Part 16

“The fifth name is ‏חובר חבר‎ _chobher chebher_, which our English translators render charmer, which is the same with enchanter. Webster upon this name is very tedious and flat, a many words and small weight in them. I shall dispatch the meaning briefly thus: this ‏חובר חבר‎, _chobher chebher_, that is to say, _socians societatem_, is another name of a witch, so called specially either from the consociating together serpents by a charm, which has made men usually turn it (from the example of the Septuagint, ἐπάδων ἐπαοιδὴν,) a charmer, or an enchanter, or else from the society or compact of the witch with some evil spirits; which Webster acknowledges to have been the opinion of two very learned men, Martin Luther and Perkins, and I will add a third, Aben Ezra, (as Martinius hath noted,) who gives this reason of the word ‏חובר‎ _chobher_, an enchanter, which signifies _socians_ or _jungens_, viz. _Quòd malignos spiritus sibi associat_. And certainly one may charm long enough, even till his heart aches, ere he make one serpent assemble near him, unless helped by this confederacy of spirits that drive them to the charmer. He keeps a pudder with the sixth verse of the fifty-eighth Psalm to no purpose; whereas from the Hebrew, ‏אשר לא־ישמע לקול מלחשים חובר חברים מחכם‎, if you repeat ἀπὸ κοινoῦ ‏לקול‎ before ‏חובר‎, you may with ease and exactness render it thus: ‘That hears not the voice of muttering charmers, no not the voice of a confederate wizzard, or charmer that is skilful.’ But seeing charms, unless with them that are very shallow and sillily credulous, can have no such effects of themselves, there is all the reason in the world (according as the very word intimates, and as Aben Ezra has declared,) to ascribe the effect to the assistance, confederacy, and co-operation of evil spirits, and so ‏חובר חברים‎, _chobher chabharim_, or ‏חובר חבר‎ _chobher chebher_, will plainly signify a witch or wizzard according to the true definition of them. But for J. Webster’s rendering this verse, p. 119, thus, _Quæ non audiet vocem mussitantium incantationes docti incantantis_, (which he saith is doubtless the most genuine rendering of the place) let any skilful man apply it to the Hebrew text, and he will presently find it grammatical nonsense. If that had been the sense, it should have been ‏חברי חובר מחכם‎.

“The sixth word is ‏שואל אוב‎, _shoel obh_, which our English translation renders, ‘a consulter with familiar spirits;’ but the Septuagint Ἐγγαστρίμυθος. Which therefore must needs signifie him that has this familiar spirit: and therefore ‏שואל אוב‎ _shoel obh_, I conceive, (considering the rest of the words are so to be understood) is to be understood of the witch or wizzard himself that asks counsel of his familiar, and does by virtue of him give answers unto others. The reason of the name of ‏אוב‎ _obh_, it is likely was taken first from that spirit that was in the body of the party, and swelled it to a protuberancy like the side of a bottle. But after, without any relation to that circumstance, _OBH_ signifies as much as _pytho_; as _pytho_ also, though at first it took its name from the _pythii vates_, signifies no more than _spiritum divinationis_, in general, a spirit that tells hidden things, or things to come. And _OBH_ and _pytho_ also agree in this, that they both signify either the divinatory spirit itself, or the party that has that spirit. But here in ‏שואל אוב‎, _shoel obh_, it being rendered by the Septuagint Ἐγγαςείμυθος, _OBH_ is necessarily understood of the spirit itself, as _pytho_ is, Acts xvi. 16, if you read πνεῦμα πύδωνα, with Isaac Casaubon; but if πύθωνος, it may be understood either way. Of this πνεύμα πύθων, it is recorded in that place, that ‘Paul being grieved, turned and said to that spirit, I command thee, in the name of Jesus Christ, to come out of her, and he came out at the same hour;’ which signifies as plainly as any thing can be signified, that this _pytho_ or spirit of divination, that this _OBH_ was in her: for nothing can come out of the sack that was not in the sack, as the Spanish proverb has it; nor could this _pytho_ come out of her unless it was a spirit distinct from her; wherefore I am amazed at the profane impudence of J. Webster, that makes this _pytho_ in the maid there mentioned, nothing but a wicked humour of cheating and cozening divination: and adds, that this spirit was no more cast out of that maid than the seven devils out of Mary Magdalene, which he would have understood only of her several vices; which foolish familistical conceit he puts upon Beza as well as Adie. Wherein as he is most unjust to Beza, so he is most grossly impious and blasphemous against the spirit of Christ in St. Paul and St. Luke, who makes them both such fools as to believe that there was a spirit or divining devil in the maid, when according to him there is no such thing. Can any thing be more frantic or ridiculous than this passage of St. Paul, if there was no spirit or devil in the damsel? But what will this profane shuffler stick to do in a dear regard to his beloved hags, of whom he is sworn advocate, and resolved patron right or wrong?

