The Necessity of Atheism Part 11

Constantine, after his conversion to Christianity, enacted laws against the magicians. These were made more rigid under Constantius, his son, but suspended under Julian. These persecutions were renewed by Valentinian, spasmodically carried on to a slight extent, and then lapsed. During the period that elapsed between the sixth and thirteenth centuries the executions for sorcery were comparatively rare.

It is to be borne in mind, then, that magic as existing in pagan Rome was part of the religious conceptions of the Romans. The oracle as well as the various demons, which to them signified what the word "angel"

signifies to us now, formed an elaborate system of mythology and idolatry. The early Christians coming into contact with these conceptions, at first found an insurmountable difficulty in spreading their beliefs among the rural inhabitants of the Roman empire.

Polytheism was dominant while their monotheism was as yet a persecuted belief. The road of least resistance was compromise, and so this vast system of polytheism was perverted, while seemingly accepted into their beliefs, by making these "angels," "demons," as we now understand the word. Since the early Christians were dominated by a belief in constant Satanic presence, these demons were said to be the "Hosts of Satan." It was firmly believed that the arch-fiend (Satan) was forever hovering about the Christians, but it was also believed that the sign of the cross, or a few drops of holy water, or the name of Mary, could put him to an immediate and ignominious flight.

"In the twelfth century, however, the subject pa.s.sed into an entirely new phase. The conception of a witch, as we now conceive it, that is to say of a woman who had entered into a deliberate compact with Satan, who was endowed with the power of working miracles whenever she pleased, and who was continually transported through the air to the Sabbath, where she paid her homage to the Evil One--first appeared. The panic created by the belief at first advanced slowly, but after a time with a fearfully accelerated rapidity. Thousands of victims were sometimes burnt alive in a few years. Every country in Europe was stricken with the wildest fever. Hundreds of the ablest judges were selected for the extirpation of this crime. A vast literature was created on the subject, and it was not until a considerable portion of the eighteenth century had pa.s.sed away that the executions finally ceased. The vast majority of those accused of witchcraft were women, and again the Bible furnished the authority for the belief that women were inherently wicked. That the Fathers of the Church believed this is exemplified by the statement of Chrysostom in which he said that women were a 'necessary evil, a natural temptation, a desirable calamity, a domestic peril, a deadly fascination, and a painted ill.'" (_Lecky._)

At this period the conception of a witch is radically different from that which was prevalent in the era prior to this one. The popular belief of the witchcraft ages, a belief sanctioned by most of the learned men of the time, was that the earth swarmed with millions upon millions of demons. They multiplied by reproduction in the usual way, by the accession of the souls of wicked men, of women dying in childbirth, of children still-born, of men killed in duels. The air was filled with them, and one was always in danger of inspiring them with the air, of swallowing them in food and drink. Most Christian writers and legendists said that there were so many of them they could not be counted, but Wierus took a census of them and reported that there were only 7,505,926 divided into seventy-two companies, each commanded by a captain or prince. They could make themselves hideous, or beautiful, as suited their purposes, and a.s.sume any shape. While capable of appearing at any time, they preferred the night between Friday and Sat.u.r.day. Any human being who gave up to them his immortal soul could command their services for a certain time. Occasionally general conferences took place, at the pleasure of Satan, which were attended by all the demons and all the witches.

