Part I
(page 6)... And often it ordered that all their possessions should be burnt, nor was anyone allowed to patronize or to consult them; very often they were deported to some distant and deserted island and all their goods sold by public auction. Moreover, those who consulted or resorted to witches were punished with exile and the confiscation of all their property.
(page 6) ... And so they are to put to the torture in order to make them confess. ..let him be racked. Nowadays they are burnt at the stake, and probably this is because the majority of them are women.
(page 6) ... The category in which women of this sort are to be ranked is called the category of Pythons, persons in or by whom the devil either speaks or performs some astonishing operation, and this is often the first category in order. But the category under which sorcerers come is called the category of Sorcerers.
(page 7/8/?) ... These devils are able to collect various germs or seeds. and from these germs or seeds they are able to cause various species to grow.
(page 8)... Witches are changed into wolves.
(page 11) ... We know that in days of old this veneration of the stars led to the vilest idoltary.
(page 12) ... Moreover, whatever a superior power is able to do, it able to do without reference to a power superior to it, and a superior power can all the more work without reference to an inferiour power. But an inferior power can cause hailstorms and bring about diseases without the help of a power greater than itself. For Blessed Albertus Magnus in his work De Passionibus aeris says that if rotten sage, if used as he explains, and thrown into running water. will arouse most fearful tempests and storms.
(page 12) ... A man who commits a rape does this for the sake of pleasure, not merely doing evil for evil's sake.
(page 13) ... Strange periapts, which they are wont to place under the lintels of the doors of houses, or in those meadows where flocks are herding, or even where men congregate.
(page 14) ... They distract the minds of men, driving them to madness, insane hatred, and inordinate lusts. These are they who by the permission of God disturb the elements. who drive to distraction the minds of men, such as have lost their trust in God and by the terrible power of their evil spells, without any actual draught or poison, kill human beings.
(page 14) ... The human body is nobler than any other body
(page 16) ... Idolatry, which is the first of all superstitions, as Divination is the second, and the Observing of Times and Seasons the third.
(page 16) ...(of divination) There are three kinds of this superstition: Necromancy, Astrology, or rather, Astromancy, the superstitious observation of the stars, and Oneiromancy.
(page 16) ... It was the devil alone who inspired him to study and observed the stars.
(page 17) ... Harm may be wrought through fashioning images, through the use of spells, and by the writing of mysterious characters.
(page 17) ... At the sight of some impurity, such as, for example, a woman during her monthly periods, the eyes will as it were contract a certain impurity.
(page 17) ... Old women, then their disturbed spirit looks through their eyes, for their countenances are most evil and harmful
(page 17) ... With regard to operations of witchcraft, we find that some of these may be due to mental influence over others, and in some cases such mental influence might be a good one, but it is the motive which makes it evil.
(page 17) ... Charms are of three kinds: the senses are deluded, fascination may bring a certain glamour and a leading astray, there may be a certain fascination cast by the eyes over another person.(?)
(page 19) ... Or even let us conceive that if they superstitiously employ natural things, as, for example, by writing down certain characters or unkown names of some kind, and that then they use these runes for restoring a person to health, or for inducing friendship, or with some useful end, and not at all for doing any damage or harm, in such cases, it may be granted, I say, that there is no express invocation of demons; nevertheless it cannot be that these spells are employed without a tacit invocation, wherefore all such charms must be judged to be wholly unlawful.
(page 19) ... There are four distinct species: A man may use such observations to acquire certain knowledge: or he may in this way seek to inform himself concerning lucky or unlucky days and things: or he may use sacred words and parayers as a charm with no reference to their meaning: or he may intend and desire to bring about some beneficial change in some body.
(page 20) ... The figures of demons and their names sometimes appear in Astrological charts.
(page 21) ... for it would seem that at certain times their semen can more easily generate and beget children. Accordingly, we must inquire why the demons should act at the conjunction of certain stars, and beget children. ....they busy themselves by interfering with the process of normal copulation and conception, by obtaining human semen, and themselves transferring it.
(page 22) ... However, to collect human semen from one person and to transfer it to another implies certain local actions.
(page 22) ... For all bodily and material things are on a lower scale than pure and spiritual intelligences. But the angels, whether they be good or whether they be evil, are pure and spiritual intelligences. Therefore they can control what is below them.
