Holy Scriptures are again alluded to; and again it is made manifest that
the sorcery or witchcraft of the Old Testament resolves itself into a
trafficking with idols, and asking counsel of false deities; in other
words, into idolatry, which, notwithstanding repeated prohibitions,
examples, and judgments, was still the prevailing crime of the
Israelites. The passage alluded to is in Deuteronomy xviii. 10,
ii--"There shall not be found among you anyone that maketh his son or
his daughter to pass through the fire, or that useth divination, or an
observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch, or a charmer, or a
consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer." Similar
denunciations occur in the nineteenth and twentieth chapters of
Leviticus. In like manner, it is a charge against Manasses (2 Chronicles
xxxviii.) that he caused his children to pass through the fire, observed
times, used enchantments and witchcraft, and dealt with familiar spirits
and with wizards. These passages seem to concur with the former, in
classing witchcraft among other desertions of the prophets of the Deity,
in order to obtain responses by the superstitious practices of the pagan
nations around them. To understand the texts otherwise seems to confound
the modern system of witchcraft, with all its unnatural and improbable
outrages on common sense, with the crime of the person who, in classical
days, consulted the oracle of Apollo--a capital offence in a Jew, but
surely a venial sin in an ignorant and deluded pagan.
To illustrate the nature of the Hebrew witch and her prohibited criminal
traffic, those who have written on this subject have naturally dwelt
upon the interview between Saul and the Witch of Endor, the only
detailed and particular account of such a transaction which is to be
found in the Bible; a fact, by the way, which proves that the crime of
witchcraft (capitally punished as it was when discovered) was not
frequent among the chosen people, who enjoyed such peculiar
manifestations of the Almighty's presence. The Scriptures seem only to
have conveyed to us the general fact (being what is chiefly edifying) of
the interview between the witch and the King of Israel. They inform us
that Saul, disheartened and discouraged by the general defection of his
subjects, and the consciousness of his own unworthy and ungrateful
disobedience, despairing of obtaining an answer from the offended Deity,
who had previously communicated with him through his prophets, at length
resolved, in his desperation, to go to a divining woman, by which course
he involved himself in the crime of the person whom he thus consulted,
against whom the law denounced death--a sentence which had been often
executed by Saul himself on similar offenders. Scripture proceeds to
give us the general information that the king directed the witch to call
up the Spirit of Samuel, and that the female exclaimed that gods had
arisen out of the earth--that Saul, more particularly requiring a
description of the apparition (whom, consequently, he did not himself
see), she described it as the figure of an old man with a mantle. In
this figure the king acknowledges the resemblance of Samuel, and sinking
on his face, hears from the apparition, speaking in the character of the
prophet, the melancholy prediction of his own defeat and death.
In this description, though all is told which is necessary to convey to
us an awful moral lesson, yet we are left ignorant of the minutiæ
attending the apparition, which perhaps we ought to accept as a sure
sign that there was no utility in our being made acquainted with them.
It is impossible, for instance, to know with certainty whether Saul was
present when the woman used her conjuration, or whether he himself
personally ever saw the appearance which the Pythoness described to him.
It is left still more doubtful whether anything supernatural was
actually evoked, or whether the Pythoness and her assistant meant to
practise a mere deception, taking their chance to prophesy the defeat
and death of the broken-spirited king as an event which the
circumstances in which he was placed rendered highly probable, since he
was surrounded by a superior army of Philistines, and his character as a
soldier rendered it likely that he would not survive a defeat which must
involve the loss of his kingdom. On the other hand, admitting that the
apparition had really a supernatural character, it remains equally
uncertain what was its nature or by what power it was compelled to an
appearance, unpleasing, as it intimated, since the supposed spirit of
Samuel asks wherefore he was disquieted in the grave. Was the power of
the witch over the invisible world so great that, like the Erictho of
the heathen poet, she could disturb the sleep of the just, and
especially that of a prophet so important as Samuel; and are we to
suppose that he, upon whom the Spirit of the Lord was wont to descend,
even while he was clothed with frail mortality, should be subject to be
disquieted in his grave at the voice of a vile witch, and the command of
an apostate prince? Did the true Deity refuse Saul the response of his
prophets, and could a witch compel the actual spirit of Samuel to make
answer notwithstanding?
