Patty Houser

A. Introduction

It plagued educated Europeans for centuries. The belief in an underground society of witches who not only swore an oath of allegiance to Satan, but also willfully served him by perpetrating pain, suffering and death upon their unsuspecting neighbors, terrified many.[1] By their own confession, witches claimed they worshipped Satan on Friday nights in local gatherings called the sabbat.[2] Indeed, congregating in churchyards, graveyards and the gallows, witches said they prayed to Satan, who was usually present in the form of a human or a “hideous horned creature,” renounced Christ and kissed Satan on the anus to end the service.[3] Afterwards they claimed they feasted on a roasted human baby, attended a blasphemous Christian service, gave an account of the harm they inflicted on others then danced and had boundless sex with each other before they ended their time together by having intercourse with Satan who transformed himself into a male or a female to fit the needs of his partner.[4] They claimed there were general sabbats as well. To attend these, witches said they used magic to conjure up flying horses, rams, dogs and broomsticks to travel the long distances and said that these were similar to the local sabbats, but were on a larger scale and typically ended with Satan charging them to “do as much harm as possible to their Christian neighbors.”[5]

In light of such horrific beliefs, what was one to do? The only logical answer was to try to stop the unspeakable evil which is precisely what was done. Thus, witch-hunts were conducted in Europe from as early as 1450 to as late as 1750 to rid society of its witches.[6] But who conducted these witch-hunts and whom did they target? And what exactly qualified one as a witch and how did one know someone was a witch? “Few topics have prompted so much nonsense and outright fabrication as the European witch-hunts.”[7] Indeed, a number of the most famous accounts cited never happened, the number of witches executed has been grossly exaggerated, and who was killed, where, how and when they were killed, has also been greatly misunderstood as was who the actual perpetrators of the witch-hunts were. In this paper, I will argue that when the Church participated in the European witch-hunts, it did so because it genuinely believed it was the right thing to do in the society in which it lived. However, before I do that, it is first necessary to give a brief overview of what the European witch-hunts were as well as set the record straight about their facts.

B. Overview of Witch-hunts

The European witch-hunts or witch-crazes, as they are sometimes called, were an historical event in Europe that spanned from approximately 1450 to 1750 in which thousands of people, many of whom were women, were rounded up and tried for the crime of witchcraft and were executed, usually by being burned at the stake, if convicted.[8] While scholars such as Mary Daly, Pennethorne Hughes and Andrea Dworkin have made the audacious claim that millions of people were executed in the witch-hunts in Europe and even likened them to the Holocaust, other careful scholars state otherwise. For instance, in his book For the Glory of God, Rodney Stark, distinguished American Professor of Sociology and Religion at Baylor University, said that “scholars who have sifted through the actual records with a real concern for numbers agree that the best estimate is that only about 60,000 people—men as well as women—were executed as ‘witches’ in Europe during the entire witch-hunting period.”[9] And in his book Witches and Neighbors, Senior Research Fellow at All Souls College at Oxford, Robin Briggs, said “the best informed recent estimates place the total number of executions for witchcraft in Europe somewhere between 40,000 and 50,000, figures which allow for a reasonable level of lost documentation.”[10] In addition, while it is true that the majority of those executed in the European witch-hunts were women, not all were women. Briggs said, “The one thing everyone ‘knows’ about witches is that they were women. Although every serious historical account recognized that large numbers of men were accused and executed on similar charges, this fact has never really penetrated to become part of the general knowledge on the subject”[11] and places the total of men executed at 25 percent[12] while Stark places it at 33 percent.[13]

