Part 6 (1/2)

In Scotland the Bible-supported superstition raged worse than in England The clergy there had, as part of their duty, to question their parishi+oners as to their knowledge of witches Boxes were placed in the churches to receive the accusations, and when a woman had fallen under suspicion the minister from the pulpit denounced her by naainst her, and prohibited any one fro seen nine woether in Leith, in 1664

”Scotch witchcraft,” says Lecky, ”was but the result of Scotch Puritanism, and it faithfully reflected the character of its parent”

On the Continent it was as bad Catholics and Protestants could unite in one thing--the extirpation of witches and infidels Papal bulls were issued against witchcraft as well as heresy Luther said: ”I would have no compassion on these witches--I would burn them all” In Catholic Italy a thousand persons were executed in a single year in the province of Como

See The Darker Superstitions of Scotland, by Sir John Grahaow, 1835

History of the Rise and Influence of Rationalism in Europe, vol i, p 144

Colloquia de Fascinationibus

In one province of Protestant Sweden 2,500 witches were burnt in 1670

Stories of the horrid tortures which acco, stories that will fill the eyes with tears and the heart with raging fire against the brutal superstition which provoked such barbarities, may be found in Dalyell, Lecky, Michelet, and the voluminous literature of the subject And all these tortures and executions were sanctioned and defended from the Bible The more pious the people the more firm their conviction of the reality of witchcraft Sir Matthew Hale, in hanging twothat the reality of witchcraft was unquestionable; ”for first, the Scripture had affirmed so much; and, secondly, the wisdoainst such persons”

Witch belief and witch persecutions have existed froe times down to the rise and spread ofin history than the fact of the great European outburst against witchcraft following upon the Reformation and the translations of God's Holy Word, This was no mere coincidence, but a necessary consequence ”It was not until after the Refor out of witches,” says J R Lowell

A my Books, p 128 Macmillan, 1870

If the Bible teaches not witchcraft, then it teaches nothing

Science and scepticis made Christians ashaht a new interpretation They say it is a mistranslation; that _poisoners_ are meant, and not _witches_ Now, in the first place, poisoners were really dealt with by the cole Hebrew scholar of repute would venture to so render the word of our text Its root, translated ”witch,” is given by Gesenius as ”to use enchantment”

Fuerst, Parkhurst, Frey, Newree Not one suggests that ”poisoner” could be considered an equivalent The derivatives of this word are translated with thiswherever they occur Thus Exodus vii 11, ”the wise men and the sorcerers” Deuterono you anyone that useth divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch, or a charmer, or a consulter with fas ix 22, ”her witchcrafts” 2 Chronicles xxxiii 6, Manesseh ”used enchantments, and used witchcraft, and dealt with a familiar spirit and izards”

Isaiah xlvii 9 and 12, ”thy sorceries” Jereicians, and the astrologers, and the sorcerers, and the Chaldeans” Micah v 12, ”And I will cut off witchcrafts, and thou shalt have no soothsayers” Nahum iii 4, ”witchcrafts” Malachi iii 5, ”I will be a sitness against the sorcerers” The only pretence for this rendering of _poisoner_ is the fact that Josephus (_Antiquities_, bk iv, ch viii, sec 34) gives a law against keeping poisons As there is no such law in the Pentateuch, Whiston tried to kill two difficulties with one note, by saying that e render a _witch_ int has also been appealed to, but Sir Charles Lee Brenton, in his translation of the Septuagint, has not thought proper to render our text other than, ”Ye shall not save the lives of sorcerers”

But apart froiven those in which occurs one word out of the _ itself is woven into the structure of the Bible Not only do the Egyptian enchanters work miracles and the witch of Endor raise Samuel, but the power of evil spirits over men is the occasion of most of the miracles of Jesus The very doctrine of the inspiration of the Bible, so cherished by Protestant Christians, is but a part of that doctrine of ood and evil, which is the substratum of belief in witchcraft

Even yet this belief is not entirely extinct in England; and Dr Buckley says that in America a majority of the citizens believe in witchcraft

The modern Ro the examination of a possessed patient ”not to believe the demon if he profess to be the soul of soel” As late as 1773 the divines of the associated Presbytery passed a resolution declaring their belief in witchcraft, and deploring the scepticiseneral In the Church Catechisate in Kent--a hich went through many editions, and received the sanction of the Society for Proe--a copy of which lies before me, published in 1813, reads (p 18): ”Q What isof all familiarity and contracts with the Devil, whereof witches, conjurors, and such as resort to theotten that this belief which has not only been the cause of the deaths of tens of thousands of innocent women, but has sent far more into the worst convulsions ofof the Bible

SAUL'S SPIRITUALIST STANCE AT ENDOR

”Our own tiroup of beliefs and practices which have their roots deep in the very stratum of early philosophy, where witchcraft roup of beliefs and practices constitutes what is now commonly known as Spiritualism”--Dr

E B Tylor, ”Primitive Culture” vol i, p 128

The oldest portion of the Old Testaes and the Books of Saht on the early belief of the Jews than the story of Saul and the witch of Endor It is hardly necessary to recount the story, which is told with a vigor and sienuineness Saul, who had incurred Sa, after the death of the prophet, found troubles coth of his enemies, the Philistines, he ”inquired of the Lord” But the Lord was not at home At any rate, he ”answered him not, neither by dreaiti thus shut up, Saul sought in disguise and by night a woman who had an _ob_ or familiar spirit Now Saul had done his best to suppress witchcraft, having ”put away those who had familiar spirits, and the wizards out of the land”

So when he said to the witch, ”I pray thee divine untohim up whom I shall name unto thee,” the woman was afraid, and asked if he laid a snare for her Saul swore hard and fast he would not hurt her, and it is evident from his question he believed in her powers of necromancy by the aid of the familiar spirit

This alone shows that the Jews, like all uncivilised people, and hosts and the possibility of their return, but, as we shall see, it does not imply that they believed in future rewards and punishments Saul's expectations were not disappointed He asked to see Samuel, and _up_ Samuel came He asked what she saw, and she said _Elohirn_, or as we have it, ”Gods ascending out of the earth” In this fact that the sahosts_ and for _Gods_, we have the y

The modern Christian of course believes that Samuel as a holy prophet dwells in heaven above, and may wonder, if he thinks of the narrative at all, why he should be recalled froic control of this weird, not to say scandalous, female But Samuel came up, not down from heaven, in accordance, of course, with the old belief that Sheol, or the underworld, was beneath the earth

Christian co to escape the difficulties of this story, and its endorsement of the superstition of witchcraft The _Speakers' Coests that the Witch of Endor was a feenuously, does not explain that ventriloquists in ancient ti inside their bodies