[240] See Montanus, as above, who cites Beck, Lutherthum vor Luthero, p. 294, for the statement that many bells were carried to the Jordan by pilgrims for this purpose.
The prayers used at bell baptisms fully recognise this doctrine. The ritual of Paris embraces the petition that, "whensoever this bell shall sound, it shall drive away the malign influences of the assailing spirits, the horror of their apparitions, the rush of whirlwinds, the stroke of lightning, the harm of thunder, the disasters of storms, and all the spirits of the tempest." Another prayer begs that "the sound of this bell may put to flight the fiery darts of the enemy of men"; and others vary the form but not the substance of this petition. The great Jesuit theologian, Bellarmin, did indeed try to deny the reality of this baptism; but this can only be regarded as a piece of casuistry suited to Protestant hardness of heart, or as strategy in the warfare against heretics.[241]
[241] For prayers at bell baptisms, see Arago, Oeuvres, Paris, 1854, vol. iv, p. 322.
Forms of baptism were laid down in various manuals sanctioned directly by papal authority, and sacramental efficacy was everywhere taken for granted.[242] The development of this idea in the older Church was too strong to be resisted;[243] but, as a rule, the Protestant theologians of the Reformation, while admitting that storms were caused by Satan and his legions, opposed the baptism of bells, and denied the theory of their influence in dispersing storms. Luther, while never doubting that troublesome meteorological phenomena were caused by devils, regarded with contempt the idea that the demons were so childish as to be scared by the clang of bells; his theory made them altogether too powerful to be affected by means so trivial. The great English Reformers, while also accepting very generally the theory of diabolic interference in storms, reproved strongly the baptizing of bells, as the perversion of a sacrament and involving blasphemy. Bishop Hooper declared reliance upon bells to drive away tempests, futile. Bishop Pilkington, while arguing that tempests are direct instruments of God's wrath, is very severe against using "unlawful means," and among these he names "the hallowed bell"; and these opinions were very generally shared by the leading English clergy.[244]
[242] As has often been pointed out, the ceremony was in all its details--even to the sponsors, the wrapping a garment about the baptised, the baptismal fee, the feast--precisely the same as when a child was baptised. Magius, who is no sceptic, relates from his own experience an instant of this sort, where a certain bishop stood sponsor for two bells, giving them both his own name--William. (See his De Tintinnabulis, vol. xiv.)
[243] And no wonder, when the oracle of the Church, Thomas Aquinas, expressly pronounced church bells, "provided they have been duly consecrated and baptised," the foremost means of "frustrating the atmospheric mischiefs of the devil," and likened steeples in which bells are ringing to a hen brooding her chickens, "for the tones of the consecrated metal repel the demons and avert storm and lightning"; when pre-Reformation preachers of such universal currency as Johannes Herolt declared, "Bells, as all agree, are baptised with the result that they are secure from the power of Satan, terrify the demons, compel the powers"; when Geiler of Kaiserberg especially commended bell- ringing as a means of beating off the devil in storms; and when a canonist like Durandus explained the purpose of the rite to be, that "the demons hearing the trumpets of the Eternal King, to wit, the bells, may flee in terror, and may cease from the stirring up of tempests." See Herolt, Sermones Discipuli, vol. xvii, and Durandus, De ritibus ecclesiae, vol. ii, p. 12. I owe the first of these citations to Rydberg, and the others to Montanus. For Geiler, see Dacheux, Geiler de Kaiserberg, pp. 280, 281.
[244] The baptism of bells was indeed, one of the express complaints of the German Protestant princes at the Reformation. See their Gravam. Cent. German. Grav., p. 51. For Hooper, see his Early Writings, p. 197 (in Parker Society Publications). For Pilkington, see his Works, p. 177 (in same). Among others sharing these opinions were Tyndale, Bishop Ridley, Archbishop Sandys, Becon, Calfhill, and Rogers. It is to be noted that all of these speak of the rite as "baptism."