While there is no doubt that some of the infamous witch hunters were indeed fanatics or sexually repressed clergy who stopped at nothing to see that the accused were brought to death,[14] English historian, Hugh Trevor-Roper, known for his work in 17^th Century European history, said that “the most ferocious of witch-burning princes, we often find are also the most cultured patrons of contemporary learning”[15] who according to Stark, “seemed quite concerned to reach fair verdicts.”[16] In addition, Stark said that “the overall conviction rate of those brought to trial for witchcraft was about 50-55 percent” which he said was as “low as criminal prosecutions went in those days.”[17] Furthermore, with respect to who did the accusing, Stark said, “a very high percentage of women charged with witchcraft were accused by other women, not men—influential or otherwise.”[18] Moreover, while it is true thousands were put to death, death was not the “inevitable outcome” for in many places such as Spain, for instance, the penalty for a first offense was typically that the accused become reconciled with the Church through repentance without punishment.[19] Also, while torture was indeed used to extract confessions, it was not inappropriately used only to those accused of being witches during the European witch-hunts for according to Stark, “torture was generally regarded as a legitimate tool of justice and was also applied to many accused of conventional crimes” and stated that the Church “was most reluctant to use torture and eventually took the lead in prohibiting its use.”[20]

Despite the belief that the European witch–hunt trials were evenly distributed throughout Europe over time and space from 1450 to 1750, this was not the case for while a few did begin in 1450, the majority of them “tended to come in waves” and were “concentrated in a few places” the most brutal of which were “clustered” between 1550 and 1650.[21] And while the initial trials did begin in the courts of the Church, Brian Levack, the John Green Regents Professor in History at the University of Texas, said that most of them took place in the “secular courts—the courts of kingdoms, states, principalities, duchies, counties and towns” especially after 1550 which is when the majority of them took place.[22] Now with a basic understanding of what the European witch-hunts were and with some of the misconceptions cleared up, it is possible to explore why the Church believed that participating in the European witch-hunts was the right thing to do in the society in which it lived.

C. The Church’s Role

The world in which the Church lived during the time of the European witch-hunts was a magical world. And this magical world was not just located outside the Church for there was a magical world inside the Church as well. After a failed attempt to rid society of pagan practices and beliefs which were once so prevalent in the Greco-Roman world, the Church instead subsumed many of the pagan ways of life into its own system of beliefs by Christianizing not only the beliefs and practices it believed were too popular to suppress, but also the magical places as well.[23] Stark said, “[I]n many matters concerning magic, and especially the survival of pagan folk magic, the Church adopted the strategy of incorporation”[24] and cited Keith Thomas as saying, “Hundreds of magical springs that dotted the country became ‘holy wells,’ associated with a saint, but they were still employed for magical healing and for divining the future. Their water was sometimes even believed to be peculiarly suitable for use in baptism.”[25] Additionally, Stark states:

Soon the landscape of Britain and Europe was filled with shrines, churches and abbeys, each with its collection of holy relics, each a potential source of supernatural effects. Often these relics consisted of bones or belongings of local saints or martyrs, but some were thought to have come all the way from the holy Land—usually via Constantinople. By seeing relics, by touching the caskets and reliquaries, in which they were kept, by praying before them for intercession, people sought all manner of results—healing being perhaps primary…People did not need to depend upon a magician or sorcerer now, since they had access to a full spectrum of supernatural control and benefits through the Church within limits.[26]

To what “limits” is Stark referring? In order to understand to what “limits” Stark is referring, it is important to differentiate between magic, sorcery and satanism because doing so will not only help understand what limits the Church was willing to engage in within the world of magic, but also will give insight into why the Church believed it was doing the right thing when it participated in the European witch-hunts.

According to Brian Pavlac, the chair of the History Department at King’s College in Pennsylvania, there is two forms of magic. There is white magic and black magic. Pavlac says white magic “draws on natural-connected supernatural forces and aims to help people.”[27] Stark calls it “ordinary magic” and says it involves “simple charms, spells, and potions directed towards controlling the weather, fertility, love, health, and wealth.” White magic was “widely practiced” during the time of the European witch-hunts, but was not a crime for which anyone got into “serious trouble.”[28] It was this kind of magic in which the Church engaged. Indeed, Stark said that “the Church was not only content to rely only on shrines and relics to produce medical results,” but also engaged in many other “treatments” that “paralleled the traditional spells and incantations,” of the pagan magical world, but did so, however, within the realm of religion.[29]

