Ad
related to: roman catholic witchcraft and magic
Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Magic in literature, while condemned by some Christians, is often viewed by Christians as non-evil. The key distinction would be between real-life magic and pretend magic. This view holds that in real life, the practice of supernatural abilities (i.e. magic) must have a supernatural power source or origin, which would be either holy or evil.
The Malleus Maleficarum, [a] usually translated as the Hammer of Witches, [3] [b] is the best known treatise about witchcraft. [6] [7] It was written by the German Catholic clergyman Heinrich Kramer (under his Latinized name Henricus Institor) and first published in the German city of Speyer in 1486.
The Canon Episcopi has received a great deal of attention from historians of the witch craze period as early documentation of the Catholic church's theological position on the question of witchcraft. The position taken by the author is that these "rides of Diana" did not actually exist, that they are deceptions, dreams or phantasms.
Many Roman Catholics were concerned by this allegation and for several centuries various Roman Catholic writers devoted attention to arguing that their practices were religious rather than magical. [107] At the same time, Protestants often used the accusation of magic against other Protestant groups which they were in contest with. [108]
Throughout the medieval era, mainstream Christian doctrine had denied the belief in the existence of witches and witchcraft, condemning it as a pagan superstition. [14] Some have argued that the work of the Dominican Thomas Aquinas in the 13th century helped lay the groundwork for a shift in Christian doctrine, by which certain Christian theologians eventually began to accept the possibility ...
Magic (personified as the god heka) was an integral part of religion and culture which is known to us through a substantial corpus of texts which are products of the Egyptian tradition. [10] While the category magic has been contentious for modern Egyptology, there is clear support for its applicability from ancient terminology. [11]
Witchcraft was formally categorized as a crime in the Holy Roman Empire in the Constitutio Criminalis Carolina in 1532. The Holy Roman Empire consisted of a number of autonomous states, both Protestant and Catholic who all had their own laws and regulations, and the witchcraft persecutions, therefore, varied considerably.
European witchcraft can be traced back to classical antiquity, when magic and religion were closely entwined. During the pagan era of ancient Rome, there were laws against harmful magic. After Christianization, the medieval Catholic Church began to see witchcraft (maleficium) as a blend of black magic and apostasy involving a pact with the Devil.
Ad
related to: roman catholic witchcraft and magic