Toward the end of the sixteenth century the Elector of Saxony strictly forbade the ringing of bells against storms, urging penance and prayer instead; but the custom was not so easily driven out of the Protestant Church, and in some quarters was developed a Protestant theory of a rationalistic sort, ascribing the good effects of bell-ringing in storms to the calling together of the devout for prayer or to the suggestion of prayers during storms at night. As late as the end of the seventeenth century we find the bells of Protestant churches in northern Germany rung for the dispelling of tempests. In Catholic Austria this bell-ringing seems to have become a nuisance in the last century, for the Emperor Joseph II found it necessary to issue an edict against it; but this doctrine had gained too large headway to be arrested by argument or edict, and the bells may be heard ringing during storms to this day in various remote districts in Europe.[245] For this was no mere superficial view. It was really part of a deep theological current steadily developed through the Middle Ages, the fundamental idea of the whole being the direct influence of the bells upon the "Power of the Air"; and it is perhaps worth our while to go back a little and glance over the coming of this current into the modern world. Having grown steadily through the Middle Ages, it appeared in full strength at the Reformation period; and in the sixteenth century Olaus Magnus, Archbishop of Upsala and Primate of Sweden, in his great work on the northern nations, declares it a well-established fact that cities and harvests may be saved from lightning by the ringing of bells and the burning of consecrated incense, accompanied by prayers; and he cautions his readers that the workings of the thunderbolt are rather to be marvelled at than inquired into. Even as late as 1673 the Franciscan professor Lealus, in Italy, in a schoolbook which was received with great applause in his region, taught unhesitatingly the agency of demons in storms, and the power of bells over them, as well as the portentousness of comets and the movement of the heavens by angels. He dwells especially, too, upon the perfect protection afforded by the waxen Agnus Dei. How strong this current was, and how difficult even for philosophical minds to oppose, is shown by the fact that both Descartes and Francis Bacon speak of it with respect, admitting the fact, and suggesting very mildly that the bells may accomplish this purpose by the concussion of the air.[246]
[245] For Elector of Saxony, see Peuchen, Disp. circa tempestates, Jena, 1697. For the Protestant theory of bells, see, e. g., the Ciciones Selectae of Superintendent Conrad Dieterich (cited by Peuchen, Disp. circa tempestates). For Protestant ringing of bells to dispel tempests, see Schwimmer, Physicalische Luftfragen, 1692 (cited by Peuchen, as above). He pictures the whole population of a Thuringinian district flocking to the churches on the approach of a storm.
[246] For Olaus Magnus, see the De gentibus septentrionalibus (Rome, 1555), lib. i, c. 12, 13. For Descartes, see his De meteor., cent. 2, 127. In his Historia Ventorum he again alludes to the belief, and without comment.
But no such moderate doctrine sufficed, and the renowned Bishop Binsfeld, of Treves, in his noted treatise on the credibility of the confessions of witches, gave an entire chapter to the effect of bells in calming atmospheric disturbances. Basing his general doctrine upon the first chapter of Job and the second chapter of Ephesians, he insisted on the reality of diabolic agency in storms; and then, by theological reasoning, corroborated by the statements extorted in the torture chamber, he showed the efficacy of bells in putting the hellish legions to flight.[247] This continued, therefore, an accepted tenet, developed in every nation, and coming to its climax near the end of the seventeenth century. At that period--the period of Isaac Newton--Father Augustine de Angelis, rector of the Clementine College at Rome, published under the highest Church authority his lectures upon meteorology. Coming from the centre of Catholic Christendom, at so late a period, they are very important as indicating what had been developed under the influence of theology during nearly seventeen hundred years. This learned head of a great college
at the heart of Christendom taught that "the surest remedy against thunder is that which our Holy Mother the Church practises, namely, the ringing of bells when a thunderbolt impends: thence follows a twofold effect, physical and moral--a physical, because the sound variously disturbs and agitates the air, and by agitation disperses the hot exhalations and dispels the thunder; but the moral effect is the more certain, because by the sound the faithful are stirred to pour forth their prayers, by which they win from God the turning away of the thunderbolt." Here we see in this branch of thought, as in so many others, at the close of the seventeenth century, the dawn of rationalism. Father De Angelis now keeps demoniacal influence in the background. Little, indeed, is said of the efficiency of bells in putting to flight the legions of Satan: the wise professor is evidently preparing for that inevitable compromise which we see in the history of every science when it is clear that it can no longer be suppressed by ecclesiastical fulminations.[248]
[247] See Binsfeld, De Confessionbus Malef., pp. 308-314, edition of 1623.
