formed by Fabre des Essarts, but that great pontiff Leo XIII promptly
condemned it with fitting severity as a recrudescence of the old
Albigensian heresy, complicated by the addition of new false and impious
doctrines. It is said still to have a number of unhappy adherents.
These Neo-Gnostics believe that the world is created by Satan, who is a
powerful rival to the omnipotence of God. They also preach a dangerous
communism, speciously masqued under some such titles as the “Brotherhood
of Man” or the “Brotherhood of Nations.”
In 1900, after a letter from Joanny Bricaud,[60] the patriarch of
universal Gnosticism at Lyons, where, in 1913, he was residing at 8, rue
Bugeaud, the Neo-Gnostics joined with the Valentinians, a union approved
by their pseudo-Council of Toulouse in 1903. But some years later Dr.
Fugairon of Lyons, who adopted the name of Sophronius, amalgamated all
the branches, with the exception of the Valentinians, under the name
of the _Gnostic Church of Lyons_. These, however, although excluded,
continued to follow their own way of salvation, and in 1906 formally
addressed a legal declaration to the Republican Government defending
their religious rights of association. Truly might Huysmans tell us that
Satanism flourished at Lyons, “où toutes les hérésies survivent,” “where
every heresy pullulates and is green.” These Gnostic assemblies are
composed of “perfected ones,” male and female. The modern Valentinians,
it is said, have a form of spiritual marriage, bestowing the name
of Helen upon the mystic bride. The original founder of this sect,
Valentinus, was, according to S. Epiphanius (_Hæresis_ XXXI) born in
Egypt, and educated at Alexandria. His errors led to excommunication and
he died in Cyprus, about A.D. 160-161. His heresy is a fantastic medley
of Greek and Oriental speculation, tinged with some vague colouring of
Christianity. The Christology of Valentinus is especially confused. He
seems to have supposed the existence of three redeemers, but Christ, the
Son of Mary, did not have a real body and did not suffer. Even his more
prominent disciples, Heracleon, Ptolemy, Marcos, and Bardesanes, widely
differed from their master, as from one another. Many of the writings
of these Gnostics, and a large number of excerpts from Valentinus’s own
works yet survive.
One or two writers of the nineteenth century remarked that there seemed
to be some connexion between certain points of the Sabbat ceremonial and
the rites of various pagan deities, which is, of course, a perfectly
correct observation. For we have seen that Witchcraft as it existed in
Europe from the eleventh century was mainly the spawn of Gnostic heresy,
and heresy by its very nature embraced and absorbed much of heathendom.
In some sense Witchcraft was a descendant of the old pre-Christian magic,
but it soon assumed a slightly different form, or rather at the advent
of Christianity it was exposed and shown in its real foul essence as the
worship of the Evil Principle, the Enemy of Mankind, Satan.
It may freely be acknowledged that there are certain symbols common to
Christianity itself and to ancient religions. It would in truth be very
surprising if, when seeking to propagate her doctrines in the midst of
Græco-Roman civilization, the Church had adopted for her intercourse with
the people a wholly unknown language, and had systematically repudiated
everything that until then had served to give expression to religious
feeling.
Within the limits imposed by the conventions of race and culture, the
method of interpreting the emotions of the heart cannot be indefinitely
varied, and it was natural that the new religion should appropriate and
incorporate all that was good in a ritual much of which only required
to be rightly interpreted and directed to become the language of the
Christian soul aspiring to the one True God. Certain attitudes of
prayer and reverence, the use of incense and of lamps burning day and
night in the sanctuary, the offering of ex-votos as a testimony to
benefits received, all these are man’s natural expressions of piety and
gratitude towards a divine power, and it would be strange indeed if their
equivalents were not met with in all religions.
Cicero tells us that at Agrigentum there was a much-venerated statue
of Hercules, of which the mouth and chin were worn away by the many
worshippers who pressed their lips to it.[61] The bronze foot of the
statue of the first Pope, S. Peter, in Rome has not withstood any
better the pious kisses of the faithful. Yet he were a very fool who
imagined that modern Christians have learned anything from the Sicilian
contemporaries of Verres. What is true is that the same thought in
analogous circumstances has found natural expression after an interval of
centuries in identical actions and attitudes.
Among the Greeks, heroes, reputed to be the mortal sons of some divinity,
were specially honoured in the city with which they were connected by
birth and through the benefits they had conferred upon it. After death
they became the patrons and protectors of these towns. Every country,
nay, almost every village, had such local divinities to whom monuments
were raised and whom the people invoked in their prayers. The centre
of devotion was generally the hero’s tomb, which was often erected in
the middle of the agora, the nave of public life. In most cases it was
sheltered by a building, a sort of chapel known as ἡρῷον. The celebrated
temples, too, were not infrequently adorned with a great number of
cenotaphs of heroes, just as the shrines of Saints are honoured in
Christian churches.[62] More, the translations of the bones or ashes
of heroes were common in Greece. Thus in the archonship of Apsephion,
469 B.C., the remains of Theseus were brought from Scyros to Athens,
and carried into the city amid sacrifices and every demonstration of
triumphal joy.[63] Thebes recovered from Ilion the bones of Hector, and
presented to Athens those of Œdipus, to Lebadea those of Arcesilaus, and
to Megara those of Aigialeus.[64]
The analogy between these ancient practices and Christianity may be
pushed further yet. Just as, in our own churches, objects that have
belonged to the Saints are exposed for the veneration of the faithful, so
in the old temples visitors were shown divers curiosities whose connexion
with a god or a hero would command their respect. At Minihi Tréguier we
may reverence a fragment of the Breviary of S. Yves, at Sens the stole
of S. Thomas of Canterbury, at Bayeux the chasuble of S. Regnobert, in
S. Maria Maggiore the cincture and veil of S. Scholastica; so in various
localities of Greece were exhibited the cittara of Paris, the lyre of
Orpheus, portions of the ships of Agamemnon and Æneas. Can anything
further be needed to prove that the veneration of Holy Relics is merely a
pagan survival?
