Gleanings of antiquities / By John Beaumont, Gent.

  • Beaumont, John, -1731.
Date:
1724
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Gleanings of antiquities / By John Beaumont, Gent. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    217/226 (page 203)
    But Trithemius in his Chron. Hirfang. tells us, that about the Year 1215. when many Perfons of both Sexes had incurred a Sufpicion of Herefy, Conradus de Marpurg, an Apoftolical Inquifitor, put them all, without diftin&ion, on the fiery Tryal; but Trithemius owns he burnt many Innocents, and fays, that after he had exercifed this cruel Butchery till the Year 1233, he was kill'd. Bangertus examines alfo whence thefe forts of Tryals came among the Chriftians; whether they ufed them in imitation of the Gentiles, or of the Divine Rites of thtjews, and fays, they feem in the Tryal by Water, to have had a mind to imitate the divine Law of the Jews, in their Cup of Jealoufy : but the Fiery-Tryal may feem to have been de¬ rived to them from the Gentiles; for the Meflenger who told Creon, King of Thebes, that the Body of Polynices, which he had order'd, on pain of Death, to be thrown out in the Fields, and lie unburied, was privately buried, (which was done by his Sifter Antigone) when he found the King was much in- cenfed at it, and would excufe himfelf and his Companions, who were fet to guard the Body, faid, as we find in the Antigone of Sophocles, Mo Man is found who did it, and it is hid to us. But we are ready both to take a red-hot Iron in our Hands, And to walk on burning Coals, and to Jwear by the Gods, That we neither did it, nor had any Knowledge Of him that either adrdfed it, or did it. And here I may note what Strabo writes, /. 3. as follows, concerning thefe Tryals: Under theMountain SoraVte, ftands the City Feronia, by which Name alfo a certain Goddefs is call’d, to whom the People of that Country pay a wonderful Veneration, and fhe has a Temple there with a wonderful fort of facred Mvfteries, for thofe that are infpired by that God- J ^ Dd 2 defs.