suppose that the stars have some divine power or actual divinity, and we know that in days of old this veneration of the stars led to the vilest idolatry.”
“alchemists make something similar to gold, that is to say, in so far as the external accidents are concerned, but nevertheless they do not make true gold, because the substance of gold is not formed by the heat of fire which alchemists employ, but by the heat of the sun, acting and reacting upon a certain spot where mineral power is concentrated and amassed, and therefore such gold is of the same likeness as, but is not of the same species as, natural gold.”
Raimundo de Sabunde, espanhol, traduzido até por Montaigne (Theologia Naturalis).
“we learn from the Holy Scriptures of the disasters which fell upon Job, how fire fell from heaven and striking the sheep and the servants consumed them, and how a violent wind threw down the four corners of a house so that it fell upon his children and slew them all. The devil by himself without the co-operation of any witches, but merely by God’s permission alone, was able to bring about all these disasters. Therefore he can certainly do many things which are often ascribed to the work of witches.”
“uma sálvia podre, arremessada numa corrente d’água, pode causar terríveis tempestades e borrascas.”
“Um dos argumentos muito repetidos: Citamos Aristóteles, que diz, no terceiro livro de sua Ética: O Mal é um ato voluntário, o que se prova pelo fato de que ninguém executa uma ação injusta, e um homem que comete um estupro o faz em busca do seu próprio prazer, não é que prejudique apenas por prejudicar ou queira cometer o mal pelo próprio mal. Mas não é assim que entende a Lei. O diabo está apenas usando a bruxa como seu instrumento; logo, neste caso a bruxa é apenas um títere; a bruxa não deveria ser punida pelo seu ato.” [!!!]
Gálatas 3: “O senseless Galatians, who hath bewitched you that you should not obey the truth?”
“And the gloss upon this passage refers to those who have singularly fiery and baleful eyes [inflamados, perniciosos], who by a mere look can harm others, especially young children.” ???
“Alguns podem seduzir e hipnotizar pelo mero olhar” Avicena
O ímã assustava os crentes até no mínimo Santo Agostinho. O “poder” feminino da maquiagem é colocado em pé de igualdade com aquele poder de atração magnética!
“Moisés atacou o Egito com dez pragas por intermédio do ministério dos bons Anjos; já os magos do Faraó foram capazes tão-só de realizar três desses milagres pela ajuda de Satanás. E a peste que caiu sobre as pessoas por 3 dias devido ao pecado de Davi, que enumerou as pessoas, e os 72 mil homens que foram massacrados numa noite, do exército de Senacheribe, foram milagres produzidos por Anjos de Deus, i.e., Anjos bons tementes a Deus e sabedores de Sua Vontade.”
“No tempo de Jó não havia feiticeiros nem bruxas. A Providência quis que o exemplo de Jó servisse para alertar sobre os poderes ocultos do Anjo caído manifestáveis mesmo contra os justos (…) lembre-se: nada ocorre senão a vontade de Deus.”
“Vincent of Beauvais(*) in his Speculum historiale, quoting many learned authorities, says that he who first practised the arts of magic and of astrology was Zoroaster, who is said to have been Cham the son of Noe. And according to S. Augustine in his book Of the City of God, Cham laughed aloud when he was born, and thus showed that he was a servant of the devil, and he, although he was a great and mighty king, was conquered by Ninus the son of Belus,¹ who built Ninive, whose reign was the beginning of the kingdom of Assyria in the time of Abraham.”
(*) “Little is known of the personal history of this celebrated encyclopaedist. The years of his birth and death are uncertain, but the dates most frequently assigned are 1190 and 1264 respectively. It is thought that he joined the Dominicans in Paris shortly after 1218, and that he passed practically his whole life in his monastery in Beauvais, where he occupied himself incessantly upon his enormous work, the general title of which is Speculum Maius, containing 80 books, divided into 9.885 chapters. The third part, Speculum Historiale, in 31 books and 3,793 chapters, bring the History of the World down to A.D. 1250.”
¹ Grego antigo Bēlos; a reencarnação antropomórfica de Marduk; e ainda suposto neto de Hércules! Belus é algumas vezes associado à Assíria, outras à Babilônia e ainda outras ao Egito como um “pai civilizacional” e mestre militar ou semideus da guerra. Na última versão (a egípcia), teria se casado com a filha do deus-rio Nilo. De 12 autores clássicos que citaram Belus, 4 atribuem sua paternidade a Poseidon. Não estão tampouco descartadas relações do nome Belus com Ba’al do Velho Testamento (conseqüentemente, Ba’al e Marduque possuem verossimilhanças e correlações).
“From this time men began to worship images as though they were gods; but this was after the earliest years of history, for in the very first ages there was no idolatry, since in the earliest times men still preserved some remembrance of the creation of the world, as S. Thomas says, Book 2, question 95, article 4. Or it may have originated with Nembroth [Nimrod], who compelled men to worship fire; and thus in the second age of the world there began Idolatry, which is the first of all superstitions, as Divination is the second, and the Observing of Times and Seasons the third.
The practices of witches are included in the second kind of superstition, since they expressly invoke the devil. And there are 3 kinds of this superstition: — Necromancy, Astrology, or rather Astromancy, the superstitious observation of stars, and Oneiromancy.” Freud bruxão
“The prophet Isaiah (6:6) says: The earth is filled with the knowledge of the Lord. And so in this twilight and evening of the world, when sin is flourishing on every side and in every place, when charity is growing cold, the evil of witches and their inequities superabound.”
“And since Zoroaster was wholly given up to the magic arts, it was the devil alone who inspired him to study and observe the stars.”
“For the eyes direct their glance upon a certain object without taking notice of other things, and although the vision be perfectly clear, yet at the sight of some impurity, such, for example, a woman during her monthly periods, the eyes will as it were contract a certain impurity. This is what Aristotle says in his work On Sleep and Waking, and thus if anybody’s spirit be inflamed with malice or rage, as is often the case with old women, then their disturbed spirit looks through their eyes, for their countenances are most evil and harmful, and often terrify young children of tender years, who are extremely impressionable.” “Os olhos dirigem sua mirada a certos objetos sem se concentrar sobre ou perceber outros, e ainda que o sentido da visão resulte perfeitamente claro, quando abstraído por alguma impureza, como, por exemplo, uma mulher em seu período menstrual, os olhos serão contaminados pela mesma impureza. Isto é o que Aristóteles diz em sua obra Sobre o Sono e a Vigília [livro contido na obra maior, Da Alma]; destarte, se a alma de alguém estiver dominada pela malícia ou fúria, o que é amiúde o caso das mulheres velhas, sua alma perturbada transparece através dos olhos; basta observar o quanto seus semblantes parecem maus e daninhos, e como assustam com tanta facilidade as crianças pequenas nos anos da inocência, que são extremamente impressionáveis.”
A lenda do “olhar letal” do basilisco: quiçá a fonte do Mito da Medusa.
EVIL NEVER DIES: “Réalité de la Magie et des Apparitions, Paris, 1819 (pp. xii-xiii), has: <Le monde, purgé par le déluge, fut repeuplé par les trois fils de Noé. Sem et Japhet imitèrent la vertu de leur père, et furent justes comme lui. Cham, au contraire, donna entrée au démon dans son coeur, remit au jour l’art exécrable de la magie, en composa les règles, et en instruisit son fils Misraim.>”
OS TRÊS REIS MAGOS VIERAM PRESENTEAR O FILHO DE DEUS (O DIABO REDENTOR) COM PRESENTES FANTÁSTICOS E ENCANTADORES.
“Caldeu, astrólogo e mago eram três sinônimos perfeitos.”
“And now with reference to the second point, namely, that blood will flow from a corpse in the presence of a murderer.” Superstição lida hoje em Tom Sawyer!
“Now there are two circumstances which are certainly very common at the present day, that is to say, the connexion of witches with familiars, Incubi and Succubi, and the horrible sacrifices of small children. (…) Now these demons work owing to their influence upon man’s mind and upon his free will, and they choose to copulate under the influence of certain stars rather than under the influence of others, for it would seem that at certain times their semen can more easily generate and beget children.”
“At first it may truly seem that it is not in accordance with the Catholic Faith to maintain that children can be begotten by devils, that is to say, by Incubi and Succubi: for God Himself, before sin came into the world, instituted human procreation, since He created woman from the rib of man to be a help-meet unto man: And to them He said: Increase, and multiply, Genesis 2:24. Likewise after sin had come into the world, it was said to Noé: Increase, and multiply, Genesis 9:1. In the time of the new law also, Christ confirmed this union: Have ye not read, that he who made man from the beginning, Made them male and female? S. Matthew 19:4. Therefore, men cannot be begotten in any other way than this.
But it may be argued that devils take their part in this generation not as the essential cause, but as a secondary and artificial cause, since they busy themselves by interfering with the process of normal copulation and conception, by obtaining human semen, and themselves transferring it.”
“to collect human semen from one person and to transfer it to another implies certain local actions. But devils cannot locally move bodies from place to place. And this is the argument they put forward. The soul is purely a spiritual essence, so is the devil: but the soul cannot move a body from place to place except it be that body in which it lives and to which it gives life: whence if any member of the body perishes it becomes dead and immovable. Therefore devils cannot move a body from place to place, except it be a body to which they give life. It has been shown, however, and is acknowledged that devils do not bestow life on anybody, therefore they cannot move human semen locally”
“the power that moves and the movement are one and the same thing according to Aristotle in his Physics. It follows, therefore, that devils who move heavenly bodies must be in heaven, which is wholly untrue, both in our opinion, and in the opinion of the Platonists.”
“as Walafrid Strabo says in his commentary upon Exodus 7:2: And Pharaoh called the wise men and the magicians: Devils go about the earth collecting every sort of seed, and can by working upon them broadcast various species. And again in Genesis 6 the gloss makes 2 comments on the words: And the sons of God saw the daughters of men. First, that by the sons of God are meant the sons of Seth, and by the daughters of men, the daughters of Cain. Second, that Giants were created not by some incredible act of men, but by certain devils, which are shameless towards women. For the Bible says, Giants were upon the earth.”
“For through the wantonness of the flesh they have much power over men; and in men the source of wantonness lies in the privy parts, since it is from them that the semen falls, just as in women it falls from the navel.”
“men may at times be begotten by means of Incubi and Succubi”
“We leave open the question whether it was possible for Venus to give birth to Aeneas through coition with Anchises. For a similar question arises in the Scriptures, where it is asked whether evil angels lay with the daughters of men, and thereby the earth was then filled with giants, that is to say, preternaturally big and strong men.” Santo Agostinho
“Satyrs are wild shaggy creatures of the woods, which are a certain kind of devils called Incubi.”
“As to that of S. Paul in I Corinthians 11, A woman ought to have a covering on her head, because of the angels, many Catholics believe that because of the angels refers to Incubi. Of the same opinion is the Venerable Bede in his History of the English; also William of Paris in his book De Universo, the last part of the 6th treatise. Moreover, S. Thomas speaks of this (I. 25 and II. 8, and elsewhere; also on Isaiah 12 and 14). Therefore he says that it is rash to deny such things. For that which appears true to many cannot be altogether false, according to Aristotle (at the end of the De somno et vigilia, and in the 2nd Ethics). I say nothing of the many authentic histories, both Catholic and heathen, which openly affirm the existence of Incubi.”
I Corinthians 11: “Every man who prays or prophesies with his head covered dishonors his head. But every woman who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors her head—it is the same as having her head shaved. For if a woman does not cover her head, she might as well have her hair cut off; but if it is a disgrace for a woman to have her hair cut off or her head shaved, then she should cover her head. A man ought not to cover his head, since he is the image and glory of God; but woman is the glory of man.”
“materially life springs from the semen, and an Incubus devil can, with God’s permission, accomplish this by coition. And the semen does not so much spring from him, as it is another man’s semen received by him for this purpose (see S. Thomas, I. 51, art. 3). For the devil is Succubus to a man, and becomes Incubus to a woman. In just the same way they absorb the seeds of other things for the generating of various thing, as S. Augustine says, de Trinitate 3.”
INNER-BREEDING HERMAPHRODITE MUTUAL CONCEPTION: “one devil, allotted to a woman, should receive semen from another devil, allotted to a man [esperma feminino, vale dizer], that in this way each of them should be commissioned by the prince of devils to work some witchcraft; since, to each one is allotted his own angel, even from among the evil ones; or because of the filthiness of the deed, which one devil would abhor to commit.”
“the soul occupies by far the lowest grade in the order of spiritual beings, and therefore it follows that there must be some proportionate relation between it and the body which it is able to move by contact. But it is not so with devils, whose power altogether exceeds corporeal power. (…) And just as the higher heavenly bodies are moved by the higher spiritual substances, as are the good Angels, so are the lower bodies moved by the lower spiritual substances, as are the devils. And if this limitation of the devils’ power is due to the essence of nature, it is held by some that the devils are not of the order of those higher angels, but are part of this terrestrial order created by God; and this was the opinion of the Philosophers. And if it is due to condemnation for sin, as is held by the Theologians, then they were thrust from the regions of heaven into this lower atmosphere for a punishment, and therefore are not able to move either it or the earth. (…) Also there is the argument that objects that the motion of the whole and of the part is the same thing, just as Aristotle in his 4th Physics instances the case of the whole earth and a clod of soil; and that therefore if the devils could move a part of the earth, they could also move the whole earth. But this is not valid, as is clear to anyone who examines the distinction.”
“through such action complete contraception and generation by women can take place, inasmuch as they can deposit human semen in the suitable place of a woman’s womb where there is already a corresponding substance. (…) wherefore the child is the son not of the devil, but of some man.”
FREEZER ANTIGO: “devils are able to store the semen safely, so that its vital heat is not lost; or even that it cannot evaporate so easily on account of the great speed at which they move by reason of the superiority of the move over the thing moved.”
I Corinthians 15: “As long as the world endures Angels are set over Angels, men over men, and devils over devils. Also in Job 40 it speaks of the scales of Leviathan, which signify the members of the devil, how one cleaves to another. Therefore there is among them diversity both of order and of action.” “It is Catholic to maintain that there is a certain order of interior and exterior actions, and a degree of preference among devils. Whence it follows that certain abominations are committed by the lowest orders, from which the higher orders are precluded on account of the nobility of their natures.”
