Here is a gem from Bishop. I appreciated his clear headed analytical way of dealing with a difficult historical subject that many have strong emotional feeling for.

message # 961
 
 
From:  "bishop"
Date:  Wed Jan 3, 2001  5:37 pm
Subject:  Malleus Maleficarum

93!~

>> The Malleus Maleficarum was a boring read.

> But important to history...

Not really. It was a massive book of propaganda, actually, and not based on
evidence but imagination.

"At the time of the writing of The Malleus Maleficarum, there were many
voices within the Christian community (scholars and theologians) who doubted
the existence of witches and largely regarded such belief as mere
superstition. The authors of the Malleus addressed those voices in no
uncertain terms, stating: "Whether the Belief that there are such Beings as
Witches is so Essential a Part of the Catholic Faith that Obstinacy to
maintain the Opposite Opinion manifestly savours of Heresy." The immediate,
and lasting, popularity of the Malleus essentially silenced those voices. It
made very real the threat of one being branded a heretic, simply by virtue
of one's questioning of the existence of witches and, thus, the validity of
the Inquisition. It set into the general Christian consciousness, for all
time, a belief in the existence of witches as a real and valid threat to the
Christian world. It is a belief which is held to this day.

"It must be noted that during the Inquisition, few, if any, real,
verifiable, witches were ever discovered or tried. Often the very accusation
was enough to see one branded a witch, tried by the Inquisitors' Court, and
burned alive at the stake. Estimates of the death toll during the
Inquisition worldwide range from 600,000 to as high as 9,000,000 (over its
250 year long course); either is a chilling number when one realizes that
nearly all of the accused were women, and consisted primarily of outcasts
and other suspicious persons. Old women. Midwives. Jews. Poets. Gypsies.
Anyone who did not fit within the contemporary view of pieous Christians
were suspect, and easily branded "Witch". Usually to devastating effect.

"It must also be noted that the crime of Witchcraft was not the only crime
of which one could be accused during the Inquisition. By questioning any
part of Catholic belief, one could be branded a heretic. Scientists were
branded heretics by virtue of repudiating certain tenets of Christian belief
(most notably Galileo, whose theories on the nature of planets and
gravitational fields was initially branded heretical). Writers who
challenged the Church were arrested for heresy (sometimes formerly accepted
writers whose works had become unpopular). Anyone who questioned the
validity of any part of Catholic belief did so at their own risk. The
Malleus Maleficarum played an important role in bringing such Canonical law
into being, as often the charge of heresy carried along with it suspicions
of witchcraft.

"It must be remembered that the Malleus is a work of its time. Science had
only just begun to make any real advances. At that time nearly any
unexplainable illness or malady would often be attributed to magic, and thus
the activity of witches. It was a way for ordinary people to make sense of
the world around them. The Malleus drew upon those beliefs, and, by its very
existence, reinforced them and brought them into the codified belief system
of the Catholic Church. In many ways, it could be said that it helped to
validate the Inquisition itself.

"While the Malleus itself cannot be blamed for the Inquisition or the
horrors inflicted upon mankind by the Inquisitors, it certainly played an
important role. Thus has it been said that The Malleus Maleficarum is one of
the most blood-soaked works in human history, in that its very existence
reinforced and validated Catholic beliefs which led to the prosecution,
torture, and murder, of tens of thousands of innocent people."

Can I repeat a couple of these statements?

"At the time of the writing of The Malleus Maleficarum, there were many
voices within the Christian community (scholars and theologians) who doubted
the existence of witches and largely regarded such belief as mere
superstition. The authors of the Malleus addressed those voices in no
uncertain terms, stating: 'Whether the Belief that there are such Beings as
Witches is so Essential a Part of the Catholic Faith that Obstinacy to
maintain the Opposite Opinion manifestly savours of Heresy.'"

That's so important I am going to say it in plain English: "The belief of
the existence of Witches is so necessary to the Catholic faith that to deny
their existence is heresy."

Amazing. The Church *needs* you people.

"It must be noted that during the Inquisition, few, if any, real,
verifiable, witches were ever discovered or tried. Often the very accusation
was enough to see one branded a witch, tried by the Inquisitors' Court, and
burned alive at the stake."

The reality is that one the rare occassions that the Inquisition actually
"got a witch," they probably never knew it.

93/93
bishop
www.kindredx.net