{"collection":"Sacred Texts: Wicca and Neo-Paganism","full_text_available":false,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/sacred_texts_v1_pag_mm_mm02a00a_htm/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/sacred_texts_v1_pag_mm_mm02a00a_htm","id":"sacred_texts_v1_pag_mm_mm02a00a_htm","license":"unknown_pending_legal_review","rights_basis":"sacred_texts_v1_preview_gate_primary_text_only; acquisition-method/ToS and compilation-copyright questions still open, not resolved by this gate","source":"sacred_texts_v1","source_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/pag/mm/mm02a00a.htm","summary":"This is an excerpt from the *Malleus Maleficarum* (Hammer of Witches), a 15th-century Latin inquisitorial manual written by Dominican inquisitors, sitting within the tradition of scholastic demonology and Church law. The passage introduces Part Two of the work, which catalogues eighteen categories of witchcraft practice, framed between two poles: prevention (who cannot be harmed by witches) and cure (how the bewitched may be healed). The central argument is that three classes of people are supernaturally immune to witchcraft: officials who prosecute witches in the name of public justice, those who regularly use Church-sanctioned protective rites (holy water, blessed salt, consecrated candles, palm leaves), and those specially protected by angels. A distinctive and self-serving claim is that the inquisitors themselves are shielded from witchcraft precisely because they exercise lawful ecclesiastical authority \u2014 a claim backed by anecdotes of witches confessing they lost their powers upon arrest, and of inquisitors being harassed but never harmed. The text also argues, in a notable theodicy, that the devil's permitted interference ultimately strengthens rather than undermines Christian faith. Readers considering the full text should expect a mix of scholastic citation (Aristotle, Paul, Numbers, Nider's *Formicarius*), procedural instruction, and first-person case narratives offered as evidentiary proof in place of formal argument.","tags":[],"text":null,"title":"Malleus Maleficarum Part 2 Question I","tradition":"Sacred Texts: Wicca and Neo-Paganism","translated_text":null,"word_count":2720}