[248] For De Angelis, see his Lectiones Meteorol., p. 75.
III. The Agency Of Witches.
But, while this comparatively harmless doctrine of thwarting the powers of the air by fetiches and bell-ringing was developed, there were evolved another theory, and a series of practices sanctioned by the Church, which must forever be considered as among the most fearful calamities in human history. Indeed, few errors have ever cost so much shedding of innocent blood over such wide territory and during so many generations. Out of the old doctrine--pagan and Christian--of evil agency in atmospheric phenomena was evolved the belief that certain men, women, and children may secure infernal aid to produce whirlwinds, hail, frosts, floods, and the like.
As early as the ninth century one great churchman, Agobard, Archbishop of Lyons, struck a heavy blow at this superstition. His work, Against the Absurd Opinion of the Vulgar touching Hail and Thunder, shows him to have been one of the most devoted apostles of right reason whom human history has known. By argument and ridicule, and at times by a lofty eloquence, he attempted to breast this tide. One passage is of historical significance. He declares: "The wretched world lies now under the tyranny of foolishness; things are believed by Christians of such absurdity as no one ever could aforetime induce the heathen to believe."[249]
[249] For a very interesting statement of Agobard's position and work, with citations from his Liber contra insulsam vulgi opinionem de grandine et tonitruis, see Poole, Illustrations of the History of Mediaeval Thought, pp. 40 et seq. The works of Agobard are in vol. civ of Migne's Patrol. Lat.
All in vain; the tide of superstition continued to roll on; great theologians developed it and ecclesiastics favoured it; until as we near the end of the medieval period the infallible voice of Rome is heard accepting it, and clinching this belief into the mind of Christianity. For, in 1437, Pope Eugene IV, by virtue of the teaching power conferred on him by the Almighty, and under the divine guarantee against any possible error in the exercise of it, issued a bull exhorting the inquisitors of heresy and witchcraft to use greater diligence against the human agents of the Prince of Darkness, and especially against those who have the power to produce bad weather. In 1445 Pope Eugene returned again to the charge, and again issued instructions and commands infallibly committing the Church to the doctrine. But a greater than Eugene followed, and stamped the idea yet more deeply into the mind of the Church. On the 7th of December, 1484, Pope Innocent VIII sent forth his bull Summis Desiderantes. Of all documents ever issued from Rome, imperial or papal, this has doubtless, first and last, cost the greatest shedding of innocent blood. Yet no document was ever more clearly dictated by conscience. Inspired by the scriptural command, "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live," Pope Innocent exhorted the clergy of Germany to leave no means untried to detect sorcerers, and especially those who by evil weather destroy vineyards, gardens, meadows, and growing crops. These precepts were based upon various texts of Scripture, especially upon the famous statement in the book of Job; and, to carry them out, witch-finding inquisitors were authorized by the Pope to scour Europe, especially Germany, and a manual was prepared for their use--the Witch-Hammer, Malleus Maleficarum. In this manual, which was revered for centuries, both in Catholic and Protestant countries, as almost divinely inspired, the doctrine of Satanic agency in atmospheric phenomena was further developed, and various means of detecting and punishing it were dwelt upon.[250]
[250] For the bull of Pope Eugene, see Raynaldus, Annales Eccl., pp. 1437, 1445. The Latin text of the bull Summis Desiderantes may now be found in the Malleus Maleficarum, in Binsfeld's De Confessionibus cited below, or in Roskoff's Geschichte des Teufles (Leipsic, 1869), vol. i, pp. 222-225. There is, so far as I know, no good analysis, in any English book, of the contents of the Witch-Hammer; but such may be found in Roskoff's Geschichte des Teufels, or in Soldan's Geschichte der Hexenprozesse. Its first dated edition is that of 1489; but Prof. Burr has shown that it was printed as early as 1486. It was, happily, never translated into any modern tongue.