Superficially the theory seems plausible enough, and yet it will not
stand a moment before the judgement of history. The cultus of the
Saints and their Relics is not an outcome of ancient hero-worship, but
of reverence for the Martyrs, and this can be demonstrated without any
possibility of question. So here we have two very striking parallels,
each of which has an analogous starting-point, two cults which naturally
develop upon logical and similar lines, but without any interdependence
whatsoever. Needless to say, the unbalanced folklorist, who is in general
far too insufficiently equipped for any such inquiry, has rushed in with
his theories—to his own utter undoing. And so, with regard to Witchcraft,
there appear in the rites of the Sabbat and other hellish superstitions
to be ceremonies which are directly derived from heathendom, but this, as
a matter of fact, is far from the case. Accordingly we recognize that the
thesis of Miss M. A. Murray in her anthropological study _The Witch-Cult
n Western Europe_,[65] although worked out with nice ingenuity and no
little documentation, is radically and wholly erroneous. Miss Murray
actually postulates that “underlying the Christian religion was a cult
practised by many classes of the community” which “can be traced back
to pre-Christian times, and appears to be the ancient religion of
Western Europe.” We are given a full account of the chief festivals of
this imaginary cult, of its hierarchy, its organization, and many other
details. The feasts and dances—the obscene horrors of the Sabbat—“show
that it was a joyous religion”! It is impossible to conceive a more
amazing assertion. Miss Murray continues to say that “as such it must
have been quite incomprehensible to the gloomy Inquisitors and Reformers
who suppressed it.” The Reformers, for all their dour severity, perfectly
well appreciated with what they were dealing, and the Inquisitors, the
sons of S. Dominic who was boundless in his charity and of S. Francis,
whose very name breathes Christ-like love to all creation, were men of
the profoundest knowledge and deepest sympathies, whose first duty it
was to stamp out the infection lest the whole of Society be corrupted
and damned. Miss Murray does not seem to suspect that Witchcraft was
in truth a foul and noisome heresy, the poison of the Manichees. Her
“Dianic cult,” which name she gives to this “ancient religion” supposed
to have survived until the Middle Ages and even later and to have been
a formidable rival to Christianity, is none other than black heresy and
the worship of Satan, no primitive belief with pre-agricultural rites,
in latter days persecuted, misinterpreted, and misunderstood. It is
true that in the Middle Ages Christianity had—not a rival but a foe,
the eternal enemy of the Church Militant against whom she yet contends
to-day, the dark Lord of that city which is set contrariwise to the City
of God, the Terrible Shadow of destruction and despair.
Miss Murray with tireless industry has accumulated a vast number of
details by the help of which she seeks to build up and support her
imaginative thesis. Even those that show the appropriation by the cult
of evil of the more hideous heathen practices, both of lust and cruelty,
which prevailed among savage or decadent peoples, afford no evidence
whatsoever of any continuity of an earlier religion, whilst by far
the greater number of the facts she quotes are deflected, although
no doubt unconsciously, and sharply wrested so as to be patent of the
signification it is endeavoured to read into them. Miss Murray speaks,
for example, of witches “who, like the early Christian martyrs, rushed
headlong on their fate, determined to die for their faith and their
God.”[66] And later, discussing the “Sacrifice of the God,” a theme which
it is interesting and by no means impertinent to note, folklorists have
elaborated in the most fanciful manner, basing upon the scantiest and
quite contradictory evidence an abundant sheaf of wildly extravagant
theories and fables, she tells us that the burning of witches at the
hands of the public executioner was a “sacrifice of the incarnate
deity.”[67] One might almost suppose that the condemned went cheerfully
and voluntarily to the cruellest and most torturing punishment, for
the phrase “Self-devotion to death” is used in this connexion. On the
contrary, we continually find in the witch-trials that the guilty, as
was natural, sought to escape from their doom by any and every means;
by flight, as in the case of Gilles de Sillé and Roger de Bricqueville,
companions of Gilles de Rais; by long and protracted defences, such as
was that of Agnes Fynnie, executed in Edinburgh in 1644; by threats and
blackmail of influential patrons owing to which old Bettie Laing of
Pittenween escaped scot-free in 1718; by pleading pregnancy at the trial
as did Mother Samuel, the Warbois witch, who perished on the gallows 7
April, 1593; by suicide as the notorious warlock John Reid, who hanged
himself in prison at Paisley, in 1697.
Of the theoretical “Sacrifice of the incarnate deity” Miss Murray writes:
“This explanation accounts for the fact that the bodies of witches, male
or female, were always burnt and the ashes scattered; for the strong
prejudice which existed, as late as the eighteenth century, against any
other mode of disposing of their bodies; and for some of the otherwise
inexplicable occurrences in connexion with the deaths of certain of the
victims.”[68] Three instances are cited to prove these three statements,
but it will be seen upon examination that not one of these affords the
slightest evidence in support of the triple contention. In the first
place we are informed that “in the light of this theory much of the
mystery which surrounds the fate of Joan of Arc is explained.” How
is not divulged, but this is capped by the astounding and indecorous
assertion that S. Joan of Arc “belonged to the ancient religion, not to
the Christian.” It is superfluous to say that there is not a tittle of
evidence for such an amazing hypothesis in reference to the Saint.
Gilles de Rais, whose execution is next quoted by Miss Murray in support
of her postulate, proves a singularly unfortunate example. We are told
that “like Joan he was willing to be tried for his faith,” by which is
meant the imaginary “Dianic cult.” This is a purely gratuitous assertion,
not borne out in any way by his behaviour at his trial, nor by the
details of any authoritative account or report of the proceedings. Gilles
de Rais was hanged on a gibbet above a pyre, but when the heat had burned
through the rope the body was quickly taken up from the blazing wood, and
afterwards buried in the neighbouring Carmelite church. One may compare
the execution of Savonarola and his two fellow friars on 25 May, 1498.
They were strangled at the gallows, their bodies committed to the flames,
and their ashes carefully gathered and thrown into the Arno. Gilles de
Rais was condemned by three distinct courts; by the Holy Inquisition,
the presidents being Jean de Malestroit, Bishop of Nantes, and Jean
Blouyn, vice-inquisitor, O.P., S.T.M., on charges of heresy and sorcery;
by the episcopal court on charges of sacrilege and the violation of
ecclesiastical rights; by the civil court of John V, Duke of Brittany, on
multiplied charges of murder.
