“This letter lying by me some time before I thought it opportune to convey it, and in the meanwhile meeting more than once with those that seemed to have some opinion of Mr. Webster’s criticisms and interpretations of Scripture, as if he had quitted himself so well there, that no proof thence can hereafter be expected of the being of a witch, which is the scope that he earnestly aims at; and I reflecting upon that passage in my letter, which does not stick to condemn Webster’s whole book for a weak and impertinent piece, presently thought fit, (that you might not think that censure over-rash or unjust) it being an endless task to shew all the weakness and impertinencies of his discourse, briefly by way of Postscript, to hint the weakness and impertinency of this part which is counted the master-piece of the work, that thereby you may perceive that my judgment has not been at all rash touching the whole.
“And in order to this, we are first to take notice what is the real scope of his book; which if you peruse, you shall certainly find to be this: That the parties ordinarily deemed witches and wizzards, are only knaves and queans, to use his phrase, and arrant cheats, or deep melancholists; but have no more to do with any evil spirit or devil, or the devil with them, than he has with other sinners or wicked men, or they with the devil. And secondly, we are impartially to define what is the true notion of a witch or wizzard, which is necessary for the detecting of Webster’s impertinencies.
“As for the words witch and wizzard, from the notation of them, they signify no more than a wise man or a wise woman. In the word wizzard, it is plain at the very first sight. And I think the most plain and least operose deduction of the name witch, is from wit, whose derived adjective might be wittigh or wittich, and by contraction afterwards witch; as the noun wit is from the verb to weet, which is, to know. So that a witch, thus far, is no more than a knowing woman; which answers exactly to the Latin word saga, according to that of Festus, Sagæ dictæ anus quæ multa sciunt. Thus in general: but use questionless had appropriated the word to such a kind of skill and knowledge, as was out of the common road, or extraordinary. Nor did this peculiarity imply in it any unlawfulness. But there was after a further restriction and most proper of all, and in which alone now-a-days the words witch and wizzard are used. And that is, for one that has the knowledge or skill of doing or telling things in an extraordinary way, and that in virtue of either an express or implicit sociation or confederacy with some evil spirit. This is a true and adequate definition of a witch or wizzard, which to whomsoever it belongs, is such, et vice versâ. But to prove or defend that there neither are, nor ever were any such, is, as I said, the main scope of Webster’s book: in order to which, he endeavours in his sixth and eighth chapters to evacuate all the testimonies of Scripture; which how weakly and impertinently he has done, I shall now shew with all possible brevity and perspicuity.
“The words that he descants upon are Deut. c. xviii. v. 10, 11: ‘There shall not be found among you any one that useth divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch, or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizzard, or a necromancer.’ The first word in the Hebrew is קוסם קסמים, kosem kesamim, a diviner. Here because קסם kasam, sometimes has an indifferent sense, and signifies to divine by natural knowledge or human prudence or sagacity; therefore nothing of such a witch as is imagined to make a visible league with the devil, or to have her body sucked by him, or have carnal copulation with him, or is really turned into a cat, hare, wolf or dog, can be deduced from this word. A goodly inference indeed, and hugely to the purpose, as is apparent from the foregoing definition. But though that cannot be deduced, yet in that, this divination that is here forbidden, is plainly declared abominable and execrable, as it is v. 12, it is manifest that such a divination is understood that really is so; which cannot well be conceived to be, unless it imply either an express or implicite inveaglement with some evil invisible powers who assist any kind of those divinations that may be comprehended under this general term. So that this is plainly one name of witchcraft, according to the genuine definition thereof. And the very words of Saul to the witch of Endor, are, קסומי נא לי באוב; that is to say, ‘Divine to me, I pray thee, by thy familiar spirit.’ Which is more than by natural knowledge or human sagacity.
“The next word is מעונן megnonen, which, though our English translation renders [gnon] (tempus,) ‘an observer of times;’ which should rather be a declarer of the seasonableness of the time, or unseasonableness of the time, or unseasonableness as to success; a thing which is inquired of also from witches, yet the usual sense, rendered by the learned in the language, is præstigiatur, an imposer on the sight, Sapientes prisci, says Buxtorf, a עין [gnajin, oculus] deduxerunt et מעונן [megnonen] esse eum dixerunt, qui tenet et præstringit oculos, ut falsum pro vero videant. Lo, another word that signifies a witch or a wizzard, which has its name properly from imposing on the sight, and making the by-stander believe he sees forms or transformations of things he sees not! As when Anne Bodenham transformed herself before Anne Styles in the shape of a great cat; Anne Styles’s sight was so imposed upon, that the thing to her seemed to be done, though her eyes were only deluded. But such a delusion certainly cannot be performed without confederacy with evil spirits. For to think the word signifies præstigiator, in that sense we translate in English, juggler, or a hocus-pocus, is so fond a conceit, that no man of any depth of wit can endure it. As if a merry juggler that plays tricks of legerdemain at a fair or market, were such an abomination to either the God of Israel, or to his law-giver Moses; or as if a hocus-pocus were so wise a wight as to be consulted as an oracle: for it is said, v. 14, ‘For the nations which thou shalt possess, they consult,’ מעוננים megnonenim. What, do they consult jugglers and hocus-pocusses? No, certainly, they consult witches or wizzards, and diviners, as Anne Styles did Anne Bodenham.’ Wherefore here is evidently a second name of a witch.