“But to proceed, that ‏אוב‎, _obh_, signifies the spirit itself that divines, not only he that has it, is manifest from Levit. xx. 27, _Vir autem sive mulier cùm fuerit_ [‏בהם אוב‎] _in eis pytho_. And 1 Sam. xxviii. 8, _Divina quæso mihi_ [‏באוב‎] _per pythonem_. In the Septuagint it is ἐν τῶν Ἐγγαστρίμυθῳ, that is, by that spirit that sometimes goes into the body of the party, and thence gives answers; but here it only signifies a familiar spirit. And lastly, ‏בעלת אוב‎, _bagnalath obh_, 1 Sam. xxviii. 7, _Quæ habit pythonem_; there _OBH_ must needs signify the spirit itself, of which she of Endor was the owner or possessor; that is to say, it was her familiar spirit. But see what brazen and stupid impudence will do here, ‏בעלת אוב‎, _bagnalath obh_, with Webster must not signify one that has a familiar spirit, but the mistress of the bottle. Who but the master of the bottle, or rather of whom the bottle had become master, and by guzzling had made his wits excessively muddy and frothy, could ever stumble upon such a foolish interpretation? But because ‏אוב‎ _obh_, in one place of the Scripture signifies a bottle, it must signify so here, and it must be the instrument forsooth, out of which this cheating quean of Endor does ‘whisper, peep, or chirp like a chicken coming out of the shell,’ p. 129, 165. And does she not, I beseech you, put her nib also into it sometimes, as into a reed, as it is said of that bird, and cries like a butter-bump? certainly he might as well have interpreted ‏בעלת אוב‎ _bagnalath obh_, of the great tun of Heidelberg, that Tom. Coriat takes such special notice of, as of the bottle.

“And truly so far as I see, it must be some such huge tun at length rather than the bottle, that is, such a spacious tub as he in his deviceful imagination fancies Manasses to have built; a μανείον forsooth, or oracular edifice for ‘cheating rogues and queans to play their cozening tricks in;’ from that place 2 Chron. xxxiii. 6, ‏ועשה אוב‎, _Et fecit pythonem_. Now, says he, how could Manasses make a familiar spirit? or make one that had a familiar spirit? Therefore he made a bottle a tun, or a large tub, a μαντεῖον, or oracular edifice ‘for cheating rogues or queans to play their cozening tricks in.’ Very wisely argued, and out of the very depth of his ignorance of the Hebrew tongue, whereas if he had looked into Buxtorf’s Dictionary he might have understood that ‏עשה‎ signifies not only _fecit_ but also _paravit_, _comparavit_, _acquisivit_, _magni fecit_, none of which words imply the making of _OBH_ in his sense, but the only appointing them to be got, and countenancing them. For in Webster’s sense he did not make ‏ידעני‎ _jidegnoni_ neither, that is wizzards, and yet Manasses is said to make them both alike. ‏יעשה אוב וידעני‎, _Et fecit pythonem et magos_. So plain is it that ‏אוב‎, _obh_, signifies _pytho_, and that adequately in the same sense that _pytho_ does, either a familiar spirit, or him that has that spirit of divination. But in ‏בעלת אוב‎, _bagnalath obh_, it necessarily signifies the familiar spirit itself, which assisted the witch of Endor; whereby it is manifest she is rightly called a witch. As for his stories of counterfeit ventriloquists, (and who knows but some of his counterfeit ventriloquists may prove true ones,) that is but the threadbare sophistry of Sadducees and Atheists to elude the faith of all true stories by those that are of counterfeits or feigned.

