“a man of serious character, of austere and simple habits, broadly cultivated”35; Benedict XII, a pious Cistercian monk, most learned in theology; Innocent VIII, a magnificent prelate, scholar and diplomatist; Gregory XV, an expert in canon and civil law, most just and merciful of pontiffs, brilliantly talented. We have the names of learned men, such as Gerson, Chancellor of Notre-Dame and of the University of Paris, “justly regarded as one of the master intellects of his age”36; James Sprenger, O.P., who for all his etymological errors was a scholar of vast attainments; Jean Bodin, “one of the chief founders of political philosophy and political history”36; Erasmus; Bishop Jewell, of Salisbury, “one of the ablest and most authoritative expounders of the true genius and teaching of the reformed Church of England”37; the gallant Raleigh; Lord Bacon; Sir Edward Coke; Cardinal Mazarin; the illustrious Boyle; Cudworth, “perhaps the most profound of all the great scholars who have adorned the English Church”36; Selden; Henry More; Sir Thomas Browne; Joseph Glanvill, who “has been surpassed in genius by few of his successors”36; Meric Casaubon, the learned Prebendary of Canterbury; Sir Matthew Hale; Sir George Mackenzie; William Blackstone; and many another divine, lawyer, scholar, of lesser note. It is inconceivable that all these, mistaken as they might be in some details, should have been wholly deluded and beguiled. The learned Sinistrari in his De Dæmonialitate,38 upon the authoritative sentence of Francesco-Maria Guazzo, an Ambrosian, (Compendium Maleficarum, Liber I. 7), writes: “Primo, ineunt pactum expressum cum Dæmone aut alio Mago seu Malefico uicem Dæmonis gerente, et testibus præsentibus de seruitio diabolico suscipiendo: Dæmon uero uice uersa honores, diuitias, et carnales delectationes illis pollicetur.” (Firstly, the Novices have to conclude with the Demon, or some other Wizard or Magician acting in the Demon’s place, an express compact by which, in the presence of witnesses, they enlist in the Demon’s service, he giving them in exchange his pledge for honours, riches, and carnal pleasures.)
It is said that the formal pact was sometimes verbal, sometimes a signed document. In every case it was voluntary, and as Görres points out, the usual initiation into these foul
