Letters on demonology and witchcraft. Addressed to J. G. Lockhart, Esq / by Sir Walter Scott, Bart.

  • Scott, Walter, 1771-1832.
Date:
1831
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Letters on demonology and witchcraft. Addressed to J. G. Lockhart, Esq / by Sir Walter Scott, Bart. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    CnoBEER CHEBER, a joinev of words togetlier, for the purposes of incantation; a user of spells or en- chantments. English version, a c/«a?7??e7’. Sir Walter's readers have, for many a long year, had ample reason to acknowledge that this breed is not yet extinct. Yidagnoni is explained by the Lexicons, in ac- cordance with the English version, a loizzard—a cunninc: man. It appears to me to have emphatically marked the man who presumed to pry ‘into the secret things which belong unto the Almightyand, in its radical signification, is connected with that fatal tree, which, as appointed by the Deity for the moral cause of teaching the knowledge of good and evil, has borne its appellation accordingly. The word is frequently rendered by the LXX, Ct k7ioiciug one; and without stretching a point, it may be applied, in modern times, to that knowledge which, when unaccompanied by religious instruction, so often becomes a curse to the possessor himself, as well as to others. Doreesh hel hameetheim, an inquirer at the dead. English version, a nea'omancer. But the most impoi'tant term, ‘ the consulter with familiar spirits,’ remains yet to be considered. The sacred vvriters use two words on these occasions : the singular noun hob, and, according as the sex of the person is designated, the plurals hoboth and hobath. Jly the latter terms are signified, the persons who had what we term the familiar spirit in them, or who were masters or mistresses of the evil spirit. ‘ On an attentive review,’ says the learned author of the Hebrew and English Lexicon, to whom I have already so often referred, ‘ I think the singular hob must, in the following texts. Lev. xx. 27, Dent, xviii. 11, 1 Sam. xxviii. 7, 8, denote the evil spirit himself, th.e -Trvivfict. •rMm, the “ spirit of divination,” as St.