Embarrassed by such difficulties, another course of explanation has been
resorted to, which, freed from some of the objections which attend the
two extreme suppositions, is yet liable to others. It has been supposed
that something took place upon this remarkable occasion similar to that
which disturbed the preconcerted purpose of the prophet Balaam, and
compelled him to exchange his premeditated curses for blessings.
According to this hypothesis, the divining woman of Endor was preparing
to practise upon Saul those tricks of legerdemain or jugglery by which
she imposed upon meaner clients who resorted to her oracle. Or we may
conceive that in those days, when the laws of Nature were frequently
suspended by manifestations of the Divine Power, some degree of juggling
might be permitted between mortals and the spirits of lesser note; in
which case we must suppose that the woman really expected or hoped to
call up some supernatural appearance. But in either case, this second
solution of the story supposes that the will of the Almighty
substituted, on that memorable occasion, for the phantasmagoria intended
by the witch, the spirit of Samuel in his earthly resemblance--or, if
the reader may think this more likely, some good being, the messenger of
the Divine pleasure, in the likeness of the departed prophet--and, to
the surprise of the Pythoness herself, exchanged the juggling farce: of
sheer deceit or petty sorcery which she had intended to produce, for a
deep tragedy, capable of appalling the heart of the hardened tyrant, and
furnishing an awful lesson to future times.
This exposition has the advantage of explaining the surprise expressed
by the witch at the unexpected consequences of her own invocation, while
it removes the objection of supposing the spirit of Samuel subject to
her influence. It does not apply so well to the complaint of Samuel that
he was _disquieted_, since neither the prophet, nor any good angel
wearing his likeness, could be supposed to complain of an apparition
which took place in obedience to the direct command of the Deity. If,
however, the phrase is understood, not as a murmuring against the
pleasure of Providence, but as a reproach to the prophet's former friend
Saul, that his sins and discontents, which were the ultimate cause of
Samuel's appearance, had withdrawn the prophet for a space from the
enjoyment and repose of Heaven, to review this miserable spot of
mortality, guilt, grief, and misfortune, the words may, according to
that interpretation, wear no stronger sense of complaint than might
become the spirit of a just man made perfect, or any benevolent angel by
whom he might be represented. It may be observed that in Ecclesiasticus
(xlvi. 19, 20), the opinion of Samuel's actual appearance is adopted,
since it is said of this man of God, that _after death he prophesied,
and showed the king his latter end_.
Leaving the further discussion of this dark and difficult question to
those whose studies have qualified them to give judgment on so obscure a
subject, it so far appears clear that the Witch of Endor, was not a
being such as those believed in by our ancestors, who could transform
themselves and others into the appearance of the lower animals, raise
and allay tempests, frequent the company and join the revels of evil
spirits, and, by their counsel and assistance, destroy human lives, and
waste the fruits of the earth, or perform feats of such magnitude as to
alter the face of Nature. The Witch of Endor was a mere fortune-teller,
to whom, in despair of all aid or answer from the Almighty, the
unfortunate King of Israel had recourse in his despair, and by whom, in
some way or other, he obtained the awful certainty of his own defeat and
death. She was liable, indeed, deservedly to the punishment of death for
intruding herself upon the task of the real prophets, by whom the will
of God was at that time regularly made known. But her existence and her
crimes can go no length to prove the possibility that another class of
witches, no otherwise resembling her than as called by the same name,
either existed at a more recent period, or were liable to the same
capital punishment, for a very different and much more doubtful class of
offences, which, however odious, are nevertheless to be proved possible
before they can be received as a criminal charge.