The third case quoted by Miss Murray is that of Major Weir, who “offered
himself up and was executed as a witch in Edinburgh.” Thomas Weir, who
was a hypocritical Puritan, a leader “among the Presbyterian strict
sect,” and regarded as a Saint throughout Edinburgh, had all the while
secretly led a life of hideous debauchery and was stained with the most
odious and unnatural crimes. In 1670, which was the seventieth year of
his age, he appears to have been stricken with terrible fits of remorse
and despair; the pangs of his guilty conscience drove him to the verge of
madness and his agony could only be eased by a full, ample, and public
confession of his misdeeds. For a few months his party, in order to avoid
the scandal and disgrace, contrived to stifle the matter, but a minister
“whom they esteemed more forward than wise” revealed the secret to the
Lord Provost of the city, and an inquiry was instituted. The wretched old
man, insistently declaring that “the terrors of God which were upon his
soul urged him to confess and accuse himself,” was arrested, together
with his crazy sister Jean, who was implicated in his abominations. “All
the while he was in prison he lay under violent apprehension of the
heavy wrath of God, which put him into that which is properly called
despair,” and to various ministers who visited him he declared, “I know
my sentence of damnation is already sealed in Heaven ... for I find
nothing within me but blackness, darkness, Brimstone, and burning to the
bottom of Hell.”[69] The whole account gives a complete and perfectly
comprehensible psychological study. So sudden a revulsion of feeling, the
loathing of foul acts accompanied by the sheer inability to repent of
them, is quite understandable in a septuagenarian, worn out in body by
years of excess and enfeebled in mind owing to the heavy strain of hourly
acting an artificial and difficult rôle. The intense emotionalism of the
degenerate has not infrequently been observed eventually to give way to
a state of frenzied anguish, for which the alienist Magnan coined the
name “Anxiomania,” a species of mental derangement that soon drives the
patient to hysterical confession and boundless despair. “I am convinced,”
says one writer with regard to Major Weir, “of the prisoner having
been delirious at the time of his trial.”[70] His sister frantically
accused her brother of Witchcraft, but it is remarkable that in his case
this charge was not taken up and examined. I do not say that Weir was
not supposed to be a warlock; as a matter of fact he was notoriously
reputed such, and strange stories were told of his magic staff and other
enchantments, but Witchcraft was not the main accusation brought against
him in the official courts. He was found guilty of adultery, fornication,
incest, and bestiality, and on these several counts sentenced to be
strangled at a stake betwixt Edinburgh and Leith, on Monday, 11 April,
1670, and his body to be burned to ashes. Jean Weir was condemned for
incest and Witchcraft and hanged on 12 April in the Grassmarket at
Edinburgh. To the last this miserable lunatic placed “a great deal of
confidence in her constant adherence to the Covenant, which she called
_the cause and interest of Christ_.”[71]
It will be seen that Miss Murray’s citation is incorrect and therefore
impertinent. Major Weir was not executed “as a witch.” Moreover, both
he and Gilles de Rais were actually strangled, and such examples must
entirely fail to account “for the fact that the bodies of witches, male
or female, were always burnt and the ashes scattered,” especially since
in the latter case, as we have noticed, the body was honourably buried in
the church of the Whitefriars. In fine, to endeavour to connect, however
ingeniously, the fate of S. Joan of Arc, the execution of Gilles de Rais
and Major Weir, with the folklorists’ theory of “the sacrifice of the
incarnate deity” is merest fantasy.
The gist of the whole matter lies elsewhere. Death at the stake was the
punishment reserved for heretics. As we have already noticed, Diocletian
ruthlessly burned the Manichees: “We order then that the professors and
teachers be punished with the utmost penalties, which is to say they
are to be burned with fire together with all their execrable books and
writings.”[72] The Visigoth code condemned pagans or heretics who had
committed sacrilege to the flames, and together with them it grouped all
Manichees: “It is known that many Proconsuls have thrown blasphemers to
the beasts, nay, have even burned some alive.”[73] The Visigoth code of
Rekeswinth (652-672) punishes Judaizers with death, “aut lapide puniatur,
aut igne cremetur.” (Let them be stoned or burned with fire.) But it was
actually in the eleventh century that the civil power first generally
ordained the penalty of the stake for the heretics, who were, it must
always be remembered, mad anarchists endeavouring to destroy all social
order, authority, and decency. “In Italy even many adherents of this
pestilential belief were found, and these wretches were slain with the
sword or burned at the stake,”[74] writes Adhémar de Chabannes, a monk
of Angoulême, about the middle of the eleventh century. In a letter of
Wazon, Bishop of Liège, there is an allusion to similar punishments which
were being inflicted in Flanders.
A striking example of the heretical anarchists who troubled Europe about
the beginning of the twelfth century may be seen in Tanchelin[75] and
his followers. This fanatic, who was originally a native of Zealand,
journeyed throughout Flanders preaching his monstrous doctrines
everywhere he could find listeners and especially concentrating upon
the city of Antwerp. In 1108 and 1109 he appeared at Arras and Cambrai,
persuading many evil and ignorant persons to accept his abominable
tenets. The tares were thickly sown, and it is terribly significant that
some three centuries later, about 1469, there was a fearful epidemic of
sorcery throughout the whole district of the Artois, in reference to
which the anonymous author—probably an Inquisitor—of a contemporary work
entitled _Erreurs des Gazariens ou de ceux que l’on prouve chevaucher
sur un balai ou un bâton_ expressly identified such heretics as the
Gazariens, who are Cathari, and the Vaudois (Poor Lombards) with warlocks
and sorcerers. In 1112 Tanchelin, who had actually visited Rome itself,
was upon his return arrested and thrown into prison at Cologne, whence,
however, he managed to escape, and accompanied by an apostate priest
Everwacher and a Jew Manasses, who had formerly been a blacksmith, at
the head of a formidable band of three thousand ruffians, outlaws, cast
gamesters, brigands, murderers, beggars and thieves, the parbreak of
every slum and stew, he terrorized the whole countryside, the people
being afraid, the bishops and secular princes seemingly unable to resist
him.
The teaching of Tanchelin was, as might be expected, largely incoherent
and illogical, the ravings of a frantic brain, but none the less
dangerous and wholly abominable. The Church was, of course, directly
attacked and blasphemed. With abuse and foul language, extraordinarily
like the language of the so-called Reformers in the sixteenth century,
the hierarchy and all ecclesiastical order were repudiated and
contemned, priests and religious in particular were to be persecuted
and exterminated since the priesthood was a fiction and a snare; the
Sacrifice of Holy Mass was a mockery, all Sacraments were void and empty
forms, useless for salvation[76]; the churches themselves were to be
accounted as brothels and markets of shame. “This very spawn of Satan
and black angel of woe declared that the churches, dedicated to God’s
worship, were bawdy-houses. That, at Holy Mass there was no Sacrifice
at the hands of the priest; the Service of the Altar was filth, not a
Sacrament.”[77] Tanchelin declared himself to be the Messiah, God, the
Son of God, the Perfect Man, the sum of all the divine emanations in one
system, upon whom had descended and in whom abode the pleroma of the Holy
Spirit. “This miserable wretch advanced from evil to evil and at length
proceeded to such an extremity of unheard-of wickedness that he gave
himself out to be God, asserting that if Christ be God because the Holy
Ghost dwelt in Him, he himself was not less than and of the same nature
as God, seeing that he enjoyed the plenitude of the Holy Ghost.”[78] Here
the Gnostic character of his teaching is very apparent. He even caused a
temple to be erected in his honour where he was worshipped with sacrifice
and hymns. His followers, indeed, regarded this lunatic wretch with such
an excess of veneration that the dirty water from his bath was actually
collected in phials and solemnly distributed among them, whereof they
partook as of a sacrament.
It must be borne in mind that Tanchelin’s programme did not solely
comprise a negation of Christian dogma; this we find in most of the
innovators at the time of the so-called Reformation, but his ultimate
aim was to effect a social revolution, to overturn the existing order
of things and produce communistic chaos with himself as overlord
and dictator. The way for anarchy could only have been paved by the
destruction of the Church, the supreme representative of authority and
order throughout the world, and it was accordingly against the Church
that this superman launched his fiercest diatribes. To further his ends
he encouraged, nay, commanded, the open practice of the foulest vices;
incest, adultery, fornication were declared to be works of spiritual
efficacy; unmentionable abominations flaunted themselves in the face
of day; virtue became an offence; men were driven to vice and crime,
and anon they gradually sank in a stupor of infamy and sheer boneless
degradation.
