Compendium Maleficarum/Book 1/Chapter 11
Chapter XI
Whether there Truly are Incubus and Succubus Devils; and whether Children can be Generated by Copulation with them.
Argument.
Almost all the Theologians and learned Philosophers are agreed, and it has been the experience of all times and all nations, that witches practise coition with demons, the men with Succubus devils and the women with Incubus devils. Plato in the Cratylus, Philo, Josephus, and the Old Synagogue; S. Cyprian, S. Justin Martyr, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, and others have clearly proved that devils can at will fornicate with women. But a more substantial proof is to be found in S. Jerome on Ephesians vi, and S. Augustine (Civ. Dei. XV, 23), who is followed by the consensus of all Theologians, and especially by S. Isidore, chapter 8. The same belief is championed in the Bull of Pope Innocent VIII[1] against witches.
This truth can be proved by argument. For demons can assume the bodies of dead men, or make for themselves out of air a palpable body like that of flesh, and to these they can impart motion and heat at their will. They can therefore create the appearance of sex which is not naturally present, and show themselves to men in a feminine form, and to women in a masculine form, and lie with each accordingly: and they can also produce semen which they have brought from elsewhere, and imitate the natural ejaculation of it.
I add that a child can be born of such copulation with an Incubus devil. To make this clear, it must be known that the devil can collect semen from another place, as from a man’s vain dreams, and by his speed and experience of physical laws can preserve that semen in its fertilising warmth, however subtle and airy and volatile it be, and inject it into a woman’s womb at the moment when she is most disposed to conceive, making it appear to be done in the natural way, and so mingling it with the woman’s ova. Yet it is true that the devils cannot, as animals do, procreate children by virtue of their own strength and substance: for neither between themselves have they any propagation of their own kind, nor are they endowed with any semen which can in the least degree prove fertile. And how should they have semen of their own, since semen is a vital part of the corporeal substance, and (according to Symposianus in his Problems) a secretion from well-digested food; whereas devils are substances without corporeal bodies? We say, then, that a child can be born from the copulation of an Incubus with a woman, but that the father of such a child is not the demon but that man whose semen the demon has misused. There are countless examples told by many authors (Jornandus, de rebus Gothicis, and Luitprand) that the Huns were descended from the union of Fauns with Gothic witches. Chieza (Hist. Peru, II, 27) writes that in Spanish America a demon named Corocoton lies with women and that there are born children with two horns. The Japanese claim that their Shaka is of the same sort. Nor are there wanting those who place Luther[2] in this class. And not ten years ago a woman was punished in the chief city of Brabant because she had been brought to bed by a demon. It remains for us to reply to the arguments which are brought forward to contradict this belief.
The first argument is that of Remy as follows. Devils and human beings are of a different species, and therefore no issue can come of a copulation between them. I answer that this argument bears no weight; for from a horse and an ass, and from other differing animals, are born mules, wolves, leopards, panthers, etc. Also, the procreation is not ascribed to the demon, but to the man whose semen is used, as S. Thomas says (Quodlib. VI, art. 6 and 8).
The second argument is that the devil has no part in life, but is the source of death; therefore he cannot be the author and origin of the vital act. I answer that this vital force is not in the devil, but in the semen itself; just as the warming virtue of wine is not in the vat or the goblet, but in the wine itself. See S. Thomas as above, and the Malleus Maleficarum, I, 4.
The third argument is that witches confess that the semen injected by the devil is cold, and that the act brings them no pleasure but rather horror; and therefore no issue can come of such a union. This is the argument of Mark of Ephesus, who is followed by Remy, and it is based on the confessions of witches who say that such copulations are entirely devoid of pleasure, and that they rather feel the most acute pain in them. I answer that when the devil wishes to disguise himself in the form of a certain man, and would not have it known that he is a devil, then he must as far as possible imitate every detail of true copulation between a man and a woman: and then, if he wishes any issue to result (which is very rare; for he never desires propagation for his own sake, since nothing of like nature to himself can be generated: although sometimes at least he humours the woman’s wish and seeks to make her pregnant by means of another’s semen), he must necessarily take care to provide everything needful for procreation. Therefore he seeks for fertile semen and, having found it, conserves it and so quickly transports it that its vital essence is not wasted; and when need is, he injects it. But when he does not mean to beget issue he injects some substance in the likeness of semen, which is warm so that the deception may not be detected. As for the cold semen, that is only found in the case of witches who are fully aware that he is a devil. Moreover, as Sprenger says (Malleus M. I, I, c. 4), he usually asks the woman if she wishes to become pregnant; and if she does, he provides true semen from another source, as I have described.
