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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A05303	A treatise of specters or straunge sights, visions and apparitions appearing sensibly vnto men Wherein is delivered, the nature of spirites, angels, and divels: their power and properties: as also of witches, sorcerers, enchanters, and such like. With a table of the contents of the several chapters annexed in the end of the booke. Newly done out of French into English.; Discours des spectres, ou visions et apparitions d'esprits, comme anges, demons, at ames, se monstrans visibles aux hommes. English	Loyer, Pierre le, 1550-1634.; Jones, Zachary.	1605 (1605)	STC 15448; ESTC S108473	230,994	324

colour as Homer describeth her Mercury was painted like a young man hauing his eyes alwayes open as one that was euer waking with bright yellowe hayre and a yellowe downe vpon his chinne and cheekes as if it did but newly begin to frizzle or to curle Venus had her eyes delicate and wanton and her lockes of golde yellow Iuno had grosse and thicke eyes rising vp towardes her head like vnto the eyes of an Oxe And so generally were the rest of the Gods painted by the Gentiles in diuers formes and fashions Notwithstanding all this proceeded of nothing else but from the errour of our Imagination which suffereth it selfe to bee deceiued and seduced by the painting which imprinted in it a kind of false notion I say a notion because the ignorant common sort of people is perswaded of the same and suffereth it to take place in their minde or vnderstanding which is as easie also to be deceiued as is their Imagination But a man of wisedome and iudgement who hath his vnderstanding more cleare and open is not easily therewithall seduced but notwithstanding al paintings and fictions his Intellect or vnderstanding power pierceth through the Imagination as the Sunne pierceth or shineth through the cloudes and spreading it selfe with her light doth easily beleeue in a spiritual manner that God and the Angels are Spirituall The second Argument of the Epicures The second Argument of the Epicures touching the humane bodie of God was that God tooke vpon him that forme which was or could be imagined to be the most beautifull in the whole world And they say that the humane forme or shape is of all others the most goodly and excellent And therefore wee ought to thinke that God is carnall and corporall as men are Hereunto needeth no answere to bee made because the consequence of their argument is not good Answere to the 2. Argument viz. That God should retaine vnto himselfe the Figure of a man because the same is the most excellent of all other creatures in the world For the Diuinitie of God neither is nor can be in any corporall substance But it is an Incorporall and spirituall essence which hath nothing common with that substance which is proper vnto these earthly creatures The 3. Argument of the Epicures The third last argument of these Philosophers is a Gradation or heaping vp of Syllogismes which kinde of argument the Greekes call a Sorites and they frame it in this sort It is held and confessed of all that God all other celestial powers are exceedingly happy But no person can be happy without vertue And vertue cannot bee present in any without reason and reason can bee in none but in the figure and shape of man Therefore it must bee granted that the Gods which haue the vse of reason haue the forme of man also But the whole frame of this Argument Answere to the 3. Argument may soone and easily bee dissolued by denying that reason can bee in no other then in a humane shape For both God and the Angels who haue a diuine and spirituall vnderstanding haue the vse of reason notwithstanding that they be not of a corporal substance And reason in man commeth not of the humane body but from the soule of man which is Spirituall Diuine made vnto the likenesse of God and capable of reason of prudence and of wisedome Now whereas it might be obiected to the Epicures That in making their Gods to haue a humane bodie they doe therein make them subiect to death and dissipation To auoide this absurditie Absurdities in the opinion of the Epicures they doe tumble into a greater affirming that their bodie is as a body and their bloud as bloud not hauing any thing but the lineamēts proportiō of a man being exempted frō all crassitude thicknes which in a word is asmuch as to say that their Gods were rather Idols of men thē very men and rather framed by the paterne of men thē as men in truth substance which is a thing the most ridiculous that can be imagined But will some say To what purpose serueth all this touching our matter of Specters I haue saide before that the Saduces did maintaine God to haue a bodie to the ende they might the better deny the appearing of Specters which are substances without a bodie Also the Epicures made their Gods to haue bodies that so they might holde them in the heauens idle and doing nothing and by consequence might deny their Apparition vpon Earth Of the opinion of the Epicures who thought there were no Diuels nor Spirits In vita Bruti For as touching Diuels or Spirites they beleeued there were not any but did confound them all in the number of their Gods And that they did but make a iest of Specters appeareth by the speech of Cassius in Plutarch and in that that Celsus halfe an Epicure writing against the Christians Lib. 2.6 8 ●●●tra Celsum did denie them flatly and absolutely as is to bee seene in Origen who hath aunswered him and did reproue the Christians