"These 'sabbaths' were held on the Brocken or other high mountain. Upon the spot where they met, nothing would ever grow afterwards, as their hot feet burnt all the fecundity out of the soil. In France, England, and the American Colonies, it was supposed that witches made their trips on broomsticks; in Spain and Italy it was believed that they twirled on the back of the Devil himself, who, for the occasion, transformed himself into male goat. On no account would a witch, when starting for a sabbath, go out through the open door or window; she would pa.s.s through the keyhole or up the chimney. While they were gone, inferior demons a.s.sumed their shape, and lay in their beds, feigning illness. a.s.sembled on the Brocken, the Devil, as a double-headed goat, took his seat on the throne. His subjects paid their respects to him, kissing his posterior face. With a master of ceremonies appointed for the occasion, he made a personal examination of all the wizards and witches, to see if they had the secret mark about them by which they were stamped as the Devil's own. This mark was always insensible to pain, and it was the sure proof of witchery when found by the inquisitor. Any witches found by the Devil not so marked received the mark from him then and there, also a nickname. Then they all sang and danced furiously. If a stranger came to be admitted, silence reigned while he denied his salvation, spat upon the Bible, kissed the Devil, and swore absolute obedience to him.

Singing and dancing was resumed, a mythical formula being used in the singing. When tired, they sat down and told of their evil deeds; those who had not been bad enough were scourged by Satan himself with thorns and scorpions until they could neither sit nor stand. Then came a dance by thousands of toads who were conjured out of the ground and standing on their hind legs kept time to the music Satan evoked from bagpipes or a trumpet. They could all talk, and asked the witches to give them the flesh of unbaptized babes for food. The witches promised to do so. The Devil told them to remember and keep their word and then stamped his foot, and the frogs disappeared instantly into the earth. Next came a most disgusting banquet, except for a few of the most wicked witches, to whom were given rich viands on golden plates and expensive wines in crystal goblets. Then came more dancing; those who did not care for that amused themselves by mocking the sacrament of baptism. For this purpose the toads were again called up and sprinkled with filthy water, the Devil making the sign of the cross, while the witches repeated a formula as absurd as that used in ordinary baptisms. Sometimes the Devil made the witches take off their clothes and dance before him, each with a cat tied around her neck, and another dangling behind as a tail. Sometimes, again, there were lascivious orgies. At c.o.c.k-crow, all disappeared; the sabbath was over." (_"The Story of the Inquisition"--Freethought Press a.s.sociation._)

This conception of a witch continued from the twelfth century to the time witch-burning ceased. With this idea of a witch being constantly instilled into the minds of their listeners, the clergy set loose fervidly religious mobs to scourge the countries of innocent women. With the entire world divided into the "Hosts of Heaven" and the "Hosts of Satan," with witches abounding in the air, in the water, and in the food, and with their immortal souls at stake, the frenzied population found evidences of witchcraft in all manner of happenings.

"Pope after pope set the seal of his infallibility upon the b.l.o.o.d.y persecutions. At length came Innocent VIII who, on the 7th of December, 1484, sent forth his bull Summis Desiderantis. Of all doc.u.ments ever issued from Rome, imperial and papal, this, doubtless, first and last, caused the greatest shedding of innocent blood. Yet no doc.u.ment was ever more clearly dictated by conscience. Inspired by the scriptural command, 'Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live,' Pope Innocent exhorted the clergy of Germany to leave no means untried to detect sorcerers, and especially, those who by evil practice destroy vineyards, gardens, meadows, and growing crops. These precepts were based upon various texts of scripture, especially upon the famous statement in the Book of Job; and to carry them out, witch-finding inquisitors were authorized by the Pope to scour Europe, especially Germany, and a manual was prepared for their use, the Witch-Hammer, Malleus Maleficarum." (_White: "Warfare of Science."_)

Another important and much discussed department was the connection between evil spirits and animals. That the Devil could a.s.sume the form of any animal he pleased, seems to have been generally admitted, and it presented no difficulty to those who remembered that the first appearance of that personage on earth was as a serpent, and that on one occasion a legion of devils had entered into a herd of swine. Saint Jerome also a.s.sures us that in the desert St. Anthony had met a centaur and a faun, a little man with horns growing from his forehead, who were possibly devils, and at all events, at a later period, the "Lives of the Saints" represent evil spirits in the form of animals as not infrequent.