“The third word in the text is מנחש menachesh, which our English translation renders, an enchanter. And, with Mr. Webster’s leave, (who insulteth so over their supposed ignorance) I think they have translated it very learnedly and judiciously; for charming and enchanting, as Webster himself acknowledges, and the words intimate, being all one, the word, מנחש menachesh, here, may very well signify enchanters, or charmers; but such properly as kill serpents by their charming, from נחש nachash, which signifies a serpent, from whence comes נחש nichesh, to kill serpents, or make away with them. For a verb in pihel, sometimes (especially when it is formed from a noun) has a contrary signification. Thus from שרש radix is שרש radices evulsit, from דשן cinis דשן removit cineres, from חטא peccavit חטא expiavit à peccato; and so lastly from נחש serpens, is made נחש liberavit â serpentibus, nempe occidendo vel fugando per incantationem. And therefore there seems to have been a great deal of skill and depth of judgment in our English translators that rendered מנחש menachesh, an enchanter, especially when that of augur or soothsayer, which the Septuagint call Ὀιωνιζόμενον (there being so many harmless kinds of it) might seem less suitable with this black list: for there is no such abomination in adventuring to tell, when the wild geese fly high in great companies, and cackle much, that hard weather is at hand, but to rid serpents by a charm is above the power of nature; and therefore an indication of one that has the assistance of some invisible spirit to help him in this exploit, as it happens in several others; and therefore this is another name of one that is really a witch.
“The fourth word is מכשף mecasseph, which our English translators render, a witch; for which I have no quarrel with them, unless they should so understand it that it must exclude others from being so in that sense I have defined, which is impossible they should. But this, as the foregoing, is but another term of the same thing; that is, of a witch in general, but so called here from the prestigious imposing on the sight of beholders. Buxtorf tells us, that Aben Ezra defines those to be מכשפים [mecassephim] qui mutant et transformant res naturales ad aspectum oculi. Not as jugglers and hocus-pocusses, as Webster would ridiculously insinuate, but so as I understood the thing in the second name; for these are but several names of a witch, who may have several more properties than one name intimates. Whence it is no wonder that translators render not them always alike. But so many names are reckoned up here in this clause of the law of Moses, that, as in our common law, the sense may be more sure, and leave no room to evasion. And that here this name is not from any tricks of legerdemain as in common jugglers that delude the sight of the people at a market or fair, but that it is the name of such as raise magical spectres to deceive men’s sight, and so are most certainly witches, is plain from Exod. chap. xxii, v. 18, ‘Thou shalt not suffer,’ מכשפה mecassephah, that is, ‘a witch, to live.’ Which would be a law of extreme severity, or rather cruelty, against a poor hocus-pocus for his tricks of legerdemain.
“The fifth name is חובר חבר chobher chebher, which our English translators render charmer, which is the same with enchanter. Webster upon this name is very tedious and flat, a many words and small weight in them. I shall dispatch the meaning briefly thus: this חובר חבר, chobher chebher, that is to say, socians societatem, is another name of a witch, so called specially either from the consociating together serpents by a charm, which has made men usually turn it (from the example of the Septuagint, ἐπάδων ἐπαοιδὴν,) a charmer, or an enchanter, or else from the society or compact of the witch with some evil spirits; which Webster acknowledges to have been the opinion of two very learned men, Martin Luther and Perkins, and I will add a third, Aben Ezra, (as Martinius hath noted,) who gives this reason of the word חובר chobher, an enchanter, which signifies socians or jungens, viz. Quòd malignos spiritus sibi associat. And certainly one may charm long enough, even till his heart aches, ere he make one serpent assemble near him, unless helped by this confederacy of spirits that drive them to the charmer. He keeps a pudder with the sixth verse of the fifty-eighth Psalm to no purpose; whereas from the Hebrew, אשר לא־ישמע לקול מלחשים חובר חברים מחכם, if you repeat ἀπὸ κοινoῦ לקול before חובר, you may with ease and exactness render it thus: ‘That hears not the voice of muttering charmers, no not the voice of a confederate wizzard, or charmer that is skilful.’ But seeing charms, unless with them that are very shallow and sillily credulous, can have no such effects of themselves, there is all the reason in the world (according as the very word intimates, and as Aben Ezra has declared,) to ascribe the effect to the assistance, confederacy, and co-operation of evil spirits, and so חובר חברים, chobher chabharim, or חובר חבר chobher chebher, will plainly signify a witch or wizzard according to the true definition of them. But for J. Webster’s rendering this verse, p. 119, thus, Quæ non audiet vocem mussitantium incantationes docti incantantis, (which he saith is doubtless the most genuine rendering of the place) let any skilful man apply it to the Hebrew text, and he will presently find it grammatical nonsense. If that had been the sense, it should have been חברי חובר מחכם.
