The Autobiography of Satan
John R. Beard
First published in 1872.
This online edition was created and published by Global Grey on the 3rd January 2024.
Table of Contents
3. Period Of Composition: My Connection With The Bible
4. Period Of Composition: Elevation
5. Period Of Composition: Debasement
6. Period Of Composition: Debasement
7. Period Of Decomposition: Debasement: Decline
Preface
As this book is intended not so much for scholars as the general public, I have not attempted more than a series of readable sketches. The same, consideration has led me to adopt the autobiographical form, which, with the supposition of an intelligent companion, gives me some of the advantages of a conversational style. Only in the large portion of the work devoted to the Scriptures have I, without departing from a popular manner, aimed at a certain degree of completeness. To handle adequately all the grave topics of this comprehensive theme would require a library instead of a volume. Having aimed at nothing less than to deal a blow at Traditionalism, Sacerdotalism and Satanism, which reciprocally evoke and support each other, and which, in a brood of superstitions, have inflicted on our race many of the direst evils under which it has suffered, I have simply pursued such a method as seemed to me most likely to conduce to my object. I may have missed my mark, but I shall pass the rest of my days in deeper satisfaction for having shot the arrow. And this observation leads me to say that personal considerations have exercised an influence in determining me to compose the book. My childhood and early youth were haunted by cruel phantasms which had their source in the gross superstition I now assail. Having a nervous temperament, and moving in a circle in which belief in ghosts and other imaginary beings was all but universal, I contracted fears and alarms ‘which, agitated and tortured me for many years, so that even the first days of my manhood were beclouded by their dark and spectral shadows. I have reason to believe that even in the more cultured classes of society many a nursery is still beset and worried by similar harpies, nor will the young be brought up in the pure and serene light of God’s own lovely world until belief in the devil is banished for ever from the haunts of men.
I experienced in my boyhood acute pain from devilism in another shape. My father, a kind, intelligent and simple-minded man, had inherited a rigid Calvinism, by which he was almost driven to suicide. As his eldest child, I shared his inmost thoughts, and learnt how he had been tormented with the fear of hell, not being able, like some, to persuade himself that he was one of the few favourites of heaven. Happily for me, as well as for him, his earnest nature threw off the galling yoke just before I began to turn my thoughts to religious matters: yet my memory has ever retained a vivid sense of his perils and sufferings. The terrific system is now past the meridian of life, but similar fears and dangers will last as long as Satan endures as a personal reality. The stronghold of Satan is the Bible, yet Satanism is not a Biblical growth. This I take no small pains to shew, if only because I respect and love the Bible, and because I find in the Biblical religion, as represented by Jesus, the great hope of humanity. My efforts to eliminate Satan from the Bible, if successful, will owe the result to the exegetical resources supplied by what I may term the new science of The History of Religion, which is gradually undermining many a theological falsity, while spreading the light of God’s Fatherly Providence over the wide surface of the human race, from its origin down to the present hour.
Of the professional ministers of religion there are many who, exercising their functions in the spirit of the Lord Jesus, hold high rank among “the salt of the earth.” Such men, whatever their creed, whatever their position, I honour and love. These are not “the priests” whom I censure in some of the following pages. The term is meant to describe a caste, a power, a direction of clerical agency which thinks more of itself than its avowed Master, and labours for what is called “the Church” rather than for the real interests of beings who cannot be well off hereafter except so far as, in the true sense, they are well off here. To this professionalism the downfall of Satan would be ruinous. But then, under any circumstances, the reign of the priest cannot last very long in such days of light, liberty and moral power, as are already printed in God’s Great Year Book; and every true disciple of Christ will rejoice in the prospect of that copious outpouring of the Divine Spirit, which, neglecting all human “orders,” ranks and distinctions, shall establish the universal priesthood of humanity, by fulfilling the promise given by the lips of Joel and repeated by those of Peter: “I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy (teach religion), and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams, and on my servants and my handmaidens I will pour out of my Spirit, and they shall prophesy” (Joel ii. 28, 29; Acts ii. 17).
John R Beard.
The Meadows,.
Ashton-on-Mersey, near Manchester,
March, 1872.
1. Introductory
1. What I Am And What I Am Not
The aged, feeling premonitions of decline, are apt to look back and survey the past. If they become aware that, whatever the cause, they suffer in public opinion, they naturally take up the pen and write their own biography. Such is my condition. Through you, my gentle Theophilus, whom I have trained in letters from your childhood, and who still act as my amanuensis, I shall hand the following narrative to the public. To you I am known nearly as well as to myself, for your love of reality is intense, and the simplicity of your character guarantees the truth of what you directly or indirectly declare. A pure channel, such as you present, is what I desire. What else could answer my purpose when I am about to supersede a huge and terrific falsity by a certain and most beneficial truth? The falsity is, that I am a personal concentration of transcendental vice, wickedness and woe. The truth which I wish to substitute is, that I am a personification of the dark side of humanity and the universe. Being, as such, an impalpable presence, I exist in every land and occupy a corner in every human heart. A reflection of the outer world of matter and the inner world of mind, I am not all dark, nor could I ever have “been painted black had not theological speculation first thrown its own murky clouds over the heart of man and over the creation of God. The human soul in ruins and the world under its Maker’s curse inevitably perpetuated that incarnation of Evil which theologians call the Devil or Satan. The terrific figment came the more readily into vigour, because, while a shadow from man’s own baseness, it served as a substitute for his relief and a palliation of his guilt.
Bad as he is, the Devil may be abused,
Be falsely charged and causelessly accused,
When men, unwilling to be blamed alone,
Shift off on him the crimes that are their own.
The clerical description of me makes me out to be an impersonation of absolute malignity. The existence of such a frightful monstrosity I confidently deny. Absolute evil can have no existence in a universe made and sustained by the God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ. Absolute evil and absolute good exclude each other. If God is, I am not; if I am, God is not. Two absolutes are impossibilities. Make your choice between me and your Creator. You cannot logically own both.
Yet I am a power. I am a power under God, and as such I perform a task which, however unlovely and however painful, is destined to put forward God’s wise and benignant purposes for the good -of man. What I am in full, the following pages will report. Enough to add in these introductory remarks, that I am an image of the evil that is in man arising from his divinely-given liberty of moral choice. That evil I discipline and correct as well as represent, and so I am also a divine schoolmaster to bring the world to God. My origin is human, my sphere of action earthly, my final end dissolution. Evil must cease when good is universal. While, then, I cannot boast of a heavenly birth, I disown fiendish dispositions. Worse than the worst man I cannot be. I am indeed a sort of mongrel, born, bred, reared and nurtured of human fancy, folly and fraud. As such, I possess a quasi omnipresence and a quasi omniscience; for I exist wherever man exists, and, dwelling in human hearts, know all that men think, feel and do. Hence I have power to tempt and mislead, and that power, when I am in my worst moods, I am pleased to exercise. Yet in even these my lowest qualities I could find my equals in courts and camps, not to say in Jesuitical colleges and monkish cells. I have no wish to set myself off by disparaging others, but hardly will even my defamers ascribe to me such qualities as hypocrisy, meanness, shabbiness, and a number of other low and sordid features which hold prominence in characters that stand well in the eyes of the world and are not without influence in the church.
2. How I Came Into Existence
SECTION 1. LOGICAL GENESIS OF THE IDEA OF SATAN.
Great and eager has been the dispute as to my origin. Some say that I co-existed from the first with the Creator of the universe. Some say that I am one of his own creatures. This presents the metaphysical view of my origin. The historical view makes me to have been in the beginning one of the heavenly host who lost their celestial position by losing their moral purity. Another historical version connects me with the daughters of men, by union with whom I parted with my angelical nature and became Satanical.
In truth, I am the child of human speculation. And this speculation, surviving still, though in a sickly form, goes back to the earliest dawn of man’s logical faculty. I came into existence on the first day that man asked himself, “Whence this world in which I live and of which I am a part?”
Untold ages had passed before the sons of man grew to be capable of conceiving that question. Not knowing good from evil, they had no curiosity about either. In their earliest condition, they were confounded with the universe of which they were an almost totally unconscious part. Not until the long and varied discipline of what is called evil, as well as good, had developed their higher nature, did they become conscious of themselves, as a distinct and separate part of the universe. Lying on the bosom of the great mother, they drank in life unconsciously from her nutritious bosom; and only when weaned by her provident hand and whipped by her corrective rod, did they begin to feel that she was not they, and that they were not she.
And yet the separation was but partial. So linked together were mother and child, that, though the umbilical cord was snapt, the connection was rather altered than broken. Living on in nature, men felt and owned the intimacy of their kinship. After all, she was their mother and their nurse. After all, they were her children and dependents.
And so it has come about that some philosophers have asserted that the sense of dependence is the source of religion in man. Doubtless it is a source of religion in man, but not so much in its own form as in a deeper one, out of which the sense of dependence springs. The sense of dependence is rather an inference than, a primary sentiment. It is an act of logic, and not of moral intuition. You must descend into man’s instinctive nature, where rise all the springs of his higher life, if you would get to the source of his religious sentiments and apprehensions. In presence of the universe, man’s first conscious feeling was a sense of inferiority. This arose in him spontaneously, as he lay there for the first time at the great maternal breast. The moment his eye opened on his mother’s eye, he fell back in a depressing sense of inferiority and unworthiness. It was the half-terrified feeling of the yet unassured, but semi-conscious babe. Nor was it, until repeated experiences had corrected the sentiment, that a certain trust sprang up, to be speedily supplemented and recompensed by gratitude.
This sense of inferiority has its inseparable counterpart in a recognition of the superiority of the nursing mother. Accordingly the idea of God in its earliest and essential element is the idea of transcendency. Nature is greater than man. But nature, if not an unmeaning sound, is a being, since man is a being. And not a being only, but a conscious being; for man, who owns the superiority of nature, is a conscious being. Moreover, that being is invisible, for it is not apprehended by the bodily eye. Yet traces of its existence and operation appear on every side. Consequently an invisible being, superior to man, exists in the entire universe. As existing, as operating, as the source of sunshine and the fruits of the earth, it must receive a name. It is called God. God then is the invisible and transcendent source of man’s continued existence. That God supports must have God for its author. This is man’s first creed—and his last is but a development of the first It is a natural and so a credible result of the influences in which man stands in their working in, upon, and with the deepest feelings of his nature.
The faith at first is vague and dim. Yet, as corresponding to man’s nature and as connected with his inmost feelings and actions, it proves beneficial. Under its operation man’s intrinsic qualities come forth, raising, refining and strengthening his whole being.
Originally the predominant sentiment of man in view of God was fear, an inevitable result of his own inherent sense of inferiority. Accordingly fear is historically known to exist in all low nations in their view of God. The earliest worship of the Biblical peoples was the worship of fear. The worship of love was a very late after-growth. This worship of fear arises straightway from the sense of inferiority. That sense implies that he by whom it is felt is a mere weakling, as compared with God, the author of the universe. The first form of worship is consequently the worship of power. In full agreement with this general fact, the book of Genesis, in its first verse, makes God power, the very name denoting power, or rather the concentration of the powers.
Now power has two aspects. It is either beneficent or maleficent, at least in appearance. Our metaphor of the nursing mother suggests that the beneficent aspect of power was the first recognized by man in point of time. But here it is easy to be mistaken. Some fostering influences there must have been open to man as soon as he saw the light of day, else the earliest moment of his existence and his latest would have stood in close proximity. Yet life must have been a struggle—a struggle, however, which for a time issued in victory, since the race succeeded the individual. Undoubtedly, darkness as well as light characterized man’s earliest days: which of the two predominated, so far as man’s consciousness went, no clear indication enables the student to determine definitively.
One averment may, however, be made of this beginning of man’s religious life. It involves an ideal; or, rather, it is the ideal. Man’s conception of God is man’s ideal. The ideal is recognized in his own conscious inferiority. “That power which I feel and own is superior, incomparably superior, to myself.” He is superior, transcendentally superior, in power. In this recognition lies enfolded the whole history of religion, considered as representing a growth and an expansion in the human race. The elevating influence which has been already ascribed to faith gradually raises men in the scale of being. As they rise, their ideal ascends; and ascend it must, because the very essence of religion is a sense of inferiority 011 the part of man. Man can worship only what he feels to be superior to himself. I11 other words, man’s religion is necessarily man’s ideal. Hence, as fast as man rises to a level with his God, his actual God begins to wane and sink from sight. Hence a succession of divine dynasties is inevitable. Chronos is supplanted by Jove. To speak more correctly, man’s idea of God is an ascensional idea. The worship called forth by power begets the worship of love. Elohim is superseded by ”our Father.” In this gradual clearing up of man’s idea of God, God’s unity comes, in the lapse of centuries, to find recognition and advocacy. In the beginning? the ideas of unity and plurality are too abstract to be owned. Man’s conception is no less confused than shadowy. He sees and worships God in the sun; scarcely less does he own him in the moon and in the stars. The nature-worship which this implies is the worship of a natural power with the aid of personification. In time, however, the question is forced on the conscious and reflective intellect, “Are these all gods?” By and by there comes for answer, “They are not separate gods, but forms and manifestations of one God.” Then an Abraham appears to inaugurate the reign of monotheism. And that monotheism, as affirmed and represented by him, is of so rigorous a kind as to exclude all duality. God is, God is one, God is power, God is good, God is the Bather of all, are the successive stages through which man’s thought, call it, as you will, either a recognition or a revelation, it is in reality both—these are the successive stages; the rounds in the ladder on which man ascends to God, and God, as in Jacob’s dream, comes down in angelic forms to man.
It is, however, only the loftiest natures, like that of Abraham, Moses, David, the Hebrew prophets—it is only the most thoroughly religious souls, that can and do see God as he is, in his own essential and unshared spiritual oneness; and none has had the light and joy of the beatific vision in clearness, distinctness and fulness, but “the man Christ Jesus” (1 Tim. ii. 15), who in consequence is in that vision one with God (John x. 30). Yet it must be added as a necessary qualification, that absolutely God is known and apprehended only by God. The Divine consciousness, which is the consciousness of the all-pervading self, is in its nature incommunicable. Could it be shared, monotheism would not be the one true religion. There is, however, an anterior state of the religious sense, and that state, going back to the dawn of human culture, never ceases wholly to exist, except in the princes and. kings of the religious hierarchy. That state postulates Satan as the inevitable antithesis of God. This dualism, like all first things on earth, has a physical origin. Whether man’s earliest conception of God lay in the acknowledgment of his beneficent or of his maleficent aspect, doubtless the two existed and co-existed very soon. The elements of both, as apprehended by man, lie around him in his cradle. Day and night may serve as their representatives. Certainly the contrast of light and darkness begins with man’s infantile recognitions and ends with his loftiest culture—though in the later stages the two are simple figures of speech. But the great source of the natural dualism is man’s own apparently twofold nature. Man is conscious of what he calls bad feelings as well as good. This consciousness, in its origin and earlier unfoldings, is, if not strictly physical, certainly not properly ethical. Only later on in man’s growth does the general sentiment take a moral character. In that change I am born. My existence is primarily due to man’s self-esteem acting on his acknowledgment of wrong motives and wrong actions. Vicarious religion is the root of religious errors, and vicarious religion is a rank growth of an overweening idea of self. “No, that revenge, that lust, that malice, is not mine. I am not so base: it comes to me; it is forced upon me: either it is from a false accuser or an adversary, but it is not from my own heart; the resistance I offer is the proof; besides, I love it not, but hate it j how can it then be mine? Perhaps I am my own false accuser, my own adversary, torturing myself by my own fancies? . . . I am not so silly. Does it proceed from disease of body? disease of mind? I am sound and vigorous in both. No; it has its origin out of myself. Witness the suddenness of its appearance. Evil thoughts come uninvited and unsuspected. They are clearly infused, aye, often thrust in; they take possession of me as by storm. The adversary is without; at least he is another than myself; one morally inferior to myself, yet having power to enter my heart and lead me astray. This is the only true solution. There is an adversary, perhaps a troop of adversaries.”
Hence the superstition of the Satanic host. One superstition begets another in its own likeness. Having thus thrown their demerits on another, in another’s merits men find their own. And the vicarious sacrifice of Christ is but the necessary complement of the vicarious wickedness of Satan. The twins will die at the same moment.
Am I interested in their demise? Yes, for my death presupposes the perfection of human nature and the supremacy of God. And in those two sublime realities all real good is absorbed and centered. The death of Satan is the death of the great adversary of God and man. That most desirable result I hope to accelerate in giving a somewhat detailed history of the rise, progress and decline of the darkest fiction and hugest falsity that ever overshadowed and harassed the human race.
SECTION II. EXCLUSIVE PREVALENCE OF THE DARK SIDE OF THE DUALISM.
In the lower races and under unfavourable external influences, the recognition of God either arises in a faint and evanescent form, or seems almost to sink and disappear. Ecclesiastical shortsightedness and the tyranny of narrow dogmas may have concealed the recognition from the eyes of imperfectly informed and meanly cultivated travellers on the one side, or gone far to efface it on the other; yet after due allowance has been made for mental blindness and the exaggeration of system, prejudice and caste, the impartial observer is compelled by facts to admit, together with the moral degradation, the almost utter religious insensibility of many tribes and populations still existing on the surface of the earth, and which may justifiably be put into the class of Turanians. These low and debased herds of men, women and children do indeed reproduce in modern days the earliest and semi-barbarous peoples which represent that family of men in the earlier ages. If class names were given in virtue not so much of consanguinity as moral condition, the scale of culture at its lowest figures could be too easily filled in with names as savage as those of the days of Cain.
As it is in the normal man that the idea of God germinates, blossoms, and produces sound and nutritious fruit, so all abnormal conditions of humanity are adverse and even deadly to the thought. Yet never can man wholly escape from the idea of power superior to himself. If God is not owned, Satan takes his place. And wherever Satan is, some black art or the other prevails. Magic may be taken to represent the preternatural control which priestcraft or jugglery of some kind exercises over man in the abuse of the acknowledgment of God. Indeed, magic is the reality that is denoted by the name Satan. The two words are interchangeable. That ecclesiastically is called the devil, may be said to require the historical name of magic. In this sense I am the great and universal magician. A magician as a man would be contemptible, even in ignorant and brutish races, did he not contrive to persuade his dupes that he was sustained and led by an invisible and mighty power. In the mental confusion which attaches to all inferior natures, a man led by me becomes a devil himself. The identification is often aided by religious falsities and incantations. Even the art of healing conduces to the deception. “The medicine man” of a semi-barbarous tribe is often little else than Satan incarnate.
Among barbarous populations, magic, if not religion itself, is its most important observance. The magician is the arbiter of the destinies of men and society. He fixes the hour for undertakings and combats; he points out the most prolific water for fishing and the most promising grounds for hunting. By invoking the aid of the devil, he heals the sick and revives the dying. In all uncivilized lands, if the sea is lashed into fury, it is done by my hand; if the winds roar and threaten a tempest, I “ride on the whirlwind and direct the storm if a volcano bursts into pyramids of flames and lava, it is my wrath that burns and devastates. In the eyes of the native Polynesians, when the earth trembles, when wigwams totter and fall to ruin, when families are engulfed, the evil power Pelo is venting his destructive rage.
Black races, which in certain lands seem to possess little more of humanity than its form and some sort of articulate speech, are the most superstitious, and consequently most under the control of magicians. It is a popular pleasure to the native of New Guinea to pick up the grigris or fetiches, to arrange them in the consecrated forms, to decorate his bow and his lance with them, to offer them presents, to salute them, to put up to them his prayers. A feather, a little bone, a brilliant insect, the eye of a jackal, a serpent’s tooth, a living snake—these are his protecting genii, his powerful divinities. But the superstitions of black men are not always so little baneful. Fearfully cruel are the manners of the Caffres, presided over by sortilege or the casting of lots; no less horrid the human sacrifices which the terrible Bengeulans, on the western shore of Africa, offer to the devil; sacrifices preceded by magical conjurations during an entire day, and followed by banquets of human flesh and strong drink. “It is,” says a priest of the Roman Church, “it is the most solid victory that Satan has gained over the fallen race of men, to persuade them to feast on one another.” Dread of the Congos, as the magical rulers of Congo, is universal. Those gods on earth have skill to calm the hurricane, to implore disease away, to bring ruin on lands and hamlets. The king himself bends before their chief, who bears the title of Cha-Combo.
The Albinos of Loango are sorcerers by privilege of birth, and live at the public cost; their mokissos or demons are, however, less cruel than those of Benguela.
The natives of Tucopia (New Hebrides) never undertake a maritime expedition without having launched into the bosom of the sea a canoe bedecked with flowers and ornamented with plumes, to conjure the spirits of the tempests by offering that nutriment to their fury. The same was done by the Egyptians and other nations of antiquity. At Nitendi and in the isles of Solomon the magicians are accounted organs of Satan, who throws them on the ground, transports them from place to place, and, during a superinduced insensibility, plunges them into the most violent contortions. On recovering their senses, or, as the phrase is, when the evil Spirit quits them, they utter a sudden, sharp and piercing cry, which relieves the bosom whence it comes. These recall to mind the demoniacs of the New Testament. In Borneo and other savage places, where no worship is addressed to the Deity, and where I am alone believed in, being the perpetual object of popular terrors, magic is equally universal and baneful.
In all such states of unculture I alone reign over human beings. Me they own, me they worship, me they imitate. God, properly so called, is not in all their thoughts. The being whom they really acknowledge is Satan, “the prince of darkness.” They know no other invisible power. Their recognition maybe unconscious, certainly it is not distinctive. Nevertheless it is real, equally is it terrific. A reflection of themselves, it is dark and deadly, and its worshipers it makes as dark and as deadly with the lapse of time. Yet even here there is an ideal. The ideal of barbarians is evil on an imposing scale. That ideal begets a rivalry. The greatest man is the greatest slaughterer. This ideal, alas! is not unknown in modern days and in nations that bear the Christian name. Its common name is “glory.”
The most extraordinary instance of the dualism recently made known is presented by Mr. Layard in the Yezedis of Mesopotamia. Their conceptions and practice have procured for them the specific name of “Devil-worshipers.” They do indeed recognize one Supreme Being, but, like too many pretended Christians, they stop short with a barren acknowledgment; while they honour Satan at least by fearing him. The name of the evil Spirit they are indeed said never to mention. This express avoidance arises from the fear of giving him offence. So far do they carry their dread of offending him, that they abstain from every expression which may resemble in sound the name Satan. Thus in speaking of a river they will not say Shat, because it is too nearly connected with the first syllable in Sheitan, Satan, but substitute Nahr. When they speak of the devil they do so with a reverence which has a parallel in ordinary professors of Christianity. Accordingly the Yezedis call me Melee Taom, king Peacock, or Melek-el-Kout, the mighty angel. They worship me under the symbol of a bird of bronze. They also agree with Christian orthodoxy in holding me to be the chief of the angelic host, now suffering punishment for rebellion against the Divine will, but still all-powerful and to be restored hereafter to my high estate in the celestial hierarchy; thus adding another to the numerous instances which exhibit heresy as more merciful as well as more philosophic than orthodoxy. I am, they logically add, to be conciliated and reverenced; for as now I have the means of doing evil to mankind, so hereafter shall I have the power of rewarding them, if only by commuting their penalties. Indeed, they are obviously imbued with magian conceptions; for next to me in wisdom and power, they own seven archangels (Amshaspands) who exercise great influence over the world. These bear names which you, my pupil, will become familiar with ere long in forms slightly different; viz., Gabriel, Michail, Raphael, Azrail, Dedrail, Azrapheel, Shemkeel. I know not indeed that they have not as good a claim to the title Christian as that of the bulk of those who are so denominated, for they hold Christ to be a great angel who took the form of man. He did not die on the cross, indeed, hut he ascended to heaven and is to come to earth again.
SECTION III. THE DUALISM IS THROWN INTO CONFUSION BY ECCLESIASTICTSM.
Good and God, if not the same word, represent the same reality. The antithesis of good is evil. Were the elements of good and evil everywhere the same, a confusion of the terms would be easily avoided. But with man, good and evil rise and fall on the moral scale exactly as his general culture rises and falls. Hence in a certain sense every man has his own God -and his own devil. Not to reduce the matter to this minuteness; from the variations of moral character, corresponding differences arise touching the good principle and the bad principle. It is only the highly cultivated conscience that gives birth to normal good, and by contrast displays normal bad. But lofty culture is general only in modern days. Hence the earlier religionists worship evil when they think they are worshiping good. These false impressions, transmitted in books, come down into later ages and throw the dualism of good and evil into confusion. “What is bad is called good, what is good is identified with what is bad. Such is the gross mistake made at the present hour by popular ecclesiasticism.
What is its theory? God made man upright. The first man disobeyed God, and so brought God’s wrath on all his posterity. In consequence, every man is born with a fatal disease. This disease entails his ruin. He is under the curse of God for time and eternity. In other words, he is the slave of Satan. Satan himself is a condemned convict, for he too disobeyed God. Accordingly, this lower world lies in moral chaos.
Thus it lay for four thousand years, during which period earth, with, a few exceptions, was only a training ground for hell. At length God interposed and sent his Son, Jesus of Nazareth, to substitute a blessing for the curse. But here, again, God was disappointed in the result. Jesus was crucified, I triumphed. The world still remained for the most part in my hands, and in my hands for the most part it remains to this hour, and will remain when time shall have passed into eternity, leaving me the ruler and the punisher of millions that no man can number, no man estimate, except by saying that my victims incomparably surpass the true worshipers of God. This, then, is the final issue of creation. The noblest work of God is not only a failure, but a ruin, an irreparable and everlasting ruin.
What specially darkens this result is, that it is grossly and incurably unjust for God to condemn a race for one act of disobedience on the part of one man. It is unjust to continue in existence the race condemned, so as to cause the certain loss to all eternity of most individuals of each successive generation. It is unjust to punish the innocent Jesus for the sins of a guilty world. It is unjust, when God has received the penalty, to exact a second payment in the eternal torments of the bulk of human kind. But the height of injustice is it, when God has been placated, for him to act toward men for ever as pitilessly as he would have done had he received no vicarious atonement whatever. But even this injustice is exaggerated when the condemned suffering many behold the elect few in the enjoyment of God’s favour, not because they are more obedient than the others, but simply because such is God’s will. The will of such a God is the rule of simple force. Hence emphatically God becomes Satan. Even greater than it is would be the majority of my wretched slaves, but for an order of men whose special functions it is to take the sting out of that curse. These men, having an office so momentous, obtain immense power on earth, and accordingly subdue generations after generations to their will.
Ecclesiastical tyranny begets civil despotism. And thus two other plagues infest the human race. Yet submission is the only way of salvation. “Everlasting punishment” can be avoided only by submitting to rites and ceremonies or professing a creed. Each may be unreasonable, but they have a divine sanction. Therefore yield, or “without doubt you will perish everlastingly.”