The unfortunate town of Antwerp came directly under Tanchelin’s
influence. Here he reigned as king, surrounded by vile and obsequious
satellites who ground the miserable citizens to the dust and filled each
street and corner with orgies of lust and blood. There is a strange and
striking parallel between the details of his foul career and the Russian
tyranny to-day. Little wonder that in 1116 a priest, maddened by the
outrages and profanities of this hellish crew, scattered the heretic’s
brains upon the deck of his royal barge as one afternoon he was sailing
in pompous state down the river Schelde: “After a life of infamy,
bloodshed, and heresy, whilst he was sailing on the river he was struck
on the head by a certain priest and falling down died there.”[79] All
unfortunately, however, the pernicious errors of Tanchelin did not expire
with their author. Antwerp remained plunged in dissipation and riot, and
although strenuous efforts were made to restore decency and order, at
first these seemed to be entirely nugatory and fruitless. Burchard, the
Bishop of Cambrai, at once sent twelve of his most revered and learned
canons under the conduct of Hidolphe, a priest of acknowledged sagacity
and experience, to endeavour to reform the town by word and example, but
it seemed as though their efforts were doomed to failure and ill-success.
At length, almost in despair, the good prelate begged S. Norbert,[80] who
some three years before had founded his Order at Prémontré, to essay the
thankless and wellnigh impossible task. Without demur or hesitation the
Saint cheerfully undertook so difficult a mission and accompanied only by
S. Evermonde,[81] and Blessed Waltman, together with a few more of his
most fervent followers he arrived at Antwerp without delay to begin his
work there towards the end of 1123. Success at once crowned his efforts;
in an incredibly short space of time the people confessed their errors,
abuses were reformed, the leprous town cleansed of its foulness, public
safety, order, and decorum once again established, and, what is extremely
striking to notice, the old chroniclers draw attention to the fact that
a large number both of men and women in deepest penitence brought to S.
Norbert quantities of consecrated Hosts which they had purloined from
the tabernacles and kept concealed in boxes and other hiding-places to
utilize for charms and evil invocations, to profane in devil-worship and
at the Sabbat. So marvellous was the change from darkness to light that
year by year the Premonstratensian Order upon the Saturday[82] after the
Octave of Corpus Christi solemnly observes a fitting memorial thereof in
the glad Feast of the Triumph of Holy Father Norbert.
In this incident of the stolen Hosts the connexion between Gnostic
heresy and Satanism is clearly seen. It was in such soil as the
antinomianism of Tanchelin that the poisoned weeds of sorcery would
thrive apace. The authorities recognized that drastic measures must be
employed, and at Bonn a company of impure fanatics who attempted to
disseminate his ideas were incontinently sent to the stake.
The other arguments brought forward by Miss Murray to support her thesis
of the continuity of a primitive religion are mainly “the persistence
of the number thirteen in the Covens, the narrow geographical range
of the domestic familiar, the avoidance of certain forms in the
animal transformations, the limited number of personal names among
the women-witches, and the survival of the names of some of the early
gods.”[83] Even if these details could be proved up to the hilt and
shown to be pertinent the evidence were not convincing; it would at best
point to some odd survivals, such as are familiar in an hundred ways to
every student of hagiography, history, myths and legends, old religions,
geography, iconography, topography, etymology, anthropology, and
antiquarian lore in a myriad branches. If we examine the matter broadly
we shall find that these circumstances are for the most part local, not
general, that in many instances they cannot be clearly substantiated, for
the evidence is conflicting and obscure.
“The ‘fixed number’ among the witches of Great Britain,” Miss Murray
notes, “seems to have been thirteen,”[84] and certainly in many cases
amongst the English trials the coven appears to have consisted of
thirteen members, although it may be borne in mind that very probably
there were often other associates who were not traced and involved and
so escaped justice. Yet Miss Murray does not explain why the number
thirteen should form any link with an earlier ritual and worship. On the
other hand, the demonologists are never tired of insisting that Satan is
the ape of God in all things, and that the worshippers of evil delight
to parody every divine ordinance and institution. The explanation is
simple. The number thirteen was adopted by the witches for their covens
in mockery of Our Lord and His Apostles.
“The narrow geographical range of the domestic familiar” is not at all
apparent, and it were futile to base any presumption upon so slender
a line of argument. “The avoidance of certain forms in the animal
transformation” is upon a general view of Witchcraft found to be nothing
other than the non-occurrence of the lamb and the dove, and these two
were abhorred by sorcerers, seeing that Christ is the Lamb of God, Agnus
Dei, whilst the Dove is the manifestation of the Holy Ghost.[85] There is
one instance, the trial of Agnes Wobster at Aberdeen in 1597, when the
Devil is said to have appeared to the witch “in the liknes of a lamb,
quhom thou callis thy God, and bletit on the, and thaireftir spak to
the.”[86] But this rare exception must be understood to be a black and
deformed lamb, not the snow-white Agnus Dei. In pictures of the Doctors
of the Church, particularly perhaps S. Gregory the Great and S. Alphonsus
de Liguori, the Dove is seen breathing divine inspiration into the ear
of the Saint who writes the heavenly message, thus directly given by God
the Holy Ghost. So in a Franco-German miniature of the eleventh century
in the _Hortus Deliciarum_ we see a black hideous bird breathing into the
ear of a magician thoughts evil and dark. This cloudy and sombre spirit,
violent in its attitude and lean in body stretches its meagre throat
towards the ear of the wicked man, who, seated at a desk, transcribes
upon a parchment the malevolent and baleful charms which it dictates. It
is in fact the Devil.[87]
With reference to the argument based upon “the limited number of personal
names among the women-witches” this simply resolves itself into the fact
that in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries there were in general
use (particularly amongst the peasantry) far fewer personal names than
have been employed of more recent years. To assert “that the name
_Christian_ clearly indicates the presence of another religion”[88] is
simple nonsense. It may be noticed, too, how many of the names which
Miss Murray has catalogued in such conscientious and alas! impertinent
detail are those of well-known Saints whose cult was universal throughout
Europe: Agnes, Alice, Anne, Barbara, Christopher, Collette, Elizabeth,
Giles, Isabel, James, John, Katherine, Lawrence, Margaret, Mary, Michael,
Patrick, Thomas, Ursula—and the list might be almost indefinitely
prolonged.
“The survival of the names of some of the early gods” is also asserted.