“Dionysus also lays it down in his 10th chapter On the Celestial Hierarchy that in the same order there are 3 separate degrees; and we must agree with this, since they are both immaterial and incorporeal. See also S. Thomas (2:2).”
“For though one and the same name, that of devil, is generally used in Scripture because of their various qualities, yet the Scriptures teach that One is set over these filthy actions, just as certain other vices are subject to Another. For it is the practice of Scripture and of speech to name every unclean spirit Diabolus, from Dia, that is Two, and Bolus, that is Morsel [pedaço]; for he kills two things, the body and the soul. And this is in accordance with etymology, although in Greek Diabolus means shut in Prison, which also is apt, since he is not permitted to do as much harm as he wishes. Or Diabolus may mean Downflowing, since he flowed down, that is, fell down, both specifically and locally. He is also named Demon, that is, Cunning over Blood, since he thirsts for and procures sin with a threefold knowledge, being powerful in the subtlety of his nature, in his age-long experience, and in the revelation of the good spirits. He is called also Belial, which means Without Yoke or Master; for he can fight against him to whom he should be subject. He is called also Beelzebub, which means Lord of Flies, that is, of the souls of sinners who have left the true faith of Christ. Also Satan, that is, the Adversary; see I Peter 2: For your adversary the devil goeth about, etc. Also Behemoth, that is, Beast, because he makes men bestial.
But the very devil of Fornication, and the chief of that abomination, is called Asmodeus, which means the Creature of Judgement: for because of this kind of sin a terrible judgement was executed upon Sodom and the 4 other cities. Similarly the devil of Pride is called Leviathan, which means Their Addition; because when Lucifer tempted our first parents he promised them, out of his pride, the addition of Divinity. Concerning him the Lord said through Isaiah: I shall visit it upon Leviathan, that old and tortuous serpent. And the devil of Avarice and Riches is called Mammon, whom also Christ mentions in the Gospel (Matthew 6): Ye cannot serve God, etc.”
Segundo este panfleto, Lúcifer e os “diabos mais altos” jamais cometeriam um ato tão impuro quanto a fornicação! Demônios pudicos…
“certain men who are called Lunatics are molested by devils more at one time than at another; and the devils would not so behave, but would rather molest them at all times, unless they themselves were deeply affected by certain phases of the Moon.”
“the choleric are wrathful, the sanguine are kindly, the melancholy are envious, and the phlegmatic are slothful.”
“S. Augustine (de Civitate Dei, V), where he resolves a certain question of 2 brothers who fell ill and were cured simultaneously, approves the reasoning of Hippocrates rather than that of an Astronomer. For Hippocrates answered that it is owing to the similarity of their humours; and the Astronomer answered that it was owing the identity of their horoscopes. For the Physician’s answer was better, since he adduced the more powerful and immediate cause.”
“Saturn has a melancholy and bad influence and Jupiter a very good influence”
(*) “Although in Cicero and in Seneca mathematicus means a mathematician, in later Latin it always signifies an astrologer, a diviner, a wizard. The Mathematici were condemned by the Roman law as exponents of black magic. Their art is indeed forbidden in severest terms by Diocletian (A.D. 284-305): <Artem geometriae discere atque exervere oublice interest, ars autem mathematica damnabilis interdicta est omnino.>”
“Also, as William of Paris says in his De Universo, it is proved by experience that if a harlot tries to plant an olive it does not become fruitful, whereas if it is planted by a chaste woman it is fruitful.”
“And here it is to be noted that a belief in Fate is in one way quite Catholic, but in another way entirely heretical.” “Fate may be considered to be a sort of second disposition, or an ordination of second causes for the production of foreseen Divine effects. And in this way Fate is truly something.”
“as Aristotle says, the brain is the most humid of all the parts of the body, therefore it chiefly is subject to the operation of the Moon, which itself has power to incite humours. Moreover, the animal forces are perfected in the brain, and therefore the devils disturb a man’s fancy according to certain phases of the Moon, when the brain is ripe for such influences. And these are reasons why the devils are present as counsellors in certain constellations. They may lead men into the error of thinking that there is some divinity in the stars.”
“And as for that concerning I Kings 16: that Saul, who was vexed by a devil, was alleviated when David played his harp before him, and that the devil departed, etc. It must be known that it is quite true that by the playing of the harp, and the natural virtue of that harmony, the affliction of Saul was to some extent relieved, inasmuch as that music did somewhat calm his sense through hearing; through which calming he was made less prone to that vexation.”
“parteiras, que ultrapassam todas as outras em maldade.”
“there are three things in nature, the Tongue, an Ecclesiastic, and a Woman, which know no moderation in goodness or vice; and when they exceed the bounds of their condition they reach the greatest heights and the lowest depths of goodness and vice.”
“Avoid as you would the plague a trading priest, who has risen from poverty to riches, from a low to a high estate.”
Ecclesiasticus 25: “There is no head above the head of a serpent: and there is no wrath above the wrath of a woman. I had rather dwell with a lion and a dragon than to keep house with a wicked woman.”
“O que mais é uma mulher senão um inimigo da amizade, uma punição inescapável, um mal necessário, uma tentação natural, uma calamidade desejável, um perigo doméstico, um prejuízo deleitável, um mal da natureza disfarçado de beleza?” João Crisóstomo
“Cicero in his second book of The Rhetorics says: The many lusts of men lead them into one sin, but the lust of women leads them into all sins; for the root of all woman’s vices is avarice. And Seneca says in his Medea: A woman either loves or hates; there is no third grade. And the tears of woman are a deception, for they may spring from true grief, or they may be a snare. When a woman thinks alone, she thinks evil.”
“Intelectualmente, as mulheres são como crianças.” Terêncio
“Nenhuma mulher compreendia filosofia exceto Temeste.” Lactâncio, Instituições Divinas
Provérbios 11: “Como uma jóia de ouro no focinho dum porco, assim é uma mulher bonita que não tem modos.”
“And when the philosopher Socrates was asked if one should marry a wife, he answered: If you do not, you are lonely, your family dies out, and a stranger inherits; if you do, you suffer perpetual anxiety, querelous complaints, reproaches concerning the marriage portion, the heavy displeasure of your relations, the garrulousness of a mother-in-law, cuckoldom, and no certain arrival of an heir. [fonte?] This he said as one who knew. For S. Jerome in his Contra Iovinianum says: This Socrates had 2 wives, whom he endured with much patience, but could not be rid of their contumelies and clamorous vituperations. So one day when they were complaining against him, he went out of the house to escape their plaguing, and sat down before the house; and the women then threw filthy water over him. But the philosopher was not disturbed by this, saying, <I knew the rain would come after the thunder.>”
“If we inquire, we find that nearly all the kingdoms of the world have been overthrown by women. Troy, which was a prosperous kingdom, was, for the rape of one woman, Helen, destroyed, and many thousands of Greeks slain. The kingdom of the Jews suffered much misfortune and destruction through the accursed Jezebel, and her daughter Athaliah, queen of Judah, who caused her son’s sons to be killed, that on their death she might reign herself; yet each of them was slain. The kingdom of the Romans endured much evil through Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt, that worst of women. And so with others. Therefore it is no wonder if the world now suffers through the malice of women.”
“There is no man in the world who studies so hard to please the good God as even an ordinary woman studies by her vanities to please men.”
“All witchcraft comes from carnal lust, which is in women insatiable.”
“We know of an old woman who, according to the common account of the brothers in that monastery even up to this day, in this manner not only bewitched 3 successive Abbots, but even killed them, and in the same way drove the 4th out of his mind. For she herself publicly confessed it, and does not fear to say: I did so and I do so, and they are not able to keep from loving me because they have eaten so much of my dung – measuring off a certain length on her arm. I confess, moreover, that since we had no case to prosecute her or bring her to trial, she survives to this day.”
APARENTEMENTE, A REFUTAÇÃO DO ‘FENÔMENO’ DA POSSESSÃO: “And a third kind of mutation can be added, which is when a good or bad angel enters into the body, in the same way that we say that God alone is able to enter into the soul, that is, the essence of life. But when we speak of an angel, especially a bad angel, entering the body, as in the case of an obsession, he does not enter beyond the limits of the essence of the body; for in this way only God the Creator can enter, Who gave it to be as it were the intrinsic operation of life. But the devil is said to enter the body when he effects something about the body: for when he works, there he is, as S. John Damascene says. And then he works within the bounds of corporeal matter, but not within the very essence of the body.”
“the devil can directly prevent the erection of that member which is adapted to fructification, just as he can prevent local motion.”
“And again, it was a greater thing to turn Lot’s wife into a pillar of salt than it is to take away the male organ; and that (Genesis 19) was a real and actual, not an apparent, metamorphosis (for it is said that that pillar is still to be seen), And this was done by a bad Angel; just as the good Angels struck the men of Sodom with blindness, so that they could not find the door of the house. And so it was with the other punishments of the men of Gomorrah. The gloss, indeed, affirms that Lot’s wife was herself tainted with that vice, and therefore she was punished.”
PRECISO PROVAR QUE A ODISSÉIA NÃO FOI REAL, ORA QUAL É O MEU PROBLEMA? “it is read in the books of the Gentiles that a certain sorceress named Circe changed the companions of Ulysses into beasts; but that this was due to some glamour or illusion, rather than an actual accomplishment, by altering the fancies of men”
(*) “Crohns in his Die Summa theologica des Antonin von Florenz und die Schützung des Weibes im Hexenhammer, Helsingfors, 1903, has set out to show that the very pronounced misogyny which is apparent in the Malleus Maleficarum can be traced to the Summa of S. Antoninus.”
(*) “During the 16th century in France lycanthropy was very prevalent, and cannibalism were rife in many county districts.”
“penitent witches have often told to us and to others, saying: No one does more harm to the Catholic Faith than midwives. For when they do not kill children, then, as if for some other purpose, they take them out of the room and, raising them up in the air, offer them to devils.”
“Evil will be for all time, even to the perfecting of the universe.” Dionysius
“as through the persecution of the tyrants came the patience of the martyrs, and through the works of witches come the purgation or proving of the faith of the just”
“God in His justice permits the prevalence of evil, both that of sin and that of pain, and especially now that the world is cooling and declining to its end”
SALADA MISTA TEO-GENTÍLICA: “See Apocalypse 12. The dragon falling from heaven drew with him the third part of the stars. And he lives in the form of Leviathan, and is king over all the children of pride. And, according to Aristotle (Metaph., V), he is called king of princes, inasmuch as he moves those who are subject to him according to his will and command.”
Do alto de uma montanha (Escolástica, pressentimento de Dia do Juízo iminente) é fácil dizer que “a ordem do cosmo” exige descer até o último andar do porão na escada metafísica da perfeição gradual de cada coisa a seu tempo…
“Democritus and the other natural philosophers were in error when they ascribed whatever happened to the inferior creation to the mere chance of matter.”
“the sins of witches are more grievous than those of the bad angels and our first parents. Wherefore, just as the innocent are punished for the sins of their fathers, so are many blameless people damned and bewitched for the sins of witches.”
“Adam sinned only in doing that which was wrong in one of two ways; for it was forbidden, but was not wrong in itself: but witches and other sinners sin in doing that which is wrong in both ways, wrong in itself, and forbidden, such as murders and many other forbidden things.”
“in fornication a young man sins, but an old man is mad.”
“For they are called witches (maleficae) on account of the enormity of their crimes”
“For the sin of infidelity consists in opposing the Faith; and this may come about in 2 ways, by opposing a faith which has not yet been received, or by opposing it after it has been received. Of the first sort is the infidelity of the Pagans or Gentiles. In the second way, the Christian Faith may be denied in 2 ways: either by denying the prophecies concerning it, or by denying the actual manifestation of its truth. And the first of these is the infidelity of the Jews, and the second the infidelity of Heretics.”
II Pedro 2: “the infidelity of the heretics, who while professing the faith of the Gospel fight against it by corrupting it, is a greater sin than that of the Jews and Pagans.”
“they received the prophecy of the Christian Faith in the Old Law, which they corrupt through badly interpreting it, which is not the case with the Pagans.”
“a Saracen fasts, to observe the law of Mohammed as to fasting, and a Jew observes his Feast days; but in such things he is guilty of mortal sin.”
“For, besides the punishment of excommunication inflicted upon them, Heretics, together with their patrons, protectors and defenders, and with their children to the 2nd generation on the father’s side, and to the first degree on the mother’s side, are admitted to no benefit or office of the Church. And if a Heretic have Catholic children, for the heinousness of his crime they are deprived of their paternal inheritance. And if a man be convicted, and refuse to be converted and abjure his heresy, he must at once be burned, if he is a layman. For if they who counterfeit money are summarily put to death, how much more must they who counterfeit the Faith? But if he is a cleric, after solemn degradation he is handed over to the secular Court to be put to death. But if they return to the Faith, they are to be imprisoned for life.”
“For, bodily speaking, sons are a property of the father, and slaves and animals are the property of their masters; and so the sons are sometimes punished for their parents. Thus the son born to David from adultery quickly died; and the animals of the Amalekites were bidden to be killed. Yet the reason for these things remains a mystery.”
SOBRE DEUS INFLIGIR SOFRIMENTO SEM CULPA DO “CRENTE”: “For he says that for 5 causes God scourges man in this life, or inflicts punishment. First, that God may be glorified; and this is when some punishment or affliction is miraculously removed, as in the case of the man born blind (S. John 9), or of the raising of Lazarus (S. John 11).” Ou quando ele me deu 10 graus de miopia, para se gloriar na seqüência com meus infinitos livros.
“And the species of the first form of Divination, that is, an open invocation of devils, are the following: Sorcery, Oneiromancy, Necromancy, Oracles, Geomancy, Hydromancy, Aeromancy, Pyromancy, and Soothsaying (see S. Thomas, Second of the Second, quest. 95, 26, and 5). The species of the 2nd kind are Horoscopy, Haruspicy, Augury, Observation of Omens, Cheiromancy and Spatulamancy.”
“But let no one think that such practices are lawful because the Scripture records that the soul of the just Prophet, summoned from Hades to predict the event of Saul’s coming war, appeared through the means of a woman who was a witch. For, as S. Augustine says to Simplicianus: It is not absurd to believe that it was permitted by some dispensation, or by the potency of any magic art, but by some hidden dispensation unknown to the Pythoness or to Saul, that the spirit of that just man should appear before the sight of the king, to deliver the Divine sentence against him.”
