The extent of the credit and practice of witchcraft under the Church triumphant is evident from the numerous…
- Date of account
- Published 1865
- Source
- The Superstitions of Witchcraft
- Reference
- The Superstitions of Witchcraft · selected passage 45
- Rights
- public_domain
- Language
- English
- Record updated
- 2026-08-24
Record summary
The extent of the credit and practice of witchcraft under the Church triumphant is evident from the numerous decrees and anathemas of the Church in council, which, while oftener treating it as a dread reality, has sometimes ventured to contemn or to affect to contemn it as imposture and delusion
Published source text
Read the available text below. Archive transcriptions may contain OCR errors; later context is labelled separately. A recorded claim is not a finding that it happened.
Source passage
Source text · mention onlyThe extent of the credit and practice of witchcraft under the Church triumphant is evident from the numerous decrees and anathemas of the Church in council, which, while oftener treating it as a dread reality, has sometimes ventured to contemn or to affect to contemn it as imposture and delusion. Both the civil and ecclesiastical laws were exceptionally severe towards _goetic_ practices. 'In all those laws of the Christian emperors,' says Bingham, 'which granted indulgences to criminals at the Easter festival, the _venefici_ and the _malefici_, that is, magical practices against the lives of men, are always excepted as guilty of too heinous a crime to be comprised within the general pardon granted to other offenders.'[35] In earlier ecclesiastical history, successive councils or synods are much concerned in fulminating against them. The council of Ancyra (314) prohibits the art under the name of pharmacy: a few years' penance being appointed for anyone receiving a magician into his house. St. Basil's canons, more severe, appoint thirty years as the necessary atonement.
Historical context
Contextual commentary · mention onlyThis is a historical account assembled under the reporting and publishing conventions of its period. It may preserve testimony, hearsay, retelling and editorial interpretation together.
Modern context
Contextual commentary · mention onlyA modern comparison can identify recurring descriptions and possible explanations, but the account is not treated as independently verified evidence merely because it appeared in print.
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