In connexion with Witchcraft, however, very few examples of this can
be traced even by the most careful research. An old charm or two, a
nonsense rhyme, may now and again repeat some forgotten meaningless word
or refrain. Thus in a spell used by the witches of the Basses-Pyrénées,
cited by De Lancre (1609), we find mention of the old Basque deity
Janicot: “In nomine patrica, Aragueaco Petrica, Gastellaco Ianicot,
Equidæ ipordian pot.” Bodin gives a dance-jingle, “Har, har, diable,
diable, saute icy, saute là, ioüe icy, ioüe là,” to which the chorus
was “sabath sabath.” Miss Murray tells us that the Guernsey version
“which is currently reported to be used at the present day,” runs: “Har,
har, Hon, Hon, danse ici.”[89] Hon was an old Breton god, and there are
still remote districts whose local names recall and may be compounded
with that of this ancient deity. It is significant that in one case we
have a Basque deity, in the other a Breton; for Basque and Breton are
nearly, if obscurely, correlated. Such traces are interesting enough,
but by no means unique, hardly singular indeed, since they can be so
widely paralleled, and it were idle to base any elaborate argument
concerning the continuity of a fully organized cult upon slight and
unrelated survivals in dialect place-names and the mere doggerel lilt of
a peasant-song.
There is in particular one statement advanced by Miss Murray which goes
far to show how in complete unconsciousness she is fitting her material
to her theory. She writes: “There is at present nothing to show how much
of the Witches’ Mass (in which the bread, the wine, and the candles were
black) derived from the Christian ritual and how much belonged to the
Dianic cult [the name given to this hypothetical but universal ancient
religion]; it is, however, possible that the witches’ service was the
earlier form and influenced the Christian.”[90] This last sentence is in
truth an amazing assertion. A more flagrant case of hysteron-proteron
is hardly imaginable. So self-evident is the absurdity that it refutes
itself, and one can only suppose that the words were allowed to remain
owing to their having been overlooked in the revision of a long and
difficult study, a venial negligence. Every prayer and every gesture
of Holy Mass, since the first Mass was celebrated upon the first
Maundy Thursday, has been studied in minutest detail by generations of
liturgiologists and ceremonialists, whose library is almost infinite
in its vastness and extent from the humblest pamphlets to the hugest
folios. We can trace each inspired development, when such an early phrase
was added, when such a hallowed sign was first made at such words in such
an orison. The witches’ service is a hideous burlesque of Holy Mass, and,
briefly, what Miss Murray suggests is that the parody may have existed
before the thing parodied. It is true that some topsy-turvy writers
have actually proclaimed that magic preceded religion, but this view
is generally discredited by the authorities of all schools. Sir James
Frazer, Sir A. L. Lyall, and Mr. F. B. Jevons, for example, recognize “a
fundamental distinction and even opposition of principle between magic
and religion.”[91]
In fine, upon a candid examination of this theory of the continuity of
some primitive religion, which existed as an underlying organization
manifested in Witchcraft and sorcery, a serious rival feared and hated
by the Church, we find that nothing of the sort ever survived, that
there was no connexion between sorcery and an imaginary “Dianic cult.”
To write that “in the fifteenth century open war was declared against
the last remains of heathenism in the famous Bull of Innocent VIII”[92]
is to ignore history. As has been emphasized above, the Bull _Summis
desiderantes affectibus_ of 1484 was only one of a long series of Papal
ordinances directed against an intolerable evil not heathenism indeed,
but heresy. For heresy, sorcery, and anarchy were almost interchangeable
words, and the first Bull launched directly against the black art was
that of Alexander IV, 1258, two hundred and twenty-six years before.
That here and there lingered various old harmless customs and festivities
which had come down from pre-Christian times and which the Church had
allowed, nay, had even sanctified by directing them to their right
source, the Maypole dances, for example, and the Midsummer fires which
now honour S. John Baptist, is a matter of common knowledge. But this is
no continuance of a pagan cult.
From the first centuries of the Christian era, throughout the Middle
Ages, and continuously to the present day there has invariably been an
open avowal of intentional evil-doing on the part of the devotees of the
witch-cult, and the more mischief they did the more they pleased their
lord and master. Their revels were loathly, lecherous, and abominable, a
Sabbat where every circumstance of horror and iniquity found expression.
This in itself is an argument against Miss Murray’s theory, as none of
the earlier religions existed for the express purpose of perpetrating
evil for evil’s sake. We have but to read the eloquent and exquisite
description of the Eleusinian Mysteries by that accomplished Greek
scholar Father Cyril Martindale, S.J.,[93] to catch no mean nor mistaken
glimpse of the ineffable yearning for beauty, for purity, for holiness,
which filled the hearts of the worshippers of the goddess Persephoneia,
whose stately and impressive ritual prescribing fasts, bathing in
the waters of the sea, self-discipline, self-denial, self-restraint,
culminated in the Hall of Initiation, hallowed by the Earth-Mother,
Demeter, where the symbolic drama of life, death, and resurrection was
shown by the Hierophant to those who had wrestled, and endured, and were
adjudged worthy. How fair a shadow was this, albeit always and ever a
shadow, of the imperishable and eternal realities to come! How different
these Mysteries from the foul orgies of witches, the Sabbat, the black
mass, the adoration of hell.
In truth it was not against heathenism that Innocent VIII sounded the
note of war, but against heresy. There was a clandestine organization
hated by the Church, and this was not sorcery nor any cult of witches
renewing and keeping green some ancient rites and pagan creed, but a
witch-cult that identified itself with and was continually manifested in
closest connexion with Gnosticism in its most degraded and vilest shapes.
There is a curious little piece of symbolism, as it may be, which has
passed into the patois of the Pyrenees. Wizards are commonly known as
_poudouès_ and witches _poudouèros_, both words being derived from
_putere_, which signifies to have an evil smell. The demonologists
report, and it was commonly believed, that sorcerers could often be
detected by their foul and fetid odour. Hagiographers tell that S.
Philip Neri could distinguish heretics by their smell, and often he was
obliged to turn away his head when meeting them in the street. The same
is recorded of many other Saints, and this tradition is interesting
as it serves to show the close connexion there was held to be between
magic and heresy.[94] Saint Pachomius, the cenobite, could distinguish
heretics by their insupportable stench; the abbot Eugendis could tell
the virtues and vices of those whom he met by the perfume or the stink.
Saint Hilarion, as S. Jerome relates, could even distinguish a man’s sins
by the smell of a warm garment or cloak. Blessed Dominica of Paradise,
passing a soldier in the street, knew by the foul smell that he had
abandoned the faith, to which, however, her fervid exhortations and
prayers eventually restored him. Saint Bridget of Sweden was wellnigh
suffocated by the fetor of a notorious sinner who addressed her. Saint
Catherine of Siena experienced the same sensations; whilst Saint
Lutgarde, a Cistercian nun, on meeting a vicious reprobate perceived a
decaying smell of leprosy and disease.
On the other hand, the Saints themselves have diffused sweetest
fragrances, and actually “the odour of sanctity” is more than a mere
phrase. One day in 1566, when he had entered the church at Somascha, a
secluded hamlet between Milan and Bergamo, S. Charles Borromeo exclaimed:
“I know by the heavenly fragrance in this sanctuary that a great Servant
of God lies buried here!” The church, in fact, contained the body of
S. Jerome Emiliani, who died in 1537. S. Herman Joseph could be traced
through the corridors of Steinfeld by the rare perfumes he scattered
as he walked. The same was the case with that marvellous mystic S.
