Page:A history of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, volume 3.djvu/414

 398 SORCERY AND OCCULT ARTS. to magic arts, but the persecution in the East under Valens in 374, following the conspiracy of Theodore, obliterated all distinction. Commencing with those accused of magic, it extended to all who were noted for letters or philosophy. Terror reigned throughout the East; all who had libraries burned them. The prisons were insufficient to contain the prisoners, and in some towns it was said that fewer were left than were taken. Many w^ere put to death, and the rest were stripped of their property. In the AVest, under Yalentinian, persecution was not so sweeping, but the laws were enforced, at least in Rome, with sufficient energy to reduce greatly the number of sorcerers ; and a law of Honorius, in 409, by its reference to the bishops, shows that the Church was begin- ning to participate with the State in the supervision over such offenders.* Yet that even the faithful could not be restrained from indulging in these forbidden practices is seen in the earnest exhortations addressed to them by their teachers, and the elaborate repetition of proofs that all such exhibitions of supernatural power were the work of demons. f The Eastern Empire maintained its severity of legislation and continued with more or less success to repress the inextinguishable thirst for forbidden arts. From some transactions under Manuel and Andronicus Comnenus in the latter half of the twelfth century we learn that blinding was a usual punishment for such offences, that the classical forms of augury had disappeared to be replaced by necromantic formulas, and that such accusations were a con- venient method of disposing of enemies.^: iv. 14.— Lib. ix. Cod. Theod. xvi. 7-12. Yet favoritism led Valens to pardon Pollentianus. a military tribune, who confessed that, for the purpose of ascertaining the destiny of the imperial crown, he had ripped open a living woman and extracted her unborn babe to perform a hideous rite of necromancy (Am. Marcell. xxix. ii. 17). In the later Roman augury, contaminated with Eastern rites, omens of the highest significance were found in the entrails of human victims, especially in those of the foetus (iEl. Lamprid. Elagabal. 8. — Euseb. H. E. vn. 10, viii. 14. — Paul. Diac. Hist. MiscelL XL). + Augustin. de Civ. Dei x. 9; xxi. 6 ; de Genesi ad Litteram xi. ; de Divinat. Daemon, v.; de Doctr. Christ, ii. 20-4; Serm. 278.— Concil. Carthag. iv. ann. 398, c. 89.— Dracont. de Deo n. 324-7.— Leon. PP. I. Serm. xxvu. c. 3.
 * Ainmian. Marcellin. xix. xii. 14; xxvi. iii.; xxix. i. 5-14, ii. 1-5. — Zozimi
 * Lib. ix. Cod. xviii. 2-6.— Basilicon Lib. lx. Tit. xxxix. 3, 28-32.— Photii