Help with Church view on Witches

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o.k. I’m teaching 11th graders Arthur Miller’s play The Crucible which is about the Salem witch trials and we’re studying some background info about the hysteria of witches at the time. I have a documentary from the History Channel which points to the passage in Scripture from Exodus that says “Thou shalt not let a witch live” or something to that effect. Now, I have several questions regarding that.
  1. what exactly did the term “whitch” mean at the time?
  2. certainly killing even admitted-witches doesn’t apply today so how to explain that this is a teaching that applied then (like lots of the strange Leviticus prohibitions) which doesn’t apply now. But there are some regulations there (like the condemnation of homosexuality) which is still applicable today and we can use those passages as support for that view.
  3. what has been the Church teaching concerning witches throughout history?
I would appreciate any help. Thanks in advance.
 
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knute:
o.k. I’m teaching 11th graders Arthur Miller’s play The Crucible which is about the Salem witch trials and we’re studying some background info about the hysteria of witches at the time. I have a documentary from the History Channel which points to the passage in Scripture from Exodus that says “Thou shalt not let a witch live” or something to that effect. Now, I have several questions regarding that.
  1. what exactly did the term “whitch” mean at the time?
  2. certainly killing even admitted-witches doesn’t apply today so how to explain that this is a teaching that applied then (like lots of the strange Leviticus prohibitions) which doesn’t apply now. But there are some regulations there (like the condemnation of homosexuality) which is still applicable today and we can use those passages as support for that view.
  3. what has been the Church teaching concerning witches throughout history?
I would appreciate any help. Thanks in advance.
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knute:

A witch was someone who uses occult powers to imitate God’s power, thereby causing people to give her (or him) the glory due God. A true witch has real power (obained from the Devil, the Father of lies) and is capable of doing “wonders” which could lead astray even the elect.

That’e why we need to test the Spirits and to look at the Fruits from a Biblical point of view.

If you want to get serious, I suggest you talk to an Orthodox Rabbi or someone who teaches Torah regarding the definition of a witch.

I must admit that I don’t know much about the last two questions. I can only say that from the 16th to the early 17th Centuries, while Protestants were burning 10,000’s of “witches” in Northern Europe, the Inquisition, which was charged with eliminating “Witchcraft” (and all other heresies) set most alleged “witches” free, called the witchhunts “hysteria”, and killed fewer than 1% the total number of heretics (inc. “witches”) of the number of “witches” killed by Protestants.

I can’t comment beyond that.

In Christ, Michael
 
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knute:
o.k. I’m teaching 11th graders Arthur Miller’s play The Crucible which is about the Salem witch trials and we’re studying some background info about the hysteria of witches at the time. I have a documentary from the History Channel which points to the passage in Scripture from Exodus that says “Thou shalt not let a witch live” or something to that effect. Now, I have several questions regarding that.
  1. what exactly did the term “whitch” mean at the time?
  2. certainly killing even admitted-witches doesn’t apply today so how to explain that this is a teaching that applied then (like lots of the strange Leviticus prohibitions) which doesn’t apply now. But there are some regulations there (like the condemnation of homosexuality) which is still applicable today and we can use those passages as support for that view.
  3. what has been the Church teaching concerning witches throughout history?
I would appreciate any help. Thanks in advance.
Click to expand...
Christ’s coming didn’t change the fact that witchcraft and homosexuality were wrong. It just changed the way we deal with sinners. For example, by not allowing the adulterous woman to be stoned, he wasn’t saying that adultery is okay now. He was pointing out the fact that His sacrifice would make God’s grace and mercy freely available. He was fulfilling the incomplete Old Testament picture of an only just God by showing that God is also love. Since God, who is truly the one offended by sin, is willing to show such mercy, then man must also be willing to show mercy, especially considering that all men are guilty of sin.

And, while I don’t deny that the Catholic Inquisition and the Protestant witchhunts went too far (torture is not a good way to induce true repentance), it is not necessarily wrong for government to punish and even put to death evildoers for the protection of upright citizens. Since the respective churches were so closely tied to the civil governments at that time, they may have seen that they had a similar protective duty and a similar scope of authority. If almost everyone in a society is Christian, then someone who practices witchcraft or other activities that undermine Christianity can be seen as harmful to society to the point of being criminal.

Of course, most of those executed as witches during the Protestant witchhunts were unjustly or mistakenly convicted. God does not promote hysteria.
 
