I believe option C is the correct answer.
Reverend Hale, of The Crucible, lent credence to the girls' claims of witchcraft.
He should have been the best person to know the signs of witch craft or the devil but instead he chose to believe the claims of the girls without doing further investigation. His position as a Reverend is very revered that people believed the girls when they saw that Rev. Hale believed them. This resulted to the people succumbing to their hysterics.