Lycanthropy, however, or the transformation of witches into wolves, presented more difficulty. The history of Nebuchadnezzar and the conversion of Lot's wife were, it is true, eagerly alleged in support of its possibility; but it was impossible to forget that St. Augustine appeared to regard lycanthropy as a fable, and a canon of the Council of Ancyra had emphatically condemned the belief. On the other hand, that belief has been very widely diffused among the ancients. It had been accepted by many of the greatest and most orthodox theologians, by the inquisitors who were commissioned by the popes, and by the law courts of most countries. The evidence on which it rested was very curious and definite. If the witch was wounded in the form of an animal, she retained that wound in her human form, and hundreds of such cases were alleged before tribunals. Sometimes the hunter, having severed the paw of his a.s.sailant, retained it as a trophy; but, when he opened his bag, he discovered in it only a bleeding hand, which he recognized as the hand of his wife.

A French judge named Boguet, at the end of the sixteenth century, devoted himself especially to the subject and burnt mult.i.tudes of lycanthropes. He wrote a book about them and drew up a code in which he permitted ordinary witches to be strangled before they were burnt, but excepted lycanthropes who were to be burnt alive.

Now let us examine on what authority the popes and afterwards the reformers so rigorously persecuted the "witches." Both the Old and the New Testaments are riddled with references to witches, wizards, and devils. For example, this pa.s.sage from Exodus XXII 18, "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live."

From Matthew VIII 28-32, "There met him two possessed with devils coming out of the tombs, exceeding fierce, so that no man might pa.s.s by that way. And, behold, they cried out, saying, 'What have we to do with thee, Jesus, Son of G.o.d? Art thou come hither to torment us before the time?'

And there was a good way off from them a herd of many swine feeding. So the devils besought him, saying, 'If thou cast us out, suffer us to go away into the herd of swine. And he said unto them, 'Go!' And when they were come out, they went into the herd of swine. And behold, the whole herd of swine ran violently down a steep place into the sea and perished in the waters."

The Old Testament, therefore, definitely commands its adherents to kill, and the New Testament gives a brilliant example of its chief magician, Jesus, exorcising devils from men and driving them into swine. There are numerous pa.s.sages of the Bible which speak of the Devil, the Devil and his angels, spirit of an unclean devil, dumb spirit, foul spirit, unclean spirit, evil spirit, witch, witchcraft, wizards, necromancers, satan, the tempter, prince of the power of the air, prince of devils, etc.

These pa.s.sages in the Bible were at once the chief source and sanction of the terrible atrocities which extended over several centuries and have come to be known, taken collectively, as the "Witchcraft Persecutions." The Devil, with his subordinate demons and the human beings who sold their souls to him, were supposed to be both capable and guilty of blighting the crops; causing the lightning; bringing destructive storms; withholding the rain; drying up cows; killing domestic and wild beasts; afflicting the nations with pestilence, famine, and war; causing all manner of diseases; betwitching men, women, and children; planting doubts in the mind and weeds in the fields; and in brief, doing about everything that was disagreeable to man in general, or that offended the priests as a caste.

Thus b.u.t.tressed by the Bible, and with the nearly entire current of Church literature setting in the same direction, it is no wonder that the witchcraft delusion became one of the most appalling, if not the most appalling, fact in the development of the Christian religion.

There is extant no other record of destruction and cruel slaughter growing out of such beliefs in supernatural persons and powers that can ever begin to tell such a story of degradation and mercilessness as the record made by the Christian Church. Theologians laid stress especially upon the famous utterances of the Psalmist that "All the G.o.ds of the Heathens are devils," and St. Paul, "The things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to the devils."