in that they would allowe of any powers or Spirites contrary to the Gods supposing according to his owne saying and opinion that there were no Diuels Besides that hee made a mocke and a iest of Angels and of the Resurrection of the bodie and generally of all those Apparitions which were made both in the old and new Testament And now that wee speake of contrary powers Contra St●ices it putteth mee in remembrance of a speech of Plutarch who reproueth Chrisippus for that in this vniuersall body of the worlde so well ordained and framed he should graunt so great an inconuenience to wit that there should be a kinde of Diuels afflicting and tormenting men to the disturbance of the concord and harmonie of the world Which being well ordained by the Authour and maker thereof ought not to bee thought to beare or sustaine any thing which should be incommodious to it self and by lapse and cōtinuance of time should worke the confusion and destruction of the same But it seemeth that Plutarch reprehēded Chrisippus vpon a desire and humor of contradiction rather then moued vpon any iust cause or matter of truth For the diuels do not worke any domage or inconuenience to the world being bridled restrained by the hand and power of God And if they do torment men or tempt them it is to exercise them or to manifest the glory and iustice of God of the which they are sometimes made the executioners S. Bernard in Sermone 1. de transla S. Malach Diabolus inquit malleus calest is opificis factus est malleus vniuersa terra And as in each Common-Wealth well instituted there bee executioners ordained for the punishment of Malefactors and such as trouble and disturbe the publicke peace and good of the common-weale and yet the vniuersall body of the cōmon-weale is not therby offended

and abandoned the company of men wandring vp and downe through the fields and desarts And as the darkenes of the night doth yeelde feare and terrour not onely to children but even to them which are of ripe and elder yeares So doth the humour of Melancho●y fright and terrifie men without any occasion and it engendreth a thousand false imagitions in the braine no lesse troubling and obscuring it with foolish visions then the night doth deceive the eyes of men who in the darkenesse thereof doe mistake one thing for another And for this cause men that are melancholicke are called of the Latines Imaginosi that is to say Phantastike The which I have observed in Catullus who speaketh of a certaine foolish and phantastike maiden saith Non est sana puella nec rogate qualis sit solet haec imaginosum I know that some learned Civillians of our time have corrected this word Imaginosum otherwise but I am of the opinion of Ioseph Scaliger who hath not altered the auntient word but hath so left it as of the best correction in his first lesson But to returne vnto Melancholike persons although feare and sadnes doth seldome or never forsake the most part of them so it is notwithstanding Of the divers and sundry sorts of melancholike persons that they are not all of one kinde For some there have beene as Galen saith who have imagined themselves to bee an earthen pot and for that cause have drawne backe and out of the companie of men for feare of being broken Others have been in a feare lest the Mountaine of Atlas which is said to sustaine and beare vp the whole world should fall vpon them and over-whelme them Others againe have imagined themselves to be Cockes and have imitated them in their voyce their crowing and the clapping of their wings some of them desire death and yet flie from it others have slaine and tumbled themselves desperately head-long into some deepe pits or wells as did Peter Teon the Phisitian vpon a melancholike humour because he could not cure Laurence de Medicis as both Paulus Iovius and Sannazar doe testifie Besides some there have beene who have imagined that they have had no head as Hypocrates writeth hee knew such a one to whom for a remedie he applyed and fastned a heavie peece of lead vpon his head because hee should thereby feele that hee had a head Others againe have shunned and abhorred all sorts of liquor as water wine oyle and such like things They which are bitten with a mad dogge do endure such a kind of passion and the Greekes call it Hydrophobie in regard they feare the water And Ruffus the Phisition alleadged by Paulus Egineta writeth Lib. 5. cap. 3. that the cause why they which are bitten with a mad-dogge do feare the water is because they imagine Men bitten with a mad dogge why they shunne the water that they doe see in the water the specter and image of that dogge which hath bitten them And Averrois telleth one thing that is verie strange and admirable if so be it bee true that in the vrine of such a one in the bubbles thereof are to be seene as if there were little dogges so great force and puissance saith he hath the imagination vpon the humors of the body And as touching the specter and image of a dogge which they see who grew mad by being so bitten I remember that a certaine Greeke Poet also maketh mention thereof the which in my younger yeeres I indevoured my selfe to translate Lib. 7. Epigra Graecor and I inserted it in my poeticall workes that are printed the French verses are to this effect A man that is bitten by a dog mad enraged As soone as he feeleth the worme stinging him in the head Men say that he sees within the water formed A beast whose feare pricks him and makes him wholy altred To make short others there bee that imagine themselves to bee Woolves