Note 7 — Chapter II · Witchcraft and Sorcery.

Codex Justin. lib. ix, tit. 18.

The “Dialogue on Witches and Witchcraft,” published by the Percy Society from the literature of the middle ages, presents the reasons and basis for the belief in Witchcraft, “in which is layed open how craftily the divell deceiveth not onely the witches, but many other, and so leadeth them awrie into manie great errours, By George Giffard, Minister of God’s word, in Malden, published in 1603.”

In this Dialogue, Daniel quotes Christ’s words, as reported by Marke, that his name is “Legion, for we are many,” as evidence of the existence of “multitudes and armies of divels, as we see in the Gospel.” The command of the Mosaic law “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live,” is quoted as a sufficient reason for rooting them out; the words of Moses are quoted that the Lord would cast out those nations that hearkened unto soothsayers and diviners, pronouncing that every one that does those things are an abomination to the Lord; that the Lord not only declared that such as practiced witchcraft and sorcery were an abomination before the Lord, but that they should “also bee rooted out.” (Percy Society Pub. vol. VIII., 24, 40, 42, 52, 72.)

The belief that cats were bewitched to do the bidding of the devil, which formed such a large part of the delusion of witchcraft, as practiced in the middle ages, is also touched on, in the “Dialogue on Witches,” in the above interesting publication, from the literature of the middle ages which can be read with much amusement and entertainment, because it gives in realistic hue, a vivid pen picture of the old delusion, just as it existed in the early days of the seventeenth century.