Black magic, on the other hand, or maleficia, as it is sometimes called which in Latin means “evil things made,” derives its power from demons and is used to harm people.[30] Levack says that black magic or maleficia is:

[T]he performance of harmful deeds by means of some sort of extraordinary, mysterious, occult, preternatural or supernatural power. This type of magic would include the killing of a person by piercing a doll made in his or her image, inflicting sickness on a child by reciting a spell, bringing down hail on crops by burning enchanted substances, starting a fire by leaving a hexed sword in a room, and causing impotence in a bridegroom by tying knots in a piece of leather and leaving it to his proximity.[31]

Like white magic, black magic was also fairly common during the time of the European witch-hunts, but differed in that it was considered to be a serious crime for obvious reasons.[32]

Sorcery is also a form of magic, but is a much more elaborate form because it requires “substantial knowledge and training to employ” the “special rites, spells, calculations, and paraphernalia” necessary to perform it.[33] It also includes such things as “alchemy, astrology, divination, and necromancy”[34] While sorcery has the same goals as “ordinary magic,” it is nevertheless considered to be much more powerful which makes it much more dangerous. Thus, it was also a serious crime.[35]

Satanism, however, is not considered to be a form of magic because it is the “collaboration with,” and “worship of,” Satan which pushes it across “the line from magic into religion.”[36] Of Satanism Thurston said:

The witches were said to fly to great gatherings, the sabbats, a word taken from Jewish services. When the witches congregated, they ate coarse food, danced to mournful tunes, celebrated a kind of anti-mass with their master and engaged in repulsive sexual acts with each other and the demons. Coupling with the devil was far from pleasurable, the witches of Steinthal and many others reported; the male and female demons both felt cold, ‘like ice’, and for female witches the experience was sometimes as painful as giving birth…They [witches] were fond of destroying crops, animals and humans. Their favourite prey was babies.[37]

Thus, satanism is very different from both black magic and sorcery because when witches who engaged in it sought to harm others, they did so not out of jealously, envy or spite of their neighbors as those who engaged in or hired people to perform black magic or sorcery did,[38] but rather did so to show their allegiance to Satan.[39]

While it is true that both black magic and sorcery were considered to be serious crimes of witchcraft for which many were brought to trial, engaging in them was not what came to define a witch in Europe during the European witch-hunts. Rather, engaging in satanism was what came to define a witch in the European witch-hunts. Stark said, “Satanism was the essence of European witchcraft and the grounds for imposing the death penalty” which he said was a “purely European idea” that “sharply set” “the European notion of witchcraft apart from all the other primitive peoples of the world which he says is why we do not see the systematic hunting of witches in any other period of history.[40] And how did one become a satanist? In short, one became a satanist by making a pact with the devil. Indeed, Thurston said that European witches not only agreed to be Satan’s servants by making a pact with him, but also that they did so “voluntarily and of their own free will” a point, he says, which is terribly important for understanding the European witch-hunts.[41] I agree for I believe it explains the Church’s role. When the Church participated in the European witch-hunts, it did so not out of out hatred for women or greed or because some in it were mentally unstable as some in the past have argued,[42] but rather did so because it really believed the people it hunted were active satanists who freely chose to not only worship and serve Satan – “the supernatural foe of the Christian God and the personification of evil,”[43] – but also to engage in all kinds of unspeakable acts of evil at his command. Pavlac stated it nicely when he said:

The infamous European witch hunts happened because people believed that witches conspired to destroy Christian society. The fallen angel Lucifer, Satan, the Devil, allegedly empowered witches to cast spells and so harm people, animals, and property. This belief led authorities to arrest, prosecute, and punish reputed witches through the justice systems and political power.[44]

Thus, because of this belief, the Church sought to rid society of satanists by hunting them down, trying them in a court of law and sending them to the gallows if found guilty just as serial murderers or terrorists today are hunted down by judicial systems all over the world and are tried in a court of law and given capital punishments if found guilty.

