The Catholics, not able to accept that solution, developed a complex theology concerning the relationship between God and the Devil, now called Satan, which rested on the weird idea that Satan was limited
in some specific ways, but very marvelous, all of his
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machinations, curses, and damnations being “by G od’s
permission” and a testimony to G od’s divine majesty.
Here we have the Catholic version o f double-double
think. Through the processes o f Aristotle’s famous
logic, as adapted by St. Thom as Aquinas, which was
the basis o f Catholic theology, it now became clear
that not to believe in the literal existence o f Satan was
tantamount to atheism. T h e evil principle, articulated
by the Manicheans and Cathari, was absorbed into
Catholicism, along with the horned figure o f the old
pagan cults, to produce the horned, clawed, sulphurous,
black, fire and brimstone Satan o f the medieval Christian iconographers.
Later Calvin and Luther also made their contributions. Luther had more personal contact with Satan than any man before or since. He proclaimed Satan
“Prince” o f this earthly realm and considered all earthly
experiences under his domination. Luther and Calvin
agreed that good works no longer counted —only divine
grace for the elect was sufficient to ensure entrance into
the Kingdom o f God. Thus Reformation Protestantism
obliterated the small measure o f hope that even
Catholicism offered. Calvin himself was a voracious
witch hunter and burner.
Although the Protestants contributed without modesty and with great enthusiasm to the witch terror, we find the origins o f the actual, organized persecutions,
not unexpectedly, in the Bull o f Innocent V III, issued
December 9, 1484. The Pope named Heinrich Kramer
and James Sprenger as Inquisitors and asked them to
define witchcraft, describe the modus operandi o f
witches, and standardize trial procedures and sen
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tencing. The papal Bull reversed the Church’s previous
position, which had been formulated by a synod in
A. D. 785:
. . . if somebody, deceived by the devil, following the
custom of the heathen, believes that some man or
woman, is a striga who eats men, and for that reason
burns her or gives her flesh to eat, or eats it, he is to
be punished by death. 6
The Church had accordingly for 7 centuries considered
the belief in witchcraft a heathen belief and the burning of alleged witches a capital crime. Pope Innocent, however, secure in papal infallibility and demonstrating a true political sensibility (leading to the consolidation of power), described the extent of his concern: It has indeed lately come to Our ears, not without
afflicting Us with bitter sorrow, that in some parts of
Northern Germany, as well as in the provinces, townships, territories, districts, and dioceses of Mainz, Cologne, Treves, Saltzburg, and Bremen, many
persons of both sexes, unmindful of their own salvation and straying from the Catholic Faith, have abandoned themselves to devils, incubi [male] and succubi
[female], and by their incantations, spells, conjurations,
and other accursed charms and crafts, enormities and
horrid offenses, have slain infants yet in the mother's
womb, as also the offspring of cattle, have blasted the
produce of the earth, the grapes of the vine, the fruit
of the trees, nay, men and women, beasts of burthen,
herd beasts, as well as animals of other kinds, vineyards, orchards, meadows, pastureland, corn, wheat, and all other cereals; these wretches furthermore afflict and torment men and women, beasts of burthen,
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herd beasts, as well as animals of other kinds, with
terrible and piteous pains and sore diseases, both internal and external; they hinder men from performing the sexual act and women from conceiving, whence
husbands cannot know their wives nor wives receive
their husbands; over and above this, they blasphemously renounce that Faith which is theirs by the Sacrament of Baptism, and at the instigation of the
Enemy of Mankind they do not shrink from committing and perpetrating the foulest abominations and filthiest excesses to the deadly peril of their own souls,
whereby they outrage Divine Majesty and are a cause
of scandal and danger to very many. 7
T o deal with the increasing tide o f witchcraft and
in conformity with the Pope’s orders, Sprenger and
Kramer collaborated on the Malleus Maleficarum. This
document, a monument to Aristode’s logic and academic methodology (quoting and footnoting “authorities”), catalogues the major concerns o f 15th-century Catholic theology:
Question I. Whether the Belief that there are such
Beings as Witches is so Essential a Part of the Catholic
Faith that Obstinancy to maintain the Opposite Opinion
manifestly savours of Heresy (Answer: Yes)
Question III. Whether Children can be Generated by
Incubi and Succubi (Answer: Yes)
Question VIII. Whether Witches can Hebetate the Power
of Generation or Obstruct the Venereal Act (Answer:
Yes)
Question IX. Whether Witches may work some Presti-
digitatory Illusion so that the Male Organ appears to
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be entirely removed and separate from the Body (Answer: Yes)
Question XL That Witches who are Midwives in Various Ways Kill the Child Conceived in the Womb, and Procure Abortion; or if they do not do this, Offer
New-born Children to the Devils (Answer: Yes)8
The Malleus also describes the ritual and content of
witchcraft per se, though in the tradition of paternalism indigenous to the Church, Sprenger and Kramer are careful not to give formulae for charms or other dangerous information. They write “of the several Methods by which Devils through Witches Entice and Allure the
Innocent to the Increase of that Horrid Craft and company” ; “of the Way whereby a Formal Pact with Evil is made”; “How they are Transported from Place to
Place”; “Here follows the Way whereby Witches copulate with those Devils known as Incubi, ” 9 etc. They document how witches injure cattle, cause hailstorms and tempests, illnesses in people and animals, bewitch men,
change themselves into animals, change animals into
people, commit acts of cannibalism and murder. The
main concern of the Malleus is with natural events,
nature, the real dynamic world which refused to conform to Catholic doctrine —the Malleus, with tragic wrong-headedness, explains most aspects of biology,