I have dealt with those who are ignorant of the prohibition of the canons. Concerning the others let the conclusion be this: judges who, knowing the pontifical prohibition, use this proof of cold water in the crime of witchcraft sin. In this conclusion I suppose that the proof is prohibited, which has been proved by us above. Nor does the adversary’s solution have force, that it is not the mind of the canons to speak of this crime. For the force of an indefinite negative prohibition is universal; and therefore negative precepts bind always, everywhere, and all persons, as all who explain the Decalogue teach. Therefore he who says, “It is not lawful to use the proof by cold water,” must be understood as speaking of the purgation of any crime by such a proof. Nor up to this point, so far as I know, has anyone dreamed of this limitation of those canons, as if they spoke only of the purgation of lighter crimes. Nor does this modern writer yet have such great authority that his interpretation should be admitted against the opinion received up to this point, since it is not true. For those canons speak of theft, and even of homicide, which is a grave crime. The conclusion is common, as we have proved above.
[margin: Del Rio points back to the preceding section, response to the second argument, against limiting the canon-law prohibition to crimes other than witchcraft]
It is proved, first, because sin is a thing said, done, or desired contrary to the eternal law, as St. Augustine says, or, as St. Ambrose says, “Sin is a transgression of divine law and disobedience to heavenly commands.” Among the other commands of divine or eternal law is this: that the sheep hear their shepherd and obey the head of the Church. All Catholics agree that the decision of matters of faith, and of those things which depend on faith, belongs to this visible head of the Church. Among these matters is judging what is opposed to the virtue of religion and what is not, or what is superstitious and what is not. Therefore, since the Roman pontiff, the visible head of the Church, let the heretics roar as they please, has declared that the proof or purgation by cold water is superstitious, not to believe him and to contend the contrary is not to hear the Church, and therefore to sin and to make oneself worthy to be regarded as a heathen and publican. And therefore it is to fall into the transgression of heavenly commands.
If you say that Pope Stephen mentioned only boiling water and not cold water, I shall press the point that the reason for cold and boiling water is the same, because he there adds generally, as the reason: “What has not been sanctioned by the teaching of the holy Fathers must not be presumed by a superstitious invention.” Therefore, to Pope Stephen, these proofs are superstitious because they are not found in the canons, not sanctioned by the teaching of the holy Fathers, but commonly presumed by human beings. Let the adversaries bring forth one document of one Father approving this proof, and they will seem not to be altogether destitute of the authority of the ancients. Ivo alone seems, in a certain case, to have approved glowing iron. But the adversaries disapprove the proof of glowing iron just as much as I do, and I refuted Ivo’s reasoning in the section above.
Furthermore, another pontiff, mentioning cold and boiling water together, calls each a popular invention, says that each was made by envy, that is, by the devil envying human salvation, and equally detests each. Lucius III also calls this purgation by cold water a foreign judgment, that is, alien to the customs of the Church, and declares it invalid. And Innocent III judged that there is one and the same prohibition of cold water, boiling water, and glowing iron. Therefore, by the judgment of the supreme pontiffs, this proof is useless, a common people’s invention, a foreign judgment, a fabrication of envy, a superstitious invention, destitute of the teaching of the Fathers, and disapproved by the canons.
The adversary brings certain things from number 156 onward to prove that the reason of the other proofs which were prohibited is different. First, he says, those were undertaken spontaneously and voluntarily, not by an order; this proof is enjoined by a judge. He himself saw that this is not true, for from the said chapter Menna and the final chapter De purgatione vulgari it is clear that the other proofs also used to be enjoined by a judge; and the examples brought above teach that the proof by water was also voluntarily undertaken. Therefore, secondly, he says that a burning can be impeded by the demon through natural remedies, and therefore this proof is uncertain, as if the demon could not also either support the witch himself in the waters or place beneath her something that supports her. Thirdly, he brings from the Malleus maleficarum the claim that if a duel could somewhere be permitted, then much more could the proof by glowing iron; likewise, even if duelists sin, judges nevertheless can be excused. I answer that all these things have already been shown to be evidently false. Finally, he says that experience favors this proof, which is not always true and once favored those other proofs too, and that, because of the sacrament of baptism, this is the prerogative of water. This is to conjecture without basis, to dream while awake, and to decline after Scribonius.
