The True Story vs. Myth of Witchcraft. William Godwin

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The True Story vs. Myth of Witchcraft - William Godwin


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their fellow-men, or in charming the minds of modest persons to the practice of debauchery, is to be avenged and punished deservedly by severest penalties. But in no sorts of criminal charges are those remedies to be involved which are employed for the good of individuals, or are harmlessly employed in remote places to prevent premature rains, in the case of vineyards, or the injurious effects of winds and hailstorms, by which the health and good name of no one can be injured; but whose practices are of laudable use in preventing both the gifts of the Deity and the labours of men from being scattered and destroyed.27

      Constantine, in distinguishing between good and bad magic, between the theurgic and goetic, maintains a distinction made by the pagans—a distinction ignored in the later Christian Church, in whose system 'all demons are infernal spirits, and all commerce with them is idolatry and apostasy.' Christian zeal has accused the imperial philosopher and apostate Julian of having had recourse—not to much purpose—to many magical or necromantic rites; of cutting up the dead bodies of boys and virgins in the prescribed method; and of raising the dead to ascertain the event of his Eastern expedition against the Persians.

      The similarity of this to the horrible catastrophe of Arras, recorded by the chroniclers of the fifteenth century, excepting the grosser absurdities of the latter, is almost perfect. Valentinian and Valens, who seem to have emulated the atrocious fame of the Cæsarean family, with their ministers, concealed, it is probable, under the disguise of a simulated credulity the real motives of revenge and cupidity.


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