Some might argue that it is absurd to argue that the Church believed it was doing the right thing when it participated in the European witch-hunts because everyone knows there is no such thing as the devil for he only exists in the world of Hollywood cartoons and movies. While it is true that those who hold to a naturalistic worldview do not believe in Satan because such a worldview excludes the supernatural and thus supernatural beings a priori, those who hold to a theistic worldview, as the Church does, do believe in a supernatural world that includes not only good spiritual beings such as God and angels, but also bad spiritual beings such Satan and demons. Thus, because belief in Satan is within the confines of the Christian worldview, the Church genuinely believed he exists and therefore believed stopping people who freely chose to worship and serve him and committed heinous acts of evil at his command was the right thing to do.

Some might also argue that the people who claimed to be satanists did not freely choose to worship Satan or engage in the unspeakable acts of evil the Church claimed they did because those who admitted it did so only because the Church brutally and ruthlessly tortured them until they did. While it is true that some people who professed to be satanists were indeed coerced into admitting it by the Church as well as by the secular courts, it is important to recognize, as I stated earlier, that it was the Church, and not the secular courts, who was reluctant to use torture and was the entity that “took the lead in prohibiting its use.”[45] Furthermore, it is also important to recognize that the belief that people did freely choose to worship Satan preceded the trials and the torture. It did not come afterwards.

D. Conclusion

In his book, Witch Hunts in the Western World, historian Brian Pavlac said that no explanation of the European witch-hunts will ever “completely satisfy” historians or victims. I agree. And I am not so arrogant as to believe that my explanation will fully satisfy anyone either. But that is not my purpose. Rather, my purpose is to offer an explanation as to why the Church thought it was doing the right thing when it hunted, tried and executed people it genuinely thought were witches. But I am fully aware that an understanding of the behavior in no way makes the behavior right which is a fact, I believe, that all in the Church today must embrace. To be sure, rather than make excuses for the Church’s behavior in the European witch-hunts or seek to deny its behavior in them in an attempt to free it from the responsibility it must take for its behavior in this part of its dark past would be not only irresponsible, but also harmful because to do so would impede the Church’s ability to learn from its past mistakes. And it would also prevent those in the Church from remembering who the body of Christ is – that it is an assembly of sinners saved by God’s grace through faith in Jesus Christ – not an entity of perfect people who have never made mistakes for to embrace such an idea would be to deny the reality of the universal sinful human condition. But what is equally irresponsible and harmful is for those outside the Church to grossly misrepresent what actually happened in the European witch-hunts as so many so called “reputable” historians in the past have done in an attempt to vilify and mischaracterize the Church to push its own agenda forward for the European witch-hunts are as much a blemish on the secular court’s record as they are on the Church’s. Rather, I think it is time for everyone to embrace the truth about the European witch-hunts instead of the lies so there can be genuine repentance and forgiveness for only then can everyone move forward.

 D. Bibliography

Briggs, Robin. Witches & Neighbors: The Social and Cultural Context of European Witchcraft. New York: Penguin Books, 1996.

Levack, Brian P. The Witch-Hunt in Early Modern Europe, 3^rd ed. Harlow: Pearson Longman, 2006.

Pavlac, Brian A. Witch Hunts in the Western World: Persecution and Punishment from the Inquisition through the Salem Trials. Lincoln:    University of Nebraska Press, 2009.

Stark, Rodney. For the Glory of God. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003.

Thurston, Robert. The Witch Hunts A History of the Witch Persecutions in Europe and North America. Suffolk: Pearson Longman, 2007.

Trevor-Roper, Hugh. The Crisis of the Seventeenth Century: Religion, the Reformation & Social Change. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1967.

[1] Rodney Stark, For the Glory of God (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003), 201.