Those suspected of heresy and witchcraft must confess; they were to be tortured until they did confess. This made suspicion equivalent to confession and conviction. In the witch "trial" the victim must not only incriminate herself but her accomplices, or all whom she "knew" to be in partnership with the Devil. She was bound to be tortured until she had given the names or described the persons of those she had seen at the "witches' sabbath." Then they would be put to the torture and the process repeated. It was not in human nature long to bear the awful pain; soon the leading questions of the inquisitors would be answered as they wanted them answered. It would be incredible were it not attested by such a mult.i.tude of witnesses, that men could honestly believe that testimony so extorted had the slightest value. But it is indisputable that hundreds of thousands of human beings were sent to a cruel death on this utterly worthless "evidence."

As few people realize the degree in which these superst.i.tions were encouraged by the Church that claims infallibility, I may mention that the reality of this particular crime was implied and its perpetrators anathematized by the provincial councils or synods of Troyes, Lyons, Milan, Tours, Bourges, Narbonne, Ferrar, Saint Malo, Mont Corsin, Orleans, and Gren.o.ble; by the Rituals of Autun, Chartres, Perigueux, Evreux, Paris, Chalons, Bologna, Troyes, Beauvais, Meaux, Rheims, etc., and by the decrees of a long series of bishops.

The infection was everywhere--Germany, Spain, Portugal, France, Italy, England, Scotland, and even America was scourged. It has been estimated that one hundred thousand perished in Germany from the middle of the fifteenth century to the middle of the sixteenth century.

Pope Gregory IX wrote a great ma.s.s of nonsense to the bishop and other chiefs urging stringent methods against the Stedingers, Frieslanders, inhabiting the country between Weser and Zeider Zee. He wrote, "The Devil appears to them (the Stedingers) in different shapes, sometimes as a goose or duck, and at other times in the figure of a pale, black-eyed youth, with a melancholy aspect, whose embrace fills their hearts with eternal hatred against the Holy Church of Christ. This Devil presides at their sabbath when they all kiss him and dance around him. He then envelops them in total darkness, and they all, male and female, give themselves up to the grossest and most disgusting debauchery."

The infallible pope of Rome!

The result was that the Stedingers, men, women, and children, were slain, the cottages and woods burned, the cattle stolen and the land laid waste. The pope's letter is a fair example of the theological literature of the time; the slaughter of the Stedingers an average ill.u.s.tration of the evangelistic methods of the Church.

Millions of men, women, and children were tortured, strangled, drowned, or burned on "evidence" that today would be accepted nowhere unless by a court and jury composed of the inmates of a lunatic asylum, if even by them. It is unnecessary to say that the more severe the persecution, the more widespread did witchcraft become. Every person tortured accused others and whole communities went mad with grief and fear and superst.i.tion. No amount of human evidence establishing the actual whereabouts of the accused at the time they were a.s.serted by the witness on the rack to have been at the sabbath would avail. The husbands were told that they had seen or held only the devil-created semblance of their wives. The originals were with Satan under the oak. The confessions of tens of thousands of witches are to be found in Europe's judicial records of the period of the Inquisition.

"The Protestant Reformers zealously seconded the exertions of Rome to extirpate witchcraft; they felt that they must prove that they were as orthodox as the Catholics, and were as loyal to the Bible. No one urged their fundamental ideas more than did Luther, Calvin, Beza, the Swedish Lutherans, Casaubon, Wesley, Richard Baxter, the Mathers,--all stood loyally by Rome." (_Lecky._)

At Lisbon, a horse whose master had taught him many tricks, was tried in 1601 and found guilty of being possessed by the Devil, for which he was burned.

The witchcraft mania proper in England began in the sixteenth century and reached its climax in the early part of the seventeenth century. Sir Matthew Hale, the great jurist, sanctioned the delusions and pa.s.sed sentences of death by burning.

Queen Elizabeth made witchcraft a capital offense in England; and King James I wrote a book on the subject, and lent his personal aid and royal support to the persecutions.

Joan of Arc, the n.o.blest of all the victims of this belief, perished by English hands, though on French soil, and under the sentence of a French bishop.

In Scotland, during the sixteenth century, as well as the seventeenth, were seen the most horrible examples of what domination of superst.i.tious minds by ecclesiastics could do.