[margin: The first proof’s margin cites Augustine, Against Faustus, book 2; Thomas Aquinas, I-II q.71 a.6; scholastic material on II Sentences d.34; Ambrose, On Paradise, chapter 8; canon Consuluisti, 2 q.4; canon Menna at the end, 2 q.5; chapter Ex tuarum, De purgatione canonica; chapter Sententia sanguinis, Ne clerici vel monachi]
This proof is confirmed because a divinatory lot is superstitious; but this sort of proof is a certain species of divinatory lot, as I taught in the preceding section; therefore it is superstitious. The major premise is held by all the doctors and is certain, because divination is one species of superstition. The minor is proved by the reasoning of St. Thomas, because it is ordered to judging hidden things reserved to God’s knowledge and judgment. For the contrary opinion presupposes that crimes cannot be detected except by cold water. But if, when all means have been tried, they cannot be investigated except through vulgar purgations, Pope Stephen V defines that those things must be left to him who alone knows the hearts of the children of men. And certainly it is rash for lay judges to wish to search out hidden sins about which it is not lawful even for the Church to judge, but only for him who searches hearts and reins.
When the adversary had hinted at this confirmation in fifth place, at the end of chapter 1, he certainly did not dissolve it in its own place in chapter 3. For the argument is not about those secrets of divine providence and of God’s majesty or glory, but only about sins which the judge, after all things had been tried in a lawful way, was unable to detect. Yet he seems to wish to solve it, at number 173, by saying that the reason is different for private persons investigating hidden things in this way and for judges. For judges act as God’s vicars and from office; private persons act from mere curiosity. This response is overturned by the fact that the canons expressly speak also of judges, and prohibit the same thing to magistrates as to private persons, in the said chapter Consuluisti, the said chapter Ex tuarum, chapter Menna, and the said final chapter. Certainly there is equal superstition and tempting of God everywhere, and in a magistrate these things are less to be borne and less worthy of excuse.
This proof is confirmed, secondly, because by canon law all vulgar purgations are disapproved, as is clear from the said canons, and as the canonists commonly hold. But the proof by cold water is a vulgar proof, as is clear, because it is not canonical and not legal. Therefore it is prohibited. Perhaps they will say that it is miraculous. But then the following argument proceeds against them.
[margin: The divinatory-lot confirmation cites Thomas Aquinas, II-II q.95 a.8 ad 3; canon Consuluisti; chapter Ex tuarum; chapter Menna; the final chapter De purgatione vulgari. The tempting-God proof cites Thomas Aquinas, II-II q.97; the summists under the entries Tentatio Dei or Tentare Deum; Navarrus, chapter 11, no. 29 and following; a tightly printed catechesis reference ending in Catechesis 64; Honorius III, final chapter De purgatione vulgari]
The conclusion is proved, secondly. Tempting God is a sin opposed to religion and to the first precept of the Decalogue. But one who uses this sort of proof tempts God. Therefore this proof is a sin opposed to religion. The major premise is proved from the common opinion of the doctors. The minor is proved by the authority of Pontiff Honorius, who says that God is tempted by the vulgar purgation of glowing iron. And the common school of the doctors understood what he asserted of one species as applying also to the other vulgar proofs, because there is the same reason in all of them. For either that offense can be detected otherwise, and then there is no necessity, and therefore a miracle is sought from God without necessity, which is open tempting of God; or, if that sin cannot be known by other means, then the judge is unjust, because he usurps judgment about things about which he cannot judge, since they are reserved to the divine throne.
