ulantur, foedissimum semper relinquunt sulphuris
odorem, quod sortilegi saepissime experiuntur et confitentur." See
Bodin's Universae Naturae Theatrum, Frankfort, 1597, pp. 208-211. The
first edition of the book by Pomponatius, which was the earliest of his
writings, is excessively rare, but it was reprinted at Venice just a
half-century later. It is in his De incantationibus, however, that he
speaks especially of devils. As to Pomponatius, see, besides these,
Creighton's History of the Papacy during the Reformation, and an
excellent essay in Franck's Moralistes et Philosophes. For Agrippa,
see his biography by Prof. Henry Morley, London, 1856. For Bodin, see
a statement of his general line of argument in Lecky, Rationalism in
Europe, vol. i, chap. 1.

In the last years of the sixteenth century the persecutions for
witchcraft and magic were therefore especially cruel; and in the western
districts of Germany the main instrument in them was Binsfeld, Suffragan
Bishop of Treves.

At that time Cornelius Loos was a professor at the university of
that city. He was a devoted churchman, and one of the most brilliant
opponents of Protestantism, but he finally saw through the prevailing
belief regarding occult powers, and in an evil hour for himself embodied
his idea in a book entitled True and False Magic. The book, though
earnest, was temperate, but this helped him and his cause not at all.
The texts of Scripture clearly sanctioning belief in sorcery and magic
stood against him, and these had been confirmed by the infallible
teachings of the Church and the popes from time immemorial; the book was
stopped in the press, the manuscript confiscated, and Loos thrown into a
dungeon.

The inquisitors having wrought their will upon him, in the spring of
1593 he was brought out of prison, forced to recant on his knees
before the assembled dignitaries of the Church, and thenceforward kept
constantly under surveillance and at times in prison. Even this was
considered too light a punishment, and his arch-enemy, the Jesuit
Delrio, declared that, but for his death by the plague, he would have
been finally sent to the stake.(254)

(254) What remains of the manuscript of Loos, which until recently was
supposed to be lost, was found, hidden away on the shelves of the old
Jesuit library at Treves, by Mr. George Lincoln Burr, now a professor
at Cornell University; and Prof. Burr's copy of the manuscript is now in
the library of that