"Nothing was natural, all was supernatural. The entire course of affairs was governed, not by their antecedents, but by a series of miracles.

Going still further, they claimed the power (the clergy) not only of foretelling the future state, but also of controlling it; and they did not scruple to affirm that, by their censures, they could open and shut the Kingdom of Heaven. As if this were not enough, they also gave out that a word of theirs could hasten the moment of death, and by cutting off the sinner in his prime, could bring him at once before the Judgment Seat of G.o.d.

"The Scotch clergy preached that, 'h.e.l.l was created before man came into the world. The Almighty,' they did not scruple to say, 'having spent his previous leisure in preparing and completing this place of torture, so that, when the human race appeared, it might be ready for their reception.'

"Of all the means of intimidation employed by the Scotch clergy none was more efficacious than the doctrines they propounded respecting evil spirits and future punishment. On these subjects, they constantly uttered the most appalling threats. The language which they used was calculated to madden men with fear and to drive them to the depths of despair.

"It was generally believed that the world was overrun by evil spirits who went not only up and down the earth, but also lived in the air, and whose business it was to tempt and hurt mankind. Their number was infinite, and they were to be found at all places and in all seasons.

"At their head was Satan himself, whose delight it was to appear in person ensnaring or terrifying every one he met. With this object, he a.s.sumed various forms. One day he would visit the earth as a black dog, on another day as a raven, on still another day he would be heard in the distance roaring like a bull. He appeared sometimes as a white man in black clothes, and sometimes he became a black man in black clothes, when it was remarked that his voice was ghastly, that he wore no shoes, and that one of his feet was cloven. His stratagems were endless. For, in the opinion of divines, his cunning increased with his age; and having been studying for more than 5000 years, he had now attained to unexampled dexterity. He could, and he did, seize both men and women and carry them away through the air. Usually he wore the garb of laymen, but it was said that, on more than one occasion, he had impudently attired himself as a minister of the Gospel. At all events, in one dress or other, he frequently appeared to the clergy, and tried to coax them over to his side. In that, of course, he failed; but out of the ministers thus tempted, few indeed could withstand him. He could raise storms and tempests. He could work, not only on the mind, but also on the organs of the body, making men hear and see whatever he chose. Of his victims, some he prompted to suicide, others to commit murder.

Still, formidable as he was, no Christian was considered to have attained to a full religious experience unless he had literally seen him, talked to him, and fought with him.

"The clergy were constantly preaching about him, and preparing their audiences for an interview with their great enemy. The consequence was that the people became almost crazed with fear. Whenever the preacher mentioned Satan, the consternation was so great that the church resounded with sighs and groans. They believed that the Devil was always and literally at hand; that he was haunting them, speaking to them, and tempting them. The clergy boasted that it was their special mission to thunder out the wrath and curses of the Lord. In their eyes the Deity was not a Beneficent Being, but a cruel and remorseless tyrant. They declared that all mankind, a very small portion only excepting, were doomed to eternal misery.

"The Scotch clergy taught their hearers that the Almighty was sanguinary, and so p.r.o.ne to anger that he raged even against walls and houses, and senseless creatures, wreaking his fury more than ever, and scattering desolation on every side.

"The people, credulous and ignorant, listened and believed.

"For in Scotland as elsewhere, directly the clergy succeeded in occupying a more than ordinary amount of public attention, they availed themselves of that circ.u.mstance to propagate those ascetic doctrines which, while they strike at the root of human happiness, benefit no one except the cla.s.s which advocates them; that cla.s.s, indeed, can hardly fail to reap the advantages from a policy which by increasing the apprehensions to which the ignorance and timidity of men make them liable, does also increase their eagerness to fly for support to their spiritual advisers; and the greater their apprehension, the greater the eagerness." (_Buckle: "The History of Civilization in England."_)

