nst Protestant witches. They
abounded in Upper Germany in the time of Innocent VIII., and
what numbers were executed has been already seen. When the
revolutionary party had acquired greater strength and its power
was established, they vied with the conservatives in their
vigorous attacks upon the empire of Satan.

Luther had been sensible to the contagious fear that the great
spiritual enemy was actually fighting in the ranks of his
enemies. He had personal experience of his hostility. Immured for
his safety in a voluntary but gloomy prison, occupied intensely
in the plan of a mighty revolution against the most powerful
hierarchy that has ever existed, engaged continuously in the
laborious task of translating the Sacred Scriptures, only
partially freed from the prejudices of education, it is little
surprising that the antagonist of the Church should have
experienced infernal hallucinations. This weakness of the
champion of Protestantism is at least more excusable than the
pedantic folly of the head of the English Church. When Luther,
however, could seriously affirm that witchcraft 'is the devil's
proper work wherewith, when God permits, he not only hurts people
but makes away with them; for in this world we are as guests and
strangers, body and soul, cast under the devil: that idiots, the
lame, the blind, the dumb are men in whom ignorant devils have
established themselves, and all the physicians who attempt to
heal these infirmities as though they proceeded from natural
causes, are ignorant blockheads who know nothing about the power
of the demon,' we cannot be indignant at the blind credulity of
the masses of the people. It appears inconsistent that Luther,
averse generally to supernaturalism, should yet find no
difficulty in entertaining these irrational diabolistic ideas.
The circumstances of his life and times sufficiently explain the
inconsistency.[129]

[129] The following sentence in his recorded conversation,
when the free thoughts of the Reformer were unrestrained in
the presence of his most intimate friends, is suggestive. 'I
know,' says he, 'the devil thoroughly well; he has over and
over pressed me so close that I scarcely knew whether I was
alive or dead. Sometimes he has thrown me into such despair
that I even knew not that there is a God, and had great
doubts about our dear Lord Christ. But the Word of God has
speedily restored me' (Luther's _Tischreden_ or _Table
Talk_, as cite