Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from Goethe's Faust: Parts I and II
Such a belief was, indeed, in the first instance merely an outgrowth of religion, if it was not rather Of the very essence Of primitive religion itself. The earliest sorcerer was the priest, and the practice Of sorcery by no means carried with it at first the Odium which attached to it in later times. It was, however, already looked at askance amongst the Greeks and the Romans, doubtless rather on moral grounds, as being em ployed as the instrument Of malevolence, than on religious grounds as an Offence against the Deity. Amongst the Jews, however, in View of their monotheistic conception Of religion, sor cery could not fail to be regarded as a form Of idolatry, and as such condemned; and this attitude grows still more marked in the Chris tian conception Of sorcery, in which it appears as devil-worship, as amongst the early Chris tians the Old heathen gods themselves figure as devils.
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