Witches' Sabbath (The Great He-Goat) There is no record of Goya's thoughts during this period. He completed the series during a period recuperating from illness, possibly lead poisoning, when he was in considerable mental and physical pain, and withdrew from public life. "Witches' Sabbath" is believed to be a rather bitter, but silent, protest against the royalists and clergy who had retaken control of Spain after the Peninsular War of 1807–14. Advocates of the Enlightenment had sought to redistribute land to the peasants, to educate women, publish a vernacular Bible and, by replacing superstition with reason, put an end to the Inquisition. Witch hunting, seen
Sabbath in Christianity of Laodicea (363-364), for example, mandated only that Sabbath Eucharists must be observed in the same manner as those on the first day. Neander has suggested that Sabbath Eucharists in many places were kept "as a feast in commemoration of the Creation". The issues about Hebrew practices that continued into the 2nd century tended to relate mostly to the Sabbath. Justin Martyr, who attended worship on the first day, wrote about the cessation of Hebrew Sabbath observance and stated that the Sabbath was enjoined as a temporary sign to Israel to teach it of human sinfulness (), no longer needed