Joseph of Cupertino. S. Thomas Aquinas smelt of male frankincense. I
myself have known a priest of fervent faith who at times diffused the
odour of incense. Maria-Vittoria of Genoa, Ida of Louvain, S. Colette,
S. Humiliana, were fragrant as sweet flowers. S. Francis of Paul and
Venturini of Bergamo scattered heavenly aromas when they offered the Holy
Sacrifice. The pus of S. John of the Cross gave forth a strong scent of
lilies.
Miss Murray has worked out her thesis with no inconsiderable ingenuity,
but when details are considered, historically examined, and set in their
due proportions, it must be concluded that the theory of the continuity
of an ancient religion is baseless. Her book is called _A Study in
Anthropology_, and here we can, I think, at once put our finger upon
the fundamental mistake. Anthropology alone offers no explanation of
Witchcraft. Only the trained theologian can adequately treat the subject.
An amount of interesting material has been collected, but the key to the
dark mystery could not be found.
Yet, as our investigations have shown, it was not so far to seek.
In the succinct phrase of that profound and prolific scholar Thomas
Stapleton[95]: “Crescit cum magia hæresis, cum hæresi magia.” (The weed
heresy grows alongside the weed witchcraft, the weed witchcraft alongside
the weed heresy.)
NOTES TO CHAPTER I.
[1] _Paris. Jacques du Puys._ 4to. 1580. The preface, addressed to De
Thou, is signed: “De _Laon_, ce xx iour de _Decembre_, M.D.LXXIX.” There
were nine editions before 1604. The most complete is _Paris_, 4to. 1587.
In addition to the text it contains ten extra pages only found here
giving the trial of a sorcerer, Abel de la Rue, executed in 1582.
[2] The first Papal bull dealing with sorcery was issued by Alexander
IV, 13 December, 1258. The last Papal Constitution concerned with this
crime is that of Urban VIII, _Inscrutabilis iudiciorum Dei altitudo_,
1 April, 1631. The last regular English trial seems to have been that
of an old woman and her son, acquitted at Leicester in 1717. In 1722
the last execution of a Scottish witch took place at Loth; both English
and Scottish statutes were repealed in 1735. The Irish Statute was not
repealed until 1821. At Kempten in Bavaria, a mad heretic, a woman, was
executed for sorcery in 1775. In the Swiss canton of Glaris, a wench
named Anna Goeldi, was hanged as a witch, 17 June, 1782. Two hags were
burned in Poland on the same charge as late as 1793.
[3] Roland Brévannes. _Les Messes Noires_, Iⁱᵉʳ tableau, scène VII.
[4] I have actually heard it categorically laid down by a speaker in
a Shakespearean debate, a litterateur of professed culture, that the
Elizabethans could not, of course, really have believed in witchcraft.
[5] In the Exhibition of this artist’s work at the Leicester Galleries,
London, in March, 1925.
[6] ... qu’elle, & sa mère montoient sur vne ramasse, & que sortans le
contremont de la cheminée elles alloient par l’air en ceste façon au
Sabbat. Boguet, _Discours_, p. 104.
[7] Glanvill, Part II. p. 194.
[8] Julius Wellhausen. _Reste arabischen Heidenthums_, p. 159. Berlin,
1897.
[9] _Apud_ Miss Murray’s _The Witch-Cult_. (1921). Appendix V. pp. 279-80.
[10] Boguet, _Discours_. XVI. 4.
[11] Benjamin Thorpe, _Monumenta Ecclesiastica_, II. p. 34. London, 1840.
The _Liber Pœnitentialis_ was first published complete by Wasserschleben
in 1851; a convenient edition is Migne, _P.L._ XCIX.
[12] _Calendar of State Papers._ Domestic, 1584.
[13] Sir Walter Scott, _Demonology and Witchcraft_, Letter V, gives the
narrative of this case, but in the light of later research his version
must be slightly corrected.
[14] Pitcairn. I. pt. ii. p. 162.
[15] _Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland_, New Series,
vol. X. Edinburgh.
[16] Sir James Melville, _Memoirs_. Bannatyne Club, Edinburgh. pp. 395-6.
[17] London. “for _William Wright_.” N.D. [1591]. The woodcut is on the
title-page verso, and signature [c.ij.] verso. The pages are not numbered.
[18] _Flying Ointments._ _Apud_ Miss Murray’s _Witch-Cult in Western
Europe_, p. 279. It may be noted that the scandals of the Black Mass
under Louis XIV were closely concerned with wholesale accusations of
poisoning. La Voisin was a notorious vendor of toxic philtres. The
possibility of poisoning the King, the Dauphin, Colbert and others was
frequently debated.
[19] Dio Cassius. XLIX. 43. p. 756. ed. Sturz.
[20] _Idem._ LII. 36. p. 149.
[21] Suetonius. _Augustus._ 31.
[22] Tacitus. _Annales._ II. 32. _More prisco._ “Ut eum infelici arbori
alligatum uirgis cædi, et postremo securi percuti iuberent.” Muret.
[23] XII. 32.
[24] Suetonius. _Vitellius._ 14.
[25] Dio Cassius. LXVI. 10.
[26] _La Magie et la Sorcellerie._ Paris. (1912.) I. p. 33.
[27] _Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions_, II. p. 117.
[28] The dates are as inaccurate as the statements. Giovanni Battista
Cibò was elected Pope 29 August, 1484; and the Bull was issued in the
December of that year, not in 1488.
[29] _Rise and Influence of Rationalism in Europe_, c. 1.
[30] _Dictionary of Universal Biography._ VIII. (1890).
[31] A more detailed treatment will be found in the present writer’s _The
Geography of Witchcraft_, where the Bull is given _in extenso_.
[32] _Epist._, c.n. 1.
[33] _Hom._, XLVI. c. 1.
[34] _Sententianum_, III. iv. nn. 4-6.
[35] Theodosius II. _Nouellæ_, tit. III. A.D. 438.
[36] Uanissimus [Priscillianus] et plus iusto inflatior profanarum rerum
scientia: quin et magicas artes ab adolescentia cum exercuisse creditum
est. Sulpicius Severus. II. 47.
[37] H. C. Lea in his _History of the Inquisition in the Middle Ages_,
(1888) I. 215, asserts that Leo I justified the act, and that successive
edicts against heresy were due to ecclesiastical influence. This is the
exact opposite of historical truth, and the writer has not hesitated to
transfer words of the Emperor to the Pope.
[38] In a sermon published in 1896 by Dom Morin _Revue benédictine_, c.
xiii. p. 205.
[39] _Epistola Elipandi ad Alcuinum_, Migne. Pat. Lat. CXCVI. p. 872.
Alcuin. _Opera Omnia._ Migne Pat. Lat. C-CI, especially _Liber Albini
contra hæresim Felicis_; _Libri VII aduersus Felicem_; _Aduersus
Elipandum Libri IV_. Florez, _España sagrada_. V. p. 562. Menendez y
Pelayo, _Historia de los heterodoxos españoles_, Madrid, 1880, I. p. 274.