James I of England had become imbued with the idea of witchcraft while in Scotland, and he believed that his stormy pa.s.sage on his return from Denmark was due to witches. This storm was the origin of one of the most horrible of the many horrible Scotch trials on record. One Dr. Fian was suspected of having aroused the wind and a confession was wrung from him by torture which, however, he almost immediately retracted. Every form of torture was in vain employed to vanquish his obduracy; the bones of his legs were broken into small pieces in the boot. All the torments that Scottish law knew of were successively applied. At last, the king (who personally presided over the tortures) suggested a new and more horrible device. The prisoner, who had been removed during the deliberation, was brought in and "His nails upon his fingers were riven and pulled off with an instrument, called in Scottish a 'turkas,' which in England we call a 'payre' or 'pincers' and under everie nayle there was thrust in two needles over, even up to the heads. So deeply had the devil entered his heart, that he utterly denied all that which he avouched," and he was burnt unconfessed.

And this from a king of England!

The methods of obtaining a confession were as follows: If the witch was obdurate, the first, and it was said, the most effective method of obtaining confession was by what was termed "waking her." An iron bridle or hoop was bound across her face with four p.r.o.ngs which were thrust into her mouth. It was fastened behind to the wall by a chain, in such a manner that the victim was unable to lie down, and in this position she was sometimes kept for several days, while men were constantly with her to prevent her from closing her eyes for a moment in sleep. Partly in order to effect this object, and partly to discover the insensible mark which was the sure sign of a witch, long pins were thrust into her body.

At the same time, as it was a saying in Scotland that a witch would never confess while she could drink, excessive thirst was added to her torments. Some prisoners have been "waked" for five nights, one it is said, even for nine.

The physical and mental suffering of such a process was sufficient to overcome the resolution of many, and to distract the understanding of not a few. But other and perhaps worse tortures were in reserve. The three princ.i.p.al ones that were habitually applied were the "pennywinks, the boot, and the caschielawis." The first was a kind of thumbscrew; the second was a frame in which the leg was inserted, and in which it was broken by wedges driven in by a hammer; the third was also an iron frame for the leg, which was from time to time heated over a brazier.

Fire-matches were sometimes applied to the body of the victim. We read in a contemporary legal register, of one man who was kept for forty-eight hours in "vehement torture" in the caschielawis; and of another who remained in the same frightful machine for eleven days and nights, whose legs were broken daily for fourteen days in the boots, and who was so scourged that the whole skin was torn from his body. This was, it is true, censured as an extreme case, but it was only an excessive application of the common torture.

The witches were commonly strangled before they were burnt, but this merciful provision was very frequently omitted. An Earl of Wear tells how, with a piercing yell, some women once broke half-burnt from the slow fire consuming them, struggled for a few moments with a despairing energy among the spectators, but soon with shrieks of blasphemy and wild protestations of innocence sank writhing in agony amid the flames.

But just picture this scene for a moment! The horror of such a scene!

What a crime for one human to commit against another! A burnt offering to the G.o.ds! How well pleased the Almighty G.o.d must have been with the stench of burning human flesh rising to his nostrils. And how well he must have rewarded his faithful servants, for was this not done in His name? "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live."

As Lecky points out in his famous work on the "History of European Morals," such incidents are but ill.u.s.trations of the great truth that when men have come to regard a certain cla.s.s of their fellow creatures as doomed by the Almighty to eternal and excruciating agonies, and when their theology directs their minds with intense and realizing earnestness to the contemplation of such agonies, the result will be an indifference to the suffering of those whom they deem the enemies of their G.o.d, as absolute as it is perhaps possible for human nature to attain.

It is a historical fact that in 1591, a lady of rank, Eufame Macalyane, sought the a.s.sistance of Agnes Sampson for the relief of pain at the time of birth of her two sons. Agnes Sampson was tried before King James for her heresy, was condemned as a witch, and was burned alive on the Castle Hill of Edinburgh.