A few years later Agrippa of Nettesheim made a somewhat similar
effort to breast this theological tide in northern Europe. He
had won a great reputation in various fields, but especially in
natural science, as science was then understood. Seeing the
folly and cruelty of the prevailing theory, he attempted to
modify it, and in 1518, as Syndic of Metz, endeavoured to save
a poor woman on trial for witchcraft. But the chief inquisitor,
backed by the sacred Scriptures, the papal bulls, the
theological faculties, and the monks, was too strong for him; he
was not only forced to give up his office, but for this and
other offences of a similar sort was imprisoned, driven from
city to city and from country to country, and after his death
his clerical enemies, especially the Dominicans, pursued his
memory with calumny, and placed over his grave probably the most
malignant epitaph ever written.
As to argument, these efforts were met especially by Jean Bodin
in his famous book, the _Demonomanie des Sorciers_, published in
1580.
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