Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Map
- Introduction
- THE HAMMER OF WITCHES
- Structure of the text
- Author's Justification of the “Hammer for Sorceresses”
- Text of the Apostolic Bull
- Approbation and Signatures of the Doctors of the Illustrious University of Cologne
- PART I
- Question 1
- Question 2
- Question 3
- Question 4
- Question 5
- Question 6
- Question 7
- Question 8
- Question 9
- Question 10
- Question 11
- Question 12
- Question 13
- Question 14
- Question 15
- Question 16
- Question 17
- Question 18
- PART II
Question 2
from PART I
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 August 2015
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Map
- Introduction
- THE HAMMER OF WITCHES
- Structure of the text
- Author's Justification of the “Hammer for Sorceresses”
- Text of the Apostolic Bull
- Approbation and Signatures of the Doctors of the Illustrious University of Cologne
- PART I
- Question 1
- Question 2
- Question 3
- Question 4
- Question 5
- Question 6
- Question 7
- Question 8
- Question 9
- Question 10
- Question 11
- Question 12
- Question 13
- Question 14
- Question 15
- Question 16
- Question 17
- Question 18
- PART II
Summary
[TT] Whether it is a Catholic proposition to claim that in order to achieve an effect of sorcery the demon always has to co-operate with a sorcerer or that one without the other (the demon without a sorcerer or the other way around) can produce such an effect.
[AG 1] The first argument is that the demon can do so without a sorcerer (Augustine in the Book of Eighty-Three Questions [79.1–3]) because it is believed that everything that happens visibly can also be made to happen by the lower powers of the air, but since all | forms of bodily harm are not invisible but rather are perceptible, they can also be made by demons.
[AG 2] Also, as for the forms of the harm inflicted on Job (the fire coming down from the Heavens and in one fell swoop burning up his family together with the herds of sheep, and a whirlwind killing his children by blowing down the house), according to Scripture [Job 1.12–19] the Devil worked these without the co-operation of sorcerers and simply by the permission of God. Therefore, such is the case with the other things that are attributed to sorcerers. This is also clearly the case with the demon's killing of the virgin Sarah's seven husbands [Tobias 6:14–16].
[AG 3] Also, whatever power a lower virtue has without the assistance of a higher virtue, the higher virtue has without the assistance of the lower virtue. A lower virtue can stir up hailstorms and induce illnesses without the aid of the higher virtue. For Albert says of sage (Properties of Things) that has been made to rot in certain ways that he mentions in that passage, that if it is thrown into a spring, it will stir up miraculous storms in the air.
[AG 4] Also, if it is stated that the demon uses sorcery not because of any insufficiency but for the sake of the damnation of the sorceress whom he desires, Aristotle ([Nicomachean] Ethics, Bk. 3 [3.5]) says to the contrary, “Evil is an act of the will.”
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Hammer of WitchesA Complete Translation of the Malleus Maleficarum, pp. 105 - 121Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2009