and they will leape out of their beds in the night time and runne out of their houses howling as Woolves and even till the day beginne to appeare they will remaine in the Church-yardes and about the graves and sepulchres of the dead as the same Egineta writeth of them And this affection or maladie the Greeks call Lycantropie Lib. 3. cap. 16. whereof we will speake more largely heereafter The furious Melancholie whence it is engendred And to draw to an end of this Discourse of Melancholie it is to be vnderstoode that sometimes it is engendred in the braine by meanes that the veines are polluted and defiled with a kinde of blacke cholerike blood The furious melancholy whence it is engendred And sometimes it groweth in the braine of it selfe though the blood be not vniversally touched therewithall this is done when by reason of the heate of the braine the blood becommeth more thicke and blacke then is vsuall And sometimes it commeth also of the stomacke Now the perturbation of the intellectuall part comming from the stomacke either it proceedeth of that which the Latines call Abdomen Tract 9. cap. 9. l. br 1. and the Arabians and Abenzoar doe call Mirach or else from some strong and violent heate exhalated from some principall member or from some impostume or inflammation made within that part of the entrailes which lieth neere vnto the stomacke and by the Greekes is named 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The which is confirmed also by Galen who writeth that Lib. 3. de locis Affect cap. 4. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Or else it proceedeth of the immoderate heate of the veines called Meseraiques by reason of the obstruction wroght in them by some thicke and grosse blood Now as Abenzoar saith this heate is externall Tract 9. and hindreth and impeacheth the operations of the naturall heate by reason that the naturall heate maketh the concoction and digestion of the meate but that which is externall and accidentall doth burne and convert it into ill Fumes And of those vapours and fumosities dooth ensue a troubling and distraction of the minde diversly according to the diversities of the fumes and windes that doe arise and according to the differences of their kinds each in severall as they are more or lesse either grosse or subtile or hote or warme betweene hote and colde And the same Abenzoar sheweth how hee cured one that was sicke of melancholy through the causes above mentioned who one day would have made or baked a batch of bread within a pit and had caused a quantitie of meale to bee bought and provided to that effect and commaunded his servants to cast it into the pit which they refusing to doe hee bear them with a cudgell and constrained them to doe it and then himselfe went downe into the pit and baked or kneaded his meale and calling vnto him his neerest and most familiar friendes hee prayed them to eate of the bread which he had baked But they fearing that in

and granted against him That it was a thing never heard of in that palace that an extraordinary criminall accusation shoulde be laide against any man that in a foolish wantonnes and youthfull oversight onely without any will or intent to doe evill had adventured to doe that towardes a maiden which in very trueth did not deserve so much as the name of a simple iniury For howsoever he didde fondly in casting this paper into the bosome of the maide yet did hee not attempt to wrong her honour or chastitie neither didde he pursue or sollicite her in any shamelesse manner neither did he vse any dishonest or vnseemely speeches vnto her that might cause her so much as to blush at them And in briefe that he had not offered her any such foule or bitter iniury for the which hee had deserved by the Lawe either reproofe or any extraordinary punishment L. vlt. D. de Iniur And if it did so happen and fall out by chaunce afterward that the maide became sicke yet it was no consequent that he should be the cause of her sickenes Not without reason was that saying of the Greeke Poet Euripides That all those things which happened casually were very diverse and that the gods contrary to humane exspectation did take a pleasure to change things here belowe 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 There is not any man so sound healthfull that can assure himselfe of his health not so much as a day and who knoweth what the evening or the morning may cause to betide vnto him either prosperous or vnfortunate many things doe happen as the olde saying is betweene the cuppe and the lippe Yea but the Complainant saith and averreth That in the scroll of paper there were certaine words charmed by force whereof their daughter fell sicke Certainely their speech is grounded vpon a very vaine and fraile foundation and the same vtterly overthrowes and destroys al their accusation For what man is there so litle seene or so vnskilfull in the course and causes of nature that will beleeve that charmes and enchauntments can have any power vpon men and that a figure a writing a line or a word bredde onely by the refraction of the aire should worke above and beyond nature and should have power to alter or change it in any sort whatsoever Every man knoweth sufficiently how that the Caball of the Iewes which dooth attribute so great force to writings and to the speaking and pronounciation of certaine wordes hath beene reprooved and hissed out of the Schooles by all learned Divines and that Reuclin the Almaine and others who have allowed and consented to the fond dotages