Whatever may be thought of other occasional expressions in the Old
Testament, it cannot be said that, in any part of that sacred volume, a
text occurs indicating the existence of a system of witchcraft, under
the Jewish dispensation, in any respect similar to that against which
the law-books of so many European nations have, till very lately,
denounced punishment; far less under the Christian dispensation--a
system under which the emancipation of the human race from the Levitical
law was happily and miraculously perfected. This latter crime is
supposed to infer a compact implying reverence and adoration on the part
of the witch who comes under the fatal bond, and patronage, support, and
assistance on the part of the diabolical patron. Indeed, in the four
Gospels, the word, under any sense, does not occur; although, had the
possibility of so enormous a sin been admitted, it was not likely to
escape the warning censure of the Divine Person who came to take away
the sins of the world. Saint Paul, indeed, mentions the sin of
witchcraft, in a cursory manner, as superior in guilt to that of
ingratitude; and in the offences of the flesh it is ranked immediately
after idolatry, which juxtaposition inclines us to believe that the
witchcraft mentioned by the Apostle must have been analogous to that of
the Old Testament, and equivalent to resorting to the assistance of
soothsayers, or similar forbidden arts, to acquire knowledge of
toturity. Sorcerers are also joined with other criminals, in the Book of
Revelations, as excluded from the city of God And with these occasional
notices, which indicate that there was a transgression so called, but
leave us ignorant of us exact nature, the writers upon witchcraft
attempt to wring out of the New Testament proofs of a crime in itself so
disgustingly improbable. Neither do the exploits of Elymas, called the
Sorcerer, or Simon, called Magus or the Magician, entitle them to rank
above the class of impostors who assumed a character to which they had
no real title, and put their own mystical and ridiculous pretensions to
supernatural power in competition with those who had been conferred on
purpose to diffuse the gospel, and facilitate its reception by the
exhibition of genuine miracles. It is clear that, from his presumptuous
and profane proposal to acquire, by purchase, a portion of those powers
which were directly derived from inspiration, Simon Magus displayed a
degree of profane and brutal ignorance inconsistent with his possessing
even the intelligence of a skilful impostor; and it is plain that a
leagued vassal of hell--should we pronounce him such--would have better
known his own rank and condition, compared to that of the apostles, than
to have made such a fruitless and unavailing proposal, by which he could
only expose his own impudence and ignorance.
With this observation we may conclude our brief remarks upon
_witchcraft_, as the word occurs in the Scripture; and it now only
remains to mention the nature of the _demonology_, which, as gathered
from the sacred volumes, every Christian believer is bound to receive as
a thing declared and proved to be true.
And in the first place, no man can read the Bible, or call himself a
Christian, without believing that, during the course of time
comprehended by the Divine writers, the Deity, to confirm the faith of
the Jews, and to overcome and confound the pride of the heathens,
wrought in the land many great miracles, using either good spirits, the
instruments of his pleasure, or fallen angels, the permitted agents of
such evil as it was his will should be inflicted upon, or suffered by,
the children of men. This proposition comprehends, of course, the
acknowledgment of the truth of miracles during this early period, by
which the ordinary laws of nature were occasionally suspended, and
recognises the existence in the spiritual world of the two grand
divisions of angels and devils, severally exercising their powers
according to the commission or permission of the Ruler of the universe.