This is the ecclesiasticism. It calls light darkness and darkness light; or, rather, without making me good, it makes God bad. That it does make God bad, every one owns the moment the dire system is placed before him, if only he retains undarkened and unperverted the natural sentiments of good and evil, as they are in themselves and as they stand contradistinguished the one from the other. The God of the system is no God at all. He is Satan under another denomination. And thus ecclesiasticism delivers the world over to two Satans. Only in name can the dualism be said to exist. To compare the two together would be too painful. But this must be said, that I am not loaded with the fearful responsibility of having given birth to this eternal moral chaos; for after all I am, according to the system, but the tolerated instrument of him to whom I owe my being, and who in consequence is chargeable with all the ills I inflict on the human race.
Compared with such a God, Moloch sinks into a petty demon. Had the Europeans now in this nineteenth century for the first time heard that such a religion was held and practised by some savage tribe on the western side of Africa, they would have pronounced the tale a phantasm bred in some diseased and over-excited brain.
Utterly different is the Almighty Being whom Jesus called “My Father,” “Our Father,” “Righteous Father.” To him in time men will learn to cleave more and more, until their love and service of God will relieve the world of the terrible incubus of the ecclesiastical principle of good and the ecclesiastical principle of evil. Even yet the confusion is but partially exhibited. The good side of the dualism appears under three aspects. Before “the Fall,” God loves man; after “the Fall,” he hates man. Even when he has received full payment of man’s debt, he pursues the bulk of the creditors with unappeasable wrath. Hence it appears that of the. three aspects of the bright side of the dualism, two are for the most part irretrievably dark. As for the originally dark side, it remains dark, yet gains some relief in contrast with the double darkness of the other side; for, bad as theologians make me, I am, according to their own account, nothing but the executioner of the Divine will.
Pitiable, O man, is thy condition, if it is such as it is made to be by systems of divinity!
Do I not, you ask, paint the Almighty in colours too gloomy and frightful? My dear pupil, it is not I that paint the Almighty; it is the doctors of divinity. I will give you the proof in two or three extracts from the psalmody of Dr. Watts, one of the most gentle and amiable of men, but also one who has drawn some of the most dismal and distorted caricatures of God.
“His sounding chariot shakes the sky;
He makes the clouds his throne;
There all his stores of lightning lie,
Till vengeance darts them down.
His nostrils breathe out fiery streams!
And from his awful tongue,
A sovereign voice divides the flames,
And thunder roars along.
Think, O my soul! the dreadful day,
When this incensed God
Shall rend the shy, and hum the sea
And fling his wrath abroad.
“What shall the wretch, the sinner do?
He once defied the Lord;
But he shall dread the thunderer now,
And sink beneath his word.
Tempest of angry fire shall roll
To blast the rebel worm,
And beat upon his naked soul In one eternal storm.”
“Come, let us lift our joyful eyes
Up to the courts above,
And smile to see our Father there,
Upon a throne of love.
Once was a seat of dreadful wrath,
And shot devouring flame;
Our God appeared ‘consuming fire,’
And Vengeance was his name.
Rich were the drops of Jesus’ blood
That calm’d his frowning face,
That sprinkled o’er the burning throne,
And turrfd the wrath to grace.
To thee ten thousand thanks we bring,
Great Advocate on high:
And glory to the eternal King,
That lays his fury by.”
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“Behold the Judge descends; his guards are nigh,
Tempest and fire attend him down the sky.
Heaven, earth and hell, draw near: let all things come
To hear his justice and the sinner’s doom.
Fly to the Saviour, make the Judge your friend;
Lest, like a lion, his last vengeance tear
Your trembling souls, and no deliverer near.”
Poor mortals, who have fallen into the sin to which God made your liable;—poor and pitiable mortals! You have to face the fury of two lions: God is one, and I am the other. The manifest injustice becomes an insult when the sinner is brought to his knees with the following plea for mercy:
“Lord, I am all conceived in sin,
And born unholy and unclean;
Sprung from the man whose guilty fall
Corrupts the race, and taints us all.
Soon as we draw our infant breath,
The seeds of sin grow up for death:
The law demands a perfect heart;
But we’re defiled in every part.”
Mercy? Justice you should claim. “Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? Then may ye also do good who are “all conceived in sin” “corrupt and tainted” “soon as you draw your infant breathwhile yet of you, “defiled in every part,” “the law demands a perfect heart.” (Jerem. xiii. 23.)
Still the picture which divines paint of me is very repulsive, but no way so repulsive as that which they paint of God.
SECTION IV. EXTREME CREDULITY THE CHANNEL THROUGH WHICH BELIEF IN A PERSONAL DEYIL HAS BEEN PROPAGATED.
Every stream receives a tinge from the hues of the bottom and sides of the ground through which it flows. As with streams, so with ideas. Belief in me has come to you of this generation from the Roman Catholic world. A medium so grossly credulous is not to be found in all history. So extravagant are many of the stories for which the Papal Church is responsible, that few impartial persons can read them without being assured that what they peruse is the product, if of illusion, certainly of collusion as well. To which of the two the larger share should be ascribed, I will not undertake to determine. My end is answered if I shew how dark and troubled were the channels which have transmitted belief in me to the modern world.
That the literary authority I chiefly follow may be unquestionable, I take the book which more than all others makes the priests who make the- supports by which I am upheld. It is The Breviary or Prayer Book of the Roman Catholic clergy. The lesson for the day given in this authoritatively compiled and infallibly sanctioned volume every priest of the Roman Church, from the Pope downward, is required to read under severe ecclesiastical penalties. Spurious records of the sufferings of the early martyrs contribute copiously to the substance of the Breviary. The variety and ingenuity of the tortures described are equalled only by the innumerable miracles which are said to have baffled the tyrants, whenever they attempted to injure the Christians by any method but cutting their throats. Houses were set on fire to burn the martyrs within; but the Breviary informs us that the flames raged for a whole day and night without molesting them. Often do we read of idols tumbling from their pedestals at the approach of the persecuted Christians; and even the judges themselves dropped down dead when they attempted to pass sentence. The wild beasts seldom devour a martyr without prostrating themselves before him; and lions follow young virgins to protect them from insult. The sea refuses to drown those who are committed to its waters, and when compelled to do that odious service, the waves generally carry the bodies where the Christians may preserve them as relics. On one occasion a pope is thrown into the Lake Maeotis, with an anchor which the infidels had tied round his neck, for fear of the usual miraculous floating; the plan succeeded and the pope was drowned. But the sea was soon after observed to recede three miles from the shore, where a temple appeared in which the body of the martyr had been provided with a marble sarcophagus.
Cyprian, a heathen magician, who to that detestable art joined a still more infamous occupation, engaged to put a young man in possession of Justina, a Christian virgin. For this purpose he employed the most potent incantations, till I was forced to confess that I had no power over Christians. Upon this Cyprian concluded that it was better to be a Christian than a sorcerer. Cyprian and Justina, being accused before the Roman judge of being disciples of Christ, are condemned to be tossed together into a cauldron of melted “pitch, fat and wax;” from which, however, they come out quite able to be carried to Nicomedia, where they are put to death by the almost infallible means of the sword or the axe.
The greatest stress is laid on the authority of the story of Saint Cecilia, of musical celebrity, who having been forced to marry a certain Valerius, most earnestly entreated her bridegroom to avert from himself the vengeance of an angel that had the charge of her virgin purity. Valerius agreed to forego his rights, and promised to believe in Christ, provided he saw his heavenly rival. But Cecilia declared that such a sight could not be obtained without previous baptism; upon which, the curiosity of the bridegroom supplying the place of faith, he declared his readiness to be baptized. After the ceremony, the angel shewed himself to Valerius, and subsequently to a brother of his, who had been let into the secret. Astounded at the vision, as soon as he had recovered from his stupefaction, he sent for his brother Tiburtius, who, having been imbued by Cecilia with faith in Christ, was rewarded with a sight of the same angel as his brother had seen. Both of the men, a short time after, suffered martyrdom with firmness under the prefect Almachius. This same pagan forthwith ordered Cecilia to be burned in a bath in her own house. When during a whole day and night she remained untouched by the flames, the headsman was sent to put her to death; who, when he had failed to behead her with three strokes of the axe, withdrew, leaving her half alive.
Of course the Breviary supplies legends fitted to augment and confirm the power of the Pope, as well as to exercise the faith of his subjects. The most notorious forgeries are for these purposes sanctioned and consecrated in this sacerdotal Prayer Book. That these legends are often given in the words of those whom the Church of Home calls Fathers, only shews how long the credulity has been fostered, and how carefully and successfully it has been sustained. We thus find the fable about the contest between Peter and Simon Magus gravely repeated in the words of Maximus. “The holy apostles (Peter and Paul) lost their lives,” he says, “because, among other miracles, they also by their prayers precipitated Simon from the vacuity of the air. For Simon, calling himself Christ and engaging to ascend to the Father, was suddenly raised in flight by means of his magic art. At this moment, Peter, bending his knees, prayed to the Lord, and by his holy prayer defeated the magician’s lightness; for the prayer reached the Lord sooner than the flyer. The righteous petition outstripped the iniquitous presumption. Peter, on earth, obtained what he asked much before Simon could reach the heavens to which he was making his way. Peter therefore brought down his rival from the air, as if he had held him by a rope, and dashing him against a stone in a precipice, brake his legs; doing this in scorn of the fact itself, so that he who, but a moment before, had attempted to fly, should now not be able to walk; and having affected wings, should lack the use of his heels.”
How daring the forgery was, and how credulous those for whom it was made, may be learnt from the fact, that even then, when this legend was put into circulation, there existed in a letter which claims to have Peter for its author, these words: “Render not evil for evil, nor reproach for reproach, but contrariwise blessing; for it is better, if the will of God be so, that ye suffer for well-doing; for this is thankworthy, if a man for conscience toward God endure tribulations, suffering wrongfully.” (1 Peter iii. 9.)
Pope John, saint and martyr, being on a journey to Corinth and in want of a quiet and comfortable horse, borrowed one which the lady of a certain nobleman used to ride. The animal carried his holiness with the greatest gentleness and docility, and, when the journey was over, was returned to his mistress; but in vain did she attempt to enjoy the usual service of her favourite. The horse had become fierce and gave the lady many an unseemly fall, “as if,” says the authorized record, “feeling disgust at having to carry a woman, since the Vicar of Christ had been on his back.” The horse was accordingly presented to the pope, as disdaining to be ridden by a less dignified person, especially a woman.
The standing miracles of the city of Rome—those miraculous relics which, in former times, made the whole of Europe support the idleness of the Romans at the expense of its devout credulity—-are not overlooked in this manual of Christian edification. An instance may be given in the case of St. Peter’s chains, such as they are now venerated at Rome. Eudoxia, wife of Theodosius the younger, being on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, received as a present one of the chains with which St. Peter was bound in prison when he was liberated by an angel. This chain, set with jewels, was forwarded by the pious empress to her daughter, then at Rome. The young princess, rejoiced with the gift, shewed the chain to the people, who repaid the compliment by exhibiting another chain which the holy apostle had borne under Nero. As if to compare their structure, the two chains were brought into contact, when the links at the extremities of each joined together, and the two pieces became one uniform chain. In the same authorized and veracious record you may find other miracles, which, in different parts of Italy, move the intelligent travellers to laughter or disgust. The translation of the house of Loretto (the home where the Virgin Mary was born) through the air by the hands of angels from Palestine to the Papal States, is asserted in the collect for that festival; which, being a direct address to the Deity, cannot be supposed to have been carelessly compiled; and the account of the conveyance is set forth in the Lessons. The extraordinary miracles of Saint Januarius, both during his life under Diocletian and in our own days, are stated with equal confidence and precision. That Saint, the legend says, being thrown into a burning furnace, came out so completely unhurt, that not even his clothes or his hair was singed. The next day all the wild beasts in the amphitheatre came crouching at his feet.
I pass over the other ancient performances of Januarius, to shew the style in which his wonderful works after his death are given. His body, for instance, on one occasion extinguished the flames of Vesuvius. Next comes that noble miracle—praeclarum illud—the liquefaction of Januarius’s blood, which did, and still does, take place every year in Naples.
It may be well to fix your mind for a moment on one point. How Ireland has been made what it is, you may find in the Breviary. Take the instance of its patron, Saint Patrick (372—464). The following is the tale which it tells of this pattern of Christian excellence. The holy Saint rises before daylight, and under the snows and rains of a northern winter begins his customary task of praying one hundred times in a day, and again one hundred times in a night. Such, the Breviary informs us, was his daily practice while still a layman and a slave. When raised to the see of Armagh, his activity in the external practice of prayer appears quite prodigious. In the first place, he repeated daily the one hundred and fifty psalms of the Psalter, with a collection of canticles and hymns and two hundred collects. The two hundred genuflexions of his youth were now increased to three hundred. The ecclesiastical day being divided into eight canonical hours, and each of these having one hundred blessings with the sign of the cross allotted by St. Patrick, his right hand must have performed that motion eight hundred times a day. After this distracting stir and hurry, the night brought little repose to the Saint. He divided it into three portions: in the first he recited one hundred psalms and knelt two hundred times. During the second, he stood immersed in cold water, repeating fifty psalms more, “with his heart, eyes and hands raised toward heaven.” The third he gave up to sleep upon a stone pavement.
Try to make all this real. Suppose yourself thus occupied for one day and night, can you find leisure for anything else? Can you crowd all this within the space of four-and-twenty hours? Then carry the practices in imagination through one week:—can you endure so long? One month? it is impossible. One year? you are a corpse long, long before twelve months have elapsed.
But this is not all. “While he thus afforded to future days a specimen of holiness, he exercised himself in long readings, travelled over Gaul, Italy, and the islands of the Adriatic, and was called into Spain by a divine admonition. In his episcopal office it is wonderful what annoyances and labours he endured, and what adversaries he encountered. Such was his success in preaching the gospel, that Ireland, given to the worship of idols, came, under his influence, to be called the isle of Saints. Very large numbers of the population he baptized with his own hands; he ordained also bishops and very many priests, and led virgins and widows to become nuns. With the authority of the supreme Pontiff, he made Armagh the capital of the whole island, and decorated it with relics of the Saints brought from Rome. Adorned of God with supernal visions and great signs and wonders, he shone so resplendently, that his fame was spread far and wide with ever-increasing splendour. At length, worn out with ceaseless cares for the church, distinguished in word and deed, in extreme age, refreshed by divine revelations, he fell asleep in God” (493 A.D.).
Enough of the Breviary. Perhaps you fancy that the credulity is restricted to the priests. If so, remember the priests were the channel of belief in my personality. But while it is difficult to find credulousness without a priest, others take part in the illustrative follies and frauds.
Casanova, a Venetian, doomed to solitary imprisonment in the dungeons at Venice in 1755, speaks of one of the only books he was allowed to read, in the following terms: “I there read all that is fitted to produce the excited imagination of a Spanish virgin extravagantly given to ascetic practices, living in a cloister, melancholy, having directors of her conscience—directors ignorant, false and ascetic. A friend and a lover of the holy Virgin, sister Mary of Agrada, had received directly from God an order to write the life of his divine, mother. The necessary instructions for the purpose were furnished to her by the Holy Spirit. She commenced her life of Mary, not with the day of her birth, but at the moment of her immaculate conception in the womb of Anna her mother. After narrating in detail all that her divine heroine did during the nine months that she passed in her mother s bosom, she informs us that the Virgin at the age of three years kept her home in order with the aid of nine hundred domestics, all of whom were angels, under the control of their own prince, the archangel Michael. What strikes you in the book is the assurance, that whatever is said, is said in good faith. They are the visions of a soaring spirit, unshadowed by pride and inebriated of God, who believes that she reveals nothing but what she is inspired with by the Holy Spirit.”
A week’s confinement to this volume produced such an effect on Casanova, who, though an unbeliever and a debauchee, was then enfeebled by melancholy, bad air and bad food, that his sleep was haunted and his waking hours disturbed by its horrible visions. Many years after, passing through Agrada, in Old Castile, he charmed the old priest of that village by speaking of the biographer of the virgin. The priest shewed him all the spots which were consecrated by her presence, and bitterly lamented that the court of Rome had refused to canonize her. It is the natural reflection of the writer that the book was well qualified to turn a solitary prisoner mad, or to make a man at large an atheist. It ought not to be forgotten, that the inquisitors of state at Venice who-prescribed this book, were probably of the latter persuasion.. It is a striking instance of the infatuation of those who, in their eagerness to rivet the bigotry of the ignorant, use means which infallibly tend to spread utter unbelief among the educated. The book is a disgusting, but in its general outline seemingly faithful, picture of the dissolute manners spread over the continent of Europe in the middle of the eighteenths century.
Fables of the kind abound in the popular and legendary literature of Romanism wherever it bears sway. I confine myself to a few instances from France. The highest sanctity is no protection against monkish and sacerdotal superstition, credulity and delusion. St. Benedict saw the soul of St. Germain of Capua carried up to heaven by angels. Two monks saw the soul of St. Benedict walking on a carpet stretched from heaven down to mount Cassino. Saint Eucherius was conveyed by an angel down into hell, where he saw the soul of Charles Martel. A holy hermit of Italy saw devils, who hurried the soul of Dagobert into a barque, beating him all the while with sticks.
Even the highest flights of French oratory are not free from the unclean leaven. The illustrious Bossuet, in his Oraison Funebre (Funeral Sermon) for the princess Palatine, reports two visions which acted powerfully on her royal highness, and which determined all her conduct in the last years of her life. He said, that the princess, after lending a hundred thousand francs to the Queen of Poland, her sister, sold the duchy of Retelois for a million francs, and advantageously married her daughter, who was unable to enjoy her good fortune because she doubted in regard to the Catholic religion.
When her unhappy condition became known to her spiritual guides, a remedy was found. She was called back to the belief, and not the belief only, but to the love, of its ineffable verities by two visions. The first was a dream in which a man, born blind, told her that he had no idea of light, and that, as he did, she was to take the word of others as to things you cannot conceive yourself. The other was a violent concussion of the brain in an attack of fever. She saw a barn door fowl running after one of her chickens which a dog held in his mouth. The princess tore the chicken out of the dog s jaws. A voice cried out, “Give him back his fowl; if you rob him of his fowl, he will be a poor guard for you.” “No!” exclaimed the princess, “I will never give it him back.” That chicken was the soul of the princess Palatine herself, Anne de Gonzague; the fowl was the Church; the dog was the devil; Anne de Gonzague, who would not give the chicken back to the dog, was effectual grace.
Bossuet delivered the sermon in which this is found to the Carmelite nuns of the Faubourg Saint-Jacques in Paris, before the whole house of Conde, riveting his words by this remarkable sentence:
“Listen! Take special care not to despise divine admonitions and the guiding hand of Almighty Goodness.”
The Lord Jesus appeared to Saint Catharine of Sienna and made her his wife, giving her a ring as a token of the marriage. This apparition is described as credible, because it is attested by Raimond of Capua, general of the Dominicans, who was the lady’s confessor. It has also the attestation of Pope Urban IV.
The apparition of La Mere Angelique, abbess of Port Royal, to sister Dorothy, is reported “by a man of great weight among the Jansenists,” namely, Sieur Dufosse, author of “Les Memoires de Pontis.” According to his averment, La Mere Angelique, long after her decease, came and took her old place in the Port Royal church, with her cross in her hand.
She ordered her sister Dorothy to be sent for, to whom she communicated terrible secrets.
Among the memorials of credulity and superstition of those who nourished me into a bloated personality, few surpass, and very few equal, the abuses connected with the flagellations inflicted by the sufferer’s own hand, or that of an executioner, as a punishment for misconduct or misbelief and a discipline for spiritual growth and elevation. The instruments employed are scourges, rods, or whip-cords. The parts chastised are the bare back or the posteriors. The former method is called the upper discipline; the latter, the lower. The delicate nature of the subject compels me to be very particular in the selection of my materials; lest, in trying to expose extravagance, I compromise the interests of modesty. Moreover, my words must be few.
Saint Hilarion was often exposed to the same chastisement of the scourge, administered by me, as the traditionalists affirm; though why I should be anxious to promote the religious improvement of such unsparing foes of mine as are the saints and the monks, I cannot imagine. Saint Jerome, however, is as good an authority as most other ecclesiastical reporters, and he, speaking of St. Anthony, declares: “This wanton gladiator (myself) bestrides him, beating his sides with his heels and his head with a scourge.” A great many other Saints (if we may believe the legends) were exposed to similar treatment. The priest Grimlaicus, the author of an ancient Monastic Rule, declares that devils often insolently lay hold on men and lash them, in the same manner as they used to serve the blessed Anthony. Saint Francis d’Assisi, as is related in the Legenda Aureci (the Golden Legend), received a dreadful flagellation from me the first night he was in Rome.
In the Life of Saint Anthony, written by Saint Athanasius, you may read bow that holy man was frequently lashed in his cell by myself. Some time, however (so calumny says), I employed temptations of a different kind in order to seduce him. Once, for instance, I appeared before the Saint in the shape of a beautiful young woman unclad. The celebrated engraver Calot has made one of my alleged visits to Saint Anthony the subject of a print, which is inscribed, “The Temptation of Saint Anthony.” In it he represents a numerous swarm of devils pouring at once into the Saint’s cavern, most various in size, countenance, posture, and armed with squirts, bellows, and other ludicrous weapons, illustrative of the religious taste of the age.
The celebrated French printer, Henri Etienne, wrote his “Apologie pour Herodote” (Apology for Herodotus) in order to shew that those who reject certain facts related by the Greek historian, on account of their incredibility, treat him with too much rigour, since a number of facts daily happen which are altogether as surprising as those that are found in that author. One of his instances follows:—A certain monk of Saint Anthony used on Sunday to preach in public in different villages within an easy walk from his monastery. One day he assembled his congregation under a tree on which a magpie had built her nest, in order to produce an overwhelming effect in favour of himself and his order in the not easily moved hearts of his hearers. In preparation for this decisive blow, he placed in the nest a small box filled with gunpowder. To this he attached a long, thin, pendent match. As soon as the end of the slowly burning match was set on fire by his assistant, he began his sermon. Meanwhile the magpie had returned to her nest, and finding in it a strange body which she could not eject, she fell into a passion and began to scratch with her feet and to chatter insufferably. The friar affected to hear her without being disturbed, and continued his sermon with full composure; only he would now and then lift his eyes toward the top of the tree, as if he wanted to see what was the matter. At last, when he judged that the fire was near reaching the gunpowder, he pretended to be quite out of patience, and, as if bent on punishing the temerity of the disturber, he uttered a solemn anathema on the unfortunate bird. This done, he resumed his discourse. Scarcely, however, had he uttered three or four periods when the match, on a sudden, produced its effect, blowing up the magpie together with her nest. The astounded crowd fell on their knees before the monk in acknowledgment of his miraculous power. Another result was an immediate and long-continued influx of wealth into the coffers of the convent.
A word or two of archaeological explanation will give point to the story. Saint Anthony was held to have the power of curing erysipelas, as Saint Hubert cured hydrophobia, Saint John epilepsy, and other Saints other disorders. The skill of Saint Anthony was denoted, in portraits of the Saint and pictures of his doings, by the not inappropriate symbol of fire. Hence the notion of “Saint Anthony’s fire,” and the great repute of his saintship in these particulars. The repute went so far as to give him wonderful command over fire in general, and in particular the power of destroying, by flashes of that element, those who incurred his displeasure.
Credulity so extreme may now wear an appearance of impossibility. Yet still have we stone statues that shed tears, and painted idols that roll their eyes. In order, however, to see how exactly such facts as I have now mentioned fit in the historical framework of the middle ages, you have only to study their manners and habits a little closely. In this matter of flagellation, for instance, the universality of the custom made it almost natural as well as proper. The superiors of convents and nunneries exercised the power of flagellation simply as a matter of course. Bishops, too, punished by the same means unfortunate defaulters in ascetic practices or sound doctrine. Of this a remarkable proof may be deduced from the 59th Epistle of Augustin, which he wrote to the tribune Marcellinus concerning the Donatists. The Saint (to give him his usual title) expresses himself in the following words: “Do not recede from that paternal diligence you have manifested in your researches after offenders, in which you have succeeded in procuring confessions of such great crimes, not by using racks and red-hot blades of iron, but only by the application of rods. This is a method of coercion which is frequently practised by teachers of the fine arts upon their pupils, by parents upon their children, and often also by bishops upon those whom they find to have been guilty of offences.” Another instance of the same practice is found in the words in which Cyprian speaks of the moderation observed in such punishments by Cesarius, bishop of Arles:—”This holy man took constant care that those who were subjected to his authority, whether they were bond or free, when they were to be whipped for some offence they had committed, should not receive more than thirty-nine stripes. If any of them, however, had been guilty of a grievous fault, then, indeed, he permitted them to be again lashed a few days afterwards, though with a smaller number of stripes.”
SECTION V. THE CREATIVE POWER OP THE IMAGINATION HAS CONTRIBUTED TO BELIEF IN A PERSONAL DEVIL; THE FACT ILLUSTRATED FROM DANTE AND MILTON.
The human imagination is capable of giving birth to distortions the most grotesque and to figments the most unreal. What but its freaks are monstrosities such as the mermaid and the griffin? Already intelligence confesses that vampires, ghosts and spectres are nothing more substantial than rank products of turbid dreams or diseased fancy. And under the control of ignorance and barbarism, fancy is ever diseased, and dreams are no less turbid than monstrous. The state of mind which begot the unicorn begot me. I am simply a compound of ill-reputed features which belong to a score of the lower animals. My general form I get from the pagan satyr; whence also come my hoofs and my shagginess; while the goat supplies my horns and the bull and the ass my tail. The principle of ugliness presided at my birth, and had much to do in my bringing up. Hence my ordinary portraits are very unsightly. When, however, a great genius takes the pallet and the brush to paint my person, he produces something which, amidst all its deformities, is grand and imposing. Transcribe into your manuscript, my dear young friend, the likeness of me painted by the great creative poets, Dante and Milton.
Dante’s Satan.
“The emperor of the kingdom dolorous.”
xx.
“Veodlla Regis prodeicnt Inferni
Towards us; therefore look in front of thee,”
My master said, ”if thou discernest him.”
As, when there breathes a heavy fog, or when
Our hemisphere is darkening into night,
Appears far off a mill the wind is turning,
Methought that such a building then I saw;
And for the wind, I drew myself behind
My guide, because there was no other shelter.
Now was I, and with fear in verse I put it,
There where the shades were wholly covered up,
And glimmered through like unto straws in glass.
Some prone are lying, others stand erect,
This with the head, and that one with the soles;
Another, bow-like, face to feet inverts.
When in advance so far we had proceeded,
That it my master pleased to shew to me
The creature who once had the beauteous semblance,
He from before me moved and made me stop,
Saying, ‘Behold Dis, and behold the place
Where thou with fortitude must arm thyself.’