But if you carefully consider the opinion of the writer who thinks otherwise, the tempting of God is always present here. For he wishes the judge not to come down to this proof unless he has sufficient indications for torture, and he defends this proof for no other end than that of torture. See what I said about this matter in the preceding section, at the beginning. He tries to escape this crime of tempting God because we often read that signs and miracles were sought by the saints, by Abraham, his servant, Gideon, and others. I answer with Alexander of Hales that these things were not done for the imitation of later people, but for the signification and figure of what was to come, according to that saying of the apostle, 1 Corinthians 10:11, “All these things happened to them in figure.” But if you do not recognize the figure, I say that they did these things by a special impulse, command, or revelation of the Holy Spirit, and that it is not otherwise lawful to seek a sign from God, according to St. Thomas, unless some great and evident utility or necessity requires it, for example, the conversion of some nation certainly to follow from it, as the apostles and other saints did. But in our case, because God has given sufficiently many legitimate means for exploring the truth, that necessity ceases, as Pope Stephen supposes. As for Ahaz, he was rebuked through Isaiah because he rejected the sign offered by God, so as not to honor God with this honor. What, I ask, does that have to do with the matter?
[margin: The proof against tempting God also cites Thomas Aquinas, II-II q.95 a.8 ad 3; the summists; Navarrus; Petrus; Ancharanus on the final chapter De purgatione vulgari; Binsfeld on the same question; Alexander of Hales, part 3, question 45, member 3; Gregorio de Valencia, II-II, disputation 6, question 14, point 1; Turrecremata on 2 q.4 at the beginning, no. 3, and on canon Consuluisti, same question, nos. 2 and 3. A separate margin on signs cites Thomas Aquinas, II-II q.178 a.1]
The conclusion is proved, thirdly, because here it must not be judged a miraculous operation of God, but a magical pact with the demon; therefore it is illicit to cooperate in this by one’s command. The antecedent is proved because this happens indiscriminately at the casting into water which Catholic and heretical judges perform, as is clear, since this proof flourishes especially among heretics. But heretics do not perform true miracles. If you say that this is not done for the confirmation of their faith, I answer that they never perform any true miracle for the confirmation of faith; but that they perform miracles so regularly and continuously for proving some other matter has never been heard and is not credible.
Secondly, the antecedent is proved because God performs miracles through no one without necessity; and it has been shown that there is no suitable necessity here. Thirdly, God never weakens true miracles by other miracles, because truth cannot oppose truth. Therefore, if witches’ not sinking were a true miracle, this would never be overturned by other miracles. But we read that God sometimes removed by a miracle this unsinkable power of magicians, so that in fact witches were sunk and swallowed by the waters. Therefore that unsinkable power is not miraculous. What I have assumed is proved from the History of Miracles which Caesarius collected, where, in book 9, he narrates that certain malefici, who, trusting in maleficia, were walking above a river, were immediately sunk when the sacred Eucharist was cast into the river.
If you say that that was not done in a judgment nor by judges, I can infer: therefore this power of unsinkability was not granted by God to malefactors as a certain sign for proving the crime. For these were truly malefactors, and yet they were sunk by the power of the sacred eucharistic bread. Therefore they were sunk miraculously. Therefore a prior miracle would have been destroyed by a later miracle, even if this had been done in the presence of judges and by their order. For the power of a miracle is not restricted to the presence of judges.
I press the matter fourthly: God’s miracles never fail, but are most certain and infallible. This proof sometimes fails. The adversary answers that this happens by the fraud and deceit of the executioner, or because the judges do not pay close enough attention, and do not have faith nor trust God sufficiently, although this was necessary for the performance of the miracle. But, against this: if she is a witch, according to you she cannot be sunk by the application of human force, because no human powers can resist the ministering good angels. And yet at number 31 you have confessed that a woman who was a witch was sunk by force by the executioner. Therefore answer yourself.