(page 24) ... that Satyrs and Fauns(which are commonly called Incubi) have appeared to wanton women and have sought and obtained coition with them. And that certain devils(which the Gauls called Dusii) assiduously attempt and achieve this filthiness is vouched for by so many credible witnesses that it would seem impudent to deny it. ....Blessed Gregory explains these to be woodland gods under another name, not those which the Greeks called Pans, and the Latins Incubi. Similarly, Blessed Isidore, in the last chapter of his 8th book, says: Satyrs are they who are called Pans in Greek and Incubi in Latin. And they are called Incubi from their practice of overlaying, that is debauching. For they often lust lecherously after women, and copulate with them; and the Gauls name them Dusii, because they are diligent in this beastliness. But the devil which the common people call an Incubus, the Romans called a fig Faun; to which Horace said, "O Faunus, lover of fleeing nymphs, go gently over my lands and smiling fields."
As to that of S. Paul in I. Corinthians xi, A woman ought to have a covering on her head, because of the angels, many Catholics believe that "because of the angels" refers to Incubi. Of the same opinion is the Venerable Bede in his History of the English; also William of Paris in his book De Uniuerso the last part of the 6th treatise.
(page 25) ... If anyone wishes to study further the histories concerning Incubi and Succubi, let him read (as has been said) Bede in his History of English, and William and finally Thomas of Brabant in his book About Bees.
(page 25) ... And rejoice in all sin, especially in fornication and idoltary, because by these are defiled the body and the soul, and the whole man, which is called "the land".
(page 26) ... But if it is asked why the devil is allowed to cast spells upon the veneral act, rather than upon any other human act, it is answered that many reasons are assigned by the Doctors, which will be discussed later in the part concerning the divine permission. For the present the reason that has been mentioned before must suffice, namely, that the power of the devil lies in the privy parts of men. For all struggles those are the hardest where the fight is continuous and victory rare.
(page 28) ... It is argued that just as in the computation of the Good there are degrees and orders (see S. Augustine in his book on the nature of the Good), so also the computation of the Evil is based upon confusion. But as among the good Angels nothing can be without order, so among the bad all is disorder, and therefore they all indifferently follow these practices.
(page 28) ... Secondly, it may be argued that semen has no power of generation except as long as the heat of life is retained in it, and that this must be lost when it is carried great distances. The answer is that devils are able to store the semen safely, so that its vital heat is not lost; or even that it cannot evaporate so easily on account of the great speed at which they move by reason of the superiority of the mover over the thing moved.
(page 31) ... But it is submitted that the true source of witchraft is the influence of the celestial bodies, and not devils.
(page32) ... Unless indeed it be argued that this is a matter of chance, from which it would follow that all human actions are fortuitous, which is absurd.
(page 35) ... Of these S. Isidore says that those who cast Horoscopes are so called from their examination of the stars at nativity, and are commonly called Mathematicians; and in the same Book, chapter 2, he says that Fortune has her name from fortuitousness, and is a sort of goddess who mocks human affairs in a haphazard and fortuitous manner.
(page 38) ... So all the works of witches are said to be miraculous only inasmuch as they are done by some cause unknown to us, and outside the order of created nature as known to us. From which it follows that the corporeal virtue of a man cannot extend itself to the causation of such works; for it has always this quality, that the cause with the natural effect is, in the case of man, recognized naturally and without wonder.
(page 44) ... Women are intellectually like children.
(page 46) ... The kingdom of the Romans endured much evil through Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt, that worst of women.
(page 47) ... Now there are, as it is said in the Papal Bull, seven methods by which they infect with witchcraft the venereal act and the conception of the womb: First, by inclining the minds of men to inordinate passion; second, by obstructing their generative force; third, by removing the members accommodated to that act; fourth, by changing men into beasts by their magic art; fifth, by destroying the generative force in women; sixth, by procuring abortion; seventh, by offering children to devils, besides other animals and fruits of the earth with which they work much harm.
(page 56) ... And not, further, that the Canon speaks of loose lovers who, to save their mistresses from shame, use contraceptives, such as potions, or herbs that contravene nature, without any help from devils. And such penitents are to be punished as homicides.
(page 60) ... For there are three degrees of witches. For some both heal and harm; some harm, but cannot heal; and some seem able only to heal, that is, to take away injuries, as will be shown later.
(page 62) ... It must not be omitted that certain wicked women, perverted by Satan and seduced by the illusions and phantasms of devils, believe and profess that they ride in the night hours on certain beasts with Diana, the heathen goddess, or with Herodias, and with a countless number of women, and that in the untimely silence of night they travel over great distances of land.