How frozen I became and powerless then,
Ask it not, reader, for I write it not,
Because all language would be insufficient.
I did not die, and I alive remained not;
Think for thyself now, hast thon aught of wit,
What I became, being of both deprived.
The emperor of the kingdom dolorous
From his mid-breast forth issued from the ice;
And better with a giant I compare
Than do the giants with those arms of his;
Consider now how great must be that whole,
Which unto such a part conforms itself.
Were he as fair once, as he now is foul,
And lifted up his brow against his Maker;
Well may proceed from him all tribulation.
O, what a marvel it appeared to me,
When I beheld three faces on his head!
The one in front, and that vermilion was;
Two were the others, that were joined with this
Above the middle part of either shoulder,
And they were joined together at the crest;
And the right-hand one seemed ‘twixt white and yellow;
The left was such to look upon as those
Who came from where the Nile falls valley-ward.
Underneath each came forth two mighty ‘wings,
Such as befitting were so great a bird;
Sails of the sea I never saw so large.
No feathers had they, but as of a bat
Their fashion was; and he was waving them,
So that three winds proceeded forth therefrom.
Thereby Cocytus wholly was congealed.
With his eyes did he weep, and down three chins
Trickled the tear-drops and the bloody drivel.
At every mouth he with his teeth was crunching
A sinner, in the manner of a brake,
So that he three of them tormented thus.
To him in front the biting was as naught
Unto the clawing, for sometimes the spine Utterly stripped of all the skin remained.
‘That soul up there which has the greatest pain,’
The master said, is Judas Iscariot;
With head inside, he plies his legs without.
Of the two others, who head downwards are,
The one who hangs from the black jowl is Brutus;
See how he writhes himself, and speaks no word.
And the other, who so stalwart seems, is Cassius.
But night is re-ascending, and ‘tis time
That we depart, for we have seen the whole.’”
This portrait of a drivelling devil is disgusting rather than formidable. Yet incisive is it enough to cut and leave an image of itself on the popular imagination. Whatever human feature is presented, if only it is human, stamps itself on the mind, and tends to make me a personal reality. It is, however, to Milton’s spirit of fire and plastic hand that I am most indebted. His Satan stands supreme. Specially is he the creative power and the solid support of the demonology of modern popular churches. Yet even this gigantic figure begins to pale and wane.
Satan’s Address to the Sun.
“O thou, that, with surpassing glory crowned,
Lookest from thy sole dominion like the
God Of this new world; at whose sight all the stars
Hide their diminished heads; to thee I call,
But with no friendly voice; and add thy name,
O Sun, to tell thee how I hate thy beams,
That bring to my remembrance from what state
I fell, how glorious once—above thy sphere;
Till pride and worse ambition threw me down,
Warring in heaven against heaven’s matchless King.
Ah! wherefore? He deserved no such return
From me, whom he created what I was
In that bright eminence, and with his good
Upbraided none; nor was his service hard.
What could be less than to afford him praise,
The easiest recompence, and pay him thanks?
How due! yet all his good proved ill in me,
And wrought but malice; lifted up so high,
I’sdained subjection, and thought one step higher
Would set me highest, and in a moment quit
The debt immense of endless gratitude,
So burdensome; still paying, still to owe;
Forgetful what from him I still received;
And understood not that a grateful mind
By owing owes not, but still pays, at once
Indebted and discharged; what burden then?
O had his powerful destiny ordained
Me some inferior angel, I had stood
Then happy; no unbounded hope had raised
Ambition! Yet why not? Some other power
As great might have aspired, and me, though mean,
Drawn to his part; but other powers as great
Fell not, but stand unshaken, from within
Or from without, to all temptations armed.
Hadst thou the same free will and power to stand?
Thou hadst: whom hast thou then or what to accuse—
But heaven’s free love dealt equally to all?
Be then his love accursed; since love or hate,
To me alike, it deals eternal woe:
Nay, cursed be thou; since against his thy will
Chose freely what it now so justly rues.
Me miserable! which way shall I fly
Infinite wrath and infinite despair?
Which way I fly is hell; myself am hell;
And in the lowest deep a lower deep
Still threatening to devour me opens wide;
To which the hell I suffer seems a heaven.
O then at last relent: is there no place
Left for repentance, none for pardon left?
None left but by submission; and that word
Disdain forbids me, and my dread of shame
Among the spirits beneath; whom I seduced
With other promises and other vaunts
Than to submit; boasting I could subdue
The Omnipotent. Ah me! they little know
How dearly I abide that boast so vain;
Under what torments inwardly I groan;
While they adore me on the throne of hell:
With diadem and sceptre high advanced,
The lower still I fall; only supreme
In misery: such joy ambition finds.
But say I could repent, and could obtain
By act of grace my former state; how soon
Would height recall high thoughts, how soon unsay
What feigned ambition swore! Ease would recant
Vows made in pain, as violent and void.
For never can true reconcilement grow
Where wounds of deadly hate have pierced so deep;
Which would but lead me to a worse relapse
And heavier fall: so should I purchase dear
Short intermission bought with double smart.
This knows my Punisher; therefore as far
From granting he, as I from begging peace:
All hope excluded thus; behold instead
Of us outcast, exiled, his new delight,
Mankind, created, and for him this world.
So, farewell hope, and with hope, farewell fear;
Farewell remorse: all good to me is lost;
Evil, be thou my good; by thee at least
Divided empire with heaven’s King I hold,
By thee, and more than half perhaps will reign;
As man ere long and this new world shall know.
Thus while he spake, each passion dimmed his face,
Thrice changed with pale ire, envy, and despair;
Which marred his borrowed visage, and betrayed
Him counterfeit, if any eye beheld:
Whereof he soon aware,
Each perturbation smoothed with outward calm,
Artificer of fraud; and was the first
That practised falsehood under saintly show,
Deep malice to conceal, couched with revenge.”
What is this but man—man from first to last? A noble if a ruined man; such a man as only the grand soul of Milton could have drawn. Those strong, deep, violent and rapidly interchanging passions are strictly human. Human too is the touch of tenderness, the starting tear, the momentarily yielding soul you find here. Emphatically human is the intimately connected chain of reasoning that runs through all and incessantly leading wrong, closing the avenues of instinctive feeling. Then how fine the contrast between the master passion, ambition, and nascent submission, the sole road open to returning peace!
There is, however, one phrase which stamps the whole with the true features of humanity, “myself am hell” Yes, the only true hell is the wicked man himself. And thus it is seen that I am no proper devil, but human sin and human suffering personified. Thus can you explain how it is that in this sublime portrait qualities so great are interwoven with passions so diabolical? And so we may be justified in declaring Milton’s Paradise Lost a spiritual allegory, painting to the eye, the head, the heart, the foulness and terror of rebellion against the Author and Governor of the universe. In this view, the sublime poem is a theodicy illustrating and vindicating the course of Divine Providence, and especially “justifying the ways of God to man.” I seem to myself to have here touched on the thought which accounts for and explains all that has been said and written on the dark and perplexed subject of demonology.
Moreover, with the sublime creation before us at this moment, you will readily see that the huge, grostesque, fantastic and repulsive pictures given of me by Milton as well as Dante and others, do not describe real bodily conditions, as indeed appears from their mutual contradictions, but are symbols of moral deformities so foul and terrible as to demand for their expression an appeal to the external senses.
Another conclusion ensues from these poetic lessons. Clearly I, in my worst, that is my essential features, am here at a great distance from my zenith. If the soul of Milton may in any considerable degree be taken as the type and measure of his age, the world is now growing too cultured and too wise to be wholly satisfied with the fond devilisms of the middle ages.
SECTION VI. FEAR ENGENDERS MENTAL DECEPTIONS, INCLUDING BELIEF IN A PERSONAL DEVIL; THE TERRIFYING PULPIT; THE HERALDS’ COLLEGE OF DEMONOLOGY; SATANIC ARISTOCRACY; VULGAR DEVILS.
Timor fecit deos. If the Latin poet is right in declaring that fear made his gods, he would not have been wrong had he asserted the same of devils. Fear is the prolific fountain of devilry. Had man not been a victim of fear, I should never have lived. Pear, the primal source of devilism, still overflows with its bitter and loathsome waters.
No fear so powerful as that which is begotten on false religion. In superstitious fear lies the great lever of the papacy. By this mighty force its priests hold millions and millions of the human race in a state either of brutish subjection or of ever-recurring alarm and distress. Wielding the thunder-bolts of high heaven, they deal damnation over the earth, which, though they fall harmless on Protestant lands, still strike terror into multitudes of the lowest sorts in the two hemispheres, as if the pains of purgatory and the torments of hell for ever depended on their nod. Horrible abuse of the simple, liberal and loving religion of Jesus of Nazareth! To do however little toward relaxing chains so galling and so debasing is reward enough for angelic succour, and yet even I aspire to the high and unfading distinction. For that purpose I lay to the charge of the Christian pulpit the discreditable task of impregnating the public mind with belief in me.
Take a specimen from the discourse entitled “Admonition to the Fallen,” by Basil, bishop of Caesarea (329—379):
“Think too of thy last day;—of the distress and the anguish as the hour of death draws nearer, of the impending sentence of God, of the angels moving on rapid wing, of the soul fearfully agitated by all these things, and bitterly tormented with a guilty conscience, and clinging pitifully to the things here below, and still under the inevitable necessity of taking its departure. Picture to thy mind the final dissolution of all that belongs to our present life, when the Son of Man shall come in his glory, with his holy angels; for he shall come and shall not keep silence to judge the living and the dead, and to render to every man according to his work: when the trumpet, with its loud and terrible echo, shall awaken those who have slept from the beginning of the world, and they shall come forth, they that have done good to the resurrection of life, and they that have done evil to the resurrection of damnation: when the Ancient of days will sit on his throne like the fiery flame, and its wheels as burning fire. A fiery stream issues from his presence. Where then shall thy soul hide itself? In what body can it endure those unbounded and intolerable torments of the unquenchable fire, and the tortures of the undying worm, and the dark and frightful abyss of hell, and the bitter, howlings and woeful wailings, and weeping and gnashing of teeth;—and all those dire woes without end? Deliverance from these after death there is none; neither is there any device or contrivance for escaping these bitter torments. But now it is possible to escape them,” &c.
The next specimen is from “The Fig-tree” of John Bunyan (1628—1688):
“And now he (Christ) begins to shake the fig-tree with his threatenings. ‘Fetch out the axe.’ Now the axe is death. Death therefore is called for. ‘Death, come, smite me this fig-tree.’ And withal the Lord shakes this sinner and whirls him upon a sick bed, saying, ‘Take him, Death. He hath abused my patience and forbearance, not remembering that it should have led him to repentance, and to the fruits thereof. Death, fetch away this fig-tree to the fire, fetch this barren professor to hell!’ At this, Death comes with grim locks into the chamber; yea, and Hell follows to the bed-side, and both stare this professor in the face; yea, begin to lay hands upon him, one smiting him with pains in his body, with head-ache, heart-ache, back-ache, shortness of breath, fainting qualms, trembling of joints, stopping at the chest, and almost all the symptoms of a man past recovery. Now, while Death is thus tormenting the body, Hell is doing with the mind and conscience, striking them with its pains, casting sparks of fire in thither, wounding with sorrows and fears of everlasting damnation the spirit of this poor creature.
“These things proving ineffectual, God sends a series of terrors, each worse than its predecessor. He takes hold of his axe again, and sends death to his wife, to his child, to his cattle. ‘Your young men have I slain, and taken away your horses.’ I will blast him, cross him, disappoint him, and cast him down, and will set myself against him in all he putteth his hand unto. . . . Now the axe begins to be heaved higher. ‘I smote thee, yet thou hast not turned unto me, saith the Lord. In thy filthiness is lewdness. Because I have purged thee and thou wast not purged, thou shalt not be purged from thy filthiness any more, till I have caused my fury to rest upon thee. Cut it down; why doth it cumber the ground V But to give a few particulars of this man’s dying: 1. His fruitless fruit beleaguers him around his bed. 2. Some terrible discovery terrifies his guilty conscience. 3. Terrors take hold of him when he sees the yawning jaws of death gape upon him. 4. By reason of guilt his life hangs in continual doubt before him, and he is afraid day and night. 5. Want comes up against him, like an armed man. 6. Together with these stand by the companions of death—DEATH AND HELL, DEATH AND DEVILS, DEATH AND ENDLESS TORMENT IN THE EVERLASTING FLAMES OF DEVOURING FIRE.
“Death is at work, cutting him down, hewing both back and heart, both body and soul asunder. The man groans, but Death hears him not; he looks ghastly, distressingly, dejectedly; he sighs, he sweats, he trembles—Death matters nothing. Tearful symptoms haunt him; misgivings, direful apprehensions of God terrify him. Now he hath time to think what the loss of heaven will be, and what the torments of hell will be; now he looks no way, but he is frighted.
“Now would he live, but may not; he would live, though it were but the life of a bed-ridden man, but must not. He that cuts him down sways him, as the feller of wood sways the tottering tree—now this way, then that;—at last a root breaks, a heart-string, an eye-string snaps asunder!
“And now, could the soul be annihilated or brought to nothing, how happy would it count itself! But it sees that may not be. Wherefore it is put to a wonderful strait. Stay in the body it may not; go out of the body it dares not. Life is going; the blood settles in the flesh, and the lungs being no more able to draw breath through the nostrils, at last out goes the weary, trembling soul, and is immediately seized by devils, who lie lurking in every hole in the chamber for that very purpose. His friends take care of the body, and wrap it up in the sheet or coffin; but the soul is out of their thought and reach, going down to the chambers of death!”
John Wesley (1703—1791) must not be overlooked. What ensues is taken from his sermon entitled “The Great Assize “The wicked shall be turned into hell, even all the people that forget God. They will be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power. They will be cast into the lake of fire burning with brimstone, originally prepared for the devil and his angels, where they will gnaw their tongues for anguish and pain, they will curse God and look upward. There the dogs of hell—pride, malice, revenge, rage, horror, despair— continually devour them. There they have no rest day or night, but the smoke of their torment ascendeth for ever and ever; for their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched. Then the heavens will be shrivelled up as a parchment scroll. . . . See! see! He cometh! He maketh the clouds his chariot! He rideth upon the wings of the wind! A devouring fire goeth before him, and after him a flame burneth! See! He sitteth upon his throne, clothed with light as with a garment, arrayed with majesty and honour! Behold, his eyes are as a flame of fire, his voice as the sound of many waters! How will ye escape? Will ye call to the mountains to fall on you, the rocks to cover you? Alas! the mountains themselves, the rocks, the earth, the heavens, are just ready to flee away! Can ye prevent the sentence? Wherewith? With all the substance of thy house, with thousands of gold and silver? Blind wretch! Thou earnest naked from thy mother’s womb, and worse than naked thou goest into eternity. Hear the Judge! Hear that voice which echoes through the expanse of heaven: ‘Depart, ye cursed, into everlasting fire!’ Lo, hell is moved from beneath to receive those who are ripe for destruction.”
George Whitfield (1714—1770) shall supply a few words from his discourse on “The Kingdom of God:”
“I was long myself deceived with a form of godliness, and I know what it is to be a factor for the devil, to be led captive by the devil at his will, to have the kingdom of the devil in my heart; and I hope I can say, through free grace, I know what it is to have the kingdom of God in me. . . Now, when the Sabbath is over, and the evening is drawing near, me-thinks the very sight is awful to think in how short a time every soul of you must die—some of you to go to heaven, and others to go to the devil for evermore! . . . O my dear friends, these are matters of eternal moment. Are you willing? Then Christ is willing to come to you. But you may say, Will Christ come to my wicked heart? Yes, though you may have many devils in your heart, Christ will come and erect his throne there; though the devils be in your heart, the Lord Jesus will scourge out a legion of devils, and his throne shall be exalted in thy soul . . . Fly then for your lives! The devil is in you while unconverted; and will you go with the devil in your heart to bed this night?”
I terminate these illustrations of the way in which the pulpit has established on earth the throne of a personal devil by a quotation from Jonathan Edwards’ (1703—1758) Discourse on “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God:”
“There is nothing which keeps wicked men out of hell but the mere pleasure of God. God is not only able to cast wicked men into hell, but he can most easily do it. They deserve to be cast into hell. Every unconverted man properly belongs to hell. They are now the objects of that very same anger and wrath of God that is expressed in the torments of hell. Yea, God is a great deal more angry with many that are now in this congregation, that, it may be, are at ease and quiet, than he is with many of those that are in the flames of hell. The wrath of God burns against them. Their damnation does not slumber. The pit is prepared. The fire is made ready. The furnace is now hot, ready to receive them; the flames do now rage and glow. The devil stands ready to fall upon them, and seize them as his own, at what moment God shall permit. They belong to him; lie has their souls in his possession and under his dominion. The scripture represents them as his goods. The devils watch them. They are ever by them at their right hand. They stand waiting for them, like greedy, hungry lions that see their prey and expect to have it, but are for the present kept back: if God should withdraw his hand by which they are restrained, they would in one moment fly upon their poor souls. The old serpent is gaping for them. There is laid in the very nature of cursed men a foundation for the torments of hell. Natural men’s prudence and care to preserve their own lives, or the care of others to preserve them, do not secure them a moment. Whatever pains a natural man takes in religion, whatever prayers he makes, till he believes in Christ, God is under no manner of obligation to keep him a moment from eternal destruction. So that thus it is that natural men are held in the hand of God over the pit of hell; they have deserved the fiery pit, and are always sentenced to it: and God is dreadfully provoked; his anger is as great toward them as to those that are actually suffering the execution of the fierceness of his wrath in hell, and they have done nothing in the least to appease or abate that anger; neither is God in the least bound by any promise to hold them up one moment. The devil is waiting for them, hell is gaping for them, and would fain lay hold on them and swallow them up; the fire pent up in their own hearts is struggling to break out; and they have no interest in any Mediator; there are no means within reach that can be any security to them. In short, they have no refuge, nothing to lay hold of; all that preserves them every moment is the mere arbitrary will and uncovenanted, unobliged forbearing of an incensed God. The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds some loathsome insect over the fire, abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked. His wrath towards you burns like fire. He looks upon you as worthy of nothing else but to be cast into the fire. You hang by a slender thread with the flames of divine wrath flashing about it, and ready every moment to burn it asunder. God will have no compassion, no mercy, no moderation. He will only laugh and mock. How many, is it likely, will remember this discourse in hell? And it would be a wonder if some that are now present should not be in hell in a very short time, before this year is out. And it would be no wonder if some persons that now sit here in some seats of this meeting-house in health, and quiet and secure, should be there before to-morrow morning.”
In transcribing, especially the last passage, I almost feel as if the God there described and myself, as popularly described, had changed places. Certainly the heart of the preacher must have been in one of those morbid states which engender mental deceptions of the most fearful nature.
In addition to these indirect but very effectual methods of making the world believe in me, direct means were taken for the same result. In the dark ages of European history, Demonology became a science. In some sort it had its Heralds’ College, whose business it was to classify demons in such a way as to do and secure graduated justice to the infernal aristocracy. This would be satisfactorily done only by ascertaining what rank in the celestial hierarchy had been originally held by this devil and that. Here the schoolmen were busy. In “the Fall,” what orders of angels were involved? The momentous question received something like a final answer. Lucifer was a Seraph; Agares, Belial and Barbatos, were of the order of Virtues; Bileth, Forcalor and Phoenix, of the order of Thrones; Goap, of the order of Powers; Purson, of Virtues and Thrones; and Murmur, of Thrones and Angels. Then came the inquiry, How many angels engaged in the revolt? Another weighty point was, Where did the battle take place? Another, How long did it last? Mark the precision of the answer given: “It lasted three seconds.” Somehow, while Lucifer with his followers fell into hell, the rest of the rebels were, it was concluded, left in the air to tempt man. A most interesting question was that which asked, Whether more angels fell with me than remained in heaven with Michael? It was a knotty point. They might have known all about it, had they appealed to myself; but I fancy the answer would not have suited them, for I should have told them that the whole was a silly fable. Indeed, one grain of common sense would have spared the doctors a world of trouble, and saved society from terrific falsities.
The actual decision was, that I had been beaten by a superior force. Hence an inference, which scarcely agrees with the ordinary notion, that the devils are as numerous as human beings—the inference that devils of darkness were fewer in number than angels of light.
These preliminaries being settled, the learning of Christendom undertook to restore some degree of order in my routed forces. Hence extensive districts were allotted to certain of my leading subordinates. There was Zemimar, “the lordly monarch of the North,” as Shakespeare styles him. There was Gorson, king of the South; Amayon, king of the East; and Goap, prince of the West. These sovereigns had under them many spirits with blood as blue as that of the Howards or of William the Conqueror. They were classed as Devil Dukes, Devil Marquises, Devil Counts, Devil Earls, Devil Knights, Devil Presidents, and (alas!) Devil Prelates.
You ask me, my patient listener, if I can trace the descent of any of these, my subjects, down into lofty personages of to-day, and, shrinking from the responsibility, I say in reply: “Present company always excepted though I possess genealogical registers which, if ever published, will display before the eyes of the world much impurity of heart combined with undoubted purity of blood, in the case of many who have occupied earthly thrones and worn glittering coronets, to say nothing of cardinals’ hats and papal tiaras.—But (excuse me in this request) be so good as to interrupt my narrative as little as possible.
To resume: Without undertaking to guarantee the figures, I must continue these wonderful discoveries, which throw those of Newton, Dalton and Liebig into the shade. My armed force comprised nearly twenty-four hundred legions. Now, as under the Romans two legions constituted a consular army, I had under my command 1200 armies; and as a legion may be roughly estimated as containing 6000 soldiers, my forces amounted to 14,400,000 men. This was a terrible pest to be let loose against the human race. Had I, being such as I am pictured by others, been in supreme command, I could hardly, methinks, have done a more unjust and cruel thing. However, eighty-five of my legions were, those high authorities declare, commanded by Beleth: Agares, the first duke under the Power of the East, led thirty-one legions; Leraie, a great Marquis, thirty legions; Morax, a great Earl, thirty-six legions; Eurcas, a knight, twenty legions. It would be easy to carry the enumeration farther. Enough surely to explain how with these exact particulars, proceeding from the highest authorities of the day, belief in me as a personal fiend struck vigorous roots deep in the heart of society.
No less effectual was another resource. Mediaeval Christianity, in appealing to the senses, sagaciously preferred the eye as a channel to the mind and the heart. Hence pictures, carvings and engravings of various kind, infusing what were thought religious ideas by means of symbols. Here fear ran riot. On the assumption that devil and deformity were identical, I and mine were presented to credulous men, women and children, in forms which were impressive and lasting in the degree in which they were caricatures of everything human and bestial, and that the more, because was it not well known that devils possessed the power of indefinite self-transfiguration, and had an invincible propensity for ugliness and monstrosity? “When (says Dr. Hibbert), in the middle ages, conjuration was regularly practised in Europe, devils of rank were supposed to appear under decided forms, by which they were as well recognized as the head of any ancient family would be by his crest and armorial bearings. Along with their names and characters were registered such shapes as they were accustomed to adopt. A devil would appear either like an angel seated in a fiery chariot; or riding on an infernal dragon and carrying in his right hand a viper; or assuming a lion’s head, the feet of a goose, and a hare’s tail; or putting on a raven’s head, and mounted on a strong wolf. Other forms made use of by demons were those of a fierce warrior, or of an old man riding on a crocodile with a hawk in his hand. A human figure would arise having the wings of a griffin; or sporting three heads, two of them being like those of a toad and of a cat; or defended with huge teeth and horns, and armed with a sword; or displaying a dog’s teeth and a large raven’s head; or mounted upon a pale horse, and exhibiting a serpent’s tail; or gloriously crowned and riding upon a dromedary; or presenting the face of a lion; or bestriding a bear and grasping a viper. A demoniacal king would ride upon a pale horse, or would assume a leopard’s face and griffin’s wings, or put on the three heads of (1) a bull, (2) a man, and (3) a ram; taking also a serpent’s tail and the feet of a goose; and in this attire sit on a dragon and bear in his hand a lance and a flag; or, instead, goad the flanks of a furious bear and carry in his fist a hawk. Other forms were those of a goodly knight; or of one who bore lance, ensigns, and even sceptre; or of a soldier, either riding a black horse and surrounded with a flame of fire; or wearing a duke’s crown and mounted on a crocodile; or assuming a lion’s face, and, with fiery eyes, spurring on a gigantic charger; or, with the same frightful aspect, appearing in all the pomp of family distinction on a pale horse; or clad from head to foot in crimson raiment, wearing on his bold front a crown and sallying forth on a red steed. Some infernal duke would appear in his proper character quietly seated on a griffin; another spirit of a similar rank would display the three heads of a serpent, a man, and a cat; he would also bestride a viper, and carry in his hand a firebrand; another, of the same stamp, would appear like a duchess, encircled with a fiery zone and mounted on a camel; a fourth would wear the aspect of a boy and amuse himself on the back of a two headed dragon. A few spirits, however, would be content with the simple garb of a horse, a leopard, a lion, a unicorn, a night raven, a stork, a peacock, or a dromedary; the latter animal speaking fluently the Egyptian language. Others would assume the more complex forms of a lion or a dog, with a griffin’s wings attached to each of their shoulders; or of a bull equally well gifted; or of the same animal distinguished by the singular appendage of a man’s face; or of a crow clothed with human flesh; or of a hart with a fiery tail. To certain other noble devils were assigned such shapes as those of a dragon with three heads, one of those being human; of a wolf with a serpent’s tail, breathing forth flames of fire; of a she-wolf, exhibiting the same caudal appendage, together with a griffin’s wings, and ejecting from her mouth hideous matter. A lion would appear either with the head of a branded thief, or astride upon a black horse, and playing with a viper, or adorned with the tail of a snake, and grasping in his paws two hissing serpents. These were the varied shapes assumed by devils of rank. In an ancient Latin poem, describing the lamentable vision of a devoted hermit and supposed to have been written by St. Bernard in the year 1238, vulgar devils appear whose business on earth was merely to carry away condemned souls. These are described as blacker than pitch; having teeth like lions, nails on their fingers like those of a wild boar, 011 their foreheads horns, through the extremities of which, poison was emitted; having wide ears flowing with corruption, and discharging serpents with their nostrils. The devout writer of these verses has even accompanied them with drawings, in which the addition of the cloven foot is not omitted. But this appendage, as Sir Thomas Brown has learnedly proved, is a mistake, which has arisen from the devil frequently appearing to the Jews in the shape of a rough and hairy goat, this animal being the emblem of sin-offerings. It is worthy of further remark, that the form of the demons described by St. Bernard differs little from that which is no less carefully portrayed by Reginald Scot 350 years later, and perhaps by the demonologists of the present day. “In our childhood,” says he, “our mothers’ maids have so terrified us with an ouglie devil having homes on his head, fire in his mouth, and a taile in his breech, eyes like a basin, fangs like a dog, clawes like a beare, a skin like a niger, and a voice roaring like a lion,—whereby we start and are afraid when we hear one cry Dough (Bogie, ‘Old Bogie’)”.