“Oneiromancy may be practised in two ways. The first is when a person uses dreams so that he may dip into the occult with the help of the revelation of devils invoked by him, with whom he has entered into an open pact. The second is when a man uses dreams for knowing the future, in so far as there is such virtue in dreams proceeding from Divine revelation, from a natural and intrinsic or extrinsic cause”
“when we study at the time of the dawn we are given an understanding of certain occult matters in the Scriptures.”
MUITA FÉ NO ARI.: “doctors are very often helped by dreams in their diagnosis (as Aristotle says in the same book).”
“when they desire to see what their fellow-witches are doing, it is their practice to lie down on their left side in the name of their own and of all devils; and these things are revealed to their vision in images.”
“The other species of divination, which are performed with a tacit, but not an open, invocation of devils, are Horoscopy, or Astrology, so called from the consideration of the stars at birth; Haruspicy, which observes the days and hours; Augury, which observes the behaviour and cries of birds; Omens, which observe the words of men; and Cheiromancy, which observes the lines of the hand, or of the paws of animals.”
“although the sin of Satan is unpardonable, this is not on account of the greatness of his crime, having regard to the nature of the Angels, with particular attention to the opinion of those who say that the Angels were created only in a state of nature, and never in a state of grace. And since the good of grace exceeds the good of nature, therefore the sins of those who fall from a state of grace, as do the witches by denying the faith which they received in baptism, exceed the sins of the Angels.”
“A certain well-born citizen of Spires had a wife who was of such an obstinate disposition that, though he tried to please her in every way, yet she refused in nearly every way to comply with his wishes, and was always plaguing him with abusive taunts. It happened that, on going into his house one day, and his wife railing against him as usual with opprobrious words, he wished to go out of the house to escape from quarrelling. But she quickly ran before him and locked the door by which he wished to go out; and loudly swore that, unless he beat her, there was no honesty or faithfulness in him. At these heavy words he stretched out his hand, not intending to hurt her, and struck her lightly with his open palm on the buttock; whereupon he suddenly fell to the ground and lost all his senses, and lay in bed for many weeks afflicted with a most grievous illness. Now it is obvious that this was not a natural illness, but was caused by some witchcraft of the woman. And very many similar cases have happened, and been made known to many.”
“it is to be said that witches are not generally rich for this reason: that the devils like to show their contempt for the Creator by buying witches for the lowest possible price. And also, lest they should be conspicuous by their riches.”
“And because we are now dealing with matters relating to morals and behaviour, and there is no need for a variety of arguments and disquisitions, since those matters which now follow under their headings are sufficiently discussed in the foregoing Questions; therefore we pray God that the reader will not look for proofs in every case, since it is enough to adduce examples that have been personally seen or heard, or are accepted at the word of credible witnesses.”
“There are 3 classes of men blessed by God, whom that detestable race cannot injure with their witchcraft. And the first are those who administer public justice against them, or prosecute them in any public official capacity. The second are those who, according to the traditional and holy rites of the Church, make lawful use of the power and virtue which the Church by her exorcisms furnishes in the aspersion of Holy Water, the taking of consecrated salt, the carrying of blessed candles on the Day of the Purification of Our Lady, of palm leaves upon Palm Sunday, and men who thus fortify themselves are acting so that the powers of devils are diminished; and of these we shall speak later. The third class are those who, in various and infinite ways, are blessed by the Holy Angels.”
FAÇA O SINAL DA CRUZ, OTÁRIO! “When I had invoked the devil that I might commit such a deed with his help, he answered me that he was unable to do any of those things, because the man had good faith and diligently defended himself with the sign of the cross; and that therefore he could not harm him in his body, but the most he could do was to destroy an 11th part of the fruit of his lands.”
“Therefore we may similarly say that, even if the administrators of public justice were not protected by Divine power, yet the devils often of their own accord withdraw their support and guardianship from witches, either because they fear their conversion, or because they desire and hasten their damnation.”
“But since self-praise is sordid and mean, it is better to pass them over in silence than to incur the stigma of boastfulness and conceit. But we must except those which have become so well-known that they cannot be concealed.”
“Not even the forbidden books of Necromancy contain such knowledge; for witchcraft is not taught in books, nor is it practised by the learned, but by the altogether uneducated; having only one foundation, without the acknowledgement or practice of which it is impossible for anyone to work witchcraft as a witch.”
“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.”
“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.”
“Another, named Walpurgis, was notorious for her power of preserving silence, and used to teach other women how to achieve a like quality of silence by cooking their 1st-born sons in an oven.”
O SUPER-HOMEM ESTUDA DEMONOLOGIA: “For just as a physician sees signs in a sick man which a layman would not notice, so the devil sees what no man can naturally see.”
As bruxas evitavam fazer bruxarias aos sábados, o dia da Santa Virgem. Hohoho, quão poderosas!
“And though we are 2 who write this book, one of us has very often seen and known such men. For there is a man who was once a scholar, and is now believed to be a priest in the diocese of Freising, who used to say that at one time he had been bodily carried through the air by a devil, and taken to the most remote parts.”
“This is clear in the case of certain men who walk in their sleep on the roofs of houses and over the highest buildings, and no one can oppose their progress either on high or below. And if they are called by their own names by the other by-standers, they immediately fall crashing to the ground.” HAHAHA
“For it is manifest that some of them, which the common people call Fauns, and we call Trolls, which abound in Norway, are such buffoons and jokers that they haunt certain places and roads and, without being able to do any hurt to those who pass by, are content with mocking and deluding them, and try to weary them rather than hurt them. And some of them only visit men with harmless nightmares.”
“Did not the devil take up Our Saviour, and carry Him up to a high place, as the Gospel testifies?”
“Indeed the natural power or virtue which is in Lucifer is so great that there is none greater among the good Angels in Heaven. For just as he excelled all the Angels in his nature, and not his nature, but only his grace, was diminished by his Fall, so that nature still remains in him, although it is darkened and bound.”
“Two objections which someone may bring forward are not valid. First, that man’s soul could resist him, and that the text seems to speak of one devil in particular, since it speaks in the singular, namely Lucifer. And because it was he who tempted Christ in the wilderness, and seduced the first man, he is now bound in chains. And the other Angels are not so powerful, since he excels them all. Therefore the other spirits cannot transport wicked men through the air from place to place.
These arguments have no force. For, to consider the Angels first, even the least Angel is incomparably superior to all human power, as can be proved in many ways. First, a spiritual is stronger than a corporeal power, and so is the power of an Angel, or even of the soul, greater than that of the body. Secondly, as to the soul; every bodily shape owes its individuality to matter, and, in the case of human beings, to the fact that a soul informs it”
(GOLDEN) WITCHING (S)HOU(E)R: “Here is an instance of a visible transportation in the day-time. In the town of Waldshut on the Rhine, in the diocese of Constance, there was a certain witch who was so detested by the townsfolk that she was not invited to the celebration of a wedding which, however, nearly all the other townsfolk were present. Being indignant because of this, and wishing to be revenged, she summoned a devil and, telling him the cause of her vexation, asked him to raise a hailstorm and drive all the wedding guests from their dancing; and the devil agreed, and raising her up, carried her through the air to a hill near the town, in the sight of some shepherds. And since, as she afterwards confessed, she had no water to pour into the trench, she made a small trench and filled it with her urine instead of water, and stirred it with her finger, after their custom, with the devil standing by.”
“Know, moreover, that the air is in every way a most changeable and fluid matter: and a sign of this is the fact that when any have tried to cut or pierce with a sword the body assumed by a devil, they have not been able to; for the divided parts of the air at once join together again. From this it follows that air is in itself a very competent matter, but because it cannot take shape unless some other terrestrial matter is joined with it, therefore it is necessary that the air which forms the devil’s assumed body should be in some way inspissated [condensado], and approach the property of the earth, while still retaining its true property as air. And devils and disembodied spirits can effect this condensation by means of gross vapours raised from the earth, and by collecting them together into shapes in which they abide, not as defilers of them, but only as their motive power which give to that body the formal appearance of life, in very much the same way as the soul informs the body to which it is joined.”
“From this there may arise an incidental question as to what should be thought when a good or bad Angel performs some of the functions of life by means of true natural bodies, and not in aerial bodies; as in the case of Balaam’s ass, through which the Angel spoke, and when the devils take possession of bodies. It is to be said that those bodies are not called assumed, but occupied. See S. Thomas, 2:8, Whether Angels assume bodies.”
“To return to the point. Devils have no lungs or tongue, though they can show the latter, as well as teeth and lips, artificially made according to the condition of their body; therefore they cannot truly and properly speak. But since they have understanding, and when they wish to express their meaning, then, by some disturbance of the air included in their assumed body, not of air breathed in and out as in the case of men, they produce, not voices, but sounds which have some likeness to voices, and send them articulately through the outside air to the ears of the hearer. And that the likeness of a voice can be made without respiration of air is clear from the case of other animals which do not breathe, but are said to make a sound, as do also certain other instruments, as Aristotle says in the De Anima. For certain fishes, when they are caught, suddenly utter a cry outside the water, and die.” “If anyone wishes to inquire further into the matter of devils speaking in possessed bodies, he may refer to S. Thomas in the Second Book of Sentences, dist. 8, art. 5. For in that case they use the bodily organs of the possessed body; since they occupy those bodies in respect of the limits of their corporeal quantity, but not in respect of the limits of their essence, either of the body or of the soul.”
HAHAHA: “Therefore it must be said that in no way does an Angel, either good or bad, see with the eyes of its assumed body, nor does it use any bodily property as it does in speaking, when it uses the air and the vibration of the air to produce sound which becomes reproduced in the ears of the hearer. Wherefore their eyes are painted eyes.” “For if the secret wishes of a man are read in his face, and physicians can tell the thoughts of the heart from the heart-beats and the state of the pulse, all the more can such things be known by devils.”
JESUS CRISTO NÃO CAGAVA: “In Christ the process of eating was in all respects complete, since He had the nutritive and metabolistic powers; not, be it said, for the purpose of converting food into His own body, for those powers were, like His body, glorified; so that the food was suddenly dissolved in His body, as when one throws water on to fire.”
“in times long past the Incubus devils used to infest women against their wills, as is often shown by Nider in his Formicarius, and by Thomas of Brabant in his books On the Universal Good, or On/About Bees.”
“And it is no objection that those of whom the text speaks were not witches but only giants and famous and powerful men; for, as was said before, witchcraft was not perpetuated in the time of the law of Nature, because of the recent memory of the Creation of the world, which left no room for Idolatry. But when the wickedness of man began to increase, the devil found more opportunity to disseminate this kind of perfidy.”
“a witch is either old and sterile, or she is not. And if she is, then he naturally associates with the witch without the injection of semen, since it would be of no use, and the devil avoids superfluity in his operations as far as he can. But if she is not sterile, he approaches her in the way of carnal delectation which is procured for the witch. And should be disposed to pregnancy, then if he can conveniently possess the semen extracted from some man, he does not delay to approach her with it for the sake of infecting her progeny.” “But this also cannot altogether be denied, that even in the case of a married witch who has been impregnated by her husband, the devil can, by the commixture of another semen, infect that which has been conceived.”
“they have greater opportunity to observe many people, especially young girls, who on Feast Days are more intent on idleness and curiosity, and are therefore more easily seduced by old witches.”
“But with regard to any bystanders, the witches themselves have often been seen lying on their backs in the fields or the woods, naked up to the very navel, and it has been apparent from the disposition of those limbs and members which pertain to the venereal act and orgasm, as also from the agitation of their legs and thighs, that, all invisibly to the bystanders, they have been copulating with Incubus devils; yet sometimes, howbeit this is rare, at the end of the act a very black vapour, of about the stature of a man, rises up into the air from the witch. And the reason is that that Schemer knows that he can in this way seduce or pervert the minds of girls or other men who are standing by.”
“Husbands have actually seen Incubus devils swiving [fodendo] their wives, although they have thought that they were not devils but men. And when they have taken up a weapon and tried to run them through, the devil has suddenly disappeared, making himself invisible. And then their wives have thrown their arms around them, although they have sometimes been hurt, and railed at their husbands, mocking them, and asking them if they had eyes, or whether they were possessed of devils.”
CARTEIRADA NAS ESTRELAS: “those changes which were miraculously caused in the Old or New Testament were done by God through the good Angels; as, for example, when the sun stood still for Joshua, or when it went backward for Hezekiah, or when it was supernaturally darkened at the Passion of Christ. But in all other matters, with God’s permission, they can work their spells, either the devils themselves, or devils through the agency of witches; and, in fact, it is evident that they do so.”
(*) “<Carnival.> These Pagan practices are sternly reprobated in the Liber Poenitentiali of S. Theodore, 7th Archbishop of Canterbury. In Book 37 is written: <If anyone at the Kalends of January goeth about as a stag or a bull-calf, that is, making himself into a wild animal, and dressing in the skins of a herd animal, and putting on the heads of beast; those who in such wise transform themselves into the appearance of a wild animal, let them do penance for 3 years, because this is devilish.> The Council of Auxèrre in 578 (or 585) forbade anyone <to masquerade as a bull-calf or a stag on the 1st of January or to distribute devilish charms.>”
“In the town of Ratisbon a certain young man who had an intrigue with a girl, wishing to leave her, lost his member; that is to say, some glamour was cast over it so that he could see or touch nothing but his smooth body. In his worry over this he went to a tavern to drink wine; and after he had sat there for a while he got into conversation with another woman who was there, and told her the cause of his sadness, explaining everything, and demonstrating in his body that it was so. The woman was astute, and asked whether he suspected anyone; and when he named such a one, unfolding the whole matter, she said: <If persuasion is not enough, you must use some violence, to induce her to restore to you your health.> So in the evening the young man watched the way by which the witch was in the habit of going, and finding her, prayed her to restore to him the health of his body. And when she maintained that she was innocent and knew nothing about it, he fell upon her, and winding a towel tightly about her neck, choked her, saying: <Unless you give me back my health, you shall die at my hands.> Then she, being unable to cry out, and growing black, said: <Let me go, and I will heal you.> The young man then relaxed the pressure of the towel, and the witch touched him with her hand between the thighs, saying: <Now you have what you desire.> And the young man, as he afterwards said, plainly felt, before he had verified it by looking or touching, that his member had been restored to him by the mere touch of the witch.”
