tion for the male,
woman was now accused of using charms to lure him to his destruction.
The asceticism of the church made it shameful to yield to her
allurements, and as a result woman came to be feared and loathed as the
arch-temptress who would destroy man's attempt to conform to celibate
ideals. This sex antagonism culminated in the witchcraft persecutions
which make so horrible a page of the world's history.

Among the pagans, witches had shared with prophetesses and priestesses a
degree of reverence and veneration. Medea had taught Jason to tame the
brazen-footed bulls and dragons which guarded the Golden Fleece. Hecate
was skilled in spells and incantations. Horace frequently mentions with
respect Canidia, who was a powerful enchantress. Gauls, Britons and
Germans had obeyed and venerated women who dealt in charms and
incantations. The doctrines of Christianity had changed the veneration
into hatred and detestation without eradicating the belief in the power
of the witch. It was with the hosts of evil that she was now believed to
have her dealings, however. When this notion of the alliance between
demons and women had become a commonplace, "the whole tradition was
directed against woman as the Devil's instrument, basely seductive,
passionate and licentious by nature."[24] Man's fear of woman found a
frantic and absurd expression in her supposed devil-worship. As a
result, the superstitions about witchcraft became for centuries not only
a craze, but a theory held by intelligent people.

Among the female demons who were especially feared were: Nahemah, the
princess of the Succubi; Lilith, queen of the Stryges; and the Lamiae or
Vampires, who fed on the living flesh of men. Belief in the Vampires
still persists as a part of the folklore of Europe. Lilith tempted to
debauchery, and was variously known as child-strangler, child-stealer,
and a witch who changed true offspring for fairy or phantom children.[A]
The figure of the child-stealing witch occurs in an extremely ancient
apocryphal book called the Testament of Soloman, and dates probably from
the first or second century of the Christian Era.[25]

[Footnote A: The name of Lilith carries us as far back as Babylon, and
in her charms and conjurations we have revived in Europe the reflection
of old Babylonian charms.]

Laws against the malefici (witches) were passed by Constantine. In the
Theodosian Code (_Lib. 9. Tit. 16. Leg. 3._) they are charged with
making