2. Period Of Composition
1. My Origin And Progress
SECTION I. MY EMBRYONIC CONDITION.
I was born in a sweltering vale of Upper Egypt. The date I cannot give, as my chronology goes so much farther back than that of Archbishop Usher, that I have no milestones to take for my measures. Nor can I determine whether my parents belonged to the present geological period, or to one of an earlier date. If now they appear only in a fossil state, they had, at the time I came into existence, much the same qualities as characterize human beings at the present day. Only that those qualities were of a rougher and sterner kind than those that belong to these civilized ages. Indeed, evolution and progress have marked as man’s so my steps out of that darkness into this light. The first link of that advancing series I venture not to define. It may have been, as the Scripture says, “the ground” or ‘‘the dust of the earth” (Gen. ii. 19, iii. 17); it may have been some anthropomorphic organism, which grew into an ape before it became a man. The second source is the more elevated, and as such presupposes the Divine hand more markedly. But as the lower can never produce the higher; since no being can give what he does not possess; so only from the One Perfect and Infinite Will can the human race have sprung, whether in its infancy or in its manhood. Hence as the child of human nature, my origin is divine. Equally certain is it that the moral discipline which I represent has an aim and a tendency no less effectual than benevolent.
It was autumn. The weather had been intensely sultry. The river had inundated the neighbouring plains. The thinly scattered human population were driven into a neighbouring forest. A thunder-storm broke forth, driving husbands, wives and children into the heart of the woods. Then, of a sudden, a flash of lightning set the trees on fire. They blazed up on all sides, and were soon nothing but a mass of burning ashes.
Only one man escaped. It was the chief of the small tribe. He had paid a visit to a neighbour’s hunting-ground, and now he slowly made his way back to his covert, in a grove or outpost of the perishing forest. Warned by the intense heat and dazzling glow, he stopped on his approach at a short distance, and watched the rushing flames, stupefied with terror, alarm and grief. Where was his young wife? where his two lovely children? where his little all? and where would the conflagration stop?
He knelt down instinctively in awe and dread before this fell destroyer. He knelt down; his heart was big with a choking emotion;—he knelt down; it was all he could do; but the act was a silent supplication.
In that supplicating act I received life. I was the thunderer, the dark and all but impersonal cause of that wide-spread ruin and woe. I repeat, all but impersonal cause, for that barbarian was hardly self-conscious. As yet he was a constituent part of the outer universe. He went up and down the land and the water; he passed the trees or sat beneath their shadow; he played with the fawn and revelled among the fish; he looked at the stars, and gazed on sun and moon, almost as if he and they were each and all members of the same strange world in and around him. Indeed, the chief was in birth rather than in being. Embryonic himself, he could at best produce only embryons. Already had the prolific earth and the majestic skies quickened his mind with a faint notion of a Good Power who, being good, could not be the author of this terrific destruction. Whence then was it? It came from some Evil Spirit. These were but shadows (one somewhat light, the other very dark) in that infantile mind. Shadows so thin and evanescent were they, that to put them, as I am doing, into words, is to give them form and hue far too real and definite.
And yet something had brought him to his knees. It was for the first time. No! he had not kneeled to the Good Spirit. Only can the terror of the tempest move that hard and unimpressible heart.
Nevertheless, it was chaos, blind, confused, in some sense empty chaos, in the bosom of that wild man of the woods. What may come of that inner whirl, who can tell? It may sink into stolid stupidity. It may emerge into self-consciousness, producing somewhat clear recognitions. At present all is embryonic.
SECTION II. MY BIRTH.
When the flames ceased for want of fuel, our chief was still sitting alone on the summit of a ridge of hills which ran parallel with the stream. There he sat day and night for I know not how long, darkly musing on the disastrous event. At the end of that time he felt as if he had received a blow in his inner nature. Exhausted with fatigue, worn out by intensity of sentiment, unfed, unrefreshed by water or sleep, he fell under the stroke, and lay prostrate on the soil,—a victim to a raging fever.
Days passed and nights passed; the sun and moon rose and set; fair weather returned; the air was alive with the flight and the buzz of insects; and the roar of the lion echoed from a distance: but nothing awoke him from his stupor of mind.
One morning at early dawn he opened his eyes; he opened them only to let the lashes languidly fall. Hours fled away, and he opened them again. The awakening power was his wife, who bent over him, and with her warm breath, her soothing hand, her kindling words, brought back his departing spirit, and he looked as if he saw some one; he looked again, and smiled.
His self-consciousness came and came in a less vague and impersonal form. He knew his wife, and, knowing her, he knew himself.
The knowledge in time gave distinctness to his mental conceptions of outer things, and by and by he knew the Good Spirit, and no less the Bad Spirit. But’ for the antithesis he could not have known either, and he knew both the better from their contrasted character and reciprocated influence.
In that knowledge I was truly born. I was the dark and evil shadow of that sunny reality. I was the opposite of that bright and pleasing dream. My darkness made the retention of that serene light possible. But for me, the chief must have attributed the devastating storm and the consuming conflagration to the Good Spirit. The act would, with this infant of barbarism, have extinguished the sole glimmer of hope and trust he had. Out of that glimmer, thus preserved, sprang religion. And thus in those primordial days I was not an unessential element in the first acts of worship by which man’s spirit lifted itself up toward the descending spirit of God.
I have revealed the secret of my birth. I am a child of the hurricane and the deluge and devastation and fever and suffering and woe. The womb that bore me is the human mind in its half chaotic state, as occasioned by external calamity and internal meditation. Human in my birth, I am human in my character. As the sunderance between evil and good, darkness and light in man, is never exact and complete, I derive from my parentage a streak or two of sunshine; but as I am in virtue of my existence the contradiction of good, I share in all that is bad and dark in human nature. Those evil dispositions are exaggerated by being seen through the darkened medium of fear and dread. A terrified imagination throws my bad qualities into distorted and monstrous proportions. And ever as a period of trouble and distress passes, in tempest, war or famine, over the earth, I am seen by the discoloured eyes of mortals in hues the deepest and features the most repulsive.
SECTION III. MY EDUCATION.
Born together with my twin brothers and sisters in a state of barbarism, I passed unknown ages in unconscious or half unconscious ignorance, stupidity and vice. By degrees, the bright side of nature opened my eyes slenderly, and I dimly surveyed the universe around me, without clearly knowing what it was. Then came the ministry of storm, tempest, thunder and lightning, and those terrible forces called forth my energies even more effectually than the sunshine. I was assailed by the beasts of prey and had to fight for life. Here was a great educational discipline. These conflicts, however, unfolded the lower, the ruthless, the ferocious tendencies of my nature. Looking back from what I am, I may say that then first I became devilish. What, however, still more developed in me the diabolical, was my struggle for food, which I had to carry on against dearth, famine, sickness, pestilence, human competitors and deadly animals. Most of all do I owe my evil propensities to a kind of corporation called Shamans, who bent their knees to me first from fear, and then from awe, and lastly from self-interest. They proceeded in their timorous adulations for successive ages, until they and I grew first familiar, and then associates in sustaining superstitions which were as profitable to them as they were pleasing to me.
The Shamans fanned my pride, and I filled their purse, both of us meanwhile losing the little manhood we had, and gaining more and more of the mean, the sordid, the astute, the self-seeking. And when ordinary means failed to reward our common efforts, we took to force, cruelty and fraud. Ere very long they became consummate hypocrites, and I became purely diabolical. In this state of thorough depravity we acted one on the other for untold centuries, until life was no longer sustainable on evil, and we took a turn for the better. How far my educators improved I venture not to say, but certainly I have not wholly failed to keep step with the general march of humanity on toward higher forms of life. Such, at least, has been the effect of the better principles and impulses of my nature, that I now desire to sink my fiercer and darker qualities, and to rid the world of the pestiferous delusion that I am an individual and everlasting embodiment of sin and malignity. It is therefore with complacency that I see bodies of men who in former days withstood popular education, busily engaged in its promotion. Let them take encouragement from my example. When Satan turns schoolmaster, the day of general culture is beginning to dawn. In this honourable character I shall be recognized at least by you, my attentive and diligent pupil.
The education through which I have gone has been indirect as well as direct. Of the latter I have given a brief description. The former has operated on me only through others. The encouragement of the idea of a personal devil tends to produce and perpetuate one. The features ascribed to me by sacerdotal authorities become living and concrete realities in vulgar minds. This creative operation proceeds even at present on a very large scale, especially under Romanist influences, and ever as my ghostly educators and their pupils stand low in the scale of civilization, does my character assume more repulsive traits and a more murky hue. “In the year 1861, at Morzine, at the south of the Lake of Geneva, there might be seen in full fury an epidemic of diabolical possession worthy of a Bed-Indian settlement or a Negro kingdom of West Africa—an outburst which the exorcisms of a superstitious priest had so aggravated, that there were a hundred and ten raving demoniacs in that single village. The following is from a letter written in 1862 by Mgr. Anouilh, a French missionary bishop in China. “Would you believe it? Ten villages have been converted. The devil is furious and deals around heavy blows. During my fortnight’s preaching, there have been five or six demoniacs. Our catechumens with holy water drive away the devils and heal the sick. I have seen marvellous things. The devil renders me great services in my efforts to convert the pagans. As in the days of our Lord, though the father of lies he cannot help telling the truth. Cast your eye on that poor demoniac, wrung with agony and shouting, ‘Why do you preach the true religion? I cannot endure your taking from me my disciples.’ ’What is your name?’ asks the catechist. After several refusals he says, ’I am Lucifer’s envoy.’ How many of you are there?’ ‘Twenty-two.’ Holy water and the sign of the cross delivered that wretched creature.”
Whence this caricature of me and the frenzy of those poor ignorant maniacs—whence this dishonour to religion, but from the gross fanaticism of this episcopal preacher of what ought to be the simple, sublime and practical verities of the Sermon on the Mount? In truth, I am made what I am by ignorance, passion, dupery and superstition. Such was my education. Such, in part, is the influence to which I am, alas! still subject.
2. My Historical Genesis
If the learned author of Paradise Lost may be believed, I possess the utmost facility of passing through space and time. This ideal power may be of use to me now, when I proceed to describe my historical genesis. Come with me then, gentle companion, and stand by my side there on the Hindu Kush, at the western extremity of the Himalayan mountains. Here, as from a probable cradle of the human race, we can cast our eyes to the East, the West, the South and the North, and trace the main lines that the four great streams of civilization have pursued in the passage of human beings over the surface of Asia and Europe. I confine myself to this hemisphere, because the western half of the globe is still but imperfectly explored in regard to the sources of its populations. The defect is a matter of small consequence, because enough is known of its aborigines to assure us that they belonged to the genus homo. Now man is essentially everywhere the same. More or less of civilization does not alter the fundamental qualities of his being. Of these, no one is more completely universal than worship. Wherever he is, under whatever skies, on whatever soil, on sea as well as land, man is a worshiper. This, which is true locally, is alike true in regard to successive ages. The half savage inhabitant of Egyptian Thebes bent before his gods of stone. The philosopher who speculates on the banks of “the Thames bows his heart in homage to the Creator of the universe. Even those who deny God with their lips own him in the voiceless movements of their souls.
Co-extensive with the recognition of God is the recognition of me. This position is so true, that as yet the exceptions present themselves solely in the most cultivated individuals of the most cultivated nations. History, then, in bearing its testimony to God, has a testimony to bear to Satan. The dualism which Logic and Experience furnish, History attests.
But how within my contracted limits—how can I exhibit the fact so as to gain credence for it? An easy and a ready way presents itself. It is one of the great and most beneficent results of modern science to shew that, at least in regard to this hemisphere, all civilization has come from the East. A question may be raised as to the anteriority of India or Egypt; but all authorities agree that the great stream of culture flows not from the West to the East, but from the East to the West. It is indeed true that its direction is now altered. At present, Europe repays to Asia the debt it spent ages in contracting. But then the payment is nothing else than interest on the capital it began to borrow in almost the earliest days of civilization.
This great stream of culture had another aspect. It was identical with the stream of population. Greek, Teuton, English, Kelt, Roman, French, Irish and Highland Scot— all are descendants of the natives of the Indus and the Ganges. What is true of races is true of languages. It is also true of objects of worship. The divinities that are at this moment worshiped in Calcutta, find their analogues in the remotest antiquity in the same Eastern land and in every part of civilized Europe at present. No less is it true that over this extent of space and time I am found everywhere.
It is equally certain that, while always and in all places the same, I vary as each successive age varies in regard to general culture. Fiercest in the lowest tribes, I by degrees become mild as mental elevation and moral refinement more or less prevail. If the frightful task assigned to me by Christian divines seems to contradict the assertion, the contradiction is itself contradicted by the general tendency of the present day, in which the spread of an ethical Christianity— the true religion of Christ—is gradually effacing my image from the more cultivated human minds, as water continually dropping wears away the hardest rock.
Together with the falsity of a personal devil, the bulk of the huge mass of other superstitions which once flooded the Church, and still defile and deform the greater portion of it, went down out of Eastern lauds more or less remote in time and place, to settle in the West until “the times of Reformation.”
No wonder, then, that, under some name or another, I am found from where we stand in every known spot on all sides around us. On other grounds than those I have taken up, the statement might be extended to the entire surface of the earth.
If I exist wherever man exists, what am I but man’s shadow? Declare that I am a person, and add, in obedience to the orthodoxy of our subject, that at the same moment I tempt men in every spot on the habitable globe, and then what else do you but make me a co-partner with the Almighty in his dominion over the earth? And if God has such a rival, how is he the Almighty? His sway is shared by me, who lust for evil as much as he desires good. Yet did not those divine lips declare, that a “kingdom divided against itself cannot stand”? (Matt. xii. 2-5). What, then, do I but imperil the throne of the Creator of the universe? To conclusions so false and painful does belief in my proper personality inevitably lead.
On one of the minor streams which combine to make up the great river of culture of which I have spoken, I now, Theophilus, desire to fix your eye. The country which, stretching out immediately before us, extends from the Black Sea on the right hand, the Caspian on the left, and the Persian Gulf on the south-west, shews you the district where in ancient days I flourished more than anywhere else. In general terms it may be called Persia. There I received what may be called my university training. The head master of the school bore the name of Zoroaster or Zerdusht. As Greeks bore the classic culture from Constantinople to Paris and Oxford, so did Zoroaster transmit a modified Brahmanism to the principal cities of Irania. In both cases I formed part of the learned burden. Indeed, the burden differed mainly in form, only that the classic culture in its original purity had in it, from the nature of the soil where it grew up, but a small infusion of demonology, whereas that element super-abounded in Zoroasterism. The age of Zoroaster, after being much debated, remains fluctuating between 6000 and 600 years before the birth of Christ. The latter appears to be nearer the truth than the former. His doctrines first became known in Europe by a translation into French of the Zend Avesta. When, in the sixth century before Christ, Babylon was conquered by Cyrus, the higher orders of the country held the doctrines of Zoroaster (the Gold-star). The captive Jews were taken by its monotheistic principles and what to them were spiritual tendencies. Accordingly they appropriated much of its substance. The appropriation was made fuller during the two centuries (-536—332 A. C.) in which the Persian empire bore sway in Palestine. The following is an outline of Zoroasterism.
The Supreme Being, Zervane Akerene, or unbounded time, an abyss in which “all our thoughts are drowned,” is the source of all that exists. Thence came the primitive light, that is the primitive fire and primitive water; and from their mixture by Honover, the creative Word, sprang first Ahura Mazda, commonly known as Ormuzd, the good God, the spirit of light, the root of all that is good in the world, the source of all perfections, the resplendent image of the infinite, all whose attributes he possesses. In modern phrase, Zervane Akerene is God unrevealed, and Ahura Mazda God revealed: and then Enzhrehe Meenieosh, or Ahriman, who, good in his origin, at the end of 3000 years became bad through his jealousy of Ormuzd, so that his luminous essence grew obscure and changed into darkness. Thus he became the Malignant Spirit, “the prince of darkness” the source of all evil;—of impure thoughts, of violent passions, of sin, and of death—in a word, myself, as popularly understood. His symbol is the serpent, as that of Ormuzd is sacred fire and the sun. Then opened the second period, that too of 3000 years, during which Ormuzd reigned alone, pursuing his work of creation unopposed, and reproducing in a visible form the world of ideas (Fervers), the prototypes of all creatures, the principles of life and movement in heaven and earth, the pure and immediate imprints of the creative thought, of the Word Honover. Ormuzd first created the world of spirits, the highest position in which is held by Emesha Sepeanta, or the Amshaspands, hypostases of the divine attributes, in number six, presided over by Ormuzd himself, thus making seven, one of the sacred numbers of the Bible, reproduced in our seven days and the Hebrew seven (Sabbath) day worship. Their substance is the light. They are accounted the genii or guardian angels of the seven planets as known to the ancients. After the Amshaspands, Ormuzd created the Izeds, in number twenty-eight (four sevens or a lunation: observe, my dear pupil, the traces of the primaeval star-worship). These Izeds (a word denoting a divinity) are secondary gods, who (like the Dii minores of Latium) preside over the elements—mountains, rivers, plants, &c., and guard inanimate nature from the attacks of the Dews, or fallen angels, like the Titans of Greek mythology. Among these, Mithra (the sun-god) holds the first position. As opponents to these good genii, Ahriman created the Dews (Dens, Latin for God, whence deity, divine, and perhaps the English devil), whose business it is to ruin Ormuzd’s creation and to extend the kingdom of darkness. Special fury was manifested by the jealous Ahriman when Ormuzd created the world of bodies. Not satisfied with throwing Ormuzd’s work into confusion (as learned theologians say I did in regard to the creation of God), Ahriman slew Abudad, the typal bull, the emblem of life, and Kajomorts, the androgynous or hermaphrodite (man-woman) type of the human race. From their seed, however, Ormuzd brought forth other creatures, weaker, it is true, and consequently less able to resist Ahriman and his Dews; who on their part opposed to Ormuzd’s pure creation impure animals and baleful plants. Although pure and innocent, Meshia and Mesheane (Adam and Eve), the two protoplasts, offspring of Kajomorts, fell victims to the seductions of Ahriman—the woman first, as in Genesis—and by their fall became sinful and mortal, implicating their posterity in their own ruin. From that moment, all the individuals of the race of man are Darrands or sinners. Here, however, Honover, the Word of Ormuzd, interposes. One in mind with Ormuzd, he offers succour to the fallen race. If they courageously withstand Ahriman, they are saved; they will safely pass over the bridge Tshonivad, which unites heaven- and earth, and enter into Paradise; while the wicked, the impious, hurled down into Duzakh, or Hell, will there be subjected to corrective discipline until their complete purification is effected. During 3000 years the world remains in its actual condition. Another period of the same duration follows, in which Ahriman overcomes Ormuzd and brings in the reign of evil. His tyrannical dominion cannot last. It will come to an end at the time appointed by Zervane Akerene; that is, at the end of the fourth period of 3000 years, or in all 12,000 years. From that moment Ormuzd reigns and rules without an assessor. Then he raises first Kajomorts, and afterwards the protoplasts, and finally all men, the bad as well as the good. The earth gives back their limbs, their bones, their blood, and with them their fire and their life. But before the definitive triumph of the Good Principle, there will appear three prophets, under the last of whom the earth, ravaged by all sorts of plagues, will recover its primeval beauty. After the resurrection, the final judgment takes place. The presiding judge is Sosioch, the last of the three prophets. The righteous are received into Gorotman (Heaven), where Ormuzd sits on his throne. The same favour is bestowed on Ahriman and the wicked, after they have been purified by fire during three days and three nights. Then the earth will be the abode of unqualified bliss. All nature will be light. Ormuzd’s laws will be universally obeyed, and human beings will with Sosioch live a pure and holy life, free from care and pain, wholly given up to the everlasting worship of Zervane Akerene, the Supreme Being, whence all existence came.
What other things may exist in this sketch I wait not to declare, but beyond a doubt I am there, and there I am in the very condition in which I have been placed by the Christian Church from its origin to the present day; but to this point I shall shortly recur. Only, before I pass on, I beg you to note the ancientness of my pedigree. “Norman blood” is but as yesterday compared with mine. The outline I have given is necessarily concise, but did I not feel symptoms of old age creeping over me, I might be tempted to attempt a universal history in pictures, the products not of fancy or partizanship, but of my own human experience, with eye, ear, touch, taste, and inward no less than outward sense. But then I should have to call science to my aid, and describe the choirs innumerable of all grades of intelligence that people the starry firmament. In regard to them I make in addition but one remark, namely, that in neither the lower nor in the higher spheres is anything found so horrible as is the Satan of popular churches. The conditions of such a monstrosity are confined to the dark and turbid period of the last six thousand years of the earth’s all but inconceivable duration.
3. Period Of Composition: My Connection With The Bible
1. The Old Testament: The Shemitic Or Hebrew Element
SECTION I. THE STRICT MONOTHEISM OF THE RELIGION OF MOSES.
Two great rivers, receiving tributaries from very large and very diverse districts of the earth., the Shemitic and the Aryan, discharge their mingled waters on the land of Canaan, so as to produce its oldest and its latest religion in their popular forms, the religion of Israel and the religion of the Christian Church. I repeat the phrase, “in their popular forms,” because I wish from the first to draw attention to the important distinction that exists and must be recognized between, at the one extremity, the religion of Moses and the religion of the children of Israel, and, at the other, the religion of Jesus and the religion of the Christian Church. And this early notification is the more necessary, because it will assist me to shew you that the religion of Moses and the religion of Jesus are exempt from the recognition of a personal devil. Such an absence need not surprise you if you have attentively thought over what precedes. These two religions stand at the summit of all religions in being purely spiritual, profoundly practical, and essentially beneficent. As such, they imply in their authors the highest, the widest and the most living culture.
Now it is a lesson taught by many parts of what goes before, that while the conception of a devil ensues from the dark side of the human mind, as acted on by the dark side of nature, so that conception sinks and disappears in the degree in which civilization becomes more real, more lofty and more benignant; suggesting and encouraging the belief that in the most advanced civilization I shall have ceased to exist. That civilization is represented by Moses in its initial stadium, and in its final issue by Jesus. When humanity has become all that it is capable of being and all that God means it to be, it will have utterly parted company with myself, and to it, as well as in fact, “God will be all in all” (1 Cor. xv. 26). That final issue will be hailed by none more gladly than by me, if only because, when the shadows have passed away, I, as representing the race of man, shall have dropped all that is bad and dark, while holding fast to and consummating all that is good in human nature and in God’s fatherly purposes respecting it.
The religion of Moses was not born in a day. Ages of comparative culture had passed before any one could, under Divine Providence, appear, able to own in his soul and proclaim with his lips Jehovah, that is the Living One, and, as such, the Life-giver. The Israelites, like their kinsmen of Canaan, worshiped in their earliest times a number of divinities, such as Baal, Moloch, &c. Abraham had indeed uttered the great thought, which was also to him a great discovery, or, if you will, a great revelation, that God was one, and that the one God had produced, and still sustained and governed, the universe. But this good seed fell into bad ground, and either perished or came up beset with tares. Certainly, in the interval between Abraham and Moses, the sons of Jacob worshiped, like other Shemitic tribes, their own peculiar divinity, the God of their race, their patron God, the God not so much of the universe as of their fathers. That God was to them “God of gods” and ”Lord of lords,” that is, the most powerful of surrounding divinities acknowledged by kindred tribes. (Exod. xviiL 11, xv. 11; Numb. xiv. 15; Judg. xi. 24.) At first, it may be inferred, from corruptions which, cropping out later, existed from very early ages—at first, I say, he was the “God of the hills,” as contradistinguished from the “gods of the plains” (1 Kings xx. 23); but in time he became the God of heaven, who made himself known in thunder and lightning, who appeared in a pillar of fire, yea, who was himself the “devouring fire.” (Exod. iii. 2, xix. 16—18, xxiv. 17; Numb. xvi. 3-5; Lev. x. 2.) He is a God of power; he is the Power (Al), the Almighty (Al Shadded). Indeed, there are traces in the Teraphim, Cherubim and Seraphim, that the Hebrew forefathers worshiped several divinities, whom they afterwards allowed to sink into mere forms and symbols. They are even reproached with worshiping false gods, “the idols of Egypt,” in the Wilderness. (Ezek. xx. 8, xiii. 24; Amos v. 26.) Throughout the long series of events which passed from the days of Joshua to the return from the captivity, the nation, both when united and when separate, was deeply and all but incurably infected with idolatry. The fact admits of no explanation, except on the assumption that the false worships which had been fostered, if not revived or even created, in Egypt, remained embedded in the heart of the people, notwithstanding the monotheistic teachings of Moses, About the tenth century before Christ, a strong protest began to be uttered against all religious falsities, and specially against false gods, as the too prolific source of the rest. That testimony was borne by the prophets—the wisest, most religious, most self-forgetful, and most heroic race of religious teachers that ever existed. Their appearance, as well as the tone of their instructions, pre-supposes great religious corruption in the heart and in the worship of the Hebrews. And then probably it was, during the classic period of Hebrew literature, that the first account of creation (Gen. i.—ii. 3) was, if not originally produced, yet wrought into the perfect form in which it now exists. In the use which is here (verse 1) made of the term God (Elohim, plural of Al, previously mentioned), there is a disclosure of high importance in the history of the religion of Israel. A great conflict had been proceeding for many centimes between the old polytheistic element of the majority and the new monotheistic element of the minority. The preponderance was at the first, and for a very long time, so great as almost to crush the grand idea entertained and asserted by the elect few. But, with the progress of time and culture, a state of mind arose which, either as an original thought or a revival of the thought of Abraham and Moses, harmonized the old religions with the new necessity, implicitly declaring that God, the God of the Hebrews, was a concentration of all divine energies. That tacit proclamation, at whatever time made, was the real birth of the monotheism of Israel, as professed and maintained by the prophets, and as long after taught by the greatest of the prophets, Jesus of Nazareth. The necessity to which I have referred was a claim on conscience to own the one God and none but he. Such a claim, if rudely advanced, if put forward in bold contrast with the practical polytheism of the day, would alienate and repel those whom most it was desired to conciliate and gain. Without any set pretence, and in an unobtrusive yet effectual manner, the assertion of God’s unity was effected by simply using the old plural form Elohim (gods), with a verb in the singular number (e. g. creates, and not create). Thus, by what may be called a failure in grammar, the great verity was set forth so as to be accepted, doubtless partially at first, but afterwards by all the nation. That failure in grammar will be better understood by the unlearned reader if I give a literal translation of the original, changing the tense from the past to the present for the sake of clearness. Thus, literally, the first words of Genesis declare, “In the beginning Gods creates the heaven,” etc. The device is simple. By using with the singular verb the old and accepted term Elohim (in the plural, and equal to Gods, or rather powers), and thus conciliating the polytheists, the writer declares that the powers in concentration created the universe, and so satisfies the monotheists. This was a turning-point in the religious history and experience of Israel.
