[59] “The soul has a kind of body of a quality of its own.”—Tertull. cont. Marc. lib. v. cap. xv.
[60] This account is current, with slender and unimportant variations, at Oxford; or at all events was current in my days there (A.D. 1850-1854), and on what could not be regarded as other than good authority. One version is already in print—that given by Mr. William Maskell, at pp. 108-112 of his curious and interesting book, “Odds and Ends,” London, 1872. He seems to imply that it was the late Archdeacon of Cleveland, the Ven. Edward Churton, who saw the spectral apparitions in Brasenose Lane; but the Archdeacon belonged to Christ Church, and, as his son, the Rev. W. R. Churton, of Cambridge, informs me, was not resident at Oxford at the time of the occurrence. More probably it was the Archdeacon’s brother, the Rev. T. T. Churton, sometime Fellow of Brasenose.
[61] As to the universality of the belief in Witchcraft, the reader may consult Herder’s “Philosophy of History,” bk. viii. ch. 2. And as regards the convictions of some of the leading minds of Europe in times past on the subject, Mr. Leckey in his “History of Rationalism” (vol. i. p. 66), makes the following candid admission: “It is, I think, impossible to deny that the books in defence of the belief are not only far more numerous than the later works against it, but that they also represent far more learning, dialectic skill, and even general ability. For many centuries the ablest men were not merely unwilling to repudiate the superstition; they often pressed forward earnestly and with the most intense conviction to defend it. Indeed, during the period when Witchcraft was most prevalent there were few writers of real eminence who did not, on some occasion, take especial pains to throw the weight of their authority into the scale. Thomas Aquinas was probably the ablest writer of the thirteenth century, and he assures us that diseases and tempests are often the direct acts of the devil; that the devil can transport men at his pleasure through the air; and that he can transform them into any shape. Gerson, the Chancellor of the University of Paris, and, as many think, the author of ‘The Imitation,’ is justly regarded as one of the master intellects of his age; and he, too, wrote in defence of the belief. Bodin was unquestionably the most original political philosopher who had arisen since Machiavelli, and he devoted all his learning and acuteness to crushing the rising scepticism ‘on the subject of witches.’”
[62] 1 S. Peter v. 8.
[63] Acts xvi. 16-18.
[64] Apologia, cap. v. De Civit. Dei, lib. xv. cap. xxiii.
[65] 1 Cor. xi. 10.
[66] Ibid. xi. 15.
[67] Luther, following the current tradition of his day, believed that the Devil could beget children on the bodies of women; and declared that he himself had personally come across, and was well acquainted with, one of the Devil’s offspring. So too did Erasmus believe the fact of such generation. It is a tradition in the Catholic Church, that the last and great Antichrist—the final Antichrist—may be born of such an alliance. Of course Mahomet was a great Antichrist; for though he borrowed certain Christian features and adopted many Jewish notions and Rabbinical traditions in his system, yet he plainly and undoubtedly fulfilled the prophetic statement of S. John the Divine—“He is Antichrist, who denieth the Father and the Son.” (1 S. John ii. 22.) Mahomet’s great and leading heresy is expressed in the following dogmatic assertion of the Koran: “God neither begetteth nor is begotten.” Now no system has more pertinaciously, successfully, and for so long a time opposed Christianity than Mahometanism—not even Arianism. But modern “Liberalism,” so called, as still developing amongst ancient Christian nations, promises even to outstrip the system of Mahomet, and to be as blighting and baneful in its results.
[68] “An Account of the Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians.” By E. W. Lane. 5th edition. London: 1860.