“The seventh word is ‏ידעוני‎, _jidegnoni_, which our English translators render a wizzard. And Webster is so kind as to allow them to have translated this word aright. Wizzards, then, Webster will allow, that is to say, he-witches, but not she-witches. How tender the man is of that sex! But the word invites him to it ‏ידעוני‎, _jidegnoni_, coming from _scire_, and answering exactly to wizzard or wise man. And does not witch from _wit_ and _weet_ signify as well a wise woman, as I noted above? And as to the sense of those words from whence they are derived, there is no hurt herein; and therefore if that were all, ‏ידעוני‎, _jidegnoni_, had not been in this black list. Wherefore it is here understood in that more restrict and worse sense: so as we understand usually now-a-days witch and wizzard, such wise men and women whose skill is from the confederacy of evil spirits, and therefore are real wizzards and witches. In what a bad sense ‏ידעוני‎, _jidegnoni_, is understood, we may learn, from Levit. xx. 27, ‘A man also or woman that hath a familiar spirit, or that is a wizzard, _jidegnoni_, shall be put to death, they shall stone them with stones,’ &c.

“The last word is ‏דורש המתים‎, _doresh hammethim_, which our translators rightly render _necromancers_; that is, those that either upon their own account, or desired by others, do raise the ghosts of the deceased to consult with; which is a more particular term than ‏בעל אוב‎, _bagnal obh_: but he that is _bagnal obh_, may be also _doresh hammethim_, a necromancer, as appears in the witch of Endor. Here Webster by ‏המתים‎, _hammethim_, the dead, would understand dead statues; but let him, if he can, any where shew in all the Scripture where the word ‏המתים‎, _hammethim_, is used of what was not once alive. He thinks he hits the nail on the head in that place of Isaiah, viii. 19, ‘And when they say unto you, seek unto [‏האבות‎, that is, to ‏בעליה אוב‎, such as the witch of Endor was,] them that have familiar spirits, and to wizzards that peep and that mutter; [the Hebrew has it ‏המהגים‎ and ‏המצפצפים‎; that is, speak with a querulous murmurant or mussitant voice, when they either conjure up the spirit, or give responses. If this be to ‘peep like a chicken,’ Isaiah himself peeped like a chicken, xxxviii. 14,] should not a people seek unto their God? for the living, (‏אל המתים‎,) to the dead?’ Where _hammethim_ is so far from signifying dead statues, that it must needs be understood of the ghosts of dead men, as here in Deuteronomy. None but one that had either stupidly or wilfully forgot the story of Samuel’s being raised by that ‏בעלת אוב‎, _bagnalath obh_, the witch of Endor, could ever have the face to affirm that ‏המתים‎, _hammethim_, here in Isaiah, is to be understood of dead statues, when wizzards or necromancers were so immediately mentioned before, especially not Webster, who acknowledges that ‏שואל אוב‎, _shoel obh_, signifies a necromancer in this Deuteronomical list of names. And therefore, forsooth, would have it a tautology that _doresh hammethim_ should signify so too. But I say it is no tautology, this last being more express and restrict. And besides, this enumeration is not intended as an accurate logical division of witches or witchcraft, into so many distinct kinds, but a reciting of several names of that ill trade, though they will interfere one with another, and have no significations so precisely distinct. But as I said before, this fuller recounting of them is made that the prohibition in this form might be the surer fence against the sin. And now therefore what will J. Webster get by this, if _doresh hammethim_ will not signify a witch of Endor, when it must necessarily signify a necromancer, which is as much against his tooth as the other? Nay indeed this necromancer is also a witch or wizzard, according to the definition produced above.

