The Canon Episcopi is an important document in the history of Witchcraft, because of its early origins. It was first published by Regino of Prüm, a benedictine Abbot of Treves, in his "De Ecclesiastica Disciplinis" in 906 CE. The document itself is presumed to be even older than that. It was published as part of the Canon Law of the church. For many centuries, this was the official teaching of the Church about Witchcraft.

Regino would have ascribed it to the church Council of Ancyra as early as 314 CE, however, this has been disputed by modern authorities.

It was probably written somewhere between 350 and 550 CE. The document is important for the history of Witchcraft, due to its different

vision on Witchcraft than that of the later writings and attitudes, such as the Malleus Maleficarum. The demonology teaching hasn't been firmly established yet, and the war against heretics only just started.

The Important Facts

Witches were seen as deluded heretics, who worship "Diana, the goddess of the pagans" and not, as the Church would later claim, the Devil or Satan.

"However, it is the Devil who seduces them into doing this" clearly shows that the Devil excists only in the Christian mind, and had no place in the pagan beliefs.

Witches' meetings and their supposed flying by night to such meetings are all mere hallucinations, in contrary to the later beliefs, taught by the Church.

Additional Note

In later editions of the Canon Episcopi the name of Herodias is given as well as that of Diana. Herodias is evidently linked to the Moon Goddess and is possibly the same as the Goddess Aradia or the Goddess Lillith. This information links the document with the discoveries of Charles Godfrey Leland in modern Italy about "La Vecchia Religione", the Old Religion. Diana is also linked with Hecate and later sources identify Diana as being a goddess comparable to the Germanic goddess Holda.

Excerpt from De Ecclesiastica Disciplinis

"Bishops and their officials must labor with all their strength to uproot thoroughly from their parishes the pernicious art of sorcery and malefice invented by the Devil, and if they find a man or woman follower of this wickedness to eject them foully disgraced from the parishes. For the Apostle says, "A man that is a heretic after the first and second admonition avoid." Those are held captive by the Devil who, leaving their creator, seek the aid of the Devil.

And so Holy Church must be cleansed of this pest.

It is also not to be omitted that some wicked women, perverted by the Devil, seduced by illusions and phantasms of demons, believe and profess themselves, in the hours of the night, to ride upon certain beasts with Diana, the goddess of pagans, and an innumerable multitude of women, and in the silence of the dead of the night to traverse great spaces of earth, and to obey her commands as of their mistress, and to be summoned to her service on certain nights.

But I wish it were they alone who perished in their faithlessness and did not draw many with them into the destruction of infidelity.

For an innumerable multitude, deceived by this false opinion, believe this to be true, and so believing, wander from the right faith and are involved in the error of the pagans when they think that there is anything of divinity or power except the one God. Wherefore the priests throughout their churches should preach with all insistence to the people that they may know this to be in every way false and that such phantasms are imposed on the minds of infidels and not by the divine but by the malignant spirit."

Bibliography

Guiley, Rosemary Ellen Witches and Witchcraft. Valiente, Doreen.

An ABC of Witchcraft, Phoenix Publishing, Washington, 1973. Cohn,

Norman. Europe's Inner Demons., London, 1975, revised 1993.