There is an article on “Witchcraft” in the online 1917 Catholic Encyclopedia that might help answer some of your questions.
 
Thank you Madia, that EWTN article was just the amunition I needed.
 
What did the term “witch” mean to the Israelites at the time of the Exodus?

The divinely inspired, inerrant Hebrew in which the Old Testament Scriptures were written uses the term kashaph, which indicated one who sang or muttered magical incantations, usually in association with idol worship. Cf. 2 Chron. 33:6, Ex. 7:11, 22:17; Dt. 18:10, Dan. 2:2, Mal. 3:5; cf. also 2 Kgs. 9:22, Mic. 5:11, Nah. 3:4, Is. 47:12; Jer. 27:9

Interestingly, when the Hebrew Bible was translated into Greek, the term kashaph was rendered pharmakeus, from which we derive the English “pharmacist”, inasmuch as sorcery involved the use of potions - most often to obtain love or prosperity, or to apply a curse - and, frequently, the administration of poisons - often to contracept, or to induce abortion!. In our time, it could apply just as well to drug abuse.
The New Testament writers use the same term; cf. Gal. 5:20; Rev. 9:21, 18:23, 21:8, 22:15

So, the Bible does condemn contraception, abortion, and drug abuse!

But I don’t think we want to go so far as to translate it, “Thou shalt not suffer a pharmacist to live…” 😃
 
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knute:
o.k. I’m teaching 11th graders Arthur Miller’s play The Crucible which is about the Salem witch trials and we’re studying some background info about the hysteria of witches at the time. I have a documentary from the History Channel which points to the passage in Scripture from Exodus that says “Thou shalt not let a witch live” or something to that effect. Now, I have several questions regarding that.
  1. what exactly did the term “whitch” mean at the time?
  2. certainly killing even admitted-witches doesn’t apply today so how to explain that this is a teaching that applied then (like lots of the strange Leviticus prohibitions) which doesn’t apply now. But there are some regulations there (like the condemnation of homosexuality) which is still applicable today and we can use those passages as support for that view.
  3. what has been the Church teaching concerning witches throughout history?
I would appreciate any help. Thanks in advance.
Click to expand...
I think that I should point out that the pilgrims were not Catholic.
 
2115 “God can reveal the future to his prophets or to other saints. Still, a sound Christian attitude consists in putting oneself confidently into the hands of Providence for whatever concerns the future, and giving up all unhealthy curiosity about it. Improvidence, however, can constitute a lack of responsibility.”
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2116 “All forms of divination are to be rejected: recourse to Satan or demons, conjuring up the dead, or other practices falsely supposed to ‘unveil’ the future. Consulting horoscopes, astrology, palm reading, interpretation of omens and lots, the phenomena of clairvoyance, and recourse to mediums, all conceal a desire for power over time, history and, in the last analysis, other human beings, as well as a wish to conciliate hidden powers. They contradict the honour, respect, and loving fear that we owe to God alone.”
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2117 “All practices of magic or sorcery, by which one attempts to tame occult powers, so as to place them at one’s service and have a supernatural power over others - even if this were for the sake of restoring their health - are gravely contrary to the virtue of religion. These practices are even more to be condemned when accompanied by the intention of harming someone, or when they have recourse to the intervention of demons. Wearing charms is also reprehensible. Spiritism often implies divination or magical practices; the Church for her part warns the faithful against it. Recourse to so-called traditional cures does not justify either the invocation of evil powers, or the exploitation of another’s credulity.”
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christendom-awake.org/pages/dombenedict/book-fall/fall2.html

catholiceducation.org/articles/apologetics/ap0010.html

exwitchaustralia.com/

exwitch.org/forum/

exwitch.org/

some info on browne here:
cdu.jesusanswers.com/siteindex.html

google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=ex-witch+catholic
 
I think there is a tendency to look down our noses at previous generations who lived in times and dealt with problems we can only know from dry history, several centuries and cultures removed. A good question to ask yourself is: suppose you lived in that time and really believed there were such vile things as satanic witches (not to be confused with “Wiccans” or other garden variety pagans) and that they really were in league with the devil, and they really did do the type of horrible, blasphemous, blood-thirsty things atributed to them? Not having a well-developed jurisprudence system that we now take for granted, what would be the most appropriate reaction?

Medieval historian Sandra Miesel has written a very clear-eyed article on this very subject, found here:

Who Killed The Witches?
catholiceducation.org/articles/history/world/wh0056.html

.
 
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