Secondly, wise men have thought and argued that the idols of the heathen
were actually fiends, or, rather, that these enemies of mankind had
power to assume the shape and appearance of those feeble deities, and to
give a certain degree of countenance to the faith of the worshippers, by
working seeming miracles, and returning, by their priests or their
oracles, responses which "palter'd in a double sense" with the deluded
persons who consulted them. Most of the fathers of the Christian Church
have intimated such an opinion. This doctrine has the advantage of
affording, to a certain extent, a confirmation of many miracles related
in pagan or classical history, which are thus ascribed to the agency of
evil spirits. It corresponds also with the texts of Scripture which
declare that the gods of the heathen are all devils and evil spirits;
and the idols of Egypt are classed, as in Isaiah, chap. xix. ver. 2,
with charmers, those who have familiar spirits, and with wizards. But
whatever license it may be supposed was permitted to the evil spirits of
that period--and although, undoubtedly, men owned the sway of deities
who were, in fact, but personifications of certain evil passions of
humanity, as, for example, in their sacrifices to Venus, to Bacchus, to
Mars, &c., and therefore might be said, in one sense, to worship evil
spirits--we cannot, in reason, suppose that every one, or the thousandth
part of the innumerable idols worshipped among the heathen, was endowed
with supernatural power; it is clear that the greater number fell under
the description applied to them in another passage of Scripture, in
which the part of the tree burned in the fire for domestic purposes is
treated as of the same power and estimation as that carved into an
image, and preferred for Gentile homage. This striking passage, in which
the impotence of the senseless block, and the brutish ignorance of the
worshipper, whose object of adoration is the work of his own hands,
occurs in the 44th chapter of the prophecies of Isaiah, verse 10 _et
seq_. The precise words of the text, as well as common sense, forbid us
to believe that the images so constructed by common artisans became the
habitation or resting-place of demons, or possessed any manifestation of
strength or power, whether through demoniacal influence or otherwise.
The whole system of doubt, delusion, and trick exhibited by the oracles,
savours of the mean juggling of impostors, rather than the audacious
intervention of demons. Whatever degree of power the false gods of
heathendom, or devils in their name, might be permitted occasionally to
exert, was unquestionably under the general restraint and limitation of
providence; and though, on the one hand, we cannot deny the possibility
of such permission being granted in cases unknown to us, it is certain,
on the other, that the Scriptures mention no one specific instance of
such influence expressly recommended to our belief.
Thirdly, as the backsliders among the Jews repeatedly fell off to the
worship of the idols of the neighbouring heathens, so they also resorted
to the use of charms and enchantments, founded on a superstitious
perversion of their own Levitical ritual, in which they endeavoured by
sortilege, by Teraphim, by observation of augury, or the flight of
birds, which they called _Nahas_, by the means of Urim and Thummim, to
find as it were a byroad to the secrets of futurity. But for the same
reason that withholds us from delivering any opinion upon the degree to
which the devil and his angels might be allowed to countenance the
impositions of the heathen priesthood, it is impossible for us
conclusively to pronounce what effect might be permitted by supreme
Providence to the ministry of such evil spirits as presided over, and,
so far as they had liberty, directed, these sinful enquiries among the
Jews themselves. We are indeed assured from the sacred writings, that
the promise of the Deity to his chosen people, if they conducted
themselves agreeably to the law which he had given, was, that the
communication with the invisible world would be enlarged, so that in the
fulness of his time he would pour out his spirit upon all flesh, when
their sons and daughters should prophesy, their old men see visions, and
their young men dream dreams. Such were the promises delivered to the
Israelites by Joel, Ezekiel, and other holy seers, of which St. Peter,
in the second chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, hails the fulfilment
in the mission of our Saviour. And on the other hand, it is no less
evident that the Almighty, to punish the disobedience of the Jews,
abandoned them to their own fallacious desires, and suffered them to be
deceived by the lying oracles, to which, in flagrant violation of his
commands, they had recourse. Of this the punishment arising from the
Deity abandoning Ahab to his own devices, and suffering him to be
deceived by a lying spirit, forms a striking instance.