The fourth argument was that it is incredible that God should allow such a thing to be done, or would endow with a living soul anything born of such a union, for this would be adding the final touch to the devil’s work. The answer to this is that, as far as natural operation is concerned, the devil is only the instrument which applies the principal agent, namely, true human semen; and therefore God concurs in the final disposition of an organic body born from human semen, although it is abnormal; and the sin lies entirely at the door of the witch and the devil’s malice. God, the author of nature, delights in all things natural: but if this argument held good, since He is not the author or abettor of sin, no issue could be born of fornication or adultery or uncleanness or incest. It is further objected that the root of all procreation is the heart, and that when the necessary cordial heat and virtue are wanting there can be no procreation. The answer is that, whether its source is the heart or the brain, the vital fertilising germ is contained in the semen in the actual ejaculation of that semen from the human body; and that the devil can preserve that germ in its necessary warmth.
We shall set down certain instances of the activities of Succubus devils, as well as some more of Incubus devils.
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Examples.
Fifteen years ago, at Bamberg, a certain Peter Stumpf was sentenced to death because he had sinned with a Succubus devil for more than twenty-eight years. This devil had given him a girdle which he had only to put on, and it appeared both to himself and others that he was changed into a wolf. He tried to devour two of his daughters-in-law. He lived with his own daughter and her godmother as his wives. This is all vouched for in the Court records, and is memorised in pictures carved in brass which are for sale.
Remy tells an example which he heard from a trustworthy man named Melchiore Errico, taken from the most closely guarded secrets of the Most Serene Duke of Lorraine. “There was at Hemingen,” says this man, “while I was watching my Lord’s interests in that place, a certain warlock who, when he was asked by the Judge how he had first been led into such wickedness and, especially, by what wiles the devil had seduced him, freely and openly declared as follows: ‘I was a common herdsman, and at dawn of day was gathering my herds from their several houses, when of all the girls who let the cattle out of the stables one especially fired my soul with love, and I began to think more and more of her by night and by day. At last as I was burning with desire for her at my solitary pasturage, there appeared to me one like her coyly hiding behind a bush. I ran to my longed-for prize, wooed her and at last embraced her although against her will; but after some repulses, she consented to make me free of her on condition that I acknowledged her as my Mistress and behaved to her as if she were God Himself. I accepted the condition, and possessed her; but she also so possessed me that from that time I have been unhappily subject to no will but hers.’ ”
Hector Boece (De rebus Scoticis, liber 8) tells that in the coasts around Moray Firth a highly born girl of great beauty refused several noblemen in marriage and fell into an abominable familiarity with an Incubus devil. When her parents commanded her to tell whether this were true, and to discover her paramour, she said that a marvellously beautiful youth had frequent intercourse with her by night, and sometimes by day, but that she did not know whence he came or whither he went. Her parents did not entirely believe the girl, and formed a plan by which they should learn more exactly who it was who had stormed the fortress of their daughter’s virginity; and when, three days later, they were informed by a serving maid that the paramour was present, they bolted the house doors and, lighting many torches, went into the bedroom, where they saw in their daughter’s arms a horrible monster whose appearance was terrible beyond human imagination. Others quickly ran up to see the foul sight, among them a priest of most holy life not unlearned in rituals and exorcism, who, while the rest were running away in terror or stood rooted to the ground with horror, began to recite the Gospel of S. John; and when he had come to “The Word was made flesh,” the evil demon gave a terrible cry, set fire to all the furniture, and departed, carrying with him the roof of the bed chamber. The girl, having escaped from this danger, gave birth to a monster of utterly loathsome appearance, such as had never before been seen, as it was said; and lest it should be seen and bring disgrace upon her family, the midwives lit a huge fire and quickly burned it.
A little earlier the same author tells of a Succubus devil as follows. In the district of Gareotha in a village not fourteen miles from Aberdeen, a young man of great beauty openly complained before the Bishop of Aberdeen that for many months he had been tormented by a Succubus devil, as they say, more beautiful than an woman that he had ever seen. He said that she came to him by night through locked doors, coaxed and forced him into her embraces, and went away as the dawn began to break, with scarcely any sound; and that he could by no means, though he had tried many, be delivered from so great and foul a madness. The excellent Bishop at once ordered the young man to remove himself to another place, and to apply his mind more than usual to the Christian Religion, with more devout fasting and prayer; and so, following the advice of the venerable Bishop, the young man was after a few days delivered from the Succubus devil. Elsewhere I shall describe other examples.
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- ↑ “Innocent VIII.” The Bull “Summis desiderantes affectibus,” 9 December, 1484, a translation of which will be found in my “Geography of Witchcraft,” pp. 533–6, as also prefixed to the “Malleus Maleficarum,” John Rodker, 1928.
- ↑ “Luther.” Malvenda, “De Antichristo” (1604), II, vi, certainly says of Luther: “Ex incubo dæmonio genitum haud leuibus futilibrisque coniecturis deprehensum est a plerisque, ut Coclaeus refert.” Coclaeus is Johann Dobeneck, 1479–1552.