With the application of torture to thousands of women, in accordance with the precepts laid down in the Malleus, it was not difficult to extract masses of proof for this sacred theory of meteorology. The poor creatures, writhing on the rack, held in horror by those who had been nearest and dearest to them, anxious only for death to relieve their sufferings, confessed to anything and everything that would satisfy the inquisitors and judges. All that was needed was that the inquisitors should ask leading questions[251] and suggest satisfactory answers: the prisoners, to shorten the torture, were sure sooner or later to give the answer required, even though they knew that this would send them to the stake or scaffold. Under the doctrine of "excepted cases," there was no limit to torture for persons accused of heresy or witchcraft; even the safeguards which the old pagan world had imposed upon torture were thus thrown down, and the prisoner must confess.
[251] For still extant lists of such questions, see the Zeitschrift fur deutsche Culturgeschichte for 1858, pp. 522-528, or Diefenbach, Der Hexenwahn in Deutschland, pp. 15-17. Father Vincent of Berg (in his Enchiridium) gives a similar list for use by priests in the confession of the accused. Manuscript lists of this sort which have actually done service in the courts of Baden and Bavaria may be seen in the library of Cornell University.
The theological literature of the Middle Ages was thus enriched with numberless statements regarding modes of Satanic influence on the weather. Pathetic, indeed, are the records; and none more so than the confessions of these poor creatures, chiefly women and children, during hundreds of years, as to their manner of raising hailstorms and tempests. Such confessions, by tens of thousands, are still to be found in the judicial records of Germany, and indeed of all Europe. Typical among these is one on which great stress was laid during ages, and for which the world was first indebted to one of these poor women. Crazed by the agony of torture, she declared that, returning with a demon through the air from the witches' sabbath, she was dropped upon the earth in the confusion which resulted among the hellish legions when they heard the bells sounding the Ave Maria. It is sad to note that, after a contribution so valuable to sacred science, the poor woman was condemned to the flames. This revelation speedily ripened the belief that, whatever might be going on at the witches' sabbath--no matter how triumphant Satan might be--at the moment of sounding the consecrated bells the Satanic power was paralyzed. This theory once started, proofs came in to support it, during a hundred years, from the torture chambers in all parts of Europe.
Throughout the later Middle Ages the Dominicans had been the main agents in extorting and promulgating these revelations, but in the centuries following the Reformation the Jesuits devoted themselves with even more keenness and vigour to the same task. Some curious questions incidentally arose. It was mooted among the orthodox authorities whether the damage done by storms should or should not be assessed upon the property of convicted witches. The theologians inclined decidedly t
o the affirmative; the jurists, on the whole, to the negative.[252]
[252] For proofs of the vigour of the Jesuits in this persecution, see not only the histories of witchcraft, but also the Annuae litterae of the Jesuits themselves, passim.
In spite of these tortures, lightning and tempests continued, and great men arose in the Church throughout Europe in every generation to point out new cruelties for the discovery of "weather-makers," and new methods for bringing their machinations to naught.
But here and there, as early as the sixteenth century, we begin to see thinkers endeavouring to modify or oppose these methods. At that time Paracelsus called attention to the reverberation of cannon as explaining the rolling of thunder, but he was confronted by one of his greatest contemporaries. Jean Bodin, as superstitious in natural as he was rational in political science, made sport of the scientific theory, and declared thunder to be "a flaming exhalation set in motion by evil spirits, and hurled downward with a great crash and a horrible smell of sulphur." In support of this view, he dwelt upon the confessions of tortured witches, upon the acknowledged agency of demons in the Will-o'-the-wisp, and specially upon the passage in the one hundred and fourth Psalm, "Who maketh his angels spirits, his ministers a flaming fire."
To resist such powerful arguments by such powerful men was dangerous indeed. In 1513, Pomponatius, professor at Padua, published a volume of Doubts as to the Fourth Book of Aristotle's Meteorologica, and also dared to question this power of devils; but he soon found it advisable to explain that, while as a philosopher he might doubt, yet as a Christian he of course believed everything taught by Mother Church--devils and all--and so escaped the fate of several others who dared to question the agency of witches in atmospheric and other disturbances.
History Of The Warfare Of Science With Theology In Christendom Page 43