“As when a man who is awake sees things otherwise than as they are; such as seeing someone devour a horse with its rider, or thinking he sees a man transformed into a beast, or thinking that he is himself a beast and must associate with beasts. For then the exterior senses are deluded and are employed by the interior senses. For by the power of devils, with God’s permission, mental images long retained in the treasury of such images, which is the memory, are drawn out, not from the intellectual understanding in which such images are stored, but from the memory,¹ which is the repository of mental images, and is situated at the back of the head, and are presented to the imaginative faculty. And so strongly are they impressed on that faculty that a man has an inevitable impulse to imagine a horse or a beast, when the devil draws from the memory an image of a horse or a beast; and so he is compelled to think that he sees with his external eyes such a beast when there is actually no such beast to see; but it seems to be so by reason of the impulsive force of the devil working by means of those images.”
¹ Trecho absolutamente silogístico.
Meu problema é que fui possuído por algo maligno que começa com “D”, Diagnóstico. E essa coisa de que falei me diz que eu estou (com) outra coisa que começa com “B”. Eu (e)s(t)ou (com) uma Besta!
Me disseram que minha visão foi transtornada
Pela rigorosa fé no mais puro nada!
CRIAÇÃO DE MINHOCAS: “And what, then, is to be thought of those witches who in this way sometimes collect male organs in great numbers, as many as 20 or 30 members together, and put them in a bird’s nest, or shut them up in a box, where they move themselves like living members, and eat oats and corn, as has been seen by many and is a matter of common report?”
“But in the second sense there is a distinction to be drawn between creatures; for some are perfect creatures, like a man, and an ass, etc. And other are imperfect, such as serpents, frogs, mice, etc., for they can also be generated from putrefaction.”
TRACTATUS DE ÓTICA MEDIEVAL: “For in a glamour there may be an exterior object which is seen, but it seems other than it is. But imaginary vision does not necessarily require an exterior object, but can be caused without that and only by those inner mental images impressed on the imagination.”
“It is to be said that the soul is thought to reside in the centre of the heart, in which it communicates with all the members by an out-pouring of life. An example can be taken from a spider, which feels in the middle of its web when any part of the web is touched.”
A CONVENIÊNCIA DO DIABO NÃO PODER FAZER DE MULHERES INOCENTES BRUXAS (POIS QUALQUER PIA E LINDA MOÇA ACUSADA DE BRUXARIA É AUTOMATICAMENTE CULPADA E BOA CARNE DE CHURRASCO): “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 [the pact] which cannot be perpetrated without his cooperation.” “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.”
“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.”
DISFIGURING DIVINE JUSTICE: “And there are witches who can bewitch their judges by a mere look or glance from their eyes, and publicly boast that they cannot be punished; and when malefactors have been imprisoned for their crimes, and exposed to the severest torture to make them tell the truth, these witches can endow them with such an obstinacy of preserving silence that they are unable to lay bare their crimes.”
“For the devil knows that, because of the pain of loss, or original sin, such children [mortas antes do batismo] are debarred from entering the Kingdom of Heaven. And by this means the Last Judgement is delayed, when the devils will be condemned to eternal torture; since the number of the elect is more slowly completed, on the fulfilment of which the world will be consumed. And also, as has already been shown, witches are taught by the devil to confect from the limbs of such children an unguent which is very useful for their spells.”
REALMENTE UM ROMANCE DIGNO DE CERVANTES: “A certain man relates that he noticed that his wife, when her time came to give birth, against the usual custom of women in childbirth, did not allow any woman to approach the bed except her own daughter, who acted as midwife. Wishing to know the reason for this, he hid himself in the house and saw the whole order of the sacrilege and dedication to the devil, as it has been described. He saw also, as it seemed to him, that without any human support, but by the power of the devil, the child was climbing up the chain by which the cooking-pots were suspended. In great consternation both at the terrible words of the invocation of the devils, and at the other iniquitous ceremonies, he strongly insisted that the child should be baptized immediately. While it was being carried to the next village, where there was a church, and when they had to cross a bridge over a certain river, he drew his sword and ran at his daughter, who was carrying the child, saying in the hearing of 2 others who were with them: <You shall not carry the child over the bridge; for either it must cross the bridge by itself, or you shall be drowned in the river.> The daughter was terrified and, together with the other women in the company, asked him if he were in his right mind (for he had hidden what had happened from all the others except the 2 men who were with him). Then he answered: <You vile drab, by your magic arts you made the child climb the chain in the kitchen; now make it cross the bridge with no one carrying it, or I shall drown you in the river.> And so, being compelled, she put the child down on the bridge, and invoked the devil by her art; and suddenly the child was seen on the other side of the bridge. And when the child had been baptized, and he had returned home, since he now had witnesses to convict his daughter of witchcraft (for he could not prove the former crime of the oblation to the devil, inasmuch as he had been the only witness of the sacrilegious ritual), he accused bot her daughter and wife before the judge after their period of purgation; and they were both burned, and the crime of midwives of making that sacrilegious offering was discovered.”
“For the devil hates above all the Blessed Virgin, because she bruised his head.” Quando a Virgem Boxista Maria golpeou o crânio do Belzebu?
“The second result to the children of this sacrilege is as follows. When a man offers himself as a sacrifice to God, he recognizes God as his Beginning and his End; and this sacrifice is more worthy than all the external sacrifices which he makes, having its beginning in his creation and its end in his glorification, as it is said: A sacrifice to God is an afflicted spirit, etc. In the same way, when a witch offers a child to the devils, she commends it body and soul to him as its beginning and its end in eternal damnation; wherefore not without some miracle can the child be set free from the payment of so great a debt.” The dead lion which is the daily miracle.
“Finally, we know from experience that the daughters of witches are always suspected of similar practises, as imitators of their mothers’ crimes; and that indeed the whole of a witch’s progeny is infected. And the reason for this and for all that has been said before is, that according to their pact with the devil, they always have to leave behind them and carefully instruct a survivor, so that they may fulfill their vow to do all they can to increase the number of witches. For how else could it happen, as it has very often been found, that tender girls of 8 or 10 years have raised up tempests and hailstorms, unless they had been dedicated to the devil under such a pact by their mothers? For the children could not do such things of themselves by abjuring the Faith, which is how all adult witches have to begin, since they have no knowledge of any single article of the Faith.”
“I have sometimes seen men coming in and out to my mother; and when I asked her who they were, she told that they were our masters to whom she had given me, and that they were powerful and rich patrons. The father was terrified, and asked her if she could raise a hailstorm then. And the girl said: Yes, if I had a little water. Then he led the girl by the hand to a stream, and said: Do it, but only on our land. Then the girl put her hand in the water and stirred it in the name of her master, as her mother had taught her; and behold! the rain fell only on that land. Seeing this, the father said: Make it hail now, but only on one of our fields. And when the girl had done this, the father was convinced by the evidence, and accused his wife before the judge. And the wife was taken and convicted and burned; but the daughter was reconciled and solemnly dedicated to God, since which hour she could no more work these spells and charms.”
“But when this is publicly preached to the people they get no bad information by it; for however much anyone may invoke the devil, and think that by this alone he can do this thing, he deceives himself, because he is without the foundation of that perfidy, not having rendered homage to the devil or abjured the Faith. I have set this down because some have thought that several of the matter of which I have written ought not to be preached to the people, on account of the danger of giving them evil knowledge; whereas it is impossible for anyone to learn from a preacher how to perform any of the things that have been mentioned. But they have been written rather to bring so great a crime into detestation, and should be preached from the pulpit, so that judges may be more eager to punish the horrible crime of the abnegation of the Faith.”
“it is very true that many cattle are said to have been bewitched in some districts, especially in the Alps; and it is known that this form of witchcraft is unhappily most widespread.”
“For in devils there are 3 things to be considered – their nature, their duty and their sin; and by nature they belong to the empyrean of heaven, through sin to the lower hell, but by reason of the duty assigned to them, as we have said, as ministers of punishment to the wicked and trial to the good, their place is in the clouds of the air. For they do not dwell here with us on the earth lest they should plague us too much; but in the air and around the fiery sphere they can so bring together the active and passive agents that, when God permits, they can bring down fire and lightning from heaven.”
“In the same work we hear of a certain leader or heresiarch of witches named Staufer, who lived in Berne and the adjacent country, and used publicly to boast that, whenever he liked, he could change himself into a mouse in the sight of his rivals and slip through the hands of his deadly enemies; and that he had often escaped from the hands of his mortal foes in this manner. But when the Divine justice wished to put an end to his wickedness, some of his enemies lay in wait for him cautiously and saw him sitting in a basket near a window, and suddenly pierced him through with swords and spears, so that he miserably died for his crimes.”
ATÉ UM ESPIRRO DO PROSCRITO PODIA CONDENÁ-LO: “For when they use words of which they do not themselves know the meaning, or characters and signs which are not the sign of the Cross, such practices are altogether to be repudiated, and good men should beware of the cruel arts of these warlocks.”
“Also it appears that it is very rarely that men are delivered from a bewitchment by calling on God’s help or the prayers of the Saints. Therefore it follows that they can only be delivered by the help of devils; and it is unlawful to seek such help.”
“it is submitted that the exorcisms of the Church are not always effective in the repression of devils in the matter of bodily afflictions, since such are cured only at the discretion of God; but they are effective always against those molestations of devils against which they are chiefly instituted, as, for example, against men who are possessed, or in the matter of exorcising children.”
“No Angel is more powerful than our mind, when we hold fast to God. For if power is a virtue in this world, then the mind that keeps close to God is more sublime than the whole world. Therefore such minds can undo the works of the devil.” Augustine, o Sofista
“There are 7 metals belonging to the 7 planets; and since Saturn is the Lord of lead, when lead is poured out over anyone who has been bewitched, it is his property to discover the witchcraft by his power.”
“In this way we have answered the arguments that no spell of witchcraft must be removed. For the first 2 remedies are altogether unlawful. The 3rd remedy is tolerated by the law, but needs very careful examination on the part of the ecclesiastical judge. And what the civil law tolerates is shown in the chapter on witches, where it is said that those who have skill to prevent men’s labours from being vitiated by tempests and hailstorms are worthy, not of punishment, but of reward. S. Antoninus also, in his Summa, points out this discrepancy between the Canon Law and civil law. Therefore it seems that the civil law concedes the legality of such practices for the preservation of crops and cattle, and that in any event certain men who use such arts are not only to be tolerated but even rewarded.”
“With regard to the bewitchment of human beings by means of Incubus and Succubus devils, it is to be noted that this can happen in 3 ways. First, when women voluntarily prostitute themselves to Incubus devils. Secondly, when men have connection with Succubus devils; yet it does not appear that men thus devilishly fornicate with the same full degree of culpability”
“As for instances where young maidens are molested by Incubus devils in this way, it would take too long to mention even those that have been known to happen in our own time, for there are very many well-attested stories of such bewitchments. But the great difficulty of finding a remedy for such afflictions can be illustrated from a story told by Thomas of Brabant in his Book on Bees.”
“William of Paris notes also that Incubus seem chiefly to molest women and girls with beautiful hair; either because they devote themselves too much to the care and adornment of their hair, or because they are boastfully vain about it, or because God in His goodness permits this so that women may be afraid to entice men by the very means by which the devils wish them to entice men.”
“At times also women think they have been made pregnant by an Incubus, and their bellies grow to an enormous size; but when the time of parturition comes, their swelling is relieved by no more than the expulsion of a great quantity of wind. For by taking ants’ eggs in drink, or the seeds of spurge or of the black pine, an incredible amount of wind and flatulence is generated in the human stomach. And it is very easy for the devil to cause these and even greater disorders in the stomach. This has been set down in order that too easy credence should not be given to women, but only to those whom experience has shown to be trustworthy, and to those who, by sleeping in their beds or near them, know for a fact that such things as we have spoken of are true.”
“the devil can inflame a man towards one woman and render him impotent towards another; and this he can secretly cause by the application of certain herbs or other matters of which he well knows the virtue for this purpose.” “he can prevent the flow of the semen to the members in which is the motive power, by as it were closing the seminal duct so that it does not descend to the genital vessels, or does not ascend again from them, or cannot come forth, or is spent vainly.”
“He who loves his wife to excess is an adulterer [!]. And they who love in this way are more liable to be bewitched after the manner we have said.”
“it is assumed to be temporary if, within the space of 3 years, by using every possible expedient of the Sacraments of the Church and other remedies, a cure can be caused. But if, after that time, they cannot be cured by any remedy, then it is assumed to be permanent.”
“But some may find it difficult to understand how this function can be obstructed in respect of one woman but not of another. S. Bonaventura answers that this may be because some witch has persuaded the devil to effect this only with respect to one woman, or because God will not allow the obstruction to apply save to some particular woman. The judgement of God in this matter is a mystery, as in the case of the wife of Tobias. But how the devil procures this disability is plainly shown by what has already been said. And S. Bonaventura says that he obstructs the procreant function, not intrinsically by harming the organ, but extrinsically by impeding its use; and it is an artificial, not a natural impediment; and so he can cause it to apply to one woman and not to another. Or else he takes away all desire for one or another woman; and this he does by his own power, or else by means of some herb or stone or some occult creature. And in this he is in substantial agreement with Peter of Palude.” “Philocaption, or inordinate love of one person for another, can be caused in 3 ways. Sometimes it is due merely to a lack of control over the eyes; sometimes to the temptation of devils; sometimes to the spells of necromancers and witches, with the help of devils.” “The second cause arises from the temptation of devils. In this way Amnon loved his beautiful sister Tamar, and was so vexed that he fell sick for love of her (II Samuel 13). For he could not have been so totally corrupt in his mind as to fall into so great a crime of incest unless he had been grievously tempted by the devil.”