(page 64) ... The devils run throughout the world and collect various germs, and by using them can evolve various species. And the gloss thereon says: When witches attempt to effect anything by the invocation of devils, they run about the world and bring the semen of those things which are in questions, and by its means, with the permission of God, they produce new species.
(page 65) ... For William of Paris tells of a certain man who thought that he was turned into a wolf, and at certain times went into hiding among the caves. The devil delights in such things, and caused the illusion of the pagans who believed that men and old women were changed into beasts.
(page 66) ... No one does more harm to the Catholic faith than midwives.
(page 66) ... The Canonists treat more fully than the Theologians of the obstructions due to witchcraft; and they say that is witchcraft, not only when anyone is unable to perform the carnal act, of which we have spoken above; but also when a woman is prevented from conceiving, or is made to miscarry after she has conceived. A third and fourth m ethod of witchcraft is when they have failed to procure an abortion, and then either devour the child or offer it to a devil.
(page 66) ... Also, in one single year, which is the year now last passed, he says that forty-one witches were burned, certain others taking flight to the Lord Archduke of Austria, Sigismund. For confirmation of this there are certain writings of John Nider in his Formicarius,
(page 68) ... And by reason of this ignorance, since witches are not put down with the vengenance that is due to them, they seem now to be depopulating the whole of Christianity.
(page 69) ... For the providence of God is to be understood as nothing else than the reason, that is, the cause of the ordering of things to a purpose.
(page 69) ... For is is necessary for the conservation of the species that the death of one should be the preservation of another.
(page 69) ... now that the world is cooling and declining to its end;
(page 70) ... the lower nature cannot of itself cause that effect without the co-operation of the higher nature. For example, a gas becomes ignited by fire; but it could not of its own nature light itself without fire.
(page 72) ... And that all these things happened instantaneously may be exemplified by physical things; for the ignition of a gas, the sight of the flame, and the impression formed by that sight all happen at one and the same time.
(page 77) ... The crimes of witches, then exceed the sins of all others; and we now declare what punishment they deserve, whether as heretics or as Apostates. Now Heretics, according to S. Raymund, are punished in various ways as by excommunication, deposition, confiscation of their goods, and death. ...For, besides the punishment of excommunication inflicted on them, Heretics, together with their patrons, protectors and defenders, and with their children to the second generation on the father's side, and to the first degree on the mother's side, are admitted to no benefit or office of the Church. And if a Heretic have Catholic children, for the heinousness of his crime they are deprived of thier paternal inheritance. And if a man be convicted, and refuse to be converted and abjure his heresy, he must at once be burned, if he is a layman.
(page77) ... Then how much more emphatically do they speak concerning witches, where they say that the penalty for them is the confiscation of their goods and decapitation. The laws also say much concerning those who by witchcraft provoke a woman to lust, or, conversely, cohabit with beasts.
(page 80) ... And the species of the first form of Divination, that is, an open invocation of devils, are the following: Sorcery, Oneiromancy, Necromancy, Oracles, Geomancy, Hydromancy, Aeromancy, Pyromancy, and Soothsaying().
The species of the second kind are Horoscopy, Haruspicy, Augury, Observation of Omens, Cheiromancy and Spatulamancy.
(page 80) ... For there are fourteen species of magic, springing from the three kinds of Divination. The first of these three is open invocation of devils. The second is no more than a silent consideration of the disposition and movement of some thing, as of the stars, or the days, or the hours, and such things. The third is the consideration of some human act for the purpose of finding out something that is hidden, and is called by the name of Sortilege.
(page 81) ... The other species of divination, which are performed with a tacit, but not an open, invocation of devils, are Horoscopy, or Astrology, so called from the consideration of the stars at birth; Haruspicy, which observes the days and hours; Augury, which observes the behaviour and cries of birds; Omens, which observe the words of men; and Cheiromancy, which observes the lines of the hand, or of the paws of animals.
(page 82) ... The workings of witches are never lawful.
(page 86) ... In the second place, we must answer the question why God permits witchcraft to affect the generative powers more than any other human function. This has been dealt with above, under the title, How witches can obstruct the generative powers and the veneral act. For it is on account of the shamefulness of that act, and because the original sin due to the guilt of our first parents is inherited by means of that act. It is symbolized also the serpent, who was the first instrument of the devil.
(page 87) ... First, why do not witches become rich? Secondly, why, having the favor of princes, do they not cooperate for the destruction of all their enemies? Thirdly, why are they unable to injure Preachers and others who persecute them?
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