Godelmann likewise writes, from the letters of a certain Prussian nobleman, that six witches, at different times, when it was truly clear that they were guilty, were cast into cold water with their limbs bound and were sunk. John Althusius affirms the same about many more. Dubravius, bishop of Olomouc, confirms that witches can and do sink in the waters, in book 8 of the History of Bohemia, treating King Vratislaus:
The same Vratislaus aided his brother Gerard, the prelate, in abolishing and removing the portents of magicians and their magical arts, which at that time many men and women were practicing far too freely, disturbing human minds by fascination, drawing away the milk of cattle and flocks and others’ harvests, and sometimes even shaking the elements themselves by the violence of demons, through which the ignorant crowd was being turned away from sincere faith in God. Yet it was lawful for Gerard to oppose these evils in no other way than through ecclesiastical censure; they valued that no more than a leaden sword. Therefore Vratislaus applied not only iron, but also fire and water to the malefactors. He ordered some to be struck with the axe, others to be burned with flames, and some witches to be sunk in the waters. And when this punishment had been exercised on more than a hundred authors, fear of a similar penalty compelled the rest to cease from the forbidden and condemned art.
You hear that witches of Bohemia were sunk in the waters. Where, then, is the power of the miracle which they pretend? I see one escape: that God aids the inquisition, not the punishment, as if the former were not directed to the latter, as if any special charter concerning that were granted to these water-men of ours.
What is also added about the judges’ small or slight faith is plainly irrelevant. For the confidence required in those places of Scripture was required in miracles which were to be performed for the confirmation of faith, not in those which pertained to judicial inquiries and knowledge, Matthew 17:20; Mark 9:23 and 24. What is brought concerning the sons of Sceva, Acts 19, is either to be referred to the same point or has absolutely nothing to do with the matter.
[margin: The narrative proof against miracle cites Caesarius, History of Miracles, book 9; Godelmann, book 3 De lamiis, chapter 4, no. 35; John Althusius, Admonitio ad Iudicem; Dubravius, bishop of Olomouc, book 8 of the History of Bohemia, on King Vratislaus and Gerard]
Fourthly, it is proved that a pact intervenes here, because, since this does not happen by natural power nor by a miraculous operation of God, it remains that it happens by power of a pact with the demon. I do not mean an explicit or expressed pact, for I think no such pact now intervenes for judges. Nor do the things which that author says at length in chapter 3 of his book, from number 91 onward, prove anything else; and what he calls an implicit pact with God has already been proved to be an explicit tempting of God. But we say that an explicit pact with the demon intervened with some first judge, namely that the demon, at such a sign, would betray a hidden and secret crime, that is, that he would support those who were witches so that they would not sink. Afterward, as happens in all matters of this kind, other judges, having been taught this, obtained the same thing by the force of that first pact; and so, even while ignorant, they operate from an implicit pact.
That this implicit pact intervenes is clear because all superstitions rest on an implicit pact, as Blessed Augustine teaches, and with him all theologians. Read St. Augustine in that place and the following chapters, and you will discover that both superstition and an implicit pact are present here, because the effect is not suited to an adequate natural cause, nor is it such that it ought deservedly to be expected from God through a miracle. That there is no pact of the demon with the witches themselves in this regard is not badly thought, nor invalidly proved, by that writer from number 97 onward. For in the example which he narrates there, this is most clearly seen. I shall report it in his words:
Just as, even in this age, in the prefecture of Linne in the lower diocese of Cologne, it is said to have happened that a certain old woman, seeing two little women tested by water and not having sunk but having floated above, herself ran to the prefect of the place and appealed to him, and moved both him and the other ministers of justice present by prayers and tears, willing and most earnestly insisting that she too be tested by the waters. Since, of course, she was very suspect among the people concerning this maleficial heresy, she nevertheless now wished to make her innocence attested before the people through this test, and to remove herself publicly as undeserving of this suspicion. The prefect and the rest, having been importunately pressed, consented. But when she was cast into the water, it is said that she was seen to float above, nor could she by any means make herself sink or seek the bottom, although, out of fear, she earnestly tried this above the waters. When she had been drawn out, she was asked whether she had power over her own limbs; she could have escaped this danger by pretending this until an accuser was produced, when necessity would be present for this test. At length, when very many indications flowed together against her, before torture she answered those questioning her that her lover had persuaded her to undergo this danger of the water, saying that he would free her and preserve her reputation and life in the waters themselves. With this confession voluntarily given, she would have been burned to ashes, if she had not suffocated herself by hanging in the prison the day before.