[40] The martyrdom of S. Peter is a well-known subject in art. Titian’s
masterpiece in the Dominican church of SS. Giovanni e Paolo at Venice was
destroyed by a fire on 16 August, 1867. But there are exquisite paintings
of the scene by Lorenzo Lotto and Bellini. S. Peter, whose shrine is in
San Eustorgio, Milan, was canonized 25 March, 1253, by Innocent IV. Major
Feast, 29 April.
[41] Muratori. _Antiquitates italicæ medii æui_, Milan, 1738-42.
[42] Gabriel Rossetti, _Disquisitions_, vol. I. p. 27.
[43] Gervasius Dorobernensis, _Chronicon_.
[44] _Vita S. Romanæ._ n. 10; Acta SS. die, 3 Oct. p. 138. S. Gregorii
VII. Lib. I. Epistola 75, _ad Philippum_.
[45] Labbe. _Sacrosancta concilia._ 18 vols. folio. 1671. Vol. X. col. 84.
[46] Quarum rerum rex uester, qui non rex sed tyrannus dicendus est,
suadente diabolo, caput et causa est, qui omnem aetatem suam flagitiis et
facinoribus polluit. _Idem_, vol. X. col. 72.
[47] Sane ... prouinciali ordinis prædicatorum in eodem regno dedimus
in mandatis, ut aliquibus fratribus suis aptis ad hoc, inquisitionem
contra illos committeret in regno præfato ... fraternitati tuæ ...
mandamus quatenus ... per alios qui ad hoc idonei uidebuntur, festines
... procedere in inquisitionis negotio et ad dominicum certamen accingi.
Ripoll et Brémond, _Bullarium ordinis S. Dominici_, I. p. 80. (8 vols.
Romæ. 1737, _sqq._).
[48] Fratres ... qui ad prædicandum crucem uel inquirendum contra
prauitatem hæreticam ... sunt deputati. Wadding. _Annales Minorum._ ed.
secunda. 24 vols. Romæ, 1732, _sqq._ III. 144.
[49] _Gnostic Heresies._
[50] Jules Bois. _Le Satanisme et la Magie_, c. 6.
[51] It is true that S. Augustine does not bring a charge of depravity
against the Manichæans, but they veiled their vices with the greatest
caution, and S. Augustine was simply a catechumen, one of the Auditors,
who would have known nothing of these esoteric abominations.
[52] Extra ciuitatis educti muros in quodam tuguriolo copioso igne
accenso ... cremati sunt. _Gesta synodi Aurelianensis._ Arnould.
_L’Inquisition._ (Paris, 1869). VI. p. 46.
[53] Sed antequam ad conflictum ueniamus, de cibo illo, qui cœlestis
ab illis dicebatur, quali arte conficiebatur, nescientibus demonstrare
curabo. Congregabantur si quidem certis noctibus in domo denominata,
singuli lucernas tenentes in manibus, ad instar letaniæ demonum nomina
declamabant, donec subito Dæmonem in similitudine cuiuslibet bestiolæ
inter eos uiderent descendere. Qui statim, ut uisibilis ille uidebatur
uisio, omnibus extinctis luminaribus, quamprimum quisque poterat,
mulierem, quæ ad manum sibi ueniebat, ad abutendum arripiebat, sine
peccati respectu, et utrum mater, aut soror, aut monacha haberetur,
pro sanctitate et religione eius concubitus ab illis æstimabatur; ex
quo spurcissimo concubitu infans generatus, octaua die in medio eorum
copioso igne accenso probabatur per ignem more antiquorum Paganorum; et
sic in igne cremabatur. Cuius cinis tanta ueneratione colligebatur atque
custodiebatur, ut Christiana religiositas Corpus Christi custodire solet,
ægris dandum de hoc sæculo exituris ad uiaticum. Inerat enim tanta uis
diabolicæ fraudis in ipso cinere ut quicumque de præfata hæresi imbutus
fuisset, et de eodem cinere quamuis sumendo parum prælibauisset, uix
unquam postea de eadem heresi gressum mentis ad uiam ueritatis dirigere
ualeret. De qua re parum dixisse sufficiat, ut Christicolæ caueant se ab
hoc nefario opere, non ut studeant sectando imitari. Schmidt. _Histoire
et doctrine des Cathares ou Albigeois._ Paris. 1849. I. p. 31.
[54] G. R. Kinloch. _Reliquiæ Antiquæ Scoticæ._ Edinburgh, 1848.
[55] Adhémar de Chabannes. (A monk of Angoulême.) _Chronicon, Recueil des
historicus_, vol. X. p. 163.
[56] Fabré Palaprat. _Recherches Historiques sur les Templiers_, Paris.
1835.
[57] Cambridge University Press, 1925.
[58] _The Philosopher_, July-August, 1924.
[59] _The Philosopher_, January-March, 1925. _The Albigenses_, pp. 20-25.
The whole article, which is written with extraordinary restraint, should
be read.
[60] He is the author of _Éléments d’Astrologie_; _Un disciple de Cl. de
Saint-Martin, Dutoit-Membrini_; _Premiers Éléments d’Occultisme_; _La
petite Église anticoncordataire, son histoire, son état actuel_; _J. K.
Huysmans et le Satanisme_; _Huysmans, Occultiste et Magicien_.
[61] _In Uerrem._ IV. 43.
[62] H. Th. Pyl, _Die griechischen Rundbauten_, 1861, pp. 67, _sqq._
[63] Plutarch, _Theseus_ 36; _Cimon_ 8.
[64] Pausanias is the chief authority on this point. See Rohde _Psyche_,
I. p. 161.
[65] Clarendon Press, 1921.
[66] _The Witch-Cult in Western Europe_, p. 16. It is true that the
Brethren of the Free Spirit, anarchists, who vaunted the Adamite heresy,
in the Thirteenth century, went to the stake with pæans of joy. But they
were probably drugged. J. L. Mosheim, _Ecclesiastical History_. London.
1819. III. p. 278. _sqq._ The Adamites were a licentious sect who called
their church Paradise and worshipped in a state of stark nudity. They
were Gnostics and claimed complete emancipation from the moral law. They
lived in shameful communism. Bohemian Adamites existed as late as 1849.
In Russia the _teleschi_, a branch of the sect known as the “Divine Men,”
performed their religious rites in a state of nature, following the
example, as they asserted, of Adam and Eve in Paradise. These assemblies
were wont to end in promiscuous debauchery.
[67] _Idem._ p. 161.
[68] _Witch-Cult in Western Europe_, p. 161.
[69] _Additional Notices of Major Weir and his Sister_; Sinclar’s
_Satan’s Invisible World_. (Reprint. 1875).
[70] _Criminal Trials_, 1536-1784; Hugo Arnot, 4to, 1785.