“when a man often puts away his beautiful wife to cleave to the most hideous of women, and when he cannot rest in the night, but is so demented that he must go by devious ways to his mistress; and when it is found that those of noblest birth, Governors, and other rich men, are the most miserably involved in this sin (for this age is dominated by women, and was foretold by S. Hildegard, as Vincent of Beauvais records in the Mirror of History, although he said it would not endure for as long as it already has); and when the world is now full of adultery, especially among the most highly born; when all this is considered, I say, of what use is it to speak of remedies to those who desire no remedy?” Indeed, sir: why bother?
“Avicenna mentions 7 remedies which may be used when a man is made physically ill by this sort of love; but they are hardly relevant to our inquiry except in so far as they may be of service to the sickness of the soul. For he says, in Book III, that the root of the sickness may be discovered by feeling the pulse and uttering the name of the object of the patient’s love; and then, if the law permits, he may be cured by yielding to nature [?]. Or certain medicines may be applied, concerning which he gives instructions. Or the sick man may be turned from his love by lawful remedies which will cause him to direct his love to a more worthy object. Or he may avoid her presence, and so distract his mind from her. Or, if he is open to correction, he may be admonished and expostulated with, to the effect that such love is the greatest misery. Or he may be directed to someone who, as far as he may with God’s truth, will vilify the body and disposition of his love, and so blacken her character that she may appear to him altogether base and deformed. Or, finally, he is to be set to arduous duties which may distract his thoughts.”
(*) “No formal canonization of S. Hildegard has taken place, but many miracles were wrought at her intercession, and her name is in the Roman Martyrology. The feast is celebrated on 17 September in the dioceses of Speyer, Mainz, Trier and Limburg, and by the Solesmes monks on 18 September with a proper Office. The Relics of the Saint are at Eibingen, of which town she is patron. The convent of S. Hildegard there was formally constituted on 17 September, 1904.”
“When a sick man wishes to confess, and if on the arrival of the priest he is rendered dumb by his infirmity, or falls into a frenzy, those who have heard him speak must give their testimony. And if he is thought to be at the point of death, let him be reconciled with God by the laying on of hands and the placing of the Sacrament in his mouth. S. Thomas also says that the same procedure may be used with baptized people who are bodily tormented by unclean spirits, and with other mentally distracted persons. And he adds, in Book IV, dist. 9, that the Communion must not be denied to demoniacs unless it is certain that they are being tortured by the devil for some crime. To this Peter of Palude adds: In this case they are to be considered as persons to be excommunicated and delivered up to Satan.”
“such was the case of the Corinthian fornicator (I Corinthians 5) who was excommunicated by S. Paul and the Church, and delivered unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that his spirit might be saved in the day of our Lord JESUS Christ (…) For so great was the power and the grace of S. Paul, says the gloss, that by the mere words of his mouth he could deliver to Satan those who fell away from the faith.”
“For in the primitive Church, when men had to be drawn into the faith by signs, just as the Holy Spirit was made manifest by a visible sign, so also a bodily affliction by the devil was the visible sign of a man who was excommunicated. And it is not unfitting that a man whose case is not quite desperate should be delivered to Satan; for he is not given to the devil as one to be damned, but to be corrected, since it is in the power of the Church, when she pleases, to deliver him again from the hands of the devil. So says S. Thomas.”
“This man was casting a devil out of a man possessed in the monastery, and the devil asked him to give him some place to which he could go. This pleased the Brother, and he jokingly said, <Go to my privy [vaso sanitário].> So the devil went out; and when in the night the Brother wished to go and purge his belly, the devil attacked him so savagely in the privy that he with difficulty escaped with his life.” HAHAHA
“But a man possessed by a devil can indirectly be relieved by the power of music, as was Saul by David’s harp, or of a herb, or of any other bodily matter in which there lies some natural virtue. Therefore such remedies may be used, as can be argued both from authority and by reason.” “although it is good that in the liberation of a bewitched person recourse should be had to an exorcist having authority to exorcise such bewitchments, yet at times other devout persons may, either with or without any exorcism, cast out this sort of diseases.”
ETIMOLOGIA DO TERMO ENERGÚMENO: “But if anyone asks what is the difference between the aspersion of Holy Water and exorcism, since both are ordained against the plagues of the devil, the answer is supplied by S. Thomas, who says: The devil attacks us from without and from within. Therefore Holy Water is ordained against his attacks from without; but exorcism against those from within. For this reason those for whom exorcism is necessary are called Energoumenoi, from En, meaning In, and Ergon, meaning Work, since they labour within themselves. But in exorcising a bewitched person both methods are to be used, because he is tormented both within and without.”
A FÊMEA É DUAS VEZES MAIS DIABÓLICA QUE O DIABO (MORE EVIL THAN THE DEVIL): “the labour required in the case of the bewitched is twofold, whereas it is only single in the case of the possessed.”
“The miracle of the removal of a mountain was actually performed by S. Gregory Thaumaturgus, Bishop of Neocaesarea (d. circa 270-275), as the Venerable Bede tells us in his Commentary upon S. Mark XI: <Hoc quoque fieri potuisset, ut mons ablatus de terra mitteretur in mare, si necessitas id fieri poscisset. Quomodo legimus factum precibus beati patris Gregorii Neocaesareae Ponti Antistitis, viri mentis et virtutibus eximii, ut mons in terra tantum loco cederet, quantum incolae civitatis opus habebant. Cum enim volens aedificare ecclesiam in loco apto, vident eum angustiorem esse quam res exigebat, eo quod ex una parte rupe maris, ex alia monte proximo coarctaretur; venit nocte ad locum, et genibus flexis admonuit Dominum promissionis suae, ut montem longius juxta fidem petentis ageret. Et mane facto reversus invenit montem tantum spatii reliquisse structoribus ecclesiae, quantum opus habuerant.>”
“Also, because when witches wish to deprive a cow of milk they are in the habit of begging a little of the milk or butter which comes from that cow, so that they may afterwards by their art bewitch the cow; therefore women should take care, when they are asked by persons suspected of this crime, not to give away the least thing to them.”
“In addition to the setting up of the sign of the Cross which we have mentioned, the following procedure is practised against hailstorms and tempests. Three of the hailstones are thrown into the fire with an invocation of the Most Holy Trinity, and the Lord’s Prayer and the Angelic Salutation are repeated twice or 3 times, together with the Gospel of S. John, In the beginning was the Word. And the sign of the Cross is made in every direction towards each quarter of the world. Finally, The Word was made Flesh is repeated 3 times, and 3 times By the words of this Gospel may this tempest be dispersed. And suddenly, if the tempest is due to witchcraft, it will cease. This is most true and need not be regarded with any suspicion. For if the hailstones were thrown into the fire without the invocation of the Divine Name, then it would be considered superstitious.” “And for this reason it is a general practice of the Church to ring bells as a protection against storms, both that the devils may flee from them as being consecrated to God and refrain from their wickedness” “And although, according to this rule, the ceremonies and legal procedures of the Old Testament are not now observed, since they are to be understood figuratively, whereas the truth is made known in the New Testament, yet the carrying out of the Sacrament or of Relics to still a storm does not seem to militate against this rule.”
“Another terrible thing which God permits to happen to men is when their own children are taken away from women, and strange children are put in their place by devils. And these children, which are commonly called changelings, or in the German tongue Wechselkinder, are of 3 kinds. For some are always ailing and crying, and yet the milk of four women is not enough to satisfy them. Some are generated by the operation of Incubus devils, of whom, however, they are not the sons, but of that man from whom the devil has received the semen as a Succubus, or whose semen he has collected from some nocturnal pollution in sleep. For these children are sometimes, by Divine permission, substituted for the real children. And there is a third kind, when the devils at times appear in the form of young children and attach themselves to the nurses. But all 3 kinds have this in common, that though they are very heavy, they are always ailing and do not grow, and cannot receive enough milk to satisfy them, and are often reported to have vanished away.”
“Again in Deuteronomy 22: God says that men shall not put on the garments of women, or conversely; because they did this in honour of the goddess Venus, and others in honour of Mars or Priapus.”
(*) “So in Ireland the fairies are called <good people>, and traditionally seem to be of a benevolent and capricious and even mischievous disposition. In some parts of Highland Scotland fairies are called daoine sithe or men of peace, and it is believed that every year the devil carries off a 10th part of them. It will be readily remembered that to the Greeks the Fairies were the gracious goddesses.”
ACENDE A BANANA DE DINAMITE E SAI CORRENDO: “Certainly those whose high privilege it is to judge concerning matters of the faith ought not to be distracted by other business; and Inquisitors deputed by the Apostolic See to inquire into the pest of heresy should manifestly not have to concern themselves with diviners and soothsayers, unless these are also heretics, nor should it be their business to punish such, but they may leave them to be punished by their own judges. Nor does there seem any difficulty in the fact that the heresy of witches is not mentioned in that Canon.”
“Again, Solomon showed reverence to the gods of his wives out of complaisance, and was not on that account guilty of apostasy from the Faith; for in his heart he was faithful and kept the true Faith. So also when witches give homage to devils by reason of the pact they have entered into, but keep the Faith in their hearts, they are not on that account to be reckoned as heretics.” But should be burnt!
“a heretic is different from an apostate, and it is heretics who are subject to the Court of the Inquisition” “Let the Bishops and their representatives strive by every means to rid their parishes entirely of the pernicious art of soothsaying and magic derived from Zoroaster; and if they find any man or woman addicted to this crime, let him be shamefully cast out of their parishes in disgrace.”
“But if, just as these arguments seem to show it to be reasonable in the case of Inquisitors, the Diocesans also wish to be relieved of this responsibility, and to leave the punishment of witches to the secular Courts, such a claim could be made good by the following arguments. For the Canon says, c. ut inquisitionis: We strictly forbid the temporal lords and rulers and their officers in any way to try to judge this crime, since it is purely an ecclesiastical matter: and it speaks of the crime of heresy. It follows therefore that, when the crime is not purely ecclesiastical, as is the case with witches because of the temporal injuries which they commit, it must be punished by the Civil and not by the Ecclesiastical Court. Besides, in the last Canon Law concerning Jews it says: His goods are to be confiscated, and he is to be condemned to death, because with perverse doctrine he opposed the Faith of Christ. But if it is said that this law refers to Jews who have been converted, and have afterwards returned to the worship of the Jews, this is not a valid objection. Rather is the argument strengthened by it; because the civil Judge has to punish such Jews as apostates from the Faith; and therefore witches who abjure the Faith ought to be treated in the same way; for abjuration of the Faith, either wholly or in part, is the essential principle of witches.” A canalhice do clero de que Montesquieu tão bem falou: aplicar o N.T. na esfera civil para se apropriar dos próprios bens e terras judias.
“Besides, if the trial and punishment of such witches were not entirely a matter for the civil Judge, what would be the purpose of the laws which provide as follows?” “But in contradiction of all these arguments, the truth of the matter is that such witches may be tried and punished conjointly by the Civil and the Ecclesiastical Courts.” “And again, although a secular prince may impose the capital sentence, yet this does not exclude the judgement of the Church, whose part it is to try and judge the case. Indeed this is perfectly clear from the Canon Law in the chapters de summa trin. and fid. cath., and again in the Law concerning heresy, c. ad abolendam and c. urgentis and c. excommunicamus, 1 and 2. For the same penalties are provided by both the Civil and the Canon Laws, as is shown by the Canon Laws concerning the Manichaean and Arian heresies. Therefore the punishment of witches belongs to both Courts together, and not to one separately.”
MAS NÓS, OS OPERADORES DO CADAFALSO, TEMOS NOSSA PRÓPRIA CÔRTE: “If it is an ecclesiastical crime needing ecclesiastical punishment and fine, it shall be tried by a Bishop who stands in favour with God, and not even the most illustrious Judges of the Province shall have a hand in it. And we do not wish the civil Judges to have any knowledge of such proceedings; for such matters must be examined ecclesiastically and the souls of the offenders must be corrected by ecclesiastical penalties, according to the sacred and divine rules which our laws worthily follow.”
“Our main object here is to show how, with God’s pleasure, we Inquisitors of Upper Germany may be relieved of the duty of trying witches, and leave them to be punished by their own provincial Judges; and this because of the arduousness of the work: [!!!] provided always that such a course shall in no way endanger the preservation of the faith and the salvation of souls. And therefore we engaged upon this work, that we might leave to the Judges themselves the methods of trying, judging and sentencing in such cases.
Therefore in order to show that the Bishops can in many cases proceed against witches without the Inquisitors; although they cannot so proceed without the temporal and civil Judges in cases involving capital punishment [o melhor dos mundos para o Inquisidor]; it is expedient that we set down the opinions of certain other Inquisitors in parts of Spain, and (saving always the reverence due to them), since we all belong to one and the same Order of Preachers, to refute them, so that each detail may be more clearly understood.” ‘Com todo o respeito, mas discordo de vossas eminências espanholas latinas e frouxas’, parecem dizer os inquisidores saxões a cada linha…
“so many more burdens are placed upon us Inquisitors which we cannot safely bear in the sight of the terrible Judge who will demand from us a strict account of the duties imposed upon us.” “the presbyter Udalricus went to a secret place with a certain infamous person, that is, a diviner, says the gloss, not with the intention of invoking the devil, which would have been heresy, but that, by inspecting the astrolabe, he might find out some hidden thing. And this, they say, is pure divination or sortilege.”
(*) “As Clement V died before the collection had been generally published, John XXII promulgated it anew, 25 October, 1317, and sent it to the University of Bologna as the authoritative Corpus of decretals to be used in the courts and schools.”
BEM QUE ALEMÃES SÃO REPUTADOS POR GOSTAR DE ENCHER LINGÜIÇA: “This being the case, it follows that however serious and grave may be the sin which a person commits, if it does not necessarily imply heresy, then he must not be judged as a heretic, although he is to be punished. Consequently an Inquisitor need not interfere in the case of a man who is to be punished as a malefactor, but not as a heretic, but may leave him to be tried by the Judges of his own Province.”
“For a person rightly to be adjudged a heretic he must fulfill five conditions. First, there must be an error in his reasoning. Secondly, that error must be in matters concerning the faith, either being contrary to the teaching of the Church as to the true faith, or against sound morality and therefore not leading to the attainment of eternal life [fé da igreja e fé verdadeira explicitamente diferenciadas?]. Thirdly, the error must lie in one who has professed the Catholic faith, for otherwise he would be a Jew or a Pagan, not a heretic. [Benza Pan!] Fourthly, the error must be of such a nature that he who holds it must confess some of the truth of Christ as touching either His Godhead or His Manhood; for if a man wholly denies the faith, he is an apostate. Fifthly, he must pertinaciously and obstinately hold to and follow that error.”
