turned to the persecution o f those most heinous o f all
heretics, the witches, that is, to all of those who still clung
to the old cult beliefs of pagan Europe.
The Manicheans and Cathari had, in order to account for the existence of good and evil (the thorniest of theological problems), worshiped good and evil both.
The Catholics, not able to accept that solution, developed a complex theology concerning the relationship between God and the Devil, now called Satan, which rested on the weird idea that Satan was limited
in some specific ways, but very marvelous, all of his
Gynocide: The Witches
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machinations, curses, and damnations being “by G od’s
permission” and a testimony to G od’s divine majesty.
Here we have the Catholic version o f double-double
think. Through the processes o f Aristotle’s famous
logic, as adapted by St. Thom as Aquinas, which was
the basis o f Catholic theology, it now became clear
that not to believe in the literal existence o f Satan was
tantamount to atheism. T h e evil principle, articulated
by the Manicheans and Cathari, was absorbed into
Catholicism, along with the horned figure o f the old
pagan cults, to produce the horned, clawed, sulphurous,
black, fire and brimstone Satan o f the medieval Christian iconographers.
Later Calvin and Luther also made their contributions. Luther had more personal contact with Satan than any man before or since. He proclaimed Satan
“Prince” o f this earthly realm and considered all earthly
experiences under his domination. Luther and Calvin
agreed that good works no longer counted —only divine
grace for the elect was sufficient to ensure entrance into
the Kingdom o f God. Thus Reformation Protestantism
obliterated the small measure o f hope that even
Catholicism offered. Calvin himself was a voracious
witch hunter and burner.
Although the Protestants contributed without modesty and with great enthusiasm to the witch terror, we find the origins o f the actual, organized persecutions,
not unexpectedly, in the Bull o f Innocent V III, issued
December 9, 1484. The Pope named Heinrich Kramer
and James Sprenger as Inquisitors and asked them to
define witchcraft, describe the
witches, and standardize trial procedures and sen
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Woman Hating
tencing. The papal Bull reversed the Church’s previous
position, which had been formulated by a synod in
A. D. 785:
. . . if somebody, deceived by the devil, following the
custom of the heathen, believes that some man or
woman, is a striga who eats men, and for that reason
