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On 25 August 1538 there was much discussion about witches and sorceresses who poisoned chicken eggs in the nests, or poisoned milk and butter. Doctor Luther said: "One should show no mercy to these [women]; I would burn them myself, for we read in the Law that the priests were the ones to begin the stoning of criminals." [13]
A witch hunt, or a witch purge, is a search for people who have been labeled witches or a search for evidence of witchcraft. Practicing evil spells or incantations was proscribed and punishable in early human civilizations in the Middle East. In medieval Europe, witch-hunts often arose in connection to charges of heresy from Christianity.
[1] Canon 3 of the ecumenical Fourth Council of the Lateran, 1215 required secular authorities to "exterminate in the territories subject to their jurisdiction all heretics" pointed out by the Catholic Church, [2] resulting in the inquisitor executing certain people accused of heresy. Some laws allowed the civil government to employ punishment.
William Blake's painting of Saul, the shade of Samuel and the Witch of Endor. Various forms of witchcraft and divination are mentioned in the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh or Old Testament), which are expressly forbidden.
[85] Men could be witches, but were considered rarer, and the reasons were also different. The most common form of male witch mentioned in the book is the sorcerer-archer. The book is rather unclear, but the impetus behind male witches seems to come more from desire for power than from disbelief or lust, as it claims is the case for female witches.
In the Witches' case, these are mostly sabbaths, the six holidays throughout the year to denote the changing seasons and their meaning in people’s lives and the moon cycles," Berger says.
While belief in witchcraft, and persecutions directed at or excused by it, were widespread in pre-Christian Europe, and reflected in old Germanic law, the growing influence of the Church in the early medieval era in pagan areas resulted in the revocation of these laws in many places, bringing an end to the traditional witch hunts. [115]
Witchcraft is the use of alleged supernatural powers of magic.A witch is a practitioner of witchcraft. Traditionally, "witchcraft" means the use of magic or supernatural powers to inflict harm or misfortune on others, and this remains the most common and widespread meaning. [1]