REPENT! “if a man commits fornication or adultery, although he is disobeying the command Thou shalt not commit adultery, yet he is not a heretic unless he holds the opinion that it is lawful to commit adultery.”
EU NÃO SABIA QUE PODIA HAVER DISCUSSÕES MAIS ESTÉREIS DO QUE “FOI PÊNALTI OU NÃO FOI”, MAS EI-LAS: “a simonist is not in the narrow and exact sense of the word a heretic; but broadly speaking and by comparison he is so, according to S. Thomas, when he buys or sells holy things in the belief that the gift of grace can be had for money. But if, as is often the case, he does not act in this belief, he is not a heretic. Yet he truly would be if he did believe that the gift of grace could be had for money.”
“For according to Aristotle every wicked man is either ignorant or in error. Therefore, since they who do such things have evil in their wills, they must have an error in their understandings.”
“A Theologian will say that it is in the first instance a matter for the Apostolic See to judge whether a heresy actually exists or is only to be presumed in law. And this may be because whenever an effect can proceed from a two-fold cause, no precise judgement can be formed of the actual nature of the cause merely on the basis of the effect. Therefore, since such effects as the worship of the devil or asking his help in the working of witchcraft, by baptizing an image, or offering to him a living child, or killing an infant, and other matters of this sort, can proceed from 2 separate causes, namely, a belief that it is right to worship the devil and sacrifice to him, and that images can receive sacraments; or because a man has formed some pact with the devil, so that he may obtain the more easily from the devil that which he desires in those matters which are not beyond the capacity of the devil; it follows that no one ought hastily to form a definite judgement merely on the basis of the effect as to what is its cause, that is, whether a man does such things out of a wrong opinion concerning the faith. So when there is no doubt about the effect, still it is necessary to inquire farther into the cause; and if it be found that a man has acted out of a perverse and erroneous opinion concerning the faith, then he is to be judged a heretic and will be subject to trial by the Inquisitors together with the Ordinary. But if he has not acted for these reasons, he is to be considered a sorcerer, and a very vile sinner.”
(*) “Extravagantes. This word designates some Papal decretals not contained in certain canonical collections which possess a special authority, that is, they are not found in (but <wander outside>, <extra vagari>) the Decree of Gratian, or the 3 great official collections of the Corpus Iuri (the Decretals of Gregory IX; the 6th Book of the Decretals; and the Clementines). The term is now applied to the collections known as the Extravagantes Joannis XXII and the Extravagantes Communes. When John XXII (1316-34) published the Decretals already known as Clementines, there also existed various pontifical documents, obligatory upon the whole Church indeed, but not included in the Corpus Juris, and these were called Extravagantes. In 1325, Zenselinus de Cassanis added glosses to 20 constitutions of John XXII, and named this collection Viginti Extravagantes papae Joannis XXII. Chappuis also classified these under 14 titles containing all 20 chapters.”
“And a Bishop can proceed without an Inquisitor, or an Inquisitor without a Bishop; or, if either of their offices be vacant, their deputies may act independently of each other, provided that it is impossible for them to meet together for joint action within 8 days of the time when the inquiry is due to commence; but if there be no valid reason for their not meeting together, the action shall be null and void in law.”
“we treat of 20 methods of delivering sentence, 13 of which are common to all kinds of heresy, and the remainder particular to the heresy of witches.”
“The first method is when someone accuses a person before a judge of the crime of heresy, or of protecting heretics, offering to prove it, and to submit himself to the penalty of talion if he fails to prove it. The second method is when someone denounces a person, but does not offer to prove it and is not willing to embroil himself in the matter” “The third method involves an inquisition, that is, when there is no accuser or informer, but a general report that there are witches in some town or place; and then the Judge must proceed, not at the instance of any party, but simply by the virtue of his office. Here it is to be noted that a judge should not readily admit the first method of procedure. For one thing, it is not actuated by motives of faith, nor is it very applicable to the case of witches, since they commit their deeds in secret. Then, again, it is full of danger to the accuser, because of the penalty of talion which he will incur if he fails to prove his case.” “Note also that in the case of the 2nd method the following caution should be observed. For it has been said that the 2nd method of procedure and of instituting a process on behalf of the faith is by means of an information, where the informer does not offer to prove his statement and is not ready to be embroiled in the case, but only speaks because of a sentence of excommunication, or out of zeal for the faith and for the good of the State. Therefore the secular Judge must specify in his general citation or warning aforesaid that none should think that he will become liable to a penalty even if he fails to prove his words; since he comes forward not as an accuser but as an informer.” Invejável engenharia do clima de denuncismo impune – laboratório avant-la-lettre do fascismo!
A figura do “laico-religioso” (com conhecimento de Direito): “if a Notary is not to be procured, then let there be two suitable men in the place of the Notary. For this is dealt with in the c. ut officium, § verum, lib. 6, where it is said: But because it is expedient to proceed with great caution in the trial of a grave crime, that no error may be committed in imposing upon the guilty a deservedly severe punishment; we desire and command that, in the examination of the witnesses necessary in such a charge, you shall have 2 religious and discreet persons, either clerics or laymen.”
O PRO-FORMA DA INQUISIÇÃO (Manual de Redação da Caça às Bruxas)
“In the Name of the Lord. Amen.
In the year of Our Lord —, on the — day of the — month, in the presence of me the Notary and of the witnesses subscribed, N. of the town of — in the Diocese of —, as above, appeared in the person at — before the honourable Judge, and offered him a schedule to the following effect.”
“And if he says that he has seen anything, as, for example, that the accused was present at such a time of tempest, or that he had touched an animal, or had entered a stable, the Judge shall ask when he saw him, and where, and how often, and in what manner, and who were present. If he says that he did not see it, but heard of it, he shall ask him from whom he heard it, where, when, and how often, and in whose presence, making separate articles of each of the several points above mentioned. And the Notary or scribe shall set down a record of them immediately after the aforesaid denunciation”
“The third method of beginning a process is the commonest and most usual one, because it is secret, and no accuser or informer has to appear. But when there is a general report of witchcraft in some town or parish, because of this report the Judge may proceed without a general citation or admonition as above, since the noise of that report comes often to his ears; and then again he can begin a process in the presence of the persons, as we have said before.”
“Since we have said that in the 2nd method the evidence of the witnesses is to be written down, it is necessary to know how many witnesses there should be, and of what condition. The question is whether a Judge may lawfully convict any person of the heresy of witchcraft on the evidence of 2 legitimate witnesses whose evidence is entirely concordant, or whether more than 2 are necessary. And we say that the evidence of witnesses is not entirely concordant when it is only partially so; that is, when 2 witnesses differ in their accounts, but agree in the substance or effect: as when one says <She bewitched my cow>, and the other says, <She bewitched my child>, but they agree as to the fact of witchcraft.” “although 2 witnesses seem to be enough to satisfy the rigour of law (for the rule is that that which is sworn to by 2 or 3 is taken for the truth); yet in a charge of this kind 2 witnesses do not seem sufficient to ensure an equitable judgement, on account of the heinousness of the crime in question. For the proof of an accusation ought to be clearer than daylight; and especially ought this to be so in the case of the grave charge of heresy.” “the prisoner is not permitted to know who are his accusers. But the Judge himself must by virtue of his office, inquire into any personal enmity felt by the witnesses towards the prisoner; and such witnesses cannot be allowed, as will be shown later. And when the witnesses give confused evidence on account of something lying on their conscience, the Judge is empowered to put them through a 2nd interrogatory.” “if the prisoner is the subject of an evil report, a period should be set for his purgation; and if he is under strong suspicion on account of the evidence of 2 witnesses, the Judge should make him abjure the heresy, or question him, or defer his sentence. For it does not seem just to condemn a man of good name on so great a charge on the evidence of only 2 witnesses, though the case is otherwise with a person of bad reputation. This matter is fully dealt with in the Canon Law of heretics, where it is set down that the Bishop shall cause 3or+ men of good standing to give evidence on oath to speak the truth as to whether they have any knowledge of the existence of heretics in such a parish.” “But when, in spite of certain discrepancies, the witnesses agree in the main facts, then the matter shall rest with the Judge’s discretion”
“But it may be asked whether the Judge can compel witnesses to sweat an oath to tell the truth in a case concerning the Faith or witches, or if he can examine them many times. We answer that he can do so, especially an ecclesiastical Judge, and that in ecclesiastical cases witnesses can be compelled to speak the truth, and this on oath, since otherwise their evidence would not be valid. For the Canon Law says: The Archbishop or Bishop may make a circuit of the parish in which it is rumoured that there are heretics, and compel 3or+ men of good repute, or even, if it seems good to him, the whole neighbourhood, to give evidence. And if any through damnable obstinacy stubbornly refuse to take the oath, they shall on that account be considered as heretics.”
“Note that persons under a sentence of excommunication, associates and accomplices in the crime, notorious evildoers and criminals, or servants giving evidence against their masters, are admitted as witnesses in a case concerning the Faith. And just as a heretic may give evidence against a heretic, so may a witch against a witch; but this only in default of other proofs, and such evidence can only be admitted for the prosecution and not for the defence: this is true also of the evidence of the prisoner’s wife, sons and kindred; for the evidence of such has more weight in proving a charge than in disproving it.” Wit(chn)ess.
“The case of evidence given by perjurers, when it is presumed that they are speaking out of zeal for the faith, is dealed with in the Canon c. accusatus, § licet, where it says that the evidence of perjurers, after they have repented, is admissible; and it goes on to say: If it manifestly appears that they do not speak in a spirit of levity, or from motives of enmity, or by reason of a bribe, but purely out of zeal for the orthodox faith, wishing to correct what they have said, or to reveal something about which they had kept silence, in defence of the faith, their testimony shall be as valid as that of anyone else” “So great is the plague of heresy that, in an action involving this crime, even servants are admitted as witnesses against their masters, and any criminal evildoer may give evidence against any person soever.” “But if it is asked whether the Judge can admit the mortal enemies of the prisoner to give evidence against him in such a case, we answer that he cannot; for the same chapter of the Canon says: You must not understand that in this kind of charge a mortal personal enemy may be admitted to give evidence.” “And a mortal enmity is constituted by the following circumstances: when there is a death feud or vendetta between the parties, or when there has been an attempted homicide, or some serious wound or injury which manifestly shows that there is mortal hatred on the part of the witness against the prisoner. And in such a case it is presumed that, just as the witness has tried to inflict temporal death on the prisoner by wounding him, so he will also be willing to effect his object by accusing him of heresy; and just as he wished to take away his life, so he would be willing to take away his good name.” “But there are other serious degrees of enmity (for women are easily provoked to hatred), which need not totally disqualify a witness, although they render his evidence very doubtful, so that full credence cannot be placed in his words unless they are substantiated by independent proofs, and other witnesses supply an indubitable proof of them. For the Judge must ask the prisoner whether he thinks that he has any enemy who would dare to accuse him of that crime out of hatred, so that he might compass his death; and if he says that he has, he shall ask who that person is; and then the Judge shall take note whether the person named as being likely to give evidence from motives of malice has actually done so. And if it is found that this is the case, and the Judge has learned from trustworthy men the cause of that enmity, and if the evidence in question is not substantiated by other proofs and the words of other witnesses, then he may safely reject such evidence. But if the prisoner says that he hopes he has no such enemy, but admits that he has had quarrels with women; or if he says that he has an enemy, but names someone who, perhaps, has not given evidence, in that case, even if other witnesses say that such a person has given evidence from motives of enmity, the Judge must not reject his evidence, but admit it together with the other proofs. § There are many who are not sufficiently careful and circumspect, and consider that the depositions of such quarrelsome women should be altogether rejected, saying that no faith can be placed in them, since they are nearly always actuated by motives of hatred. Such men are ignorant of the subtlety and precautions of magistrates, and speak and judge like men who are colour-blind.”
PROCESSO DE CONDENAÇÃO SUMÁRIA: “It often happens that we institute a criminal process, and order it to be conducted in a simple straightforward manner without the legal quibbles and contentions which are introduced in other cases. (…) The Judge to whom we commit such a case need not require any writ, or demand that the action should be contested; he may conduct the case on holidays for the sake of the convenience of the public, he should shorten the conduct of the case as much as he can by disallowing all dilatory exceptions, appeals and obstructions, the impertinent contentions of pleaders and advocates, and the quarrels of witnesses, and by restraining the superfluous number of witnesses; but not in such a way as to neglect the necessary proofs” “the Judge ought to advise the accuser to set aside his formal accusation and to speak rather as an informer, because of the grave danger that is incurred by an accuser. And so he can proceed in the 2nd manner, which is commonly used, and likewise in the 3rd manner, in which the process is begun not at the instance of any party.”
“…Asked further how he could distinguish the accused’s motive, he answered that he knew it because he had spoken with a laugh. § This is a matter which must be inquired into very diligently; for very often people use words quoting someone else, or merely in temper, or as a test of the opinions of other people; although sometimes they are used assertively with definite intention.” “Here it must always be noted that in such an examination at least 5 persons must be present, namely, the presiding Judge, the witness of informer, the respondent or accused, who appears afterwards, and the 3rd is the Notary or scribe: where there is no Notary the scribe shall co-opt another honest man, and these 2, as has been said, shall perform the duties of the Notary; and this is provided for by Apostolic authority” “For this is a common custom of witches, to stir up enmity against themselves by some word or action, as, for example, to ask someone to lend them something or else they will damage his garden, or something of that sort, in order to make an occasion for deeds of witchcraft; and they manifest themselves either in word or in action, since they are compelled to do so at the instance of the devils, so that in this way the sins of Judges are aggravated while the witch remains unpunished.”
“Asked why she touched a child, and afterwards it fell sick, she answered. Also she was asked what she did in the fields at the time of a tempest, and so with many other matters. Again, why, having 1 or 2 cows, she had more milk than her neighbours who had 4 or 6. Let her be asked why she persists in a state of adultery or concubinage; for although this is beside the point, yet such questions engender more suspicion than would the case with a chaste and honest woman who stood accused.”