“The sixth word is שואל אוב, shoel obh, which our English translation renders, ‘a consulter with familiar spirits;’ but the Septuagint Ἐγγαστρίμυθος. Which therefore must needs signifie him that has this familiar spirit: and therefore שואל אוב shoel obh, I conceive, (considering the rest of the words are so to be understood) is to be understood of the witch or wizzard himself that asks counsel of his familiar, and does by virtue of him give answers unto others. The reason of the name of אוב obh, it is likely was taken first from that spirit that was in the body of the party, and swelled it to a protuberancy like the side of a bottle. But after, without any relation to that circumstance, OBH signifies as much as pytho; as pytho also, though at first it took its name from the pythii vates, signifies no more than spiritum divinationis, in general, a spirit that tells hidden things, or things to come. And OBH and pytho also agree in this, that they both signify either the divinatory spirit itself, or the party that has that spirit. But here in שואל אוב, shoel obh, it being rendered by the Septuagint Ἐγγαςείμυθος, OBH is necessarily understood of the spirit itself, as pytho is, Acts xvi. 16, if you read πνεῦμα πύδωνα, with Isaac Casaubon; but if πύθωνος, it may be understood either way. Of this πνεύμα πύθων, it is recorded in that place, that ‘Paul being grieved, turned and said to that spirit, I command thee, in the name of Jesus Christ, to come out of her, and he came out at the same hour;’ which signifies as plainly as any thing can be signified, that this pytho or spirit of divination, that this OBH was in her: for nothing can come out of the sack that was not in the sack, as the Spanish proverb has it; nor could this pytho come out of her unless it was a spirit distinct from her; wherefore I am amazed at the profane impudence of J. Webster, that makes this pytho in the maid there mentioned, nothing but a wicked humour of cheating and cozening divination: and adds, that this spirit was no more cast out of that maid than the seven devils out of Mary Magdalene, which he would have understood only of her several vices; which foolish familistical conceit he puts upon Beza as well as Adie. Wherein as he is most unjust to Beza, so he is most grossly impious and blasphemous against the spirit of Christ in St. Paul and St. Luke, who makes them both such fools as to believe that there was a spirit or divining devil in the maid, when according to him there is no such thing. Can any thing be more frantic or ridiculous than this passage of St. Paul, if there was no spirit or devil in the damsel? But what will this profane shuffler stick to do in a dear regard to his beloved hags, of whom he is sworn advocate, and resolved patron right or wrong?
“But to proceed, that אוב, obh, signifies the spirit itself that divines, not only he that has it, is manifest from Levit. xx. 27, Vir autem sive mulier cùm fuerit [בהם אוב] in eis pytho. And 1 Sam. xxviii. 8, Divina quæso mihi [באוב] per pythonem. In the Septuagint it is ἐν τῶν Ἐγγαστρίμυθῳ, that is, by that spirit that sometimes goes into the body of the party, and thence gives answers; but here it only signifies a familiar spirit. And lastly, בעלת אוב, bagnalath obh, 1 Sam. xxviii. 7, Quæ habit pythonem; there OBH must needs signify the spirit itself, of which she of Endor was the owner or possessor; that is to say, it was her familiar spirit. But see what brazen and stupid impudence will do here, בעלת אוב, bagnalath obh, with Webster must not signify one that has a familiar spirit, but the mistress of the bottle. Who but the master of the bottle, or rather of whom the bottle had become master, and by guzzling had made his wits excessively muddy and frothy, could ever stumble upon such a foolish interpretation? But because אוב obh, in one place of the Scripture signifies a bottle, it must signify so here, and it must be the instrument forsooth, out of which this cheating quean of Endor does ‘whisper, peep, or chirp like a chicken coming out of the shell,’ p. 129, 165. And does she not, I beseech you, put her nib also into it sometimes, as into a reed, as it is said of that bird, and cries like a butter-bump? certainly he might as well have interpreted בעלת אוב bagnalath obh, of the great tun of Heidelberg, that Tom. Coriat takes such special notice of, as of the bottle.