CHAP. VI.
The Witchmongers Objections, concerning Nebuchadnezzar answered, and their error cerning Lycanthropia confuted.
MAlleus Maleficarum, Bodin, and many other of them that maintain Witchcraft, triumph upon the story of Nebuchadnezzar as though Circes had transformed him with her sorceties into an Ox, as she did others into Swine, &c. I answer,* 1.1 that he was neither in body nor shape transformed at all, according to their gross imagination; as appea∣reth both by the plain words of the text, and also by the opinions of the best Interpreters thereof; but that he was for his beastly government and con∣ditions, thrown out of his Kingdom and banished for a time, and driven to hide himself in the Wilderness, there in exile to lead his life in a beastly sort, among beasts of the field, and fowles of the air (for by the way I tell you it appeareth by the text, that he was rather turned into the shape of a fowl than of a beast) until he rejecting his beastly conditions, was upon his repentance and amendment called home, and restored unto his Kingdom. Howbeit, this (by their confession) was neither Devils nor Witches doing; but a miracle wrought by God, whom alone I acknowledge to bring to pass such works at his pleasure. Wherein I would know what our Witch-mongers have gained.
I am not ignorant that some write, that after the death of Nebuchadnezzar,* 1.2 his son Evilmerodath gave his body to the ravens to be devoured, least afterwards his father should arise from death, who of a beast became a man again. But this tale is meeter to have place in the Cabalistical art, to wit, among unwritten veri∣ties, than here. To concude, I say that the transformations, which these Witch-mongers do so rave and rage upon, is (as all the learned sort of Physitians af∣firm) a disease proceeding partly from melancholy, whereby many suppose them∣selves to be Wolves, or such ravening beasts. For Lycanthropia is of the ancient Physitians called Lupina melancholia, or Lupina insania. J. Wierus declareth very learnedly, the cause, the circumstance, and the cure of this disease.* 1.3 I have writ∣ten the more herein; because hereby great Princes and Potentates, as well as poor Women and Innocents, have been defamed and accounted among the number of Witches.