“It is asked 1st what is to be done when, as often happens, the accused denies everything. We answer that the Judge has 3 points to consider, namely, her bad reputation, the evidence of the fact [nada mais genérico], and the words of the witnesses; and he must see whether all these agree together. And if, as very often is the case, they do not altogether agree together, since witches are variously accused of different deeds committed in some village or town; but the evidences of the fact are visible to the eye, as that a child has been harmed by sorcery, or, more often, a beast has been bewitched or deprived of its milk [o ser humano babaca vê o que quer ver; aliás, o ser humano em geral!]; and if a number of witnesses have come forward whose evidence, even if it show certain discrepancies (as that one should say she had bewitched his child, another his beast, and a 3rd should merely witness to her reputation, and so with the others), but nevertheless agree in the substance of the fact, that is, as to the witchcraft [substância etérea!], and that she is suspected of being a witch; although those witnesses are not enough to warrant a conviction without the fact of the general report, or even with that fact, yet, taken in conjunction with the visible and tangible evidence of the fact, the Judge may decide that the accused is to be reputed, not as strongly or gravely under suspicion, but as manifestly taken in the heresy of witchcraft; provided, that is, that the witnesses are of a suitable condition and have not given evidence out of enmity, and that a sufficient number of them, say 6 or 8 or 10, have agreed together under oath. And then, according to the Canon Law, he must subject her to punishment, whether she has confessed her crime or not.”
“It is true that S. Bernard speaks of an evident fact, and we here speak of the evidence of the fact; but this is because the devil does not work openly, but secretly.” O diabo é igualzinho deus.
“If [s]he confesses and is impenitent, he is to be handed over to the secular courts to suffer the extreme penalty, according to the chapter ad abolendam, or he is to be imprisoned for life, according to the chapter excommunicamus. But if he does not confess, and stoutly maintains his denial, he is to be delivered as an impenitent to the power of the Civil Court to be punished in a fitting manner, as Henry of Segusio shows in his Summa, where he treats of the manner of proceeding against heretics.” “he should consign the accused to prison for a time, or for several years, in case perhaps, being depressed after a year of the squalor of prison, she may confess her crimes.”
“This gives rise to the question whether the method employed by some to capture a witch is lawful, namely, that she should be lifted from the ground by the officers, and carried out in a basket or on a plank of wood so that she cannot again touch the ground. This can be answered by the opinion of the Canonists and of certain Theologians, that this is lawful in 3 respects. First, because it is clear from the opinion of such Doctors as Duns Scotus, Henry of Segusio and Godfrey of Fontaines, that it is lawful to oppose vanity with vanity. Also we know from experience and the confessions of witches that when they are taken in this manner they more often lose the power of keeping silence under examination: indeed many who have been about to be burned have asked that they might be allowed at least to touch the ground with one foot; and when it had been asked why they made such a request, they’d answered that if they had touched the ground they would have liberated themselves, striking many other people dead with lightning.”
“But if it is only a slight matter of which she is accused, and she is not of bad reputation, and there is no evidence of her work upon children or animals, then she may be sent back to her house. But because she has certainly associated with witches and knows their secrets, she must give sureties; and if she cannot do so, she must be bound by oaths and penalties not to go out of her house unless she is summoned. But her servants and domestics, of whom we spoke above, must be kept in custody, yet not punished.”
(*) “House should be searched.” Thus in the famous witch trial of Dame Alive Kyteler and her coven before the Bishop of Ossory in 1324, John le Poer, the husband of Dame Alice, deposed that in her closet were discovered mysterious vials and elixirs, strange necromantic instruments and ghastly relics of mortality which she used in her horrid craft. Holinshed in his Chronicle of Ireland (London, 1587, p. 93), sub anno 1323, has: <In rifling the closet of the ladie, they found a wafer of sacramental bread, having the divels name stamped thereon in steed of JESUS Christ, and a pipe of ointment, wherewith she greased a staffe, upon whish she ambled and gallopped through thicke and thin when and in what manner she wished.>”
“If the accused says that she is innocent and falsely accused and wishes to see and hear her accusers, it is a sign that she is asking to defend herself. But it is an open question whether the Judge is bound to make the deponents known to her and bring them to confront her face to face. (…) Although different Popes have had different opinions on this matter, none of them has ever said that in such a case the Judge is bound to make known to the accused the names of the informers or accusers. But, finally, Bonifice VIII(*) decreed as follows: If in a case of heresy it appear to the Bishop or Inquisitor that grave danger would be incurred by the witnesses of informers on account of the powers of the persons against whom they lay their depositions, should their names be published, he shall not publish them.” “any such Judge, even if he be secular, has the authority of the Pope, and not only of the Emperor.”
(*) “the collection of Bonifice VIII is known as Liber Sixtus”
BELA APLICAÇÃO DE PONTA-CABEÇA DA “BOA-NOVA” E DO PARAÍSO AOS POBRES! “it is more dangerous to make known the names of the witnesses to an accused person who is poor, because such a person has many evil accomplices, such as outlaws and homicides, associated with him, who venture nothing but their own persons, which is not the case with anyone who is nobly born or rich, and abounding in temporal possessions.”
“let the Judge take notice that he must keep the names of the witnesses secret, under pain of excommunication. It is in the power of the Bishop thus to punish him if he does otherwise. Therefore he should very implicitly [!???] warn the Judge not to reveal the name from the very beginning of the process.”
“IF, therefore, the accused asked to be defended, how can this be admitted when the names of the witnesses are kept altogether secret? It is to be said that 3 considerations are to be observed in admitting any defence. First, that an Advocate shall be allotted to the accused. Second, that the names of the witnesses shall not be made known to the Advocate even under an oath of secrecy, but that he shall be informed of everything contained in the depositions. Third, the accused shall as far as possible be given the benefit of every doubt, provided that this involves no scandal to the faith nor is in any way detrimental to justice (…) and the Advocate can act also in the name of procurator.
As to the first of these points: it should be noted that an Advocate is not to be appointed at the desire of the accused, as if he may choose which Advocate he will have; but the Judge must take great care to appoint neither a litigious nor an evil-minded man, nor yet one who is easily bribed (as many are), but rather an honourable man to whom no sort of suspicion attaches.” “Henry of Segusio holds an opposite view concerning the return of the fee in a case in which the Advocate has worked very hard. Consequently if an Advocate has wittingly undertaken to defend a prisoner whom he knows to be guilty, he shall be liable for the costs and expenses”
“First, his behaviour must be modest and free from prolixity or pretentious oratory.” Acaba-se de abolir qualquer advogado no mundo de defender uma “bruxa”!
“if he unduly defends a person already suspect of heresy, he makes himself as it were a patron of that heresy, and lays himself under not only a light but a strong suspicion”
“though these means may savour of cunning and even guile, yet the Judge may employ them for the good of the faith and the State; for even S. Paul says: But being crafty, I caught you by guile. And these means are especially to be employed in the case of a prisoner who has not been publicly defamed, and is not suspected because of the evidence of any fact; and the Judge may also employ them against prisoners who have alleged enmity on the part of the deponents, and wish to know all the names of the witnesses.”
“Common justice demands that a witch should not be condemned to death unless she is convicted by her own confession. But here we are considering the case of one who is judged to be taken in manifest heresy for direct or indirect evidence of the fact, or the legitimate production of witnesses; and in this case she is to be exposed to questions and torture to extort a confession of her crimes.”
“and behold! he was suddenly bewitched so that his mouth was stretched sideways as far as his ears in a horrible deformity, and he could not draw it back, but remained so deformed for a long time.” :O :T
“indirect evidence of the fact is different from direct evidence; yet though it is not so conclusive, it is still taken from the words and deeds of witches, and it is judged from witchcraft which is not so immediate in its effect, but follows after some lapse of time from the utterance of the threatening words. May we conclude that this is the case with such witches who have been accused and have not made good their defence (or have failed to defend themselves because this privilege was not granted them; and it was not granted because they did not ask for it). But what we are to consider now is what action the Judge should take, and how he should proceed to question the accused with a view to extorting the truth from her so that sentence of death may finally be passed upon her.” “he must not be too quick for this reason: unless God, through a holy Angel, compels the devil to withhold his help from the witch, she will be so insensible to the pains of torture that she will sooner be torn limb from limb than confess any of the truth. But the torture is not to be neglected for this reason, for they are not all equally endowed with this power, and also the devil sometimes of his own will permits them to confess their crimes without being compelled by a holy Angel.” “For there are some who obtain from the devil a respite of 6 or 8 or 10 years before they have to offer him their homage, that is, devote themselves to him body and soul; whereas others, when they first profess their abjuration of the faith, at the same time offer their homage. And the reason why the devil allows that stipulated interval of time is that, during that time, he may find out whether the witch has denied the faith with her lips only but not in her heart, and would therefore offer him her homage in the same way.”
“we may say that it is as difficult, or more difficult, to compel a witch to tell the truth as it is to exorcise a person possessed of the devil. Therefore the Judge ought not to be too willing or ready to proceed to such examination, unless the death penalty is involved.” “very often meditation, and the misery of imprisonment, and the repeated advice of honest men, dispose the accused to discover the truth.” “let the accused be stripped; or if she is a woman, let her first be led to the penal cells and there stripped by honest women of good reputation. And the reason for this is that they should search for any instrument of witchcraft sewn into her clothes; for they often make such instruments, at the instruction of devils. And when such instruments have been disposed of, the Judge shall use his own persuasions and those of other honest men zealous for the faith to induce her to confess the truth voluntarily; and if she will not, let him order the officers to bind her with cords, and apply her to some engine of torture; and then let them obey at once but not joyfully, rather appearing to be disturbed by their duty. Then let her be released again at someone’s earnest request, and taken on one side, and let her again be persuaded; and in persuading her, let her be told that she can escape the death penalty.” “she may be promised her life on the following conditions: that she be sentenced to imprisonment for life on bread and water, provided that she supply evidence which will lead to the conviction of other witches. And she is not to be told, when she is promised her life, that she is to be imprisoned in this way; but should be led to suppose that some other penance, such as exile, will be imposed on her as punishment. And without doubt notorious witches, especially such as use witches’ medicines and cure the bewitched by superstitious means, should be kept in this way, both that they may help the bewitched, and that they may betray other witches. But such a betrayal by them must not be considered of itself sufficient ground for a conviction, since the devil is a liar, unless it is also substantiated by the evidence of the fact, and by witnesses.
Others think that, after she has been consigned to prison in this way, the promise to spare her life should be kept for a time, but that after a certain period she should be burned.”
“But if neither threats nor such promises will induce her to confess the truth, then the officers must proceed with the sentence, and she must be examined, not in any new or exquisite manner, but in the usual way, lightly or heavily according as the nature of her crimes demands. And while she is being questioned about each several point, let her be often and frequently exposed to torture, beginning with the more gentle of them; for the Judge should not be too hasty to proceed to the graver kind. And while this is being done, let the Notary write all down, how she is tortured and what questions are asked and how she answers.
And note that, if she confesses under torture, she should then be taken to another place and questioned anew, so that she does not confess only under the stress of torture.
The next step of the Judge should be that, if after being fittingly tortured she refuses to confess the truth, he should have other engines of torture brought before her, and tell her that she will have to endure these if she does not confess. If then she is not induced by terror to confess, the torture must be continued on the 2nd or 3rd day, but not repeated at that present time unless there should be some fresh indication of its probable success.”
“The Judge should also take care that during that interval there should always be guards with her, so that she is never left alone, for fear lest the devil will cause her to kill herself. But the devil himself knows better than anyone whether he will desert her of his own will, or be compelled to do so by God.”
“THE Judge should act as follows in the continuation of the torture. First he should bear in mind that, just as the same medicine is not applicable to all the members, but there are various and distinct salves for each several member, so not all heretics or those accused of heresy are to be subjected to the same method of questioning, examination and torture as to the charges laid against them; but various and different means are to be employed according to their various natures and persons. Now a surgeon cuts off rotten limbs; and mangy sheep are isolated from the healthy; but a prudent Judge will not consider it safe to bind himself down to one invariable rule in his method of dealing with a prisoner who is endowed with a witch’s power of taciturnity, and whose silence he is unable to overcome. For if the sons of darkness were to become accustomed to one general rule they would provide means of evading it as a well-known snare set for their destruction.”
“For we are taught both by the words of worthy men of old and by our own experience that this is a most certain sign, and it has been found that even if she be urged and exhorted by solemn conjurations to shed tears, if she be a witch she will not be able to weep: although she will assume a tearful aspect and smear her cheeks and eyes with spittle to make it appear that she is weeping; wherefore she must be closely watched by the attendants.” Não que uma sincera torrente de lágrimas garanta algo além de uma vida encarcerada ou a cremação numa fogueira…
“I conjure you by the bitter tears shed on the Cross by our Saviour the Lord JESUS Christ for the salvation of the world, and by the burning tears poured in the evening hour over His wounds by the most glorious Virgin MARY, His Mother, and by all the tears which have been shed here in this world by the Saints and Elect of God, from whose eyes He has now wiped away all tears, that if you be innocent you do now shed tears, but if you be guilty that you shall by no means do so. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, Amen.”
“for S. Bernard tells us that the tears of the humble can penetrate to heaven and conquer the unconquerable. Therefore there can be no doubt that they are displeasing to the devil, and that he uses all his endeavour to restrain them, to prevent a witch from finally attaining to penitence.
But it may be objected that it might suit with the devil’s cunning, with God’s permission, to allow even a witch to weep; since tearful grieving, weaving and deceiving are said to be proper to women. We may answer that in this case, since the judgements of God are a mystery, if there is no other way of convicting the accused, by legitimate witnesses or the evidence of the fact, and if she is not under a strong or grave suspicion, she is to be discharged”
“they must not allow themselves to be touched physically by the witch, especially in any contact of their bare arms or hands; but they must always carry about them some salt consecrated on Palm Sunday and some Blessed Herbs.”
“And we know from experience that some witches, when detained in prison, have importunately begged their gaolers to grant them this one thing, that they should be allowed to look at the Judge before he looks at them; and by so getting the first sight of the Judge they have been able so to alter the minds of the Judge or his assessors that they have lost all their anger against them and have not presumed to molest them in any way, but have allowed them to go free.”
