Inspired by the scriptural command, "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live," Pope Innocent exhorted the clergy of Germany to leave no means untried to detect sorcerers, and especially those who by evil weather destroy vineyards, gardens, meadows, and growing crops.

These precepts were based upon various texts of Scripture, especially upon the famous statement in the book of Job; and, to carry them out, witch-finding inquisitors were authorized by the Pope to scour Europe, especially Germany, and a manual was prepared for their use--the Witch-Hammer, Malleus Maleficarum.

In this manual, which was revered for centuries, both in Catholic and Protestant countries, as almost divinely inspired, the doctrine of Satanic agency in atmospheric phenomena was further developed, and various means of detecting and punishing it were dwelt upon.( 250) (250) For the bull of Pope Eugene, see Raynaldus, Annales Eccl., pp.
1437, 1445.

The Latin text of the bull Summis Desiderantes may now be found in the Malleus Maleficarum, in Binsfeld's De Confessionibus cited below, or in Roskoff's Geschichte des Teufles (Leipsic, 1869), vol.
i, pp.

222-225.