20. St. Augustin, in denouncing the Platonic theories of Apuleius, of the mediation and intercession of demons between gods and men, and exposing his magic heresies, takes occasion to taunt him with having evaded his just fate by not professing, like the Christian martyrs, his real faith when delivering his 'very copious and eloquent' apology (De Civitate Dei, lib. viii. 19). In the Golden Ass of the Greek romancist of the second century, who, in common with his cotemporary the great rationalist Lucian, deserves the praise of having exposed (with more wit perhaps than success) some of the most absurd prejudices of the day, his readers are entertained with stories that might pretty nearly represent the sentiments of the seventeenth century.
21. It will be observed that veneficus and maleficus are the significant terms among the Italians for the criminals.
22. If the philosophical arguments of Menippus (Nekrikoi Dialogoi) could have satisfied the interest of the priests or the ignorance of the people of after times, the infernal fires of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries might not have burned.
23. De Divinatione, lib. ii.
24. The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, xxv. This description applies more to the Christian and later empires.
25. 'The Canidia of Horace,' Gibbon pronounces, 'is a vulgar witch. The Erichtho of Lucan is tedious, disgusting, but sometimes sublime.' The love-charms of Canidia and Medea are chiefly indebted to the Pharmakeutria of Theocritus.
26. Annales, ii. 69. Writing of the mathematicians and astrologers in the time of Galba, who urged the governor of Lusitania on the perilous path to the supreme dignity, the historian characterises them truly, in his inimitable language and style, as 'a class of persons not to be trusted by those in power, deceptive to the expectant; a class which will always be proscribed and preserved in our state.'
27. Cod. Justinian, lib. ix. tit. 18.
28. The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, xxv.
29. It may be safely affirmed, according to a celebrated modern philosopher, that popular religions are really, in the conception of their more vulgar votaries, a species of demonism. 'Primus in orbe deos fecit timor,' or, in the fuller expression of a modern, 'Fear made the devils, and weak Hope the gods.'
30. Aurinia was the Latin name of another of these venerable sagæ. Tacitus, Histor. iv. 61, and Germania, viii.
31. The following story exhibits the influence of witchcraft among the followers of Odin. Towards the end of the tenth century, the dreaded Jomsburg sea-rovers had set out on one of their periodical expeditions, and were devastating with fire and sword the coast of Norway. A celebrated Norwegian Jarl, Hakon, collected all his forces, and sailed with a fleet of 150 vessels to encounter the pirates. Hakon, after trying in vain to break through the hostile line, retired with his fleet to the coast, and proceeded to consult a well-known sorceress in whom he had implicit confidence for any emergency. With some pretended reluctance the sorceress at length informed him that the victory could be obtained only by the sacrifice of his son. Hakon hesitated not to offer up his only son as a propitiatory sacrifice; after which, returning to his fleet, and his accustomed post in the front ranks of the battle, he renewed the engagement. Towards evening the Jomsburg pirates were overtaken and overwhelmed by a violent storm, destroying or damaging their ships. They were convinced that they saw the witch herself seated on the prow of the Jarl's ships with clouds of missile weapons flying from the tips of her fingers, each arrow carrying a death-wound. With such of his followers as had escaped the sorceric encounter, the pirate-chief made the best of his way from the scene of destruction, declaring he had made a vow indeed to fight against men, but not against witches. A narrative not inconsistent with the reply of a warrior to an inquiry from the Saint-king Olaf, 'I am neither Christian nor pagan; my companions and I have no other religion than a just confidence in our strength, and in the good success which always attends us in war; and we are of opinion that it is all that is necessary.'—Mallet's Northern Antiquities.
32. The despotism of language and its immense influence on the destiny, as well as on the various opinions, of mankind, is well shown by Professor Max Müller. 'From one point of view,' he declares, 'the true history of religion would be neither more nor less than an account of the various attempts at expressing the Inexpressible' (Lectures on the Science of Language, Second Series). The witch-creed may be indirectly referred, like many other absurdities, to the perversion of language.
PART II.
MEDIÆVAL FAITH
Chapter I.
Compromise between the New and the Old Faiths—Witchcraft under the Early Church—The Sentiments of the Fathers and the Decrees of Councils—Platonic Influences—Historical, Physiological, and Accidental Causes of the Attribution of Witchcraft to the Female Sex—Opinions of the Fathers and other Writers—The Witch-Compact.
It might appear, in a casual or careless observation, surprising that Christianity, whose original spirit, if not universal practice, was to enlighten; whose professed mission was 'to destroy the works of the devil,' failed to disprove as well as to dispel some of the most pernicious beliefs of the pagan world: that its final triumph within the limits of the Roman empire, or as far as it extended without, was not attended by the extinction of at least the most revolting practices of superstition. Experience, and a more extended view of the progress of human ideas, will teach that the growth of religious perception is fitful and gradual: that the education of collective mankind proceeds in the same way as that of the individual man. And thus, in the expression of the biographer of Charles V., the barbarous nations when converted to Christianity changed the object, not the spirit, of their religious worship. Many of the ideas of the old religion were consciously tolerated by the first propagators of Christianity, who justly deemed that the new dogmas would be more readily insinuated into the rude and simple minds of their neophytes, if not too strictly uncompromising. Both past and present facts testify to this compromise. It was a maxim with some of the early promoters of the Christian cause, to do as little violence as possible to existing prejudices33—a judicious method still pursued by the Catholic, though condemned by the Protestant, missionaries of the present day.34 It was not seldom that an entire nation was converted and christianised by baptism almost in a single day: the mass of the people accepting, or rather acquiescing in, the arguments of the missionaries in submission to the will or