From that, day polytheism rapidly declined and monotheism rapidly advanced.
Yet this monotheism was not absolute. A union of powers denotes a change, and where change is, God, in the true sense of the term, is not. The idea was supplemented and completed by the revelation made to Moses, and doubtless taught by him, however it might afterwards drop out of the public mind as too abstract for its espousal. The supplement was, that the God who created the world was the Being, the Self-existent One, the Life, the Essential Life, the Eternal Life. The Hebrew term is Jehovah (or rather Jalive). Henceforth the God of Israel is the living God, the only living and true God, and hence the One Life-giver.
To affirm such a God is to deny all other gods. That one Supreme, universal Existence excludes all beings of an inferior order. Hence polytheism and idolatry are simply lies and vanities. They have no reality. Like the idea of Satan, they are mere figments of the human brain. But if Jehovah is God, Jehovah alone, then no other being whatever can be God, God in any sense—can possess or exercise any divine quality or function. Jehovah stands absolutely in and by himself; without equal, without a second, without a rival. His throne is unshared, his government is as boundless as his power. In such a system there is no place for a devil. The great verity was deeply felt and practically acknowledged by the prophets. With what emphasis does the second Isaiah express the solemn truth:
“I am Jehovah, and there is none else; there is no God beside me.
I girded thee, though thou didst not know me;
That they may know from East to West that there is none beside me;
I am Jehovah, and there is none else.”
This general exclusion of all other divinities is made more emphatic by particulars:
“I form the light and create darkness,
I make peace and create evil.”
These- words were uttered by the prophet with immediate reference to the dualism of the Persians. They as good as declare that Ahriman is a fiction. “No; he does not create darkness—not he, but I.” And with a daringness on behalf of truth which in its assertion runs the greatest risk of being misunderstood, the prophet adds:
“I create evil;
I Jehovah do all these things.” (Is. xiv. 5—7.)
Some two centuries before, the prophet Amos (iii. 6) had proclaimed the same exclusive absolutism: “Shall there be evil in a city, and Jehovah hath not done it?”
To prevent mistake, I add that the evil ascribed to God is not real evil, but evil as seen of man; what man calls evil. Such evil is often God’s highest good. Correction is evil in the sight of the corrected evil-doer, but in the sight of God and good men it is not only wisdom, but love.
You thus see that the religion of Moses and the prophets was a strict and exclusive monotheism. God is represented as being even jealous of the divine glory which belonged to him, as the one sole God of heaven and earth, the author of real good and the author of what men called evil (Exod. xx. 5; Deut. iv. 14, seq.). This jealousy, which extended generally to the false gods of polytheism, must have included the dark side of the dualism which you have seen everywhere. Consequently it excluded me. This proscription took place, not by implication alone, but expressly and emphatically. The worship of devils was forbidden even under the penalty of death. While all animal offerings were to be made exclusively to Jehovah, to sacrifice to devils was treason; and this inhibition comes out the more strikingly, because it is uttered in relation to such practices as already existed in Israel: “And they shall no more offer their sacrifices unto devils, after whom they have gone a whoring. This shall be a statute for ever unto them, throughout their generations; and every man that offereth a burnt-offering or sacrifice, and bringeth it not unto the tabernacle, that man shall be cut off from among his people.” (Lev. xvii. 2, seq. Comp. Deut. xxxii. 17; 2 Chron. xi. 15; Ps. cvi. 37.) If, then, the Hebrews had a devil in any shape or form, he was contraband, and neither the Bible nor the Biblical religion is answerable. Speaking in my own proper name, I declare that I am not a part of the religion of Moses. I did not, indeed, fail to engraft myself on the Mosaic institutions, but I encountered a resistance that I could not overcome. It is also true that so long and so far as the Israelites worshiped the divinities of the pagan nations, they worshiped me; but in so doing they acted against the laws of their land, and incurred heavy displeasure and sore punishment from Jehovah. I may indeed go so far as to declare that the one contest which God and his messengers had with Israel down to the sixth century before Christ, was carried on, as against polytheism and idolatry, so against me. The warfare was of two kinds. The first was positive in its nature and educatory in its discipline. As seen in the two tables of commandments, Moses sought to elevate his people religiously and politically by making them practically moral. A pure heart sees too clearly and welcomes too gladly God, his Maker and Father, to give Satan entertainment for ever so brief a space. The second means employed of God to keep Israel free from the thraldom of devils was punitive, and the punishment employed was, as you have just seen, of the last severity. The contest thus conducted was effectual. I was banished, and God reigned alone over the Hebrew nation.
SECTION II. DEVILISM CONDEMNED IN THE OLD TESTAMENT.
The Hebrew names given to the devils condemned and outlawed in the Old Testament, identify them with the imaginary beings of the pagan world. These names are two, Shed and Shoirim. The former, connected with the German Schaden, with which it agrees in meaning, signifies to injure, to destroy, and so designates the devil as Apollyon, the destroyer.
What have we here but the dark and destructive member of the universal dualism t The term is employed in Deut. xxxii. 17, “they sacrificed unto devils;” and Psalm cvi. 37, “they sacrificed their sons unto devils.” In the former, the worshipers of the devils are described as “provoking God to jealousy, with abominations provoked they him to anger.” And yet these very “vanities” (verse 21) are now upheld as realities; nay, as personal beings, by those who are the professional advocates of the Bible and its religion. Surely, what God has pronounced “vanities” and “lies,” “ministers of the gospel” ought in no way to espouse. Equally may I affirm that in thus tracing the natural history of the devil, I am working, if against priestism, yet on the side of God.
In truth, there is not in all history any conflict against error more vigorous and unsparing than that which the Bible shews to have been waged by the prophets and others against the reality of the heathen divinities, the devil expressly included. All the most opprobrious words of the Hebrew tongue are hurled against these “nothings,” these “abominations.” The second term rendered devil in the Bible is Shoirim, from a root which recalls our word shaggy, and which, denoting what is hairy, what abounds in rough hair, signified a goat as emphatically the hairy being. The satyr is little else than an uglier goat. Indeed, the word satyr is used in our English Version as an equivalent for this Hebrew term. I will transcribe two or three of the passages (in all, forty) in which the word is used in the Old Testament:
“Esau my brother is a hairy man” (Gen. xxvii. 11).
“The priest shall lay his hand on the head of the goat and kill it” (Lev. iv. 24).
“Offer their sacrifice unto devils” (Lev. xvii. 7).
“Satyrs shall dance there” (Is. xiii. 31, xxxiv. 14).
“The rough goat is the king of Greece” (Dan. viii. 21). Here we see the same term, say shaggy, denoting, 1, a man; 2, a king; 3, a satyr; 4, a devil; 5, a goat. As it is impossible that any one object can be a man, a king, a satyr, a devil, and a goat, which are we to take as the true meaning of the Hebrew term? If you take “a goat,” then as a goat is not a man, nor a king, nor a satyr, nor a devil, these several words cannot signify realities—cannot denote the beings, as beings, which the word or sound makes mention of. So far, then, as these passages go, they ignore the existence of a personal devil. You reply, that there is one quality shared in common by the objects thus named, namely, hairy or shaggy, and that this is the reason why the word is applied to them all. True; but then this quality of shagginess is not devilry. A goat is shaggy; but he is not a tempter, nor a cheat, nor a liar. And even the application of this quality to all the objects is not possible, except you take it as a metaphor. To say that “the rough goat is the king of Greece,” is to say what is not true, unless by is you mean represents or symbolizes. And in saying that, you shew that we are in the region, not of objective and external realities, but of rhetorical figures. The farther we go into this matter, the more distant are we from the substantial reality and the concrete personage ecclesiastically called “the devil.”
This devil, satyr, or goat, was, however, it seems, put to death and offered as a sin-offering to Jehovah (Lev. xvi. 8, seq.). A more thorough proof could not be given of the hostility of the religion of Jehovah to the worship of devils. The very object of their adoration, and consequently of their trust and hope, is taken and slain before their eyes 3 nay, is presented in acknowledgment of sin and in hope of pardon to Jehovah, the only living and true God. This was indeed a victory gained by true religion over religious falsity, by God over his great antagonist. The victory was the more complete and triumphant, because the devil-worshiper brought the object of his worship with his own hands, and presented that object as a sin-offering to Jehovah, grieved and offended that shaggy creatures should receive the homage which was due to him alone.
SECTION III. THE FIRST ACCOUNT OF THE CREATION IGNORES SATAN,
In our studies we have repeatedly seen how symbolism is interwoven with religion. Not least frequent among the symbols we have met with has been the serpent. On this point I must ask your special attention. Before I enter on the subject, I premise some remarks on what I have termed the first account of creation, which begins with the first verse of the first chapter of the Bible, and terminates with the third verse of the second chapter.
This simple and sublime narrative is a purely Hebraic production. The old opinion which made it a strictly historical account of the formation of the heavens and the earth, directly dictated by the Holy Spirit to Moses, the author of the Pentateuch, breaks down under insuperable difficulties, and is held no longer by any but such as have not followed the advancing steps of History and Theology during the last hundred years. Not more tenable is that other theory which makes the account a scientific narrative of the process of creation either completely or partially accurate. These assumptions are too purely mere assumptions to detain me by any particular confutations. Enough to state what the account really is, first as to substance and then as to form. In substance the narrative embodies the most advanced opinion of an early, but an intensely religious age. Though religious, the age, the golden age of Hebrew literature, opening with the regal government when Israel began to emerge out of a period of comparative confusion and illiterateness;—’though religious, the age was totally unscientific. As little did it possess the rigid spirit of history. Yet its religiousness made it earnest in the pursuit of truth, and honest in recording the conclusions which ensued. In consequence, this grand narrative reports the best thought of the age on the matters spoken of, and far surpasses in approaches to reality all other ancient cosmogonies. It is, however, what would now be called a popular account. It is such an account as the eye would disclose to a religious sage who knew no other planet but the earth, and of the earth knew only a very small circle. Nevertheless, destitute though the narrative is of a philosophical basis, devoid though it is of a properly historical sense, and exempt as it is from either the scientific spirit or scientific accuracy and comprehensiveness, yet so is it imbued with and predominated by the spirit of true religion, that it tells its solemn, lofty and exhilarating tale with so much naturalness and likelihood, as to satisfy the intellect while kindling and inspiring the soul, filling the heart with the purest sympathies and the most elevated aspirations. And although it must, be said that, in view of the progress which the arts and sciences have since made, especially of late, it lacks in its substance the universality which would secure it general acceptance, nevertheless its religious elevation is such, that, making God the source of all things, the one God, the Creator, Lord and Benefactor of whatever is, it lays the foundation for that universal religion, and that universal human brotherhood, out of which modern civilization has issued, with an ever-increasing volume of richest waters, and an ever-brightening and widening outflow of “purest ray serene.”
I desire to emphasize the fact that this narrative knows nothing of the devil. Such being the case, then, I am justified in declaring that the Shemitic thought in its most limpid and elevated expression is free from this, the figment of mental obscurity and moral lowness and distempered speculation. Yes; the whole creation was brought into being “in the beginning.” Before the beginning, nothing was but the Creator; not angels to either “fall” or “keep their first estate” (Jude 6). As there were none before, so there were none after, if this account deserves acceptance. The whole subject of angel and devil is as absent from the narrative, as if its author had never heard of either.
I may be excused if I ask special attention to this simple truth from those who hold the account to be stamped with the infallibility which belongs to the Divine Mind. The higher and the holier the authority of the document, the more ought they to feel it certain that the devil is not among the creatures of God, still less that there is, however named, any supernatural competitor for his throne or preternatural antagonist to his government. Surely those who profess to make what they call “the Word of God” their creed, will not be slow to admit that this portion of it implicitly contradicts the existence of the devil. And if so, surely, too, they cannot put Scripture in opposition to itself by asserting that the existence of a personal devil is asserted in any other part of what they call “the Inspired Volume.”
Turning from this well-meaning though ill-instructed class of persons, I ask such as have prosecuted religious and historical studies under the best lights of modern knowledge, whether the absence of the devil in this purely monotheistic and genuinely Hebrew document ought not to have an overruling influence in regard to other parts of the Old Testament, not indeed to close our eyes to imposing evidence, but certainly to require solid proofs of an opposite tendency, and to incline the balance of mere probability h And these things I say to illustrate the high and safe position which I have gained and now securely hold, and not to prepare the way for a severe contest, and possibly a dubious issue, from conflicting considerations; for nothing of the sort is before me.
I have called this wonderful composition an account and a narrative. It is in truth a poem. Such is its form. Hence its intense religiousness, and hence its ever-living impressiveness. One of the earliest of poems, it is also one of the most highly prized. Standing in front of what I may by anticipation call The Bible of Humanity, it stands also at the head of all religious poetry; and being at once purely and simply human as well as intensely divine, it makes its way into the heart of childhood, where it nestles among home associations and endearments, and lingers on to the last in the deepest pieties of the grandmother, while many a philosopher’s dying bed has been lighted up and soothed by his assurance, hence derived, that, bearing the image of the Creator and breathing his breath, he could not perish when his last pulse had beaten on earth.
That we have to do here with poetry rather than prose, you may satisfy yourself if you will go over the whole carefully and note how marked is the rhythm which flows through it. Now rhythm is the formal sign of the effusions of the Hebrew Muse, who in her lofty flight disdained the petty ornaments of rhyme. But that which demonstrates the poetic character of the composition is its sublimity in combination with its simplicity. Only-a poet’s soul could have poured forth those inspired stanzas, whose solemn grandeur and soaring wing recall the lofty and enrapturing impressions produced by the sacred Muse of Isaiah.
With these explanations, I call this narrative The Anthem of Creation, and fancy as I write the title that I hear the solemn and exulting movements and harmonies of Handel’s “Creation” peal and thrill through my soul.
Much to the loss of the unlearned reader, the poetry of the Bible is printed in the common English translation in the same way as the prose. It is a natural conclusion that from first to last the Bible is a book of prose. Most erroneous! Large portions of the Bible are poetic both in form and substance. In order to assist you in appreciating the poetry of this anthem, I subjoin the first five verses written in lines.
“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.
And the earth was without form and void.
And darkness was upon the face of the deep.
And God said, Let light be, and light was.
And God saw that the light was good.
And God divided the light from the darkness.
And God called the light day;
And the darkness he called night.
And the evening and the morning was the first day.”
SECTION IV. SATAN IN THE BOOK OF JOB.
The Shemitic view of God in its most rigorous form has now been set before you in its relations with the Old Testament Scriptures. A qualified conception of it is presented in the book of Job. The degeneracy is both marked and measured by the appearance in the composition of a being called Satan. This is the central point toward which my present remarks must tend. What is Satan in the Scripture? An individual reality? or an offshoot of Oriental imagination?
The age when the book inscribed with the name of Job was produced is a matter of dispute, after all the discussions the subject has undergone. With some critics, it is the most ancient book of the Old Testament; with others, it has its place among the most recent. Others, again, assign it a medium date. In their judgment, it was produced in the classic period of the Hebrew literature, perhaps under the reign of Solomon. This time is strongly recommended by the fact that then Hebrew culture and the fame of that culture extended from Jerusalem, its centre, far and wide over conterminous lands. Idumaea was a minor centre of the same literary skill and fame. This probably is the birthplace of the book of Job. Commonly accounted a Hebrew work, it is totally free from a specially Hebrew colouring, making no mention, not even by implication, of the Mosaic law or the institutions which gathered around it. Among those institutions was a complicated system of sacrificial offerings, in part derived from ages long anterior to Moses, in part parasitic accretions, which, coming from sacerdotal and other quarters, fastened themselves on the body of the Mosaic religion. This system of sacrifices was in operation during the long period at some point of which the book of Job came into existence. Had it been produced in the land of Canaan, had it been produced under the religious influences to which its natives were devoted, it must have borne a larger or smaller, a superficial, if not a deep, imprint of the sacrificial religion of Israel. And this the rather, because the question on which the narrative turns is one of the most vital importance; namely, the great problem of evil, specially in relation to its retributions. Here is Job, a sincerely religious man, overwhelmed with calamity and suffering. How can the fact be accounted for? If God is good and righteous, how can such an one as Job have to endure suffering h But suffering he has to endure; perhaps, then, the lack of righteousness is on his side, and not on the side of God? The question is debated by the interlocutors. They find no solution. The knot that cannot be untied is at last cut. God’s sovereign will explains all. “What does man know of God and his ways? Let man be humbled in the dust. Let him bow down and acknowledge God’s right to do as he pleases, and then God will recompense the pious and prostrate worshiper. Such is Job’s position and such his reward. And all this in Palestine, which swarms with daily sacrifices specially designed to meet and answer the great questions of sin, suffering and forgiveness. It must be acknowledged that if the land of Israel is the stage whereon this drama unrolls itself, the book is thoroughly untrue to its scenery.
So unlikely a circumstance, combined with other considerations, has led recent critics of the highest repute to fix the place of the alleged events in the land of Edom, lying on the south-east of Palestine, whose capital, Petraea, was distinguished for skill in the highest civilization of the day, and whose sages were specially renowned for religious sentiment and practical morality; albeit they seem to have had a certain tincture of religious speculation in their nature, so as to be inclined to debate questions of doubtful issue, shunned as unbecoming by the less reflective piety of genuine Hebrewism. The locality thus preferred has the additional recommendation of being in unison with the scenery of heaven and earth presented in this composition. In favour of this view I should, did space allow, cite the opinion of one of the most accomplished Oriental scholars, Ernest Benan. Benan moreover states that the book of Job is founded on a legend. Certainly it is a poem. With the exception of a brief prologue and a brief epilogue, the whole book is poetic both in form and spirit. It is a didactic poem, after the manner of Popes “Essay on Man.” So manifest is the fact as to create astonishment that any one versed in study should ever have supposed it a history.
With a true knowledge of the character of the composition, the historical reality of its Satan falls to the ground. Satan is simply one of the actors in the sacred drama. The restoration to Satan of his real character brings the book back into the category of Shemitic literature and Shemitic thought to which, in the main, it unquestionably belongs; yet belongs with a difference. That difference lies in this, that although the book of Job knows nothing of the Turanian and Aryan dualism, and regards God’s will as equally without rival and without control, it yet mentions another being which many have identified with the Aryan devil.
Totally, however, without reason. Bead the words which appertain to Satan as found in the Bible.
The narrative is doubtless equally simple and graphic. So much likelihood to truth does it contain, that so long as it remains in its own phraseology it commands assent and concurrence. Nevertheless, the moment you try to re-create the picture in your own mind, you become vividly sensible of the incongruity of the whole and its several parts with the deepest moral intuitions of your soul. So certainly is this the experience of every ecclesiastically untutored mind, that it is among the strangest of mental and moral phenomena that the scene should ever have imposed itself as a reality on any ordinarily cultivated person.
Reproduce, then, in your own thought the idea here given you of God. Instead of God, say ”My own father,” and then ascribe to your father what is here attributed to God. You shrink from repeating the impieties that must ensue aloud. Yet I entreat you to go over the whole scene, simply substituting, with the necessary verbal changes, the words “My father” for God. Then say, can that be true of God which would be a shameless calumny if uttered of your father? What! is then the Scripture false which runs in these words: ”Let no man when he is tempted say, I am tempted of God; for God tempteth not any one” (James i. 13). Yet God not only tempts Job, but, according to the orthodox view, he employs the basest, yet the most powerful, of evil spirits to be his instrument in the unworthy task. Nay, when, for the first time Job comes out of temptation uninjured, he lays another snare, and one of such a nature that the victim is caught and brought to moral and spiritual despair. Moreover, while God, as the prime agent thus commits acts which, if done by any father in any village in England, would call forth a cry of indignant reprobation against so unnatural a parent, God is made to declare to Satan in express terms, “Thou movedst me against him.” What! God moved by Satan? The infinitely wise and good One moved by the incarnation of evil to a wicked act!—that is, to assail a second time, and with more effectual weapons, a human being strong enough to resist for the first time both God and the devil? And do you call this history? Reality? Is this the God of the Bible? Is this really in the Bible? Every pious mind will long to answer, “No! no! this is your infirmity.”
No! it is not there in substance. It is not there for doctrine. It is there only as the imagery of a poetic parable.
This one consideration suffices to overthrow the hypothesis of those (the great majority of Bible readers) who suppose that the things here spoken of took place as ordinary things, such as eating, drinking, reading, talking, take place every day in the life you live at home and abroad. But I must offer another consideration.
“What is the picture here drawn? It is the picture of an Oriental court, with transcendently more than its ordinary sumptuousness. (Comp. 1 Kings xxii. 19.) It is audience day. The courtiers all assemble to pay homage to the King of kings. He comes forth in radiant majesty, and ascends the throne, blazing with incomparable gems. The prostrate worshipers arise, when one who, as well as others, has the right of entry, presents himself as not unknown nor undistinguished. The appearance, however imposing, is not unusual. Indeed, it is no less a personage than (to use intelligible language) “the King’s Attorney-general,” whose function is to keep watch and ward all over the empire, and to report to the Sovereign all breaches or probable breaches of the law. The accuser (such is the import of the Hebrew) rises to speak, when he is asked by the King, “Hast thou considered my servant Job? ”I have,” is the reply; “a fair-seeming one, but thoroughly selfish. Touch him in a tender place, and he will curse thee to thy face.” Job is touched, and touched so as to feel it keenly. Yet, instead of cursing God, he blesses him.
Another grand court of audience is held, and there the King and his Attorney-general devise measures which overthrow their victim.
We have looked at these scenes morally and declared them fiction. Look at them intellectually. Is this your idea of God 1 Is his universal presence, after all, to be dwarfed to the petty dimensions of an Oriental court, and his all-fostering and all-sustaining Providence to be reduced to the tinsel pageantry of a few score of Oriental courtiers?
Take care lest, with such a conception of God and Providence, you bring the Bible into irrecoverable discredit, and condemn your religion to irreversible contempt.
But now let us descend to minor things. This Satan is no Satan at all. The Satan of the churches and the creeds, the Satan of superstition, is a totally different being, as you will see if you run your eye down the items that stand in these parallel columns:
Satan of the Priests/Satan of the Book of Job.
Satan is the source of all evil/Satan is the accuser.
Satan is the prince of devils/Satan is one of the sons of God.
Satan is the antagonist of God/Satan is God’s instrument.
Satan defies God/Satan does God’s bidding.
Satan moves and works in hell/Satan goes up and down on earth.
Satan is banished into darkness/Satan takes his place in the shining galaxy of God’s heavenly court.
It is a series of contrasts—contrasts most broad and striking. “The Satan of the Book of Job” is the contradiction of “The Satan of the Priests,” and “The Satan of the Priests” is the caricature of ”The Satan of the Book of Job.” Scarcely have the two anything in common but the name.
And even this they have not really in common. Satan in ordinary phrase denotes a fallen angel, the origin of all evil— a person of an angelic nature, though fell, ruthless and cruel in disposition and in act. This is Satan as held and taught by the popular teachers of Christendom, whether Papal or Protestant, Episcopalian or Presbyterian, Conformist or Nonconformist.
And what is Satan in the book of Job? He is no person at all; but a picture in a gallery of pictures; an image in a work of imagery; a character in a poem; an actor in a drama; an officer in a court—a court which exists nowhere in rerum natura, but in print, in manuscript, in painted Missals, now for many thousand years, but which originally existed in the teeming brain of some unknown Arabian poet. And what part does that poet make his Satan play? He is the Accuser, the Attorney-general, of the celestial law-court of final appeal. This is he and nothing more, and this only as a figment of some Oriental brain which, troubled with the terrible questions, Whence evil? What for? Especially, Why do good men suffer? Why does God create or permit suffering? Is suffering the punishment of sin?—troubled, puzzled, worn and wearied by these insoluble problems, rushed into verse, and freely spun his speculations as rather a relief to his labouring thoughts than in the hope of satisfying others more than he was satisfied himself, pleading the case, as he does, with all the subtlety, dexterity and eloquence of the first law officer of the land. Satan is, then, not a person, but a character, a specific and well-known character, in an Oriental court. Just as the sovereign has his sword-bearer, his mace-bearer, his cup-bearer, his train-bearer, so has he his accuser, who, just as those officers are called also the sword-bearer, the train-bearer, &c., bears the descriptive title of the Accuser. So, then, the term proves to be no name at all, but simply a title, a legal title in a court of law. This important fact looks out (so to say) reproachfully from the original Hebrew; as much as to say, “How could you make ‘the Accuser’ into your personal Satan?” Beyond a doubt it is in the original, the Satan (that is, the Accuser). Twelve times within about a score of verses does the word occur, and in every instance it has before it the distinctive prefix the, thus determining the meaning as official, and denoting a designation, a well-known designation, of certain functions, certain subordinate and legal functions. The same determining force is found in the Septuagint or Greek translation of the Old Testament. There too it is “the Accuser.” I translate into ordinary English the Greek ***** (the Accuser), because the English term devil has an acquired, an adventitious meaning, or rather a cluster of meanings, horn and bred of philosophic speculation, vulgar superstitions and ecclesiastical self-seeking, combined with child-like dread.
For the view that I have now put forward and supported, I could easily find sanction in the writings of eminent theological critics. One must suffice. Renan denies that the Satan of the book of Job is even the principle of evil; much less, then, is he the leader of the rebel angels. These are Renan’s words: “The Satan which figures in the prologue is no way the Ahriman of the Avesta; he does nothing but by the command of God; he is an angel more disposed to mischief than the others; fault-finding, and given to scandal; he is not the spirit of evil, existing and acting in and of himself.”
Indeed, the book of Job represents no other reality than the highest of an earthly kind, namely, thought, religious thought, systematically and poetically expressed in what with some latitude may be called a Shemitic drama, whose object is to explain why good men suffer, and sometimes suffer heavily, under the ruling hand of God. In the sublime work, Satan is simply one of the dramatis personae. The whole being so manifestly in form a poem, the wonder is that certain parts did not shew minds of ordinary discernment that God does not come on the stage in a part which ill comports with his acknowledged attributes, and consequently could never have been meant to represent the Creator himself in his proper character. How incompatible with such a view are, for instance, the questions put to the Satan, which imply ignorance on the part of the questioner, first as to the Satan’s knowledge, and then as to the real character of the man of Uz. On such points, surely, the Omniscient needed no information; least of all did he need such information as he might expect to receive from “the father of lies.”
SECTION V. THE FOUR REMAINING PASSAGES OF THE OLD TESTAMENT IN WHICH THE WORD SATAN IS USED CONSIDERED: CONCLUSION.