“The rest of the chapter being so inconsiderable, and I having been so long already upon it, I shall pass to the next, after I have desired you to take notice how weak and childish, or wild and impudent, Mr. Webster has been in the interpretation of Scripture hitherto, in the belief of his sage dames, to fence off the reproach of being termed witches; whereas there is scarce one word in this place of Deuteronomy that does not imply a witch or wizzard, according to the real definition thereof. And truly he seems himself to be conscious of the weakness of his own performance, when after all this ado, the sum at last amounts but to this, that there are no names in all the Old Testament that signifies such a witch that destroy men or beasts, that make a visible compact with the devil, or on whose body he sucketh, or with whom he hath carnal copulation, or that is really changed into a cat, hare, dog, or such like. And to shew it amounts to no more than so, was the task we undertook in this chapter.

“But assure yourself, if you peruse his book carefully, you shall plainly find that the main drift thereof is to prove, as I above noted, that there is no such witch as with whom the devil has any thing more to do than with any other sinner, which, notwithstanding this conclusion of his a little before recited, comes infinitely short of: and therefore this sixth chapter, consisting of about thirty pages in folio, is a meer piece of impertinency. And there will be witches for all this, whether these particulars be noted in them or no; for it was sufficient for Moses to name those ill sounding terms in general, which imply a witch according to that general notion I have above delivered; which if it be prohibited, namely, the having any thing to do with evil spirits, their being suckt by them, or their having any lustful or venerous transactions with them, is much more prohibited.

“But for some of these particularities also they may seem to be in some manner hinted at in some of the words, especially as they are rendered sometimes by skilful interpreters: for ‏מכשף‎ (_Mecasseph_,) is translated by _Vatablus_, and the vulgar Latin _Maleficus_, by the _Septuagint_ φαρμακός, that is _Veneficus_: which word signifies mischievously enough both to man and beast. Besides that _Mecasseph_ carries along with it the signification of transformation also; and haply this may be the difference betwixt ‏מכשף‎ _Mecasseph_, and ‏מעונן‎ _Megnonen_, that the former uses prestigious transformations to some great mischief, as where Olaus Magnus tells of those that have transformed themselves into wolves, to men’s thinking, and have presently fallen upon worrying of sheep. Others transformed in their astral spirit, into various shapes, get into houses and do mischief to men and children, as I remember Remegius reports. And therefore it is less wonder that that sharp law of Moses is against the ‏מכשפה‎ _Mecassephah_; such a witch as this is, ‘Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live;’ this may be a more peculiar signification of that word. And now for making a compact with the devil, how naturally does that name ‏חובר חבר‎ _Chobber Chebber_, signifie that feat also? But for sucking and copulation, though rightly stated it may be true, yet I confess there is nothing hinted towards that so far as I see, as indeed it was neither necessary that the other should be. But these are the very dregs, the _fex magorum et sagarum_, that sink in those abominations, against which a sufficient bar is put already by this prohibition in general by so many names. And the other is filthy, base, and nasty, that the mention thereof was neither fit for the sacred style of Moses’s law, nor for the years of the people.

In my passing to the eight chapter I will only take notice by the way of the shameless impudence of J. Webster, who in favour to his beloved hags, that they may be never thought to do any thing by the assistance of the devil, makes the victory of Moses, with whom the mighty hand of God was, or of Christ, (who was the angel that appeared first to Moses in the bush, and conducted the children of Israel out of Egypt to the promised land) to be the victory only over so many hocus-pocusses, so many jugglers that were, as it seems, old and excellent at the tricks of Legerdemain; which is the basest derogation to the glory of that victory, and the vilest reproach against the God of Israel, and the person of Moses, that either the malicious wit of any devil can invent, or the dulness of any sunk soul can stumble upon. Assuredly there was a real conflict here betwixt the kingdom of light and the kingdom of darkness and the evil spirits thereof, which assisted the ‏חרטמים‎ _Hartummim_, the Magicians of Egypt; who before that name is named, that no man may mistake, are called ‏מכשפים‎, _Mecassaphim_, such kind of magicians as can exhibit to the sight manifold prestigious transformations through diabolical assistance, and are rendered _Malificia_ by good interpreters, as I noted above; that is, they were wizzards, or he-witches. The self same word being used in that severe law of Moses, ‘Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.’ Are not these magicians then examples plain enough that there are witches; that is to say, such wretched wights as do strange miraculous things by the assistance or consociation of the evil spirits?