“And no one need think that it is superstitious to lead her in backwards”
RAPE AS TORTURE: “The 3rd precaution to be observed in this 10th action is that the hair should be shaved from every part of her body. The reason for this is the same as that for stripping her of her clothes, which we have already mentioned; for in order to preserve their power of silence they are in the habit of hiding some superstitious object in their clothes or in their hair, or even in the most secret parts of the their bodies which must not be named.
But it may be objected that the devil might, without the use of such charms, so harden the heart of a witch that she is unable to confess her crimes; just as it is often found in the case of other criminals, no matter how great the tortures to which they are exposed, or how much they are convicted by the evidence of the facts and of witnesses. We answer that it is true that the devil can affect such taciturnity without the use of such charms; but he prefers to use them for the perdition of souls and the greater offence to the Divine Majesty of God.
This can be made clear from the example of a certain witch in the town of Hagenau,. She used to obtain this gift of silence in the following manner: she killed a newly-born first-born male child who had not been baptized, and having roasted it in an oven together with other matters which it is not expedient to mention, ground it to powder and ashes; and if any witch or criminal carried about him some of this substance he would in no way be able to confess his crimes.”
MANUAL DO GUERRILHEIRO DAS CRUZADAS: “this power of taciturnity can proceed from 3 causes. First, from a natural hardness of heart; for some are soft-hearted, or even feeble-minded, so that at the slightest torture they admit everything, even some things which are not true; whereas others are so hard that however much they are tortured the truth is not to be had from them; and this is especially the case with those who have been tortured before, even if their arms are suddenly stretched or twisted.”
“But what is to be said of a case that happened in the Diocese of Ratisbon? Certain heretics were convicted by their own confession not only as impenitent but as open advocates of that perfidy; and when they were condemned to death it happened that they remained unharmed in the fire. At length their sentence was altered to death by drowning, but this was no more effective. All were astonished, and some even began to say that their heresy must be true; and the Bishop, in great anxiety for his flock, ordered a 3 days fast. When this had been devoutly fulfilled, it came to the knowledge of someone that those heretics had a magic charm sewed between the skin and the flesh under one arm; and when this was found and removed, they were delivered to the flames and immediately burned. Some say that a certain necromancer learned this secret during a consultation with the devil, and betrayed it; but however it became known, it is probably that the devil, who is always scheming for the subversion of faith, was in some way compelled by Divine power to reveal the matter.”
“Now in the parts of Germany such shaving, especially of the secret parts, is not generally considered delicate, and therefore we Inquisitors do not use it; but we cause the hair of their head to be cut off, and placing a morsel of Blessed Wax in a cup of Holy Water and invoking the most Holy Trinity, we give it them to drink 3 times on a fasting stomach, and by the grace of God we have by this means caused many to break their silence. But in other countries the Inquisitors order the witch to be shaved all over her body. And the Inquisitor of Como has informed us that last year, that is, in 1485, he ordered 41 witches to be burned, after they had been shaved all over. And this was in the district and county of Burbia, commonly called Wormserbad, in the territory of the Archduke of Austria, towards Milan.”
(*) “Our Lady of Tears, Santa Maria delle Lagrime, is the Patroness of Spoleto. A picture of Our Lady, painted upon the wall of the house belonging to Diotallevio d’Antonio, which stood on the road from Spoleto to Trevi, was seen to shed tears in great abundance. Many graces and favours were obtained before the miraculous picture. A small chapel was erected on the spot in August 1485, and Mass was daily offered therein. On 27 March 1487, the large basilica was begun, which on its completion, 8 March 1489, was entrusted to the Olivetans.”
(*) “Helen Guthrie, in 1661 dug up the body of an unbaptized infant, which was buried in the churchyard near the southeast door of the church and took several pieces thereof, as the feet, hands, part of the head, and a part of the buttocks, and made a pie thereof, that she might eat of it and by this means might never make a confession of witchcraft.” Talento para ser comunista…
“Finally, if he sees that she will not admit her crimes, he shall ask her whether, to prove her innocence, she is ready to undergo the ordeal by red-hot iron. And they all desire this, knowing that the devil will prevent them from being hurt; therefore a true witch is exposed in this manner. The Judge shall ask her how she can be so rash as to run so great a risk, and all shall be written down; but it will be shown later that they are never to be allowed to undergo this ordeal by red-hot iron.” Medinho?
“Let the Judge also note that when witches are questioned on a Friday, while the people are gathered together at Holy Mass to await our Saviour, they very often confess.”
“As a 5th precaution, when all the above have failed, let her, if possible, be led to some castle; and after she has been kept there under custody for some days, let the castellan pretend that he is going on a long journey. And then let some of his household, or even some honest women, visit her and promise that they will set her entirely at liberty if she will teach them how to conduct certain practices. And let the Judge take note that by this means they have very often confessed and been convicted.”
“For trial by combat is allowable in a criminal case for the protection of life, and in a civil case for the protection of property; then wherefore not the trial by red-hot iron or boiling water? (…) Again, a judge, who is responsible for the safety of the community, may lawfully allow a smaller evil that a greater may be avoided; as he allows the existence of harlots in towns in order to avoid a general confusion of lust. For S. Augustine On Free Will says: Take away the harlots, and you will create a general chaos and confusion of lust. So, when a person has been loaded with insults and injuries by any community, he can clear himself of any criminal or civil charge by means of a trial by ordeal.”
PAVOR DA SANTIFICAÇÃO MILAGROSA E INAUDITA DA BRUXA: “the Canon says in that chapter not that they who use such practices tempt God, but that they appear to tempt Him, so that it may be understood that, even if a man engage in such a trial with none but good intentions, yet since it has the appearance of evil, it is to be avoided.” “That which is not sanctioned in the writings of the Sainted Fathers is to be presumed superstitious.” “And it is not wonderful witches are able to undergo this trial by ordeal unscathed with the help of devils; for we learn from naturalists that if the hands be anointed with the juice of a certain herb they are protected from burning. Now the devil has an exact knowledge of the virtues of such herbs: although he can cause the hand of the accused to be protected from the red-hot iron by invisibly interposing some other substance, yet he can procure the same effect by the use of natural objects.”
“An incident illustrative of our argument occurred hardly 3 years ago in the Diocese of Constance. For in the territory of the Counts of Fuerstenberg and the Black Forest there was a notorious witch who had been the subject of much public complaint. (…) she was released from her chains and lives to the present time, not without grave scandal to the Faith in those parts.”
(*) “When scandalous reports were circulated concerning her honour, although her husband could not for a moment suspect her purity, she insisted upon an appeal to the trial by ordeal, and having walked unhurt over the red-hot plough-shares, publicly testified her innocence. The story is immensely popular in German poetry and German art. A print by Hans Burgkmair shows her stepping over the shares, one of which she holds in her hand. Upon her shrine in the Cathedral at Bamburg a bas-relief by Hans Thielmann of Warzburg depicts the same incident. Having already retired to a Benedictine cloister, upon the death of her husband S. Cunegond she took the veil.” Como eu disse, trata-se de um milagre de santa!
“S. Augustine says that we must not pronounce sentence against any person unless he has been proved guilty, or has confessed. Now there are 3 kinds of sentence – interlocutory, definitive, and preceptive. These are explained as follows by S. Raymond. An interlocutory sentence is one which is given not on the main issue of the case, but on some other side issues which emerge during the hearing of a case; such as a decision whether or not a witness is to be disallowed, or whether some digression is to be admitted, and such matters as that. Or it may perhaps be called interlocutory because it is delivered simply by word of mouth without the formality of putting it into writing. A definitive sentence is one which pronounces a final decision as to the main issue of the case. A preceptive sentence is one which is pronounced by a lower authority on the instruction of a higher.
Now it is laid down by law that a definitive sentence which has been arrived at without a due observance of the proper legal procedure in trying a case is null and void in law; and the legal conduct of a case consists in 2 things. One concerns the basis of the judgement; for there must be a due provision for the hearing of arguments both for the prosecution and the defence, and a sentence arrived at without such a hearing cannot stand. The other is not concerned with the basis of the judgement, but provides that the sentence must not be conditional; for example, a claim for possession should not be decided conditionally upon some subsequent claim of property; but where there is no question of such an objection the sentence shall stand.”
“the Judge need not require a writ, or demand that the case should be contested. But he must allow opportunity for the necessary proofs, and issue his citation, and exact the protestation of the oath concerning calumny, etc. Therefore there has lately been a new law made as to the method of procedure in such cases.”
“the sentence should be pronounced by the Judge and no one else, otherwise it is not valid. Also the Judge must be sitting in a public and honourable place; and he must pronounce it in the day-time and not in the darkness; and there are other conditions to be observed; for example, the sentence must not be promulgated upon a Holy Day, nor yet merely delivered in writing.”
Note again that, although in criminal actions the execution of the sentence is not to be delayed, this rule does not hold good in 4 cases, with 2 of which we are here concerned. First, when the prisoner is a pregnant woman; and then the sentence shall be delayed until she has given birth. Secondly, when the prisoner has confessed her crime, but has afterwards denied it again”
“And the Canonists note that suspicion is of 3 kinds. The first of which the Canon says, You shall not judge anyone because he is suspect in your own opinion. The second is Probably; and this, but not the first, leads to a purgation. The third is Grave, and leads to a conviction; and S. Jerome understands this kind of suspicion when he says that a wife may be divorced either for fornication or for a reasonably suspected fornication.” “Applying this to our discussion of the heresy of witches and to the modern laws, we say that in law there are 3 degrees of suspicion in the matter of heresy: the first slight, the second great, and the third very great.”
“As an example of simple heresy, if people are found to be meeting together secretly for the purpose of worship, or differing in their manner of life and behaviour from the usual habits of the faithful; or if they meet together in sheds and barns, or at the more Holy Seasons in the remoter fields or woods, by day or by night, or are in any way found to separate themselves and not to attend Mass at the usual times or in the usual manner, or form secret friendships with suspected witches: such people incur at least a light suspicion of heresy, because it is proved that heretics often act in this manner. And of this light suspicion the Canon says: They who are by a slight argument discovered to have deviated from the teaching and path of the Catholic religion are not to be classed as heretics, nor is a sentence to be pronounced against them.”
“And here are especially to be noted those men or women who cherish some inordinate love or excessive hatred, even if they do not use to work any harm against men or animals in other ways. For those who behave in this way in any heresy are strongly to be suspected.”
“Those who have been found to rest under a probable suspicion should prove their innocence by a fitting purgation; if not, they are to be stricken with the sword of anathema as a worthy satisfaction in the sight of all men. And if they continue obstinate in their excommunication for the period of a year, they are utterly condemned as heretics.”
ERRAR É HUMANO, PERSISTIR É PECAR! “He who has been involved in one kind or sect of heresy, or has erred in one article of the faith or sacrament of the Church, and has afterwards specifically and generally abjured his heresy: if thereafter he follows another kind or sect of heresy, or errs in another article or sacrament of the Church, it is our will that he be judged a backslider.”
Let care be taken not to put anywhere in the sentence that the accused is innocent or immune, but that it was not legally proved against him; for if after a little time he should again be brought to trial, and it should be legally proved, he can, notwithstanding the previous sentence of absolution, then be condemned.”
“that you may be in good odour among the company of the faithful we impose upon you as by law a canonical purgation, assigning to you such a day of such a month at such hour of the day, upon which you shall appear in person before us with so many persons of equal station with you to purge you of your defamation. Which sponsors must be men of the Catholic faith and of good life who have known your habits and manner of living not only recently but in time past. And we signify that, if you should fail in this purgation, we shall hold you convicted, according to the canonical sanctions.”
“We N., by the mercy of God Bishop of such a town, or Judge in the territory subject to the rule of such a Prince, having regard to the merits of the process conducted by us against you N., of such a place in such a Diocese, and after careful examination, find that you are not consistent in your answers, and that there are sufficient indications besides that you ought to be exposed to the question and torture. Therefore, that the truth may be known from your own mouth and that from henceforth you may not offend the ears of your Judges with your equivocations, we declare, pronounce, and give sentence that on this present day at such an hour you are to be subjected to an interrogatory under torture. This sentence was given, etc.”
“Neither are they to be branded with the sign of the Cross, for such is the sign of a penitent heretic; and they are not convicted heretics, but only suspected, therefore they are not to be marked in this way. But they can be ordered either to stand on certain solemn days within the doors of a church, or near the altar, while Holy Mass is being celebrated, bearing in their hands a lighted candle of a certain weight; or else to go on some pilgrimage, or something of the kind, according to the nature and requirements of the case.”
“Therefore inasmuch as you are bound by the chain of excommunication from the Holy Church, and are justly cut off from the number of the Lord’s flock, and are deprived of the benefits of the Church, the Church can do no more for you, having done all that was possible. We, the said Bishop and Judges on behalf of the Faith, sitting in tribunal as Judges judging, and having before us the Holy Gospels that our judgement may proceed as from the countenance of god and our eyes see with equity, and having before our eyes only God and the truth of the Holy Faith and the extirpation of the plague of heresy, on this day and at this hour and place assigned to you for the hearing of your final sentence, we give it as our judgement and sentence that you are indeed an impenitent heretic, and as truly such to be delivered and abandoned to the secular Court: wherefore by this sentence we cast you away as an impenitent heretic from our ecclesiastical Court, and deliver or abandon you to the power of the secular Court: praying the said Court to moderate or temper its sentence of death against you.” Ah, com certeza…
“but you have been given up to your sin and led away and seduced by an evil spirit, and have chosen to be tortured with fearful and eternal torment in hell, and that your temporal body should here be consumed in the flames, rather than to give ear to better counsels and renounce your damnable and pestilent errors, and to return to the merciful bosom of our Holy Mother Church.”
6 6 6
BIBLIOGRAFIA DO “OUTRO MUNDO”
Agostinho – De Natura Daemonis, 411 d.C.
Beothius – De Consolatione Philosophiae
Caesarius – Dialogue magnus visionum atque miraculorum, Libri XII.
Collin de Plancy – Dictionnaire Infernal, sixième édition, 1863.
Mirabeau – Erotika Biblion (pseudo-Rome), 1783.
Sinistrari – Demoniality, 1927.
Stefano Infessura – Diarium urbis Rome
