one or another point of dogma and morals, but they accepted all the traditions which did not involve the dogmas which seemed to them false. They laid great stress on the authority of Scripture, and therefore thought the existence of demons and witches quite beyond question. They accepted and used the Malleus as the codex of witchcraft, and they outstripped the Inquisition in cruelty and wrong-headedness. The witchcraft notion had now been formulated and given back to the popular classes with ecclesiastical sanction, and for two centuries it was a part of the mores of Christendom in which all churches and sects agreed. In fact it was after the reformation-schism took place that witch-persecutions became a great mania throughout Christendom, and especially in Germany.[1] Under Calvin, at Geneva, in 1542, many witches were executed.[2] In Italy witchcraft was confined, for the most part, to mountain regions. In other provinces it was confounded with crimes of poisoning, abortion, or the fomentation of conspiracies in private families.[3] Luther was distinguished for his faith in the devil; Satan was to him quite as real as God, and far more familiar; he saw satanic agency in whatever annoyed him.[4] Sin and Satan were conjoined; the one presupposed the other. Luther explained a cretin as the offspring of a demon and a woman, and on his own responsibility[5] ordered that it be drowned.
Early in the sixteenth century the secular authorities of Protestant and Catholic countries employed the utmost severity in the extirpation of witches, of whose existence and horrible activity everybody was convinced. The cumulative notion of witches was no longer a spe-
1 Scherr, J.: l.c., 369, 372.
2 Janssen. J.: l.c., VIII, 546.
3 Symonds, J. A.: The Catholic Reaction, I, 455.
4 Lecky, W. E. H.: History of the Rise and Influence of the Spirit of Rationalism in Europe, I, 82.
5 Scherr, J.: l.c., 375.