Fourthly, and on the other hand, abstaining with reverence from
accounting ourselves judges of the actions of Omnipotence, we may safely
conclude that it was not his pleasure to employ in the execution of his
judgments the consequences of any such species of league or compact
betwixt devils and deluded mortals, as that denounced in the laws of our
own ancestors under the name of _witchcraft_. What has been translated
by that word seems little more than the art of a medicator of poisons,
combined with that of a Pythoness or false prophetess; a crime, however,
of a capital nature, by the Levitical law, since, in the first capacity,
it implied great enmity to mankind, and in the second, direct treason to
the divine Legislator. The book of Tobit contains, indeed, a passage
resembling more an incident in an Arabian tale or Gothic romance, than a
part of inspired writing. In this, the fumes produced by broiling the
liver of a certain fish are described as having power to drive away an
evil genius who guards the nuptial chamber of an Assyrian princess, and
who has strangled seven bridegrooms in succession, as they approached
the nuptial couch. But the romantic and fabulous strain of this legend
has induced the fathers of all Protestant churches to deny it a place
amongst the writings sanctioned by divine origin, and we may therefore
be excused from entering into discussion on such imperfect evidence.
Lastly, in considering the incalculable change which took place upon the
Advent of our Saviour and the announcement of his law, we may observe
that, according to many wise and learned men, his mere appearance upon
earth, without awaiting the fulfilment of his mission, operated as an
act of banishment of such heathen deities as had hitherto been suffered
to deliver oracles, and ape in some degree the attributes of the Deity.
Milton has, in the "Paradise Lost," it may be upon conviction of its
truth, embraced the theory which identifies the followers of Satan with
the gods of the heathen; and, in a tone of poetry almost unequalled,
even in his own splendid writings, he thus describes, in one of his
earlier pieces, the departure of these pretended deities on the eve of
the blessed Nativity:--
"The oracles are dumb,
No voice or hideous hum
Runs through the arched roof in words deceiving;
Apollo from his shrine
Can no more divine,
With hollow shriek the steep of Delphos leaving;
No nightly trance or breathed spell
Inspires the pale-eyed priests from the prophetic cell.
"The lonely mountains o'er,
And the resounding shore,
A voice of weeping heard and loud lament;
From haunted spring and dale,
Edged with poplar pale,
The parting Genius is with sighing sent;
With flower-inwoven tresses torn,
The Nymphs in twilight shade of tangled thickets mourn.
"In consecrated earth,
And on the holy hearth,
The Lars and Lemures moan with midnight plaint;
In urns and altars round,
A drear and dying sound
Affrights the Flamens at their service quaint;
And the chill marble seems to sweat,
While each peculiar Power foregoes his wonted seat.
"Peor and Baalim
Forsake their temples dim,
With that twice-battered god of Palestine;
And mooned Ashtaroth,
Heaven's queen and mother both,
Now sits not girt with tapers' holy shine;
The Lybic Hammon shrinks his horn;
In vain the Tyrian maids their wounded Thammuz mourn.
"And sullen Moloch, fled,
Hath left in shadows dread
His burning idol all of darkest hue;
In vain with cymbals ring,
They call the grisly king,
In dismal dance about the furnace blue;
The brutish gods of Nile as fast,
Isis and Orus, and the Dog Anubis, haste."
The quotation is a long one, but it is scarcely possible to shorten what
is so beautiful and interesting a description of the heathen deities,
whether in the classic personifications of Greece, the horrible shapes
worshipped by mere barbarians, or the hieroglyphical enormities of the
Egyptian Mythology. The idea of identifying the pagan deities,
especially the most distinguished of them, with the manifestation of
demoniac power, and concluding that the descent of our Saviour struck
them with silence, so nobly expressed in the poetry of Milton, is not
certainly to be lightly rejected. It has been asserted, in simple prose,
by authorities of no mean weight; nor does there appear anything
inconsistent in the faith of those who, believing that, in the elder
time, fiends and demons were permitted an enlarged degree of power in
uttering predictions, may also give credit to the proposition, that at
the Divine Advent that power was restrained, the oracles silenced, and
those demons who had aped the Divinity of the place were driven from
their abode on earth, honoured as it was by a guest so awful.