You see in this example the tacit pact which operated in the three little women and, as to the third, operated through the express pact entered into with her, because the demon wished her to be delivered to the stake, or at least to be killed, being morally certain that she would die impenitent. But those judges did not follow that writer’s opinion, because, not having sufficient indications, they proceeded to this purgation by the importunate prayers alone of the little woman. And therefore they sinned gravely on two heads: first, because they used an illicit proof; secondly, because they used it precipitately.
But from this I gather that the writer disagrees with other judges who use that practice similarly, since he wishes sufficient indications for torture to precede before the proof, whereas they think one can begin from the proof together with some bad reputation. In this matter, perhaps, they speak in a way more consonant with that ordinary practice, but with a practice that is wicked.
Fifthly, this pact is proved from the habits of the devil. He tries to imitate the miracles of God. He tries to have his own martyrs, who are heretics, and among them witches. Therefore, just as God miraculously granted to many of his martyrs that they could not be sunk in the waters, for the confirmation of the true faith, so the devil tries by a deceptive miracle to persuade human beings that his martyrs too are unsinkable. And by this pact he tries to obtain two things: first, that those miracles of Christ be regarded as false; secondly, that he at least seem to have equal power with God. Moreover, his false martyrs are confirmed in their obstinacy, since he persuades them that he will save them in the fire just as he saved them in the waters. This reasoning is confirmed because if any witch cast in this way into the waters were truly to repent and abjure in her mind, she would immediately sink, because the pact would cease.
[margin: Augustine, On Christian Doctrine, book 2, chapters 20, 22, and 23, on superstition and implicit pact; Del Rio’s cross-reference to chapter 2, question 5]
Fourthly, our conclusion is proved as follows. Not to obey the supreme pontiff in spiritual matters, of which sort is the thing about which we are dealing, is not to obey God, according to that saying, “He who hears you, hears me; he who despises you, despises me.” But not to obey the voice and command of God is a grave sin. Therefore to use this proof is to sin gravely, since the pontiff has prohibited it, as was proved at the beginning of this section. The minor premise is proved by the words of Samuel: “Does the Lord desire holocausts and victims?” that is, does God rejoice more in the slaughter and punishment of the guilty? For these too are called offerings and victims by the prophets, as I taught elsewhere. “And not rather that the voice of the Lord be obeyed?” that is, that you, O judges, should not strive against God’s prohibition. “For obedience is better than victims, and to listen is better than to offer the fat of rams.” The odor of obedience and the submission of your humble sense are sweeter to God than the stench of burned witches examined and condemned by prohibited proofs against the precepts of the canons. God loves your pure hands and minds submitted to the precepts of his vicar, not pyres, not stakes, not the efforts of miserable women examined against the precepts of the canons. “Because to resist is like the sin of soothsaying, and to refuse to acquiesce is like the crime of idolatry.”
What could be more fitting for proving that this proof, forbidden by canon law, belongs to soothsaying through a divinatory lot and to manganic divination? We do not say that Samuel spoke there about witches or about this proof; we are not so foolish. But we say that this was proved by him: that disobedience which is committed under the pretext of another good is ungrateful to God and similar to soothsaying. From this we infer that, since this disobedience is very similar to Saul’s disobedience, as I have shown, it deserves the same name that his did and must be reduced into the same class. We add that this argument was seen by the adversary but not driven off. Read what he wrote from number 123 to 127, and you will see that I speak the truth.
