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ALexander, in a distempered mood, having slaine Clytus his plaine, but trusty friend▪ afterwards ashamed of so foule a fact; and having no other way to excuse so vile and dishonourable an action, he urged his eligion. sp ellers to try
their fatidicall arts, and to enquire whether it was not the ire of the Gods, that had necessitated him so to doe? and in con∣clusion (after much calculating, inspecting, consulting) the Gods are made to bear the blame, in fatally enforcing so foule an act.
A certaine fatidicall Philosopher beating his servant for a fault, the servant cried out of his masters injustice, for punish∣ing him, for doing a thing that was not in his own will, or power. Seeing he himselfe had taught, that men are fatally ne∣cessitated to doe either well or ill.
St. Augustine reports of a Mathematician in his time, who was wont to say, It was not men that lusted, but Ʋenus; not men that killed, but Mars; not men that stole, but Mercury; It was not God that helpt, or favoured, but Iupiter, &c.
Iustin Martyr, Marullus, Symeon, Athanasius, Eusebius Emisse∣nus, were calumniated and slandered by Magicians and Astro∣logers; as if they had been the worst of them themselves.
Kunegunde (they say was defamed for a whore, by a diabo∣licall wizzard; So was Turbula.
In the time of Frederick the second, there was a German sor∣cerer, that did use to defame men by reproaching them publikly with their most secret sinnes.
Blanch wife to Peter of Castile, had presented her husband with a rich Girdle, unwitting that it was enchanted by a cer∣tain Iew; so that still when the King put it on, it appeared like a snake: Maria de Padilla (the Kings Concubine, and the Iews Proselyte) having herselfe a chiefe hand in it, most calum∣niously charged the vertuous Queen with her own sorcerous act, instigated thereunto by the envious Iew, or Magician: be∣cause the Queen had justly wrought the whole sect of them out of power, and favour at Court. But now the King being so imbittered by the prodigious apparition, and other ma∣gicall predictions, the Concubine was so imboldned, that she prosecuted the poore innocent Queen to her death. And after that, so bewitched the King, that she got into her place.
Elianor wife to Humphrey Duke of Glocester, was impeached of sorcery by one Bolingbrooke an Astronomer, who being himselfe apprehended, accused her as accessary: when as her
greatest guilt in that art, was her superstition in consulting, not practising of it.
The prefect of Galatia missing his sonne, certain servants of his were accused by the false divination of a pseudomantist, as if they had slain him: but no sooner were they executed, but the young man returned safe home again.
Alexander being admonished by the divining lots, that he should command him to be killed that first met him as he went out of the gate; by chance an Asse-herd met him, and he com∣manded it to be done accordingly. But the poore man com∣plaining of the injustice, that he should (being innocent) be adjudged to such capitall punishment; answer was made, that must be imputed to the gods, who had advised the King to slay the first that met him. If it be so (quoth the Asse-herd) the lot means another, and not me (for my Asse which I drave before me) met the King before I. The King delighted with this answer, the Asse was executed; and so the Gods, the King, and the Asse-herd were all excused by wit, more then by Lot.
••hea Sylvi••, the daughter of Numitor, a vestall, being com∣pressed and found with child: both she and her parents agreed to excuse it, saying, that she had suffered force not from a man, but some God, or Genius; he that had done the deed, had like-wise predicted that she should bring forth twins: which, though it so fell out, yet by the sentence of the Councell, the Law in that case was to be used against her.
A concention arising betwixt Cleomenes and Demaratus, a∣bout the Kingdome of Lacedaemonia; Cleomenes accused De∣maratus as not the sonne of Ariston, and therefore ought not to succeed. The Lacedaemonians to be resolved in the busi∣nesse, consulted the Delphian Oracle; which (Petiatis the Priest thereof being corrupted by Cleomenes) gave answer that the party enquired upon, was not Aristotis sonne: Where∣upon Demaratus conju••ed his mother from the infernals to answer for him: who replied, that it was a God, or an Heroe that deluded her, and begat him. And thus they accused one another.
Tertullian, Iustin Martyr, Clemens Alexandrinus, Atbena∣goras,
Arnobius, Minutius Foelix, Lactantius, Augustine; and so many as have written against the Idolatrous and magi∣call immolations of the Heathens, have had much to doe to apologize for the Christians, against all those false calumnies wherewith they impudently burdened them. In simulating the Christians to be given to chuse wickednesse, which they them∣selves were guilty of: and to be the cause of those judgements which their own impieties had provoked. Iulian, and Maxi∣minus were not onely satisfied to have them thus defamed, and slandered, but took occasion to determine their persecution, and extermination.
During the Popedome of Benedict the third, in the City of Mentz a Daemoniacall Familiar that lay lurking under a Sacrificulists Pall, as he was sprinkling of holy water, accu∣sed him publiquely, that he had that night layn with his Proctors wife.
A certain Praetor or Judge, having sentenced divers malefactors to death, at the accusation of an Ariolist or Pythian vaticina∣tor: at length he took upon him to tell him of one more, if he would not take it ill: the Judge earnest to know who it was, he insimulated his own wife, and prefixt an houre wherein he would shew him her in the convent of other Witches. But he (knowing his own wives integrity, and mistrusting the o∣thers calumny) at the time appointed had invited (unknown to the Ariolist) a many of his kindred and friends to suppe with his wife and him. And as they sate at supper, he took an occasion to rise, and goe with the Ariolist to the place, where he shewed him (in a spectrous apparition) his own wife in the company of other Lamian hagges. Enough to have deluded him, had he not returned, and found his wife at the table where he left her, with the testimony of all those at the table, that she had never stirred thence. Whereupon he caused the Ariolist himselfe to be executed.