[71] _Ravillac Rediuius_, Dr. George Hickes, 4to, 1678.
[72] Iubemus namque, auctores quidem et principes, una cum abominandis
scripturis eorum seueriori pœnæ subiici, ita ut flammeis ignibus
exurantur. Baronius, 287, 4.
[73] Scio multos [Proconsules] et ad bestias damnasse sacrilegos,
nonnullos etiam uiuos exussisse. _Lex Romana Visigothorum nouella_,
XLVIII. tit. xiii. c. 6-7.
[74] Plures etiam per Italiam tunc huius pestiferi dogmatis sunt reperti,
qui aut gladiis, aut incendiis perierunt.
[75] Tanchelinus, Tandemus, Tanchelmus. The history of this important
revolutionary movement has been carefully studied. The following
authoritative books are a few from many of great value and learning.
_Corpus documentorum Inquisitionis hereticæ prauitatis neerlandicæ_, ed.
Dr. Paul Frédéricq, vol. I, p. 15 _et sqq._ Ghent. 1889; _Tanchelijn_ by
Janssen in the _Annales de l’académie Royale d’archéologie de Belgique_,
vol. XXIII, p. 448 _et sqq._ 1867; Foppens, _Historia Episcopatus
Antuerpiensis_, p. 8 and p. 146, Brussels, 1717; Dierxsens, _Antuerpia
Christo nascens et crescens_, vol. I, p. 88, Antwerp, 1773; Poncelet,
_Saint Norbert et Tanchelin_ in the _Analecta bollandiniana_, vol. XIII,
p. 441, 1893; Schools, _Saint Norbert et Tanchelin à Anvers_ in the
_Bibliothèque norbertine_, vol. II, p. 97, 1900; De Schapper, _Réponse
à la question: Faites connaître l’hérésiarque Tanchelin et les erreurs
qu’il répandit au commencement du XIIIᵉ siècle_ [an error for _XIIᵉ
siècle_] in the _Collationes Brugenses_, vol. XVII, p. 107, 1912. L.
Vander Essen, _De Katterij van Tanchelm in de XIIᵉ eeuw_ in _Ons Geloof_,
vol. II, p. 354, 1912; _Antwerpen en de H. Norbertus_ in the _Bode van
Onze Lieve Vrouw van het H. Hert van Averbode_, Nos. 18 and 19, pp.
207-211 and 217-220, 1914.
[76] “That most vile and abandoned scoundrel had become so open and
utterly depraved an enemy to the Christian faith and all religious
observance that he denied any respect was due to Bishops and priests;
moreover, he affirmed that the reception of the most holy Body and Blood
of Our Lord availed nothing to eternal life and man’s salvation.” “Erat
quidem ille sceleratissimus et christianæ fidei et totius religionis
inimicus in tantum ut obsequium episcoporum et sacerdotum nihil esse
diceret, et sacrosancti corporiset sanguinis Domini J. C. perceptionem
ad salutem perpetuam prodesse denegeret.” _Vita Noberti archiepiscopi
Magdeburgensis, Vita A. Monument. Germ. Scriptores_, vol. XII. p. 690,
ed. G. A. Pertz, Hanover, Berlin.
[77] “Immo uere ipse angelus Sathanæ declamabat eccelsias Dei lupinaria
esse reputanda. Nihil esse, quod sacerdotum officio in mensa dominica
conficeretur; pollutiones, non sacramenta nominanda.” _Lettre des
chanoines d’Utrecht au nom de leur diocèse à Frédéric, archevêque de
Cologne._ _Apud_ Frédéricq, vol. I. n. 11.
[78] Talibus nequitiæ successibus miscro homini tanta sceleris accessit
audacia, ut etiam se Deum diceret, asserens, quia, si Christus ideo Deus
est, quia Spiritum Sanctum habuisset, se non inferius nec dissimilius
Deum, quia plenitudinem Spiritus Sancti accepisset. _Idem._
[79] Qui tandem post multos errores et cædes, dum nauigaret, a quodam
presbytero percussus in cerebro occubuit. _Sigiberti continuatio._
Apud _Monument. Germ. Scriptores_, vol. VI, p. 449. See also, Johannes
Trithemius, _Annales Hirsaugienses_, vol. I, p. 387, Saint-Gall, 1690; Du
Plessis d’Argentré, _Collectio iudiciorum_, vol. I, p. 11 _sqq._ Paris,
1728; Schmidt, _Histoire et doctrine des Cathares ou Albigeois_, vol. I,
p. 49, Paris, 1849.
[80] There is a contemporary _Uita Norberti_ of which two recensions
have been published: _Uita A._ by R. Wilmans in the _Mon. Germ. Hag._,
SS., vol. XIII, pp. 663-706, Hanover, 1853; _Uita B._ by Surius, _De
probatis Sanctorum historiis_, vol. III, pp. 517-547, Cologne, 1572.
Other authoritative works are: J. Van der Sterse, _Uita S. Norberti_,
Antwerp, 1622; Du Pré, _La Vie du bienheureux saint Norbert_, Paris,
1627; Ch. Hugo, _La Vie de St. Norbert_, Luxembourg, 1704; G. Madelaine,
_Histoire de St. Norbert_, Lille, 1886; B. Wazasek, _Der Hl. Norbert_,
Vienna, 1914. An excellent brief but scholarly account is _The Life of S.
Norbert_, London, 1886, by my late revered friend Abbot Geudens, C.R.P.
[81] Feast, 17 February.
[82] Formerly kept upon the Sunday.
[83] _Op. cit._, pp. 16, 17.
[84] _Op. cit._, p. 191.
[85] For a full and detailed statement see Didron’s great work,
_Iconographie chrétienne_, Paris, 1843.
[86] _Spalding Club Miscellany_, I, p. 129. Aberdeen, 1841.
[87] At their black mass the witches of the Basses-Pyrénées (1609) when
the host was elevated said “Corbeau noir, corbeau noir.” De Lancre,
_Tableau de l’Inconstance des mauvais Anges_, Paris, 1613.
[88] _Op. cit._, p. 255.
[89] _Op. cit._, p. 165. It is not at all evident that “the word _diable_
is clearly Bodin’s own interpellation for the name of the god,” indeed
this assumption is purely gratuitous to support the argument, and cannot
be admitted.
[90] _Op. cit._, pp. 14, 15. I would not dwell upon the offensiveness of
this suggestion, since it is, I am sure, unintentional.
[91] _Golden Bough_, Part I. vol. I. p. xx. Third Edition. 1911.
[92] _Op. cit._, p. 19.
[93] _The Goddess of Ghosts_, pp. 137-158.
[94] Cassiodorus, _Hist. Eccl._, VII, 11. _fin._ speaks of the
_fetidissimus fons_ of heresy.
[95] 1535-1598. His works were collected in four folio volumes, Paris,
1620, prefaced by Henry Holland’s _Uita Thomæ Stapletoni_. An original
portrait is preserved at Douai Abbey, Woolhampton.