and follies of the Caballists and Iewish Rabbines have beene censured and condemned by the Maisters of Sorbonne who did holde that all those enchauntments charmes and woordes which the Cabal vseth are nothing but meere Magicke and therefore without any efficacie as comming from the divell who lost all his power at the comming of our Saviour Christ into the world as hee himselfe hath confessed even by his Oracles vppon enquirie and demaund made to them by the Gentiles that lived after Christ Yea the Paynimes themselves which were guided and mis-led by the Divell did ever esteeme the Arte Magicke and all sortes of charmes to be nothing else but deceiptes and illusions And Plinie reciteth how the Emperour Ner● after hee hadde searched into all the secretes of Magicke and had spared no paines to sound the deapth thereof in the end hee found that it was but a meere abuse neither could Tyridates nor Simon Magus perfourme any thing although they had promised to acquaint him with the full knowledge and science of the same Besides it cannot any where be found that any person whatsoever was ever accused of beeing a Magician vnder the good and wise Emperours of Rome For they knew well that all accusation is to be held and accompted vaine where there is no lawfull colour of trespas committed And it is most certaine that Apulcius who lived vnder those good Princes Antoninus Philosophus L. Gracchus C. ●d legem Iul d● adult and P●rtin●x being accused before Claudius Maxi●●● the Governour of Affricke That he had allured gained to his love one Pudentilla and had so bewitched her that he had wrought her to marry him was fully acquitted from that accusation as being frivolous vaine and calumnious On the contrary those Emperours which were helde wicked and cruell Princes did finde a faire colour and pretence by the Arte Magicke and the Mathematiques to bring such vnder danger of torment punishment against whom they beare any malice hatred when they were not able to accuse and calumniate them of any other fault or offence How many noble and honourable Romans both men and women didde the Emperour Tiberius cause to be put to death onely vnder colour that they had consulted with the Chaldeans The Emperour Claudius of whome Ausonius speaketh That Non faciendo nocens sed patiendo fuit That is The hurt he did was not in dooing ill But in the patient suffring therof still Did condemne to die as beeing a Sorcerer a poore Knight of Rome because hee bare about him the egge of a Serpent beeing perswaded that the same was good to cause his suite in lawe to goe on his side In vita Carac And Antoniue Caracalla as saith Spartian did likewise condemne those that vsed to carry any tickets or writings tied about their neckes for a remedy against the Tertian and Quartane fevers The historie is wel known of Apollonius Thianeus whome Domitian a wicked Prince did cause to be tormented for his Arte Magicke albeit those that came and succeeded after him to wit Alexander the sonne of Mammea and Aurelianus did honour him during his life and after his death did consecrate Altares and Oratories vnto him And in briefe all the worlde knoweth howe that Valen and Valen●i●ian for causing so many famous and learned Philosophers and so many noble and woorthy Senatours and Roman Knights to be punished for the science of Magicke have beene reprooved and blamed by many Historiographers as namely Eunapius Zosymus Ammian Marcellin and others who in that regarde onely have over-ranged them in the rancke and number of evill Emperours And they doe marvellously blame those Commissaries to whome the triall and enquiry of this crime was committed if that may and ought to be called a crime which is rather a vayne perswasion or inveterate superstition bred and ingraffed in the hearts of men And therefore the Appellant concluded That both the Decree the Ordinance the Execution was ill and vniust and that the Iudgement ought to be corrected and amended and the partie to bee cleerely dismissed absolved and acquitted On the contrary parte the Defendaunt in the appeale saide and affirmed That the cause was rightly adiudged by the inferiour Iudge And that it was wel and iustly ordered that extraordinary processe should be made and awarded against the Appellant

That not onely the Lawe Cornelia did punish those which should bruise and temper any noysome poysons to the hurte of an other but those also Qui mala sacrificia fecerant habuerant Which had or made any ill sacrifices Meaning vndoubtedly by ill sactifices the practise of Magicke And this did the Roman Emperours interpreate more plainely saying Eorum scientiam esse puniendam saverissimis meritò legibus vindicandam qui Magicis accincti artibus aut contra salutem hominun mollits aut pudicos animos ad libidinem deflexisse detegentur That their skill and science was woorthy to be punished and chasticed with severe laws who by Art Magike should either contrive to impaire the health of people or should be detected to allure vnto lust and lewdnes such as were honestly and chastly addicted Nowe as touching the Appellant it appeared by the Information broght against him that hee hadde cast into the bosome of a yoong maiden a small scroll not of paper as hee alleadged but of Virgine parchmin such as Magicians Sorcerers and Enchaunters doe vse and thereby did thinke to have attempted her chastitie the proofe whereof did plainely appeere in that hee had before sollicited her and sought to have her in marriage And for that cause having vsed sinister and wicked vnlawfull