“O no, says Mr. Webster, these are only ‏חכמים‎ _Chacamim_, wise men and great naturalists, who all what they did, they did ‏בלהטיהם‎, by their bright glittering _laminæ_, for so ‏להטם‎ forsooth must signifie. But what necessity thereof that ‏להט‎ should signifie _lamina_? there is only the presence of that one place, Gen. iii, 24. ‏להט חרב‎, where it is ‏חרב‎ only that signifies the _lamina_, and that of a long form, scarce usual in those magical _laminæ_ with signatures celestial upon them, which J. Webster would be at; but ‏הטם‎ signifies merely _flamma_; so that ‏בלהטיהם‎ by this account must signifie by their flames, if it be from ‏להט‎ _ardere, flammare_: and therefore Buxtorfius judiciously places the word under ‏בלהטיהם‎ _abscondit_, _obvolvit_, reading not ‏בלאטיהם‎ but ‏בלאטיהם‎, which is as much as to say, _occultis suis rationibus Magicis_, which is briefly rendered in English, ‘by their enchantments;’ which agrees marvellously well with ‏מכשפים‎ _Mecassephim_, which is as much as _Præstigiatores Magici_, or such as do strange wonderous things in an hidden way, by the help of evil spirits. But that the Egyptian magicians should do those things that are there recorded of them in Exodus, by virtue of any lamels, or plates of metals, with certain sculptures or figures, under such or such a constellation, is a thing so sottish and foolish that no man that is not himself bewitched by some old hag or hobgobling, can ever take sanctuary here to save himself or his old dames from being in a capacity, from this history in Exodus, of being accounted witches. For if there may be he-witches, that is magicians, such as these of Egypt were, I leave J. Webster to scratch his head to find out any reason why there may not be she-witches also.

“And indeed that of the witch of Endor, to pass at length to the eighth chapter, is as plain a proof thereof as can be desired by any man whose mind is not blinded with prejudices. But here J. Webster, not impertinently, I confess, for the general, (abating him the many tedious particular impertinences that he has clogg’d his discourse with) betakes himself to these two ways, to shew there was nothing of a witch in all that whole narration. First, by pretending that all the transaction on the woman of Endor’s part was nothing but collusion and a cheat, Saul not being in the same room with her, or at least seeing nothing if he was. And then in the next place, that Samuel that is said to appear, could neither be Samuel appearing in his body out of the grave, nor in his soul; nor that it was a devil that appeared; and therefore it must be some colluding knave, suborned by the witch. For the discovering the weakness of his former allegation, we need but appeal to the text, which is this, 1 Sam. xxviii, v. 8.

‘And Saul said, I pray thee, divine unto me by the familiar spirit, and bring me up whom I shall name unto thee,’ ‏קסומי־נא לי‎ that is, do the office of a divineress, or a wise woman, ‘I pray thee unto me, ‏באוב‎ _Beobh_, by virtue of the familiar spirit, whose assistance thou hast, not by virtue of the bottle, as Mr. Webster would have it. Does he think that damsel in the Acts, which is said to have had πνεῦμα πύθωνος, that is to have had ‏אוב‎ _Obh_, carried an _aqua-vitæ_ bottle about with her, hung at her girdle, whereby she might divine and mutter, chirp, or peep out of it, as a chicken out of an egg-shell, or put her neb into it to cry like a bittern, or take a dram of the bottle, to make her wits more quick and divinatory. Who but one who had taken too many drams of the bottle could ever fall into such a fond conceit? Wherefore ‏אוב‎ _Obh_, in this place does not, as indeed no where else, signifie an oracular bottle, or μαντεῖον, into which Saul might desire the woman of Endor to retire into, and himself expect answers in the next room; but signifies that familiar spirits by virtue of whose assistance she was conceived to perform all those wond’rous offices of a wise woman. But we proceed to verse 11.

“‘Then said the woman, whom shall I bring up unto thee? And he said, bring me up Samuel.’ Surely as yet Saul and the woman are in the same room, seeing the woman askt, ‘Whom shall I bring up unto thee?’ and he answering, ‘Bring up unto me Samuel,’ it implies, that Samuel was so brought up that Saul might see him, and not the witch only. But we go on, verse 12.