Neither the name nor the idea of Satan in any sense entered into the thought and phraseology of the Hebrews so long as they retained their genuine characteristics. Independently of the instances referred to as occurring in the book of Job, the word occurs in the Old Testament writings only four times; viz. 1 Chronicles xxi. 1; Psalm cix. 6; Zechariah iii. 1, 2. All these instances appear in writings of late or very late date. I will take them in the order in which they stand above.
1 Chronicles xxi. 1: “And Satan stood up against Israel and provoked David to number Israel.” Here probably we have in the term Satan an instance of the depraving influence exercised on the thought and the diction of the Shemitic Jews by the dualistic theory of Zoroaster. If so, then Satan in this case is the Hebrew form for the Aryan Ahriman. I am the more inclined to think that the word Satan here denotes “the devil,” because, contrary to what it is in the book of Job, it is without the article, both in the Hebrew and the Greek. Yet the force is taken out of this scriptural testimony (such as it is) by the parallel passage found in the much earlier history of Samuel, where, with loyal regard to the true Hebrew idea of the origin of good and evil, David, on the occasion spoken of in the text of Chronicles, is said to have been moved of God. The words run thus (2 Sam. xxiv. 1): “The anger of Jehovah was kindled against Israel, and he (not Satan) moved David against them to say, ‘Go and number Israel.’” This has sometimes been called a contradiction as to fact; it is also a contradiction as to theology.
The passage in the Psalms (cix. 6) is full of the bitter animosity of the Shemitic spirit, but makes no reference whatever to the Satan of the schools and cloisters. In our version the words run thus:
“Set thou a wicked man over him,
And let Satan stand at his right hand;”
where the law of parallelism requires the word “Satan” to receive its meaning from the corresponding term in the previous line, namely, “a wicked man.” Accordingly, King James’ translators put “an adversary,” as probably the better rendering, in the margin. With greater propriety, Wellbeloved’s translation, revised by Smith and Porter, gives the meaning in these words:
“Give him in charge,” they say, “to a wicked man,
And let an accuser stand at his right hand.”
The heading of the psalm, supported only by conjecture, makes David its author. The style is too rank for his classic pen. The author is unknown.
The foregoing makes it clear that no reference to the mythological Satan is made in this passage.
I am thus brought to the last of the four passages in which the word Satan appears in the Old Testament. It is found in Zechariah iii. 1—8. Throw open your Bible, dear youth, and read the whole passage, which extends from i.—viii. Observe that you have here to do with a series of visions (i. 1, 8, iii.). It follows that here, too, I am not an objective reality. Indeed, I am simply a form in a picture. And that form denotes, not a person, but a character. Not Satan am I, but the accuser in a process of law, the scenes of which are depicted to the prophet’s eye for the instruction of the people in regard to God’s providence toward the Jews, now (in part) returned from exile.
The simple facts are these. Zechariah, anxious to work with God for the thorough redemption of the Jews from slavery, aims most wisely at effecting a moral reformation, well knowing that such a change was the only means of securing God’s permanent favour and the permanent welfare of the state. Already a beneficial change had taken place. Yet the people were still open to impeachment. At this point a series of visions is, in the true Oriental manner, brought into operation, in order to work to the desired result. Let it be premised that the civil and military power, as represented by Zerubbabel, is stanch for God and duty. Hardly can the same be said for either priest or people. Serious faults may be laid to their charge. Accordingly, Joshua the high-priest, the recognized representative as of the priesthood so of the people, appears in court in unclean raiments, denotative of the sins of his class and of the nation. Being placed in what in modern law usages is called the dock, the official accuser of God’s court stands up and reads the indictment, which he illustrates and enforces. Thereupon God, the presiding Judge, moved by mercy, and by no means denying the inculpatory allegations, bestows a pardon, and in token of that grace commands the forgiven priest to be attired in holiday raiment. The order is obeyed, and festivities ensue. Thus ends the first act of the drama.
Nevertheless, God’s goodness, which naturally “leadeth to repentance” (Rom. ii. 4), fails of its due effect. Again the Jews transgress and again they suffer. Still there are hopeful signs, and God’s goodness is inexhaustible. Another trial is conceded. Yea, favour is added to favour. Brilliant promises are held out. Zerubbabel “the Branch” shall rebuild the temple and bring back bright and prosperous days.
Here the curtain falls. And, such is the loving kindness of Jehovah, it falls in a sky so serene and charming as to promise a bright aurora on the morrow.
The passage, thus set forth and explained in its true light, totally shuts out Ahriman, and makes God supreme and alone in his dealings with his people Israel.
What, then, is the final result of our studies? Only the faintest trace (if any) is found of the sacerdotal Satan in the Old Testament, while the genuine Shemitic idea of God’s sole and unshared sovereignty is distinctly and repeatedly declared. Did space permit, I could easily follow this testimony lip with illustrative implications, which., ascribing the moral government of the universe to God, exclude all and every partnership whatever.
One instance, however, of the extreme rigour with which, the sole sovereignty of Jehovah was guarded in the Hebrew religious thought, is presented in 1 Kings xxii., where the lying spirit which misled Ahab to death in battle is expressly and emphatically stated to have been put into the deceptive prophets by Jehovah himself:
“The prophet of Jehovah, Micaiah, the son of Imlah, said: Hear the word of’ Jehovah: I saw Jehovah sitting on his throne, and all the host of heaven standing by him on his right hand and on his left. And Jehovah said: Who will persuade Ahab that he may go up and fall at Ramoth-Gilead? And one said on this manner, and another said on that manner. And there came forth a spirit, and stood before Jehovah, and said, I will persuade him. And Jehovah said unto him, Wherewith? And he said, I will go forth, and I will be a lying spirit in the mouth of his prophets. And he (Jehovah) said, Thou shalt persuade him, and prevail also; go forth and do so. Now therefore, lo! Jehovah hath put a lying spirit in the mouth of all these thy (Ahab’s) prophets, and Jehovah hath spoken evil concerning thee.”
Actuated by his prophets, who were actuated by Jehovah, Ahab, king of Israel, went forth and fell in battle against Syria at Ramoth-Gilead. His fall was made dishonourable and offensive, for the dogs licked up his blood. This intensely Shemitic narrative only too markedly preserves the sole sovereignty of Jehovah; only too markedly, I say; for the jealousy of Jehovah is here painted in colours so black and distressing as to ascribe to him qualities and acts commonly held to be characteristic of myself. But this is not the first nor the last time that sacerdotal caste-worship has thrown a funereal pall over the face of the Father of the universe.
2. The Aryan Or Pagan Element: “The Fall,” An Allegory In Pictures
I now approach a theme of surpassing importance, not so much indeed in itself, as in the uses to which it has been turned. I allude to what is termed ”the Pall of Man.” Here is the great theological reservoir. The whole system of current orthodoxy lies in germ here. Here is the root which has produced the myriads of huge folio tomes of theology and theological philosophy which burden the shelves of libraries, small and great, public and private, all but innumerable. And here, finally, is the origin of the load of intellectual difficulty, moral complication, religious anxiety, doubt and despair, which has lain, like a grim incubus, on the bosom of human beings whom Christ came to relieve, to liberate, and to make peaceful, for now nearly two thousand years. Yet this mountain of trouble and woe has been produced by theological speculators and visionary poets—has been, I say, produced and thrown up out of the mole-hill of a pagan myth.
The Shemitic monotheism never wholly lost its influence among the Israelites so long as they maintained their political and religious polity on their native land of Palestine. Yet did they not always keep themselves free from Gentile pollution. The fact is illustrated in the second account of creation given in Genesis ii. 4—iii. 24.
“The fall of man,” as the ecclesiastical phrase runs, represents a serpent as the occasion which “brought death into the world and all our woe.” But no one pretends that I am expressly named in the narrative. Yet had I formed an essential element in the Hebrew religion, and had I been considered as myself the seducer of Eve, I should, it is fair to presume, have appeared in my own proper person. “But,” says speculative theology, “you are denoted under the symbol of the serpent.” I admit that the serpent does appear as a symbol of seduction. But then if the serpent is a symbol, the whole account must be symbolic, and if symbolic, it is not historical. Thus “the Fall” itself falls to the ground.
Do not suppose that this is the first time that what is called “the history of the Fall” has been pronounced a symbol. Philo, the great Jewish interpreter, expressly declares “These things are types shadowing forth some allegorical truth, according to some mystical application. The serpent is the symbol of bodily pleasure.” With him, the Garden of Eden is the Divine Wisdom on one side, and on another a disposition to virtue in the human soul. The trees of Paradise are the offices and duties of life. The four streams are the four cardinal virtues, Prudence, Temperance, Fortitude and Justice. Man is desired to eat of the fruit of the trees of Paradise, because he must practise all the virtues. He is forbidden to taste of the tree of knowledge, because he must not abandon himself to vice, the evil of which is known only by its opposition to virtue. The death threatened in case of disobedience is that of the soul, &c. This allegorical method of explaining the Fall, though carried to extremes by Philo, was so satisfactory to the more early Christian Fathers, that they in general adopted it. Such is the averment of Dr. Geddes.
In Dr. Geddes I have introduced a high ecclesiastical authority. I will also give you the opinions of a learned and cultivated layman. Mr. R. W. Mackay, in his well-written and instructive work on “The Progress of the Intellect as exemplified in the Religious Development of the Greeks and Hebrews,” makes the following statements:
“Narrative and fable were the earliest and most appropriate vehicles of instruction. It was ever customary in the East to give an historical or narrative form to ideas and reasonings which would now be enunciated as abstract propositions. They told a pleasant story, and left the moral to be extracted by the ingenuity of the hearer or reader. The tendency to make fact subordinate to the moral is seen in many of the so-called historical books of the Hebrews. In the narrative of the Fall, the object of the writer was to explain the great moral mystery, the origin of evil and the apparent estrangement from heaven; to account for the presumed connection of increase of knowledge with increase of misery; and, in particular, to reconcile the great penalty of death with Divine Justice. Subordinate to these greater points were the questions, Why is the earth covered with thorns and weeds? ‘Whence the origin of clothing, of sexual shame and passion? Whence the infliction of labour; and how are we to justify the degraded condition of women in the East, or to account for the loathing so generally felt towards the serpent tribe? (II. 404, seq.)
Having thus explained the general character of the narrative, I take up several particulars on which a few explanatory words seem desirable; and first, the serpent. The serpent in view of the ancients had two sides of character. It is the bad which he wears in Genesis. Here, as often, the serpent is a symbol,—a symbol of subtleness, temptation, malevolence. These are exactly the qualities of Ahriman.
As a symbol of evil, the serpent appears among the emblems of Seva-Roudra, the Hindoo power of desolation and death. It gnaws the roots of the tree of life in the Eddas, and bites the heel of the unfortunate Eurydice. Generally in Hebrew writers it is a type of evil (Ps. Iviii. 4, cxl. 3; Prov. xxiii. 32; Eccles. x. 8, 11; Sirach xxi. 2, xii. 13), and is particularly so in the Indian and Persian mythologies. When the sea is churned by Mount Mandur, rotating within the coils of the cosmical serpent, to produce the Amrita or water of immortality, the serpent vomits a hideous poison, which spreads and infects the universe, hut which Vishnu renders harmless by swallowing it. Ahriman, in serpent form, invades the realm of Ormuzd, tainting fire with smoke and light with darkness; the kingdom of pure light becomes thenceforth shared with night, or divided between good and evil; the destroyer strikes man with disease, and pollutes every part of nature. The bull, the emblem of life, is wounded and dies; and the ancestors of the human race, tempted by the fruits which Ahriman presents to them, are made subject to pain and death. It was therefore a religious obligation with every devout follower of Zoroaster to exterminate reptiles and other “impure” animals, especially serpents. A particular season of the year was appointed for the purpose (***********, the destruction of the evil things); this was the third age of the world, when, in the chronology of the Persian legend, the assault of Ahriman occurred. ... It became a maxim of the Zend-Avesta, that Ahriman, the principle of evil, made the great serpent who assaulted the creation of Ormuzd.
Having identified the serpent and his brood with the Magian Ahriman, I shall add a word or two respecting the selection of woman by the tempter. Woman, throughout the East, especially in ancient times, was held in disesteem. A volume might be compiled out of the disparaging words uttered against her. To confine myself to the Aryans. Brahma, the first man of Hindoo cosmogony, is linked to a demon wife, a daughter of Patala; and in Persian legend the first woman, Meshiane, is the first victim to the seductions of Ahriman. She also was the first that sacrificed to the Dews or devils. These Dews or fallen angels having Ahriman at their head, oppose the Amshaspands, or good angels, and afflict those who lead righteous lives; next comes Ander; next Savel; next Tamad; next Tarik; next Zarelesh. Each Dew is the antagonist of one of the seven angels. The reign of Ahriman and his Dews is the kingdom of darkness. Here confusion and trouble are at their height. These monsters, being male and female, beget offspring, and multiply themselves under various forms, in order to tempt and torment human beings. Among the forms are the serpent and the wolf. The female Dews, who bear the name of Paris, instruct men in various kinds of magic and means of death. Both sexes take possession of men and women in order to carry into effect their opposition to Ormuzd by injuring and tormenting his children. For their expulsion the Zend-Avesta prescribes various ceremonies, purifications, sacrifices and prayers to Ormuzd and the pure spirits. Here you have the original of the Papal exorcism. Their kingdom will eventually be supplanted by the kingdom of light. As the triumph of the kingdom of light over the kingdom of darkness is a point in which Parsism surpasses the popular form of Christianity, I subjoin a distinct statement made by Zoroaster himself:
“This unrighteous one (Ahriman), this impure one, who is nothing but a devil (Dew or Devas) in his affections, this stark-blind king of wickedness, he who does nothing but evil, will yet at the end speak the word, observe Ormuzd’s laws, and introduce the wicked into the dwellings of the good.”
The place where this “fall” was brought about was a garden or paradise (park). The ancient Persians were fond of gardens, or, as they termed them, paradises. They were indispensable appendages of regal abodes. The Persian Eden (or Pleasure-garden) was richly provided with animals, trees, plants and flowers of all kinds. Those gardens or parks were also connected with the mysteries of their religion. Ormuzd tells Zoroaster, “I have created, O Zoroaster, a place of delights and abundance; no one could make its equal. Thereupon came Ahriman, pregnant with death, and prepared in the river which watered it the great serpent of Avinter.”
Here notice ”the river,” for water is essential to the existence of a garden in hot climates. Accordingly Eden, the model garden, has no less than four rivers.
Moreover, the “Garden of the Lord” is planted with every pleasant and useful tree. Among those trees is ”the tree of life,” that obvious symbol met with in almost all mythologies, and familiar in Scandinavia as in India. The tree of life grew also in the midst of the Hindoo paradise upon Meru. In the Zend-Avesta the tree of life is the divinely created source whence issues the first human pair. It bears the name of Horn, and grows by a fountain which springs from the throne of Ormuzd.
Thenceforwards you will know whence these legendary elements, kneaded into a certain systematic form in the schools, have come down to the present hour. One detail connected with “the Fall,” the “descent of Christ into hell,” is but a renewal of an act ascribed to Zoroaster. “This holy prophet visited heaven, and there received from Ormuzd the sacred fire, together with the word of life (the Zend-Avesta). Then he descended into hell; and finally, having completed his mission, he ascended the mountain Albordj, where he consecrated himself to meditation and piety.”
The descent into the regions of darkness and death is only a relic of the ancient Sabaism or star-worship, which, widely spread over Asia, had special manifestations on the sea-board of Syria. It represented the god of day as, when winter came, sinking below the verge of the horizon, shorn of his beams, and stripped of his power, amid the weeping and wailing of the Phenician maidens. It would be easy to adduce other parallels from classic mythology.
Doubtless the same physical phenomenon produced the fable of Zoroaster’s descent into bell, and this is the more probable, because in his case the descent is historically followed by a resurrection, that is in spring. I will give the outlines of the authoritative statements.
While Zoroaster’s body was a prey to the vultures, he himself was not dead. Sustained and cherished by Ormuzd, he revived, and his revival entails a general revival. The dead will rise. Among them, first Kajomorts, Meshia and Mishiane. “Every man will come to life again. Souls will seek the bodies they formerly animated, and, recognizing one another, will say, this one, ’There is my father;’ that one, ’There is my mother.’ With the wicked, earthly bonds will be broken; brothers will be separated from sisters, friends from friends. Then the heat of fire will enkindle the universe, which will be one vast conflagration. In this torrent of liquid metals the pure will pass unhurt through the flames. In their turn the Darvands (an inferior order of Dews) will in their turn make their way through that burning furnace. They will be purified by the flames, and repent in their hearts. Then all men will join in a sublime sacrifice to the Amshaspands. Sosioch, at the head of the risen ones, seated on a throne of dazzling splendour, will preside over the grand offering of homage by the righteous. He will address his prayer to the Eternal One. A loud voice will echo through space, and these words will be heard: ’It is the Will of Ormuzd.’” Ahriman alone will remain on earth. Then he will rush into the universal conflagration and come out purified. Hastening upwards, he will fall prostrate before Ormuzd, acknowledging him as the Sovereign and the just Judge.
The last feature of Magism which I shall report, would of itself suffice to shew the extent to which ecclesiastical Christianity is indebted to it.
“Man in coming into life receives a kind of baptism which purifies him, or rather withdraws him from the action of Ahriman. The moral taint, thus washed away, passes from generation to generation. The malignant spirit is always near to whisper evil into the ear of every new-comer. As soon as a human “being comes into the world, the Dews rush on him and take him into their power. It is in consequence necessary to prevent their sinister designs, and to neutralize their pernicious influences. The application of these counteractions and remedies is in the hands of the priests, an hierarchical order of several ranks. The high-priest represents Ormuzd and is superior to the king. The archimage is thus the veritable head of the nation. He is the king of kings. In vain do the princes deduce their prerogatives from heaven. They must bend their knee before the head of the Church.” (Menant, pp. 140—145.)
You cannot mistake the striking resemblance that exists between the Magi of ancient days and the priests of modern times. The likeness has existed from at least the fourth century of the Christian era.
I have represented the Persian demonology as the principal source of all later demonologies. This involves a question of date. The Persian doctrine is deeply sunk in the archaeology of the Aryan races. So deeply sunk is it as to precede by many centuries similar modes of thought found in Western lands. It may, however, be asked, whether it is not posterior in time to the second account of creation found in Genesis. That of these two, one is a copy, or that both have a common origin, there can be no doubt. But the complete and systematic character of the Persian account speaks for its originality. Then the name for the Deity, “Jehovah God,” used in the Biblical narrative, brings its date down to a late day in Hebrew history—a day indeed so late as to be long posterior to the origin of the Persian mythology. Finally, I must here caution you against a common mistake. The Biblical account, as treating of the creation, is in ordinary minds so associated with the origin of the universe as to cause a chronological confusion which blindly, but none the less forcibly, identifies the date of the narrative with the date of creation. You may think that, as Moses was the author of the Pentateuch, the narrative in question must have been written before his death. I must disabuse your mind, my dear friend. In all theology there is not a more groundless theory than that the first five books of the Bible came from the pen of that great legislator. The most recent, which is also scientifically the highest, authority declares: “The opinion so generally received, according to which the Pentateuch, as a whole, is the work of Moses, finds no support in the Pentateuch itself. In no part does that collection ascribe a Mosaic origin to the five books taken together. It even seems to affirm the contrary, so far as the first four are concerned, for they tell us either that Moses was commanded to write such and such an event, or that he put into writing certain fragments which we still possess in those books. There would be no sense in these declarations if the author meant to attribute to himself equally all the rest. What is actually recorded is the fact that Moses wrote certain portions, which are of small extent. And this is all we are told and all we know.” I add a few additional words from Dr. Kuenen’s valuable production, bearing on what I have said on my own authority.
“As to what concerns Genesis, we must specially notice the very remarkable divergence there is between the two accounts of the creation. The second narrative commences by the formation of Adam, then recounts the creation of trees and plants, then that of animals, finally that of the woman. Now, on all these points, it is positively contrary to the first narrative” (p. 25). “As to the second account of the creation, it is certainly not by the same author as the first” (p. 145).
“The contrast between these two writings goes very far. In the author of the first account, the Elohist, there is great simplicity, even great uniformity in the particulars of the revelations made by God to Noah and the patriarchs. Rarely is he anthropomorphistic. The Jehovist from whom we have the second account is far from such sobriety. Angels, dreams, heavenly voices, are at his disposal when he represents God as speaking. And he is so little afraid to ascribe to God human emotions, that he makes God repent at having created man. Worse still, God comes down to inspect the city and the tower of Babel” (p. 153, seq.). “That conception of sin, of its origin, of its universality, denotes that the author had reflected much on religious subjects, and compels us to assign to him a date comparatively recent” (p. 157). “These researches have demonstrated that no solid argument attests the existence of the Pentateuch before the exile” (p. 243).
There is, however, one peculiarity in the second account by which it is clearly and decisively distinguished from the first. Every time the writer mentions the Creator, he calls him Lord God (Jehovah Elohim), whereas in the former narrative the sole name for the Supreme Being is God (Elohim). ’Not is this an accidental difference, for the term Jehovah Elohim occurs eleven times. I may add, that after what I have said of the gradual unfolding of the idea of God in the Hebrew mind, you will see that the difference is one of the highest moment. Moreover, the difference decides that the second account is posterior in date to the first, inasmuch as by the title Jehovah God, or the Self-subsistent and Eternal God, it bespeaks a later, I might say, a much later authorship.
As this is a considerable point, I will remark that the view I have just given has in its favour the authority of the first Biblical critics. Originated in 1753, by Astruc, a Belgian physician, the idea that the different names ascribed to God denoted a difference of authorship, was accepted at first slowly by theologians of eminence, but being in the course of inquiry and time more fully developed and thoroughly established, it has since found all but universal acceptance from the days of Dr. Geddes (1792) down to those of Bishop Colenso.
The second account of the creation betrays the lateness of its origin by its essential character. While the first account is intuitive, the second is speculative. “While the first is a poem, the second is a mythologue. The former implicates the action of man’s spiritual nature; the latter, the sway of his imagination in union with his intellect. The first answers the great question, “Whence this universe?” The second attempts to solve the question, “How? The answer to the former comes from God speaking in the universe itself. The attempt involved in the latter is rebuked where Scripture says:
“Canst thou by searching find out God?
Canst thou find out the Almighty to perfection?
It is as high as heaven; what canst thou do?
Deeper than Hades; what canst thou know?”
The speculative character of the document refers us to a speculative source for its origin. The genuine Hebrew mind is intuitive, not speculative. But speculation is the chief characteristic of the Aryan mind. Hence we are directed to Persia or India for the birth-place of the myth. And as to its age, it cannot have been either born or bred in Palestine until the national mind had been debased by tendencies quite alien to its own inherent qualities. And thus we are brought down to the age of Ezekiel, Ezra and Nehemiah. This was the period when the national spirit of Hebrewism was impregnated and lowered by mythologizing currents of thought, coming from Babylon, Ecbatana, and the banks of the Indus.
And now you will readily see how it came to pass that a serpent was introduced into the narrative. Our author wanted to say that sin was disobedience to the known will of God, arising out of improper desire. These are very abstract things; they are things of the moral and religious order. They have to be declared to human beings in their infancy. How is it to be done? Symbols must be employed. In other words, the eye must be addressed. Only through that avenue can man’s moral sense be reached. Again the Black Board is used. A recognized symbol is employed to denote God. An apple, and consequently an apple-tree, is chosen to denote a pleasant attraction. As yet, however, the picture does not speak. It says nothing. To supply this serious deficiency, the form of a serpent is introduced. This is the recognized symbol of seduction. The serpent, erect on its tail, has its head, with the apple in its mouth, directed to the woman. Another picture places the apple on the ground, lying as visible to both, who now appear as conversing the one with the other, the serpent persuasively, the woman hesitatingly. A third picture shews the woman eating the apple with manifest delight; and a fourth one exhibits the man doing the same. The story is told. The first sin is committed, and by means of another series or two you are taught in full that sin is disobedience to the will of God.
The woman’s will was clearly moved by an internal desire. That desire may have been the sexual passion, the indulgence of which was in itself, as innocuous, so innocent, if only because that desire she could not have felt had it not been planted in her by the hand of the Creator, and for purposes no less beneficent than wise. Hitherto we have not got to the bitter root of sin. Say the desire was appetite for food, and you are no nearer the guilty cause. You throw the blame on me. Yet I did but shew her the apple and tell her it was good. The occasion of her sin you may call me, but certainly not the cause. The cause is to be found rather in the old Shemitic idea, that God is the author of evil as well as good. He made Eve what she was, and what she was made sin in her case inevitable. There she stood a poor weakling, not knowing good from evil; stimulated by impulse and open to misrepresentation. I did not make her such. I merely offered her something attractive to the eye, pleasant to the taste, and nutritious to the body. She accepted my offer, sinned, and led her husband into sin. Wherein then lay the sin? In her wilful disobedience to her Maker’s prohibition. She had been told not to eat the apple. Yet she did eat it; and, disobeying God, sinned. But God represents the moral law. Sin, then, is disobedience to a moral law; that is, an internal power. The woman sinned because she did that which she knew she ought not to do. So acting, she sinned against her own light. She could not then have been absolutely ignorant of good and right in contradistinction to bad and wrong. Had she been thus blind, she could not have sinned. Total moral blindness is incapable of doing wrong no less than of doing right. A stock being devoid of moral perceptions is incapable of sinning. The account then cannot mean that the woman was so blind, for such blindness would have reduced her into a mere animal. Bather the account implies that the woman was open to moral impressions, when it makes her hear the word of God: “Thou shalt not.” Her condition was that dubious one which, seeing duty, sees it not; hearing its voice, hears it not. Perilous position for such a moral infant as the woman manifestly was! It needed not the quasi-omnipotence theory ascribes to me to occasion her fall. Let but an occasion come, and her fall was unavoidable. It came; she fell. What was the consequence? ”So the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil” (Gen. iii. 22). Well, then, if I had caused her sin, I had rendered her the greatest possible service, and I claim the honour of having made Adam and Eve moral beings. Before, they had the moral capacity solely in embryo. I acted as the midwife, and the grand speciality of man was born. This inevitable conclusion I press on your mind, if only to shew you how dangerous it is to build theological theories on these archaic stories. Certainly, hard names and damaging charges such as I have so long suffered under should be studiously avoided, when their sole ground is a strained interpretation of a figurative incident.
Finally: if now you look back over what I have said of “the Fall of Man,” and, studying these details, consider the whole matter in the light of God’s dealings in Providence, as declared by universal history, the Bible included, you will not improbably be led to the conclusion, that what is theologically called “man’s ruin,” is really man’s first step out of his animal condition into the ascensional pathway of ceaseless progress.