meanes as namely by Magicke and Witchcraft to come to his intended purpose he was woorthie to be punished and processe extraordinarily ought to be graunted and awarded against him That the lawe Cornelia did put little or no difference betweene poysons and amorous drinckes and betweene charmes and enchauntments all which in the Greeke tongue were called and named by one the same word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which appeareth also by that Treatise of Theocritus called Pharmacentria wherein he introduceth a Sorceresse who by force not onely of her Bird named 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which as Langius the Physitian saieth the Almaines doe call Windals or Wassero●hss or Rhuerdrommel and the Latines Frutilla but also by means of hearbes holy wordes and other such like charmes woulde drawe and allure her love vnto her And true it is That Empedocles having made a booke of Sorcery or Magicke dooth shew the same much more cleerely and manifestly confounding by this worde 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 wherewith hee beginneth his Booke both charmed hearbes and enchaunted words and the very skill and arte of Sorcerie 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith hee 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. And as touching those that doe vse to give either any kinde of poison or any amorous love drinkes the paines ordained for them by the antient Roman laws were manifest For the vile baser and meanest sort of persons as the ●i●●●●● speake Dob out subijci bestijs L. 3. § legis Corneliae D. ad legem Cornel. de sicc honestiore loco positi capite puniri alliore deportari ought to be cast to wilde beasts to be devoured such as are of a more honest and better calling were to be beheaded and those of the best and highest degree were adiudged to be banished The Persians as Plutarch reporteth did cause the heads of such persons to be crushed in peeces betweene two stones In vita Artaxerxis And as for Apuleius he was accused before Claudius Maximus of three things all comprised vnder one and the same terme of Magike or Sorcerie to wit that he had given an amorous potion or love-drinke vnto his wife that he had vsed both hearbes and certaine poisons for the working of his enchauntments and last of all that he did vse certaine charmes and sacred magicall words And if hee had not had the favour and friendship of Lollianus Avitus and of Claudius the friend of Lollianus it had gone hard with him But in the time of Valentinian the great Philosopher Maximus the disciple of Iambsicus sped nothing so well for being accused of the same crime hee was iustly condemned to die neither could the favor which the Emperour Iulian bare him in any sort save and preserve him To make short the Greekes and namely the Athenians did so exceedingly hate und abhorre this detestable crime that they would never ad●itte nor frame any for me of processe against those that were attainted therewithall but they did presently and immediately cause them to be slaime as appeareth by Lemnia a Sorceresse who as Demosthenes affi●●●ieth was put to death for this offence after she was bewraied and discovered by her chamber-maid The Romans also did burne all the bookes of their king Numa Decad. 4. li. 10. which did containe matter of Magicke as both Titus Livius and Pl●●ie doe repore Lib. 13. cap. 13. And our Civill Lawyers do will that all Iudges in their iudgements concerning the division of families which they call Tamilin ●rciscunda should burne all book us discovered to be magicall L. 4. § 1. D. famil ●●is Ta●tund●m say they debe●unt fac●re in libris improbata de●ti●nis Magicis forte his similibus hac e●i●●●mnia protinus corrumpenda sunt Wherfore look how much the Authors of such bookes are to be hated so much or more do they greevously adiudge them to be punished whensoever they finde anye attainted and convicted either to have made or to have vsed them in any sort whatsoever Besides the virgine Parchmin which the Appellant vsed is one of the precepts of Magicke which cannot bee fitted nor vsed to any other effect then to an●ll end and this Parchmin is vsually made by enchantment of the skinne of infants dead borne and it is intended that the same is done with an expresse or secret confederation made with the divell insomuch as Agrippa Petrus de Albano Picatrix and other the like detestable and wicked Magitians doe no lesse praise and commend Virgine Parchmin then the Magitians of old times In lib. de lapidibus as Orpheus did commend the stone called an Agate which they saide was able to do all things that a man would desire 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 To be briefe to as great effect doth the Virgine Parchmin serve as doth the amorous potion or love-drinke of which as the saying is Lucretius the Poet died Invenal saty 6 Cui tot em tremuli frontem Ceronia pulli Infudit and Caligula the Emperor became with such another to bee enraged and in a sort distracted and out of his wits his wife Ceronia having given him such a kinde of drinke who for that cause was also slaine by the souldiers that had before killed her husband as Tosephus reporteth And more then so Lib. 19. cap. 2. Antiquitatum this seemeth to be that Hippomanes which is apt to stirre and procure love no lesse then the true Hippomanes plucked from the fore-head of a horse-col●e whereof Virgil Propertius and other Poets do speake much Lib. 4. Acneid 3. Georg. Lib. 4. Elegiavum In Pharmacent Lib. 2 de histor animal ca.