But the things which immediately follow about the power of demons in carrying bodies and similar matters do not pertain to the point. For to try to deny the power of demons in moving bodies, or in lifting and sustaining them in water, would certainly be to commit in philosophy what a solecism is in Priscian. We dealt with these matters in book 2, where we also taught that true miracles cannot be produced through Satan; and St. Binsfeld had taught these same things briefly but solidly. Therefore that whole disputation and word-battle, from number 128 to 149, is against him, who recognizes no miracle here, as neither do I. And the things that are further added, that such a power of deceiving judges is not permitted by God to the demon, are plainly not proved sufficiently.
The adversary compels me here a little outside the chorus, so that I may follow him. For by many things he tries to persuade us that the demon cannot do this in the element of water, because the demon is compacted from the element of air, not of water; but things that are compacted from the same element act on and have power over one another more easily; therefore the demon acts more easily in air than in water; therefore, because he can sustain bodies in air, it does not follow that he can do so in water. I answer that this could prove only that he does it with more difficulty in water. But it does not even prove this. For the major premise of the argument, that the demon is compacted from an aerial body, is erroneous, or at least altogether rash. And therefore I warn the writer to retract it, and to read what the scholastics say about that matter, or, from them and from the Fathers, Molina and Valencia most excellently. Nor do the things in which he treats at length in order to show that demons have done nothing of a miracle in water pertain to the matter. For it does not follow: at other times they did not do these things; therefore at that time they could not, nor can they now. And what he says, that the ancient martyrs floated by divine power, we have already taught to strengthen our opinion. But it is not true that no martyrs of Christ could be killed by drowning. Let him read Surius; let him read Baronius’ Martyrology and Annals, and he will find many suffocated by waters. I do not wish to linger on this, because this is a side matter.
[margin: The obedience proof cites 1 Kings 15:22-23. On the demon-body discussion the margin points to Molina and Valencia on Prima Pars q.55. The main text names Binsfeld, Surius, and Baronius’ Martyrology and Annals]
Fifthly, the conclusion is proved because a judge who, without a sufficient and weighty cause, departs from the common opinion of the interpreters of law judges wrongly, and therefore sins, as does a doctor who gives counsel against that common opinion without a suitable foundation. To these things we add the corollaries which follow from the foregoing.
First, a judge who has used this proof can be sued by an action for injury, as those can be who unjustly consign someone to prison. Secondly, if, when there are not other sufficient indications for torture, a judge subjects the accused to torture because of the support of this vulgar proof, he will sin and will be liable to an action for injuries, as above, even if the accused does not confess under torture, because he inflicted injury by torturing him when he ought not to have done so, by force of an indication disapproved by law. But if the accused confesses under the force of torments, the confession will be null because extorted by force; and the judgment following from it will be null, and the sentence void. Consequently, if a judge afflicts such a person with the punishment of death, he is guilty of homicide before God, because he killed one whom he did not have the right to kill.
Nevertheless, it must be noted for a confessor that he should diligently consider the person of the judge. For if by some case it should happen that he labored under invincible ignorance, which I scarcely think can happen today, he would be free from sin in the forum of conscience. If he labors under vincible ignorance, the sin will decrease according to the greatness and probability of the ignorance. This I think is the true and secure opinion about this purgation by cold water.
[margin: The fifth proof’s margin gives legal authorities on departure from common opinion: law 1 De officio quaestoris; chapter 1; chapter Ne innitaris, with Abbas and the doctors there, De constitutionibus; Jason, fully on Authentica Novissima, no. 22, Code De inofficioso testamento; Marcolus, treatise on the common opinion of the doctors, book 3, inspections 1 and 2; Clementine Nec magistratibus, 32, De iniuriis; Kirchovius, common opinions, centuria 1, conclusion 30; Godelmann, above, no. 30. The corollaries cite the said chapter Sententia sanguinis and the said chapter Ex tuarum; the penultimate law, Digest De quaestionibus; the common opinion of the doctors on witnesses, followed by Claro and Binsfeld; and one additional abbreviated source reference]