In the Kors
and Peters’ book, The fifth action, in Kramer and Sprenger’s The Malleus Maleficarum, states that
“the accused shall as far as possible be given the benefit of every doubt,
provided that this involves no scandal to the faith….” (p 208). This statement
confuses me because I don’t understand how a person accused of witchcraft would
not have been considered to show a “scandal of faith” (p 208)?
Throughout
the text, the authors describe what constitutes an evil woman. They use bible
verses to outline the faults of women, like “women being formed out of a bent
rib” (p 184). The way the authors try to use faith as a tool to claim women as
witches. They also counter their own points, like when they say a women who
doesn’t cry she’s a witch, but if she cries, she could still be a witch and be
fake crying (184).
With using
religion to identify a possible evil woman, and the authors’ ability to counter
their own evidence, then how is it possible that the women will be “granted
every benefit of the doubt” (p 208)? It
seems that an accused is literally in a “damned if you do, damned if you don’t”
situation. Using biblical versus to strength the accusers point automatically
causes a wrongdoing to the church and God.
I agree. it is hard to see how any act of magic does not involve a "scandal to the faith" since all magic was viewed as turning your back on God. If that's the case, every person accused of witchcraft is automatically sent to death because they went against God. Therefore, no accused person would be given the benefit of the doubt. As time moved on, I think this becomes apparent in the torture devices they would use. The pain they would cause would be enough for anyone to admit to something - even if they didn't do it. It's almost as if the church was willing to kill anyone even remotely linked to magic because they wanted to stop the spread of it.
ReplyDeleteI think that they just basically wanted to make sure that there wasn't really a way that a woman accused of witchcraft could go free. Maybe they had a serious problem against witches and this is just a way to make sure that they don't get away with causing trouble. I think that they said what they did about the "scandal to the faith" because it might be their way of trying to make a disclaimer of some sorts so they don't seem like they are targeting just women and then executing them with no real proof. They are saying that the accused will be given the benefit of the doubt, but I think we all know that that did not really happen for most of the accused.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Alexandra on this. I think the whole "scandal of faith" was another way of saying not guilty until proven otherwise. This allowed the accused to provided an opposing argument that could potentially keep them alive and have the accuser punished.
ReplyDeleteIt's funny because people feel like they can just pull a random Bible verse out and use it as an argument. Doesn't quite work that way when you take into consideration the whole piece instead of picking one sentence that provides clear "evidence" to your argument.
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