3. The Jewish Element As Seen In The Old Testament Apocrypha...
THE JEWISH ELEMENT AS SEEN IN THE OLD TESTAMENT APOCRYPHA; ALEXANDRINE DEMONOLOGY; JOSEPHUS; THE PSEUDEPIGRAPHS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT ; THE BOOK OF ENOCH; THE TALMUD AND CABBALISTS.
Hebrewism offered me little, if any, hospitality. Indeed, in one way it waged ruthless war upon me, while in course of time it came to oppose in good earnest the pagan Baal, Moloch and Asliteroth, from whom it had been delivered by the hand of God.
A more auspicious reception was I favoured with by that mixture of Aryan with Shemitic influences which gave birth to Judaism, the immediate forerunner of the Christianity of the Church, as contradistinguished from the Christianity of Christ.
The darker and depravating elements which produced the impure amalgam, I proceed to set before you in one or two brief outlines.
Let me shortly resume what I have said of demonology in connection with the Shemitic spirit. The two stand in mutual opposition, so far as first principles are concerned. Only on the surface of the Old Testament have I left an imprint of myself, and in that imprint you can see the trace of no horns, no cloven feet, no tail. Even in the later literature of the Hebrew nation, which I will term Jewish, I cannot boast of great prominence. And yet here I sowed seed which, under ecclesiastical fostering, brought forth a plentiful crop. The Jewish belief in evil spirits was formed under the influence of Parsism; yet that influence, checked by the resistance offered to it by the Shemitic spirit, produced effects at first not of a very marked nature nor on a very large scale. The most that it did was to give a certain consistence to obsolescent traditions derived from paganism that lingered in the popular mind, and to find support in Oriental imaginations, when not tempered and controlled by a severe and spiritual monotheism.
Not till you come down after the exile to the Jewish Apocryphal book of Tobit do you find clear traces of the demonology of the Jews of Palestine and the Jews of Babylonia. A devil, by name Asmodeus, who appears in the Talmud as the divinity of lust, and even as the prince of evil spirits, falling in love with Sarah, daughter of Baguel, a citizen of Ecbatana, kills for his own vile purpose seven young men who successively were to be her husbands (iii. 8, vi. 14). By the advice of the angel Raphael, who has become travelling companion to Tobit’s son, the devil is put to flight by the smoke which rises from the liver of a fish placed on burning coal, and hastens to hide himself in the deserts of Upper Egypt, where he is thrown into chains by the angel Raphael. His demoniacal rival being thus disposed of, Tobit takes Sarah to wife, and consummates the marriage without let or hindrance. The power possessed by the devil was given him of God, in order that Sarah’s virtue might be tried and established.
Asmodeus (tempter), judging by his name, a Persian by birth, supports the reference of the Biblical doctrine to BabyIonia. The same effect ensues from the acquaintance with Mesopotamia manifested in his style by the unknown author of the book, who, if not a native, must have travelled in those lands. Consequently he was acquainted with the Persian demonology. Indeed, he introduced into the writing as much of it as he could make comport with the Jewish monotheism, without going as far as the Mazdean dualism, which in its proper form does not figure in any# Jewish composition, and without making me a rival power to that of God.
From the character of the book you are justified in inferring the Magian origin of the Jewish demonology. Taking into account the Persian origin of the name Asmodeus, which rests on the high authority of Reland, we may declare that the Jewish view of myself regarded me as the tempter of human beings. In this unenviable aspect 1 am symbolized in Genesis, as you are aware, and thus the connection of the Jewish demonology with that of Persia is put beyond a doubt. The union of the two makes an appearance in these words of Tobit’s: “Thou madest Adam of the dust of the earth, and gave him Eve for a helper” (Tobit viii. 8; Gen. ii. iii.).
Similar in result is the account which the angel Raphael gives of himself: “I am the angel Raphael” (a beautiful young man (Tobit v. 5), one of the seven who stand before the Lord, “the good angel of God” (Tobit v. 27). “When thou (Tobit’s father) didst pray with tears and didst bury the dead, I offered thy prayer to the Lord; and because thou wast acceptable to the Lord, it was necessary that temptation should prove thee.” (Comp. Job ii. 3, seq.). “And now the Lord hath sent me to heal thee and to deliver Sarah thy son’s wife from the devil. And when they heard these things they were seized with fear and fell prostrate on the ground. And the angel said to them, Fear not; for now that I am with you, I am here by the will of God; bless ye him and sing his praises. I seemed, indeed, to eat and to drink with you; but I use meat and drink which cannot be seen by men. Now then it is time that I return to him that sent me. He was then taken from their sight and was seen no more. Then they, lying prostrate for three hours, blessed God, and, rising up, told all his wonderful works.” (Tobit xii.)
Here you have a curious mixture of Aryan and Shemitic elements. The angel Raphael, though he has a Shemitic name, appears as the chief of the seven angels, which recall the seven Persian Amshaspands, the pure spirits or angels whom Ormuzd created by Honover, his Word. On the other side, Asmodeus, though he has a Persian name, is God’s instrument whereby to try Tobit and Sarah, even as Satan was for the trial of the virtue of Job. Moreover, the Shemitic element predominates, for God sends Raphael, and Raphael returns back to God, while Asmodeus is so subordinate to God that Raphael binds him in chains, and so puts a stop to his demoniacal doings. (Comp. Tobit ii. 12.)
The word devil presents itself in the first book of Maccabees (i. 36), where, speaking of apostate Jews who, rendering aid to Antiochus Epiphanes, the Greek assailant and bitter enemy of the nation, took up a position on Mount Zion as a point of assault against brethren who were faithful to the religion of their forefathers, and whom they hoped to seduce and paganize, the author of this apocryphal history declares, “they became a great snare against the sanctuary and an evil devil in Israel.” The term employed signifies a misleader. Such is the nature of the act here ascribed to the Hellenized Jews. But in this the only passage found in the Palestinian Apocrypha, it is a devil, and not the devil, that is offered to your reflections. And this devil, while not a hundredth part so black as the devil of the Church, receives his darkest tint from the adjective bad, implying that it was possible to be a devil without at least being so very malignant. This is a point that I have repeatedly drawn your attention to. But how is the term “a bad devil” used here? In a literal sense or figuratively? These apostates were in intention misleaders, seducers in reality, and may well be so characterized, without any reference to any system of demonology or any demoniacal category. Different would have been the meaning did the Scripture present the term the devil. Then there might be a reference to the Persian Ahriman in a Judaical form. As it is, the import is so uncertain as to add little, if anything, to what I have already set before you.
The Jewish demonology of Alexandria has a more serious character. It is free from the low and vulgar falsities with which that of Palestine is laden. It consists of two essential features. With the Alexandrine Jews, the demons are the false divinities of paganism. Proof of the statement is furnished by the Septuagint or Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures. Every time that the Old Testament mentions the pagan idols, the Seventy translate the word by the Greek *******, demon. (Ps. xcvi. [xcv. in the LXX.] 5, cvi. [cv.] 37.)
The same view is taken by the Alexandrine author of the second part of the Apocryphal Baruch. “You have,” the writer says to the Israelites whom he reproaches with their idolatry, “sacrificed to demons and not to God.” This metamorphosis of the pagan divinities, thus, after the manner of the Persian Dews, turned into devils, arose from the repulsion and hate called forth in the Hellenistic Jews by the offensive idols of Egypt, in the midst of which they lived, and presents another version of “the fall of the angels.” The notion, the origin of which is here offered, passed at a later day into the Church, and was patronized by nearly all the fathers.
A conception of a different order, though not less false and injurious, is indicated by the author of the Apocryphal book of Wisdom: “God created man for immortality; he made him in his own image. The envy of the devil introduced into the world death, which has become the universal inheritance. Those who declare themselves on his side experience the cruel effects” (ii. 23—25). This is the first time that you can find allusion to the story of the temptation of Adam and Eve by the serpent, and to its disastrous consequences. But here the fable stops, leaving a wide interval between itself and the orthodoxy of which it is the parent. Once mentioned in the writing of some unknown Alexandrine Jew, the devil does not recur even to the end. It must be admitted that as I was shunned by pure Hebrewism, I receive scant favour from its degenerate Egyptian form. The doctrine, too, of original sin, thus referred to, passes out of sight, as if ashamed of itself. The half-paganized and speculative author of Wisdom deduces no consequence therefrom. Nor after him does it re-appear in the writings of the Alexandrine Jews. Coming into existence at a somewhat degenerate time, the second account of creation would not find a favourable soil in Hebrewism, even when in later ages diluted and beclouded by pagan apocryphal speculation. It is unknown even to Philo, with all his love of mystic double senses. From Josephus it receives a sense very different from what is now accounted orthodoxy; for with him the serpent is a serpent, and the chief blame is thrown on Adam and Eve as wilfully disobeying God; but not a word is uttered of the alleged transmission of sin. While the notion of a personal devil is either disowned and kept in the back-ground among the superior writers of those days, it probably found some dark channel of transmission, for it presents itself again for the first time in the Apocalypse (xi. 7—9), which is one of the earliest books of the New Testament: “And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels, and prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven; and the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the devil, and Satan which deceiveth the whole world; he was cast out on to the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.” And yet, even here, the use thus made of certain names is nothing more than figures of speech borrowed from the demonology of the day, as the most suitable and forcible verbal descriptions of the pagan forces that under imperial Rome warred against the infant Church.
Not easily did I graft myself on the good and sound old stock of Hebrew thought.
The explanation of sin and death by the action of a bad principle or person was foreign to the Greek philosophy, at least in the sense in which it was understood by the author of the book of “Wisdom. Accordingly there is no reason for surprise that it does not appear in Philo. In his system of religious metaphysics there is indeed a certain dualism; but it is the Greek dualism, that is, the opposition of spirit and matter, of activity and passivity, of being and not-being. And this dualism, although it is in reality connected logically with the dualism of moral good and evil, of Ormuzd and Ahriman, is an older and a milder form of the absolute dualism and ceaseless conflict fabled in ecclesiastical writers as existing and proceeding between God and myself.
Moreover, Philo attaches no metaphysical importance to the theory of demons. Only once does he mention it in his numerous pages (De Gigantibus, § 4); and the idea which he forms of it does not rise above the superstitions spread in Palestine as to evil angels. He fancies that their chief occupation lies in exciting impure desires in human beings.
Prom the middle of the second century before Christ to the day of the downfall of Jerusalem, demonology seems to have considerably gained substance and prominence in Palestine. Josephus, without once employing the word devil or the word Satan, speaks of demons frequently; and as his opinions on the subject were doubtless those of his fellow-Jews, you may hence conclude that notions of the kind were widely spread around him.
Referring to the multitude of magicians and conjurors that misled the people in the war against Rome, Josephus (J. War, II. xiii. -4) describes them in these words: “full of deceit and of a kind of divine impulse, eager for change and novelty, they seduced and maddened (demonized) the multitude.”
This demonizing of the people has its parallel in the fury with which his soldiers were stirred to mutual slaughter by Eleazar (J. War, YII. ix. 1). Such madness and such fury, though intense, is not what is commonly meant by devilish or demoniacal.
Passing from the verb **** (to demonize), I come to the noun ***** (demon), and find that Josephus attributes the evil spirit which actuated Saul to the presence and terrible workings of “the evil spirit” and the demons which David cast out by the sweet tones of his lyre (J. War, YI. viii. 2, viii. 8). Here we seem to have demons before us as wicked spirits. The method of exorcism employed by David is superseded in Josephus by one of a less pure, and, I should add, less efficacious character.
The method of exorcism is described by the historian of the Jews in another passage (Antiq. YIII. ii. 5): ”God enabled Solomon to learn that skill which expels demons. He also composed such incantations as alleviate distempers. Moreover, he left behind him the way to employ exorcisms, by which they drive away demons so that they can never return. This method of cure is of great force unto this day. I have seen a fellow-countryman of my own, by name Eleazar, releasing people who were demoniacal in the presence of Yes-pasian, and his sons and captains and the whole multitude of his soldiers.”
The manner of cure was this: putting a ring bearing a root called Baaras (J. War, YII. vi. 3) to the nostrils of the demoniac, he thence drew the demon out of the possessed person, who fell down on the earth. Then he adjured the demon not to return, supporting his adjuration by the name of Solomon and by incantations. Wishing to persuade the spectators that he had the power of exorcising demons, he set a little way off a basin of water, and bade the demon, on leaving his victim, to overturn it, thereby shewing the people that he had left the man; and thus promoting the glory of Solomon. (Comp. Matt. xii. 27.) In a different place (J. War, YII. vi. 3), Josephus, describing another method of exorcism, gives us his opinion as to what the demons were: “The root Baaras, if applied to sick persons, quickly draws away those called demons, which are no other than the spirits of wicked men, that, entering living men, kill such as have no aid.”
If you look back on these statements, you will more easily pronounce them puerile and fantastic than consistent one with another. Now their author uses language which seems to imply a race of wicked spirits, now intensely exciting influences acting on sensitive and epileptic individuals. The two views, not wholly incompatible, may find a point of union in a kingdom and a king of darkness, who, though mighty, is controllable by great names and powerful charms. The general tenor of this demonology, however, presents, at least in germ, superstitions which are found in fuller and more exact form, first, in the New Testament, and then in the Church of the middle and later ages.
It may seem strange to you that, if at the time Judaea was seething, as it was, with Magian falsities, Josephus, the professed historian of his country, should present traces of them so few and indistinct. Your surprise will be removed when I tell you that the Jewish historian was a sycophant. The tendency of the age was to paganize the institutions, usages and character of the Jewish people. For now nearly a century that anti-national, unpatriotic and irreligious tendency had been in active operation. At last, in the year 70 (A. D.), it had reached its height, and then the Jewish church and state sank under the battering-rams of Vespasian and Titus. To those Roman and idolatrous princes Josephus paid adulterous homage, and received his reward in court honours and fine estates in his conquered native land.
By the side of the Apocrypha of the Old Testament, whether Palestinian or Alexandrine, and of the works of Philo and of Josephus, there is a certain number of writings bearing a very equivocal character, known under the title of “The Pseudepigraphs” (falsely named or supposititious) “of the Old Testament.”
As yet we are acquainted with but one demon designated by his own name; it is Asmodeus of the book of Tobit. The Jewish pseudepigraphs, whose demonology is surprisingly rich, supply us with several others. First comes Beliar, the Syriac form of the Hebrew Belial, respecting whom Paul asks (2 Cor. vi. 15), “What concord hath Christ with Belial?” In the Sybilline books, Beliar is Antichrist, and consequently the prince of demons. Then come the twenty chiefs of the demons, whose names are carefully registered in the book of ENOCH (vii., comp. Jude 14), the author of which seems to have enriched his demonology with the superstitions of all the sects of his age.
As this book of Enoch is very rare in England, and as it supplies a fair sample of the tone of the literature with which I am dealing, I transcribe those names in the connection in which they stand: the quotation is an expanded and distorted version of the words in Genesis (vi. 2): “The sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose:”
“It happened after the sons of men had multiplied in those days, that daughters were born to them, elegant and beautiful. And when the angels, the sons of heaven, beheld them, they became enamoured of them, saying to each other, Come, let us select for ourselves wives from the progeny of men, and let us beget children. Then their leader, Samyaza, said to them, I fear that you may be indisposed to this enterprize, and that I alone shall suffer for so grievous a crime. But they answered him and said, We all swear, and bind ourselves by mutual execrations that we will execute our project. Then they swore all together and bound themselves by mutual execrations. Their whole number was two hundred, who descended upon Ardis, which is upon the top of Mount Armon.
These are the names of their chiefs: Samyaza, who was their leader; Urakabarameel, Akibeel, Tamiel, Ramuel, Danel, Azkeel, Sarakuyel, Asciel, Armers, Batrael, Anane, Zavebt, Samsaveel, Ertaiel, Turel, Yomyael, Azazyel.
Then they took wives, each choosing for himself; whom they began to approach, and with whom they cohabited; teaching them sorcery, incantations, and the dividing of roots and trees. And the women conceiving, brought forth giants, whose stature was each three hundred cubits. These devoured all which the labour of men produced, until it became impossible to feed them; when they turned themselves against men in order to devour them; and began to injure birds, beasts, reptiles and fishes, to eat their flesh one after another, and to drink their blood. Moreover, Azazyel taught men to make swords; Amazarak taught the sorcerers; Armers taught the solution of sorcery; Barkayel taught the observers of the stars; Akibeel taught signs; Tamiel taught astronomy; and Asaradel taught the motion of the moon. And men being destroyed cried out, and their voice reached heaven. Then Michael and Gabriel, Raphael, Suryel and Uriel, looked down from heaven and saw the quantity of blood which was shed on earth, and heard the cries. Then they said: ‘O ye holy ones of heaven, the souls of men complain, saying, Obtain justice for us with the Most High.’ And the holy ones said: ‘Lord of lords, King of kings, God of gods, thou hast seen what Azazyel has done, how he has taught every species of iniquity upon earth; and how Samyaza, to whom thou gavest authority over his associates, has taught sorcery; how they have lain with the daughters of men and produced giants; and behold the souls of the dead cry out and complain even to the gate of heaven— what then ought we to do to them? Then the Most High spoke and sent Arsayalalgur to Lamech, saying; ‘Say to him in my name, Conceal thyself; the waters of a deluge shall come over all the earth and destroy all things.’ And the Lord said to Raphael: ’Bind Azazyel hand and foot, and cast him into darkness; there shall he remain for ever, and in the great day of judgment let him he cast into fire. To Michael likewise the Lord said: ’Go and announce his crime to Samyaza and to those who are with him. Take them away into the lowest depths of the fire; in torments and in confinement shall they be shut up for ever.’”
There you have the full picture of “the fall of the angels,” involving the incarceration of Azazyel, their leader, and the everlasting punishment with which their crimes were repaid: the entire fiction of “the devil and his angels” you have there in an anonymous book anterior to Christ, and long anterior to the Gospels and the New Testament in general, including the Apocalypse, which still retains, as do the Gospels, some of the lurid imagery of Enoch the fanatic.
You now know where to look for my Shemitic cradle. I am that Azazyel. Born and bred during the agitations and excitement immediately antecedent to the advent of Jesus, I passed into the Jewish mind of the age in which he taught, and so, through his Jewish disciples and biographers, who reported, not his true image, but an image of him which in a measure bore deep hues from their own apocalyptic prepossessions, I make my appearance in the language of him whose whole life was love, tenderness and sympathy, as if he had adopted the ideas as well as the diction of the infernal regions.
Moreover, the book of Enoch has two different demonologies: one in the first part (vi.—xvi.), the other in the third (lvi.— lxviii.). There the chief of the demons is Azazyel; here that honour belongs to Samyaza.
And here I might be excused were I to confess myself no little puzzled. I cannot be both Azazyel and Samyaza: which am? Am I either? Am I not rather a figment begotten of human conceits, deceits and legends?
You object to the term legend. Yet there is not a word in the Old Testament history which in the slightest makes allusion to “the fall of the angels,” and which can in any way encourage the fancy that the love of the sons of God for the daughters of men (which is only the Hebrew version of Livy’s “Rape of the Sabines”) was in itself a crime, big with tremendous destinies.
It would be curious to trace in detail the different phases by which the few words in Genesis have by little and little passed into the long and ill-told story of the book of Enoch. Only one step of the transition remains. In the Bible, the giants are not the progeny of angels and women, as the fabulous Enoch pretends. Already, before the illicit union, giants were on the earth, according to the Hebrew. The matter undergoes a radical change in the Greek version of the Seventy. There the giants are the offspring of that marriage. Was this false translation occasioned by the Greek fable of the Titans, sons of heaven (the male principle) and (earth the female)? Did the translator fancy that the Hebrew story was the source or the analogue of the pagan myth? It is possible: but this is certain, namely, that the Greek perversion of the Hebrew text creates a pregnant doubt as to the authenticity of the marriages of the sons of God with the daughters of men. One step more, and it will be held that the angels defiled themselves by a wedlock unworthy of their sanctity. That step was set, and set probably by an ascetic party grouped around the temple of Leontopolis in Egypt. There, too, the book of Enoch was known, as well as the Jewish fragments of the Sibylline oracles and the fourth book of Ezra; all three works resembling each other greatly in ideas, tone and manner. Specially have they in common all the ideas which are connected with the apocalyptic beliefs of the period, such as the theocratic point of view, the opposition of the wicked spirits to the triumph of the Messiah, and the doctrine of the resurrection of the flesh, which, as you have seen, was born in the bosom of Parsism.
During most of the time covered by this chapter, there grew up in the Jewish schools of Palestine a large body of oral tradition which, continued through centuries after Christ, was finally collected and published in what are called The Talmuds. These are a huge and heterogeneous mass of theological and social decisions made by Jewish doctors or rabbis of eminence in an attempt to adapt the old law, called the law of Moses, to the changed condition of the Jewish people after the captivity in Babylon, the wars of the Maccabees, the paganizing influence of the Herods, and the conquest and destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans, ending in the dispersion of the nation in want, slavery, contempt and woe, over the civilized world. This series of trials, ‘entailing general ruin, tended to throw over the Jewish character a depth of gloom which was disturbed rather than relieved by Messianic expectations. Between the lurid dreams of the latter and the dark and bitter experiences of the former, the national mind, driven to and fro by hope and fear, readily yielded to the Oriental fancies which seemed to explain the stern conflict by the recognition of a bad principle as well as a good one. Indeed, since the atmosphere in which they lived constantly grew darker and darker, I soon obtained the ascendancy in their thoughts and affections. Hence you may find in the Talmudic literature a substantial and ramified demonology. That literature, considered as an accepted tradition to which the Jews attached the highest value, bears the name of Cabbala, which signifies at once a transmitted and a secret doctrine. Here you have not only a complete dualism, but a developed demonology, combined, as ever, with such black arts as the times were fitted to engender. The Cabbalists fill all the spaces of creation with good and bad spirits, divide them into distinct orders, place chiefs over them, distinguish the orders and their chiefs by individual names, and allot to them each his own office. The evil spirits are called Satanim, Shedim, Soirim, &c. As to their origin, the opinion of the Cabbalists vary. Some hold that God created them on the Friday evening, just before the end of the week of creation, but, as the Sabbath approached, he was unable to complete his work. On this account they could not attain to the perfection of the pure spirits, or be clothed with a body like that of men.
According to others, God created an angeling, by name Lilith, by whom Adam had numberless bad spirits. Other male and female demons were created besides those which fell after the creation. The principal male devil is Samael, who seduced Eve, continually leads human beings into evil, and is indeed Satan, or myself, who, performing the function ascribed to me in the book of Job, keeps the privy council of heaven informed of the misdeeds of men. Then there is Melach Hammareth, who executes the verdicts of death pronounced on high. Several Cabbalists name him also Azazel, the scapegoat; moreover, Adam Belial, in contrast with Adam Cadmon, or the typal man; Asmodeus, too, whom we have seen in the book of Tobit (iii. 8); moreover, Bedargon, only a span long, and on that account provided with fifty heads and sixty-four eyes; he bears imprinted on his body, as significant symbols, all the letters of the Hebrew alphabet, except M and T, which denote death. According to the Cabbalistic doctrine, God created four female devilings: Lilith, who, under the name of Eve, appeared in being with Adam, who, however, separated from her on account of her bad temper; whereupon he married the real Eve, who had been formed out of one of his ribs. Lilith won Samael’s affection, and became his wife. The two lived unhappily together, for she was always grumbling and nagging. The second was Naamah, the wife of a devil by name Shemeron. Of this marriage Asmodeus was born. The third bore the name of Mashkith, of a lively temperament, the opposite of Lilith, and in consequence somewhat often at cross purposes with her. Lilith held sway over 480 troops of devils, Mashkith over 478. The fourth deviling, by name Iggereth, appears less frequently. According to Rabbi Solomon, Luria has an ugly trick of rushing out of hell every Wednesday and Friday night to infest human dwelling-places with her 1800 evil spirits, making the time perilous as well as hideous. The number of evil spirits is incalculable. They swarm around every human being; a thousand on his right hand, ten thousand on his left. Their abode is a dark region under the moon. Their bodies, formed in the lowest parts of the earth, are of water, fire and air. They are divided into armies, each having a commander, whose orders they are bound to obey. Evil spirits pass in a moment from one end of the world to another, and, like angels, know beforehand what is to come to pass. They enjoy their meat and drink, and propagate their species after the manner of men.
Secret doctrines, at first existing among the Jews alone orally, and communicated to none but the initiated, came in time to be consigned to writing, and the tendency to a systematic form, called forth by the prevailing philosophy of Aristotle, took hold of the masters of the Cabbala, and led them to throw their conception into a certain order. The thirst for concealed wisdom led men to the fountains of the Cabbala, and after Aristotleism had run its race, and students began to turn to Alexandrinism, these found their own ideas in a Platonic Pythagorean form, and presented a cloud of mysteries to the human mind. Hence arose the black arts of astrology and alchemy, which in time gained the advocacy of such learned men as Bonaventura, Thomas Aquinas, Raymund Lullius, Pico della Mirandula, John Reuchlin, &c. As secret doctrines and magic are commonly yoke-fellows, the Cabbala set it forth as an axiom, that there is the closest connection between this world and the upper and lower regions, and that consequently the Cabbalistic adept had a commanding influence in heaven and hell, which gave him not only general wisdom and power, but special control over witches and witchcraft. Indeed, with the aid of the Cabbala, the magician of the middle ages could not only keep me in order, but augment all kind of earthly good. A conviction to this effect struck deep roots into the heart of the people. Hence grew up and prevailed a host of falsities, which beset and worried poor mortals for centuries, such as belief in Satan, in witches and their commerce with devils, Satanic conjurations, magical covenants of friendship and enmity; while by a reciprocrated influence these superstitions encouraged belief in the Cabbalistic mysteries whence they had sprung.
The further progress of these terrible evils will be traced by and by.
Meanwhile you have now before you a pretty full picture of the thick and gross darkness into which the religion of Jesus was born, and through which it had to struggle during the earlier centuries of its existence. Well has Jesus himself described the condition of his Church in those ages when he said (to quote the version of Dean Alford), “If the light that is in thee be darkness, how dark is the darkness!” (Matt. vi. 23). Dark indeed, since those who should have been the light-bearers of the times had themselves been eclipsed by the clouds which, coming from foreign lands, covered the surface of the Church.
Before I pass on to the New Testament evidence, I must briefly but distinctly notice some words which Paul addressed to Timothy and Titus. These I here set down: “Charge some that they teach no other doctrine (than that of Christ), neither give heed to fables and endless genealogies which minister questions rather than godly edifying which is in faith; turning aside unto vain jangling, understanding neither what they say nor whereof they affirm” (1 Tim. i. 4—7). “Now the spirit speaketh expressly that in the latter times some will depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils (demons); speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their conscience seared with a hot iron” (1 Tim. iv. 1, 2), “doting about questions and strifes of words (vi. 4). Shun profane and vain babblings (2 Tim. ii. 16) of evil men and seducers, deceiving and being deceived (2 Tim. iii. 13); for there are many unruly and vain talkers and deceivers, especially they of the circumcision, whose mouths must be stopped” (Tit. i. 10, 11).
This long and varied description tallies completely with the demonology which I have set before you in somewhat full particulars. If Paul has not, as he seems to have, a direct reference to those Oriental fictions which you know to have infested Palestine, and in a measure other countries where the Gospel had been introduced, he uses language so nicety characteristic of them and their espousers, as to comprehend not them only, but their spirit and aim, wherever and whenever manifested. And thus demonology of all kinds is condemned: not only that of Paul’s days, which, though substantial and multiform, was scarcely more than a shadow of what was to come, and what did come, before society had fairly got out of the middle ages.
4. The New Testament
SECTION I. JUDE; THE APOCALYPSE; THE EPISTLE OF PETER; THE EPISTLES OF PAUL; THE EPISTLE OF JAMES; THE BOOK OF ACTS.
Before I open the venerated pages of the New Testament, I wish to take a look at myself as I am described by ecclesiastical authorities.
Here is one picture. It is the character given of me by a French Pastor of high character and varied learning—moreover, holding the true faith according to—what? Well, I hardly know what; but certainly according to himself. Thus he speaks in the brief and modest Preface he has prefixed to his work:
“The author has judged it necessary, in a season of general doubt and disbelief, to put his readers into the right position in regard to the essential points of faith, by placing himself under the authority of the Word of God. Setting out with the principle that all the books of the Bible are inspired and legitimately form part of the Sacred Canon, he has endeavoured to furnish varied information, drawn from good sources, and calculated to conduce to a right understanding of the Scripture.”
What then does Pastor Meylan say of me? I shall reproduce what he says on “The Devil” and “The Demoniacs” as literally as I can.
“Devil (calumniator, Matt. iv. 1), the chief of the rebel angels. He is also called Satan (a Hebrew word signifying adversary), demon, great dragon, old serpent, Beelzebub (Apoc. xii. 9, xx. 2; Luke viii. 29; Matt. xii. 24). At an unknown epoch God created millions of angels endued with the liberty of serving him or of revolting against him. One of them, elevated in dignity and very powerful, took the latter step. He drew into his revolt other angels, who became also his ministers, and who are called demons, evil spirits, unclean spirits, princes of darkness, &c. (John viii. 44; Jude 6; Mark ix. 34; Luke viii. 2 j Mark vi. 7; Eph. vi. 12). The devil, wishing to usurp the throne of God, founded a kingdom which he sought to aggrandize by trickery and lies. He succeeded by leading the first man into sin, who thereupon submitted to his deadly empire. He causes himself to be worshiped in the pagan idols, and excites bad passions in human souls; he has even succeeded in taking possession of certain persons and in tormenting them (Matt. xii. 24; Gen. iii. 2; 2 Cor. xi. 3; Acts xxvi. 18; Lev. xvii. 7; Ps. cvi. 37; 1 Cor. x. 20 j Apoc. ix. 20; Luke xiii. 16, xxii. 3, 31 j Job ii. 7 j Mark xvi. 9). After failing in his efforts against Jesus Christ, come to bruise his head, he ceaselessly attacks his disciples,’ roams around them like a roaring lion, and even performs miracles in order to seduce them (Matt. iv. 1; Gen. iii. 15; 1 Pet. v. 8: 2 Thess. ii. 9). He still preserves relations with the angels that remain faithful, and also struggles against them (Job i. 6; 1 Kings xxii. 19—22; Zach. iii. 1 j Jude 9; Apoc. xii. 7). However, the demons tremble before God, dread the power of Jesus Christ and the fate which awaits them (James ii. 19; Mark i. 24, v. 7; Luke viii. 31). The devil will be bound and imprisoned in the abyss for a thousand years; after that he will be let loose and will seduce men afresh (Apoc. xx. 1—9). Finally, he will be condemned, with all the demons, to eternal torments in hell (Matt. xxv. 41; Jude 6; Apoc. xx. 10). The doctrine of Scripture touching the rebel angels contains great mysteries and many obscurities for the narrow mind of man. But it would be so much the greater madness to contest its truth, seeing that we are profoundly ignorant as to all that concerns the world of spirits, and since revelation is our only light in this domain.”
This, then, is the Satan of Protestant orthodoxy. As such it would, I believe, be received by most of the Protestant orthodox churches of the world. Do I own it as a true portrait of myself? Certainly not; its features are too imaginary, its hues too dark, its aspect too horrible, its bearing on God too unjust, and its bearing on man too baneful. The better side of human nature is totally absent from the portrait, and in consequence it is a caricature. None but such priests and tyrants as have ceased to be men, can be so black as is the monster here described as the devil.
The authority I have just cited is very hard upon paganism, yet every feature that enters into his devil you have already had set before you as presented in some form of paganism or another, or if not in paganism, yet in debased and distorted religionisms. Specially have you just heard me particularize as a diseased brood of Jewish speculation the most revolting features of this orthodox devil. Review what I have said, and the truth of my statement will arise in your mind in clear light and full assurance.
Consequently the whole is fable and not fact; figments of fancy, dreams of the imagination, rather than Biblical revelations.
Here I might stop, and consider these views confuted by the mere circumstance of pointing to their real source. Even were they ever so much in Scripture, they would not be inspired verities, seeing that, in germ and partly in fruit, they existed long before the passages to which the good French pastor refers had come into existence. That cannot be a ‘Biblical revelation which was held by pagan minds whose religious opinions took life, shape and colour, in lands, ages and culture, remote from the Bible, its writers and its scenes. That some of the Biblical writings are here and there deeply tinted, or rather discoloured, by these offensive dyes is true; but the dyes are foreign in their source, as well as darkening and pernicious in their effects. The only way in which any one could effectually fix the ecclesiastical Satan upon the Bible, would be by shewing that the conception necessarily arose from fundamental ideas of God as therein revealed. But what is the fact? Neither God as believed in by Abraham, nor God as believed in by Moses, nor God as believed in by Jesus, involves, implies, or even admits or tolerates, the sacerdotal phantasm.
And here the train of thought leads me to add, that well is it for man it does so, if the religion of Jesus is the greatest boon that God ever conferred on his favoured child of earth; for the doctrine taught by Pastor Meylan is so huge a mountain of absurdity, as inevitably to sink any ordinary system with which it is connected, if not to imperil the pure Gospel itself. This our orthodox instructor shews himself sensible of when, after setting forth his ecclesiastical fables, he tells us it contains “great mysteries and many obscurities.” “Mysteries and obscurities”? And yet he calls what he gives “instruction” (enseignment), that is teachings considered as signs. Now what are signs but symbols of things signified? And what are mysteries, as here used, but things you cannot apprehend because you cannot get hold of them? These signs, then, signify nothing; for, being mysteries, they convey no sign or signification to man. What then is their use? “But they are not totally dark.” What is the light that is in them? Where is a spark of light in all your demonology? And where does the light end and the darkness begin? You “know not,” do you say? Truly do you speak, for with you a mystery is either something dark, or something unintelligible, or something unreasonable—something therefore which has no meaning, or of which the meaning is absurd—not, as the word is used in the New Testament, something once hidden or unknown, but now under Christ disclosed to enlighten, direct, and so save the intelligent world. So much for “mystery.” Now let our orthodox lexicographer say what “obscurities” are in this matter; how the obscurity differs from the mystery; and why, having obscurities to offer no less than mysteries, nay, “great mysteries” and “many obscurities,”—why he undertook to handle the subject at all, much less to insert the article in a volume whose professed object is to illustrate the Bible and Biblical verities. Illustrate! What is to illustrate (lux, Latin for light) but to throw light on a subject1 Well, then, here is a topic needing light, so great are its mysteries, so many its obscurities. What light is given? None other but that which (if any) lies in their own inherent quality of being mysteries and obscurities: and what is this but to leave the unknown unknown, and to leave the obscure obscure? Well, it would be more candid to do so without pretending to explain the inexplicable and to clear up the obscure. Thus, rushing into the regions of darkness, the author first uses hard words and then doubles his difficulty. You must, he as good as says, be “a madman to contest what I say, for ‘we ‘ (himself and others) are profoundly ignorant touching whatever concerns the world of spirits.” If so, why attempt to teach anything about the subject? “Profoundly ignorant” as he is, he would have acted less foolishly had he not uttered a word. But are we so ignorant by nature? When Jesus said, “God is spirit” (John iv. 24), and added no explanation, he implicitly taught, first, that none was needed, and that even an ordinary woman of Samaria understood what he meant. “Yes, but revelation is our only torch in this domain.” Not his only torch; for whatever light he has comes primarily from pagan sources; and after all a torch sheds light, not darkness; and the light which the torch of Scripture sheds does not surely consist in “great mysteries and many obscurities or, if it does, then where mystery and obscurity begin, there revelation, which means unveiling, of necessity ends.
However, this respectable pastor asserts that Scripture teaches the views which he expounds, and as he gives his references to certain passages where his doctrine is taught, I am in courtesy bound to turn to his authorities. And here at the first glance I discover a huge mistake. He throws together, as supporting his system, passages taken from many parts of the Bible, beginning with Genesis and terminating with the Apocalypse;—as if the Bible were one book, whereas it consists of many books; as if it were from one pen, whereas it was written by many pens; as if it were produced in one age, whereas it took at least a thousand years to come into existence; as if, moreover, it offered one sole form of religion, whereas it offers one religion under many forms; and as if it came from the mind of God, as Minerva is said to have leaped from the head of Jupiter in rebound to the sledge-hammer blow from the hand of Vulcan, whereas no less an authority than Jesus declares and avows a fulfilment, that is. a development, a gradual unfolding and expansion of religious light as men’s minds are able to bear it (Mark i. 15; Matt. v.). By thus heaping texts together, without reference to their contexts, on any given point; while thus selecting here and there, any and every where, words which seem to witness for certain preconceived ideas or elaborated systems, the author of the Dictionary may prove, or even disprove, almost everything he pleases, and can produce nothing better than an incongruous and uncoalescing medley or collection of fossil miscellanies. This is not an unapt description of what he has achieved. His article descriptive of myself describes nothing in God’s world of realities, for the heterogeneousness of his essay is such as to exclude all reality. Horace condemns a painter who, drawing the figure of a woman down to the waist, completes his portrait by ending with the tail of a fish. M. Meylan throws into what he calls a likeness of me, features and limbs taken from all manner of mythological monsters, joined and united together into the most disparate and unsightly of figments by a certain cement borrowed from an assumed Biblical authority.
I cast my eye upon his statements in respect of the scriptural passages by which the lexicographer supports them. What do I find? For the propositions which underlie his entire system of demonology he gives no scriptural authority whatever. Thus he calls me “the chief or head of the rebel angels,” and does so without any scriptural reference. Then he makes a series of statements equally without scriptural reference. These are: 1, God created millions of angels; 2, this he did at an unknown epoch; 3, these angels were endowed with liberty to serve or to revolt against him; 4, one of them took the latter part: 5, he was elevated in dignity and very powerful; 6, he drew into his revolt other angels: 7, those angels became his ministers. Here are seven propositions for which no scriptural attestation is assigned. Of course, as none is given, none can be given. And yet you are required to admit the whole fabric, though ‘it contains great mysteries and many obscurities.’ on the authority of Scripture. Here, then, is an admission that the authority of Scripture is necessary in the case. But these seven propositions have no scriptural authority. It follows that they are destitute of the needful attestation. Consequently they are not proved; and, as not proved, are to the Biblical student untrue —as much a vain tiling, a nothing, as the pagan idols.
But these propositions are the foundation of the edifice. The edifice then has no foundation. Built upon the pagan fable of “the fallen angels,” the alleged Satanism is no scriptural doctrine at all. A kingdom without a king is no kingdom; so a demonology without me is a mere creature of the imagination, or a product of obscure speculation; in a word, a fiction of man’s, and not a fact of God’s world. You are already acquainted with its history.
The position T have thus taken up is unassailable. It follows that the cause is pleaded, and nothing remains but the verdict. The verdict is, that Pastor Meylan has put himself out of court by lack of evidence. Not Proven must be entered on the record, as much in this case as it would be required in any law-suit in which the defendant was not presented in court because he was not known to exist. “Shew us your fallen angel on the authority you yourself have chosen, and then we will hear what you have to say about him.” Such would be the decision of every “just judge.” To proceed in this matter, then, is supererogatory. Nevertheless, as I wish to satisfy your youthful mind, I will give myself this unnecessary trouble.
Before I leave this point, I must indicate other propositions for which no evidence is adduced: 1, the devil’s rebellion arose from his wishing to usurp God’s throne; 2, he founded a kingdom; 3, this kingdom he aggrandizes by craft and lies; 4, he made man sin; 5, man was then subject to his power; 6, he causes himself to be worshiped under the veil of the heathen idols; 7, he failed in his efforts against Jesus Christ. Seven other propositions, which ought to be, and are not, supported by Scripture! “What a flimsy structure have we here! And is this the grim phantom that terrifies the world h How long? And in this way are creeds made, which must be believed on the penalty of perishing everlastingly!
If now I analyze the scriptures which M. Meylan adduces, I shall be able to set before you the proofs in favour of a personal devil in their distributive order and their united force. The total number of passages is 42. Of these, 9 are in the Old Testament and 33 in the New. The 33 are divided thus: 9 in the Epistles, that is, in Paul 4, in Jude 3, in Peter 1, in James 1; 17 in the Gospels, that is, in Matthew 6, in Mark 4, in Luke 6, in John 1; in the Apocalypse 6; and in the book of Acts 1. From the 33 in the New Testament some reductions will have to be made in consequence of reference to the same passage being repeated.
Out of the 33 New Testament references, 3 are in Jude and 6 in the book of Revelation, in all 9 taken from the least historically reliable pages in the later Scriptures. Properly only two references are made to Jude, for verse 6 is adduced twice. Now Jude is no Scripture at all; that is, it is uncanonical. These two references then go for nothing. This is decided before you have looked at them. But I will set them before your eyes in full. Verse 6: “The angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he (the Lord) hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day.” . . . Ver. 9: “Michael the archangel, when contending with the devil, disputed about the body of Moses.”
The former of these passages is simply borrowed from fables, the source and nature of which I have already explained. The latter is adduced to prove this statement: “The devil still preserves relations with the angels that remained faithful, and struggles against them.” As to the relations which I still preserve with Michael, I take leave to say that the text refers to a time sunk in the dark bosom of 1800 years. A curious proof indeed of what my relations are ”still”! Then as to my struggling against Michael, I beg you to observe, the text declares that it is Michael that struggles against me. This looks very much like trifling with evidence. What a cause must that be which needs and employs means so unworthy of the importance of the theme, the everlasting destinies which it involves, and the true dignity of Scripture! Strange that what men call a sacred book should now, “in the year of grace,” 1871, be disfigured and desecrated by forgeries so palpable! Will the men who are now sitting as ecclesiastical revisers of the Authorized English version have honesty and courage enough to remove this blot from the Bible? Undoubtedly they will do something to that effect if they are possessed of the spirit of Dr. Marsh, formerly Bishop of Peterborough, who in his chapter on “the Epistle of Jude” in his English translation of Professor Michaelis’s learned “Introduction to the New Testament” (Vol. IV. p. 363), makes the following remark bearing on this testimony to my personal existence: “I cannot acknowledge that this Epistle is canonical. And I have really some doubts whether it be not even a forgery, made in the name of Jude, by some person who borrowed the chief part of his materials from the Second Epistle of St. Peter, and added some few of his own.”. . . “And if we are directed in our judgment by the contents of the Epistle, we shall have still no inducement to believe that it is a sacred and divine work.” . . . “But it is much more difficult to vindicate the ninth verse, in which the archangel Michael is said to have disputed with the devil about the body of Moses. The whole history of this dispute, which has the appearance of a Jewish fable, is not very easy at present to discover, because the book from which it is supposed to have been taken by the author of our Epistle is no longer extant; but I will here put together such scattered accounts of it as I have been able to collect. Origen found in a Jewish Greek book, called ‘The Assumption of Moses,’ which was extant in his time, though it is now lost, this very story related concerning the dispute of the archangel Michael with the devil about the body of Moses. And from a comparison of the relation in this book with St. Jude’s quotation, he was thoroughly persuaded that it was the book from which St. Jude quoted. This he asserts without the least hesitation; and in consequence of this persuasion he himself has quoted the ‘Assumption of Moses’ as a work of authority, in proof of the temptation of Adam and Eve by the devil. But as he has quoted it merely for this purpose, he has given us only an imperfect account of what this book contained relative to the dispute about the body of Moses. One circumstance, however, he has mentioned, which is not found in the Epistle of St. Jude, namely, that Michael reproached the devil with having possessed the serpent which seduced Eve. In what manner this circumstance is connected with the dispute about the body of Moses will appear from the following consideration. The Jews imagined that the person of Moses was so holy that God could find no reason for permitting him to die, and that nothing but the sin committed by Adam and Eve in Paradise, which brought death into the world, was the cause why Moses did not live for ever. The same notions they entertained of some other very holy persons—for instance, of Isai, who, they say, was delivered to the angel of death merely on account of the sins of our first parents, though he himself did not deserve to die. Now in the dispute between Michael and the devil, the devil was the accuser and demanded the death of Moses. Michael therefore replied to him, that he himself was the cause of that sin which alone could occasion the death of Moses. How very little such notions as these agree either with the Christian theology, or with Moses’ own writings, it is unnecessary for me to declare.”
How far in irreverence those old fabulists proceeded, and how little any word of theirs touching me deserves credence, may be learnt from another version of this forgery which Bishop Marsh reports in the same connection as found by him in another Jewish figment, the “Phetirah Moshe.” The substance of the story related in this book, as far as concerns the present inquiry, is as follows. “Moses requests of God, under various pretences, either that he may not die at all, or at least that he may not die before he comes into Palestine. This request he makes in so forward and petulant a manner, as is highly unbecoming not only a great prophet, but even any man. God argues, on the contrary, with great patience and forbearance, and replies to what Moses had alleged to the merit of his own good works. Further, it is God who says to Moses that he must die on account of the sin of Adam; to which Moses answers, that he ought to be excepted because he was superior in merit to Adam, Abraham, Isaac, &c. In the mean time Samael, that is the angel of death, whom the Jews describe as the chief of the devils, rejoices at the approaching death of Moses. This is observed by Michael, who says to him, ‘Thou wicked wretch, I grieve and thou laughest.’ Moses, after his request had been repeatedly refused, invokes heaven and earth, and all creatures around him, to intercede in his behalf. Joshua attempts to pray for him; but the devil stops Joshua’s month, and represents to him the impropriety of such a prayer. The elders of the people, and with them all the children of Israel, then offer to intercede for Moses; but their mouths are likewise stopped by a million, eight hundred and forty thousand devils, which, on a moderate calculation, makes three devils to one man. After this, God commands the angel Gabriel to fetch the soul of Moses; but Gabriel excuses himself, saying that Moses was too strong for him. Michael receives the same order, and excuses himself in the same manner, or, as other accounts say, under pretence that he had been the instructor of Moses, and therefore could not bear to see him die. But this last excuse, according to the Phetirah Moshe, was made by Zinghiel, the third angel who received this command. Samael, that is, the devil, then offers his services; but God asks him how he would take hold of Moses, whether by his mouth, or by his hands, or by his feet, saying that every part of Moses was too holy for him to touch. The devil, however, insists on bringing the soul of Moses; yet he does not accuse him; for, on the contrary, he prizes him higher than Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. The devil then approaches toward Moses to execute this voluntary commission; but as soon as he sees the shining countenance of Moses, he is seized with a violent pain, like that of a woman in labour. Moses, instead of using the Oriental salutation, ‘Peace be with thee,’ says to him, in the words of Isaiah (lvii. 21), ‘There is no peace to the wicked.’ The devil replies, that he was come by the order of God to fetch his soul; but Moses deters him from the attempt by representing his own strength and holiness, and saying, ‘Go, thou wicked wretch; I will not give thee my soul.’ He affrights the devil in such a manner that he immediately returns. The devil then returns to God and relates what had passed, and receives an order to go a second time. The devil answers that he would go everywhere God commanded him, even into hell and into fire, but not to Moses. This remonstrance, however, is of no avail, and he is obliged to go back again. But Moses, who sees him coming with a drawn sword, meets him with his miraculous rod, and gives him so severe a blow with it, that the devil is glad to escape. Lastly, God himself comes; and Moses, having then no further hopes, requests only that his soul may not be taken out of his body by the devil. This request is granted him. Zinghiel, Gabriel and Michael then lay him on a bed; and the soul of Moses begins to dispute with God, and objects to its being taken out of a body which was so pure and holy that no fly dared settle on it. But God kisses Moses, and with a kiss extracts his soul from his body. Upon this God utters a heavy lamentation; and thus the story in the Phetirali Moshe ends, without any mention of a dispute about the burial of Moses’s body. . . “From the account which has been given, it appears that we have very little reason for placing the Epistle of St. Jude among the sacred writings.”
The particulars that I have borrowed from the Bishop of Peterborough may serve the purpose of aiding you, my attentive listener, to understand how religious myths grow up, and how it is that, agreeing in substance, they often in the case of each pair or more of versions differ in particulars; and this knowledge is the more important to you, as you can hardly understand how I so soon and so easily passed out of a dark shadow of fancy into a personal monster, unless you are acquainted with the social and religious media which contributed to the transmutation.
Six references are made to the Apocalypse, as if the Apocalypse were a history, and not a series of visions and pictures, and as if the history contained a forecast of the history of the Church and the world; whereas it expressly declares that it pertains to things then “shortly to come to pass/’ the whole horizon of which is bounded by the reign of the beast, that is the emperor Nero (A.D. 54—67).
The references, taken in their natural order, stand thus: ix. 20, xii. 7, xii. 9, xx. 1—9, xx. 2, xx. 10.
The thesis which ix. 20 is brought to sustain is, “He (the devil) causes himself to be worshiped under the veil of idols, and excites bad passions in mens souls; and he has even succeeded in corporally seizing certain persons and in tormenting them.”
As to the worship of myself under the veil of idols, it is now known and acknowledged by all competent judges, that the alleged fact is but a supposition, a baseless theory held before and after the introduction of Christianity. The ignorance here displayed by the author argues ill for his sufficiency for the duty he has taken on himself. No longer can the calumny shew its face in cultivated circles, for one of the deductions of the history and the philosophy of religion made during the last hundred years on the most solid basis, is this, namely, that the divinities of paganism were not poetical or mythological fictions, but the least imperfect views of God that nations in their infancy could attain and hold; and if God himself compassionately shut his eyes in presence of this ignorance (Acts xvii. 22, seq.), it ill becomes Christian divines, whose conception of God is in these latter ages full, to say the least, of incongruities, to throw their shortsightedness in the teeth of Romans and Greeks, the authors or the transmitters of Western culture. For what concerns me in this matter, I well know, whatever aspersions bigotry may cast on me or my worshipers, that the Gentiles in their divine services never meant to adore me, but to adore the only living and true God. They mostly missed their mark, it is true; but even in failing they learnt to shoot, and so in time were brought over to worship the God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ. Turning now to the passage of Scripture in Apocalypse ix. 20, I find it in no way relates to what I do, or did, but what others did who were given to “the worship of devils and idols of gold and silver, and brass and stone, and of wood, which neither can see, nor hear, nor walk.” Why, what have we here but the derogatory and insulting hypothesis I have just laid bare? Possibly the seer of the Apocalypse believed this falsity, so thick and angry was the cloud that lay on the Judeo-Christian mind of the early part of the first century. None the less is this theory now exploded. Indeed, who in these days can believe that in general the worshipers of Jupiter, Juno, Mars and others, were consciously aware, in the hour of their adoration, that the objects they revered were really not gods, but devils h Such a consciousness would have extinguished their adoration, and lifted the worshipers from their knees to stand erect in the offended dignity of intelligent and moral beings. Vile men will indeed worship what is vile; but of old such depravity was as exceptional as it is to-day.
The next passage (xii. 7—9) runs thus: “And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon fought and his angels; and prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven; and the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the devil and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world; he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.”
There is here one departure from the old legend of the war and ejection of the angels. They are ordinarily hurled down to hell; here, however, they fall no lower than the earth. The diversity might justify a doubt whether they fell at all; in other words, whether we have here to do with fact or fancy. The suspicion thus raised will become a conviction if you study this little-understood composition, which consists, after a prelude and before an epilogue, of a series of grand and imposing pictures, descriptive, not of what took place before or immediately after creation, but what was being done and acted then before the seer’s eyes, there on earth, in the great conflict which raged between pagan tyranny and persecution on the one side, and the young and tender Church of Christ on the other. In this sublime panorama all the names represent not persons, but powers. They are the gigantic figures on the canvas, which describe and denote the several forces which in this great and supreme crisis of the infant Church fight against God, Christ and man. Thus they fight, but they fight in vain; for immediately after the last cited words a paean of victory is sung in these exulting terms: “Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ; for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before God day and night. And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death. Therefore, rejoice ye heavens, and ye that dwell in them.”
One stroke of reality in these pictorial scenes brings our feet at once on to the firm set earth of fact and history in the middle of that first century of our era. The stroke of reality is, “They loved not their lives unto the death.” Yes; it is a bitter and deadly persecution which is here intended and described. It is the massacre which Nero perpetrated on the early Christians when, after fiddling over the flames of the burning city of Rome kindled by himself, he committed ‘the unparalleled atrocity of doing his utmost to throw the ignominy of his deed on the already over-weighted and cruelly tormented shoulders of the comparatively few disciples of Jesus that met perhaps in the catacombs to worship God, as bidden and encouraged by Christ. In view of ferocity and impiety such as this, no wonder the indignant seer heaped on the tyrant’s head all the terrific epithets that the burning Muse of successive apocalyptic prophets had put into circulation, in order to brand the enemies of God and man. And these very epithets which simple-minded men now take as denoting veritable persons, those angels, those devils, were adopted for the very purpose of striking the foe without, in naming him expressly, giving him an opportunity of wreaking his terrible vengeance on his suffering and indignant assailants. No, it was more than their lives were worth to call Nero, their diabolical persecutor, Nero; but they could denounce him, and denounce him so as to be understood by their maltreated fellow-believers, who had the key to the imagery set in motion; they could and they did denounce the emperor, whose name in Hebrew letters makes up the number of the beast, viz., 666, as “the great dragon, that old serpent, called the devil and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world.”
Thus once more the house that was built on the sand sinks and falls to ruin. Very strange it is that an edifice so compromising to God and so pernicious to man should have ever been erected on so perishable a basis; but still more strange that at this time of day theologians and professors of Christianity should be found ignorant enough, or enough diseased in mind, to render what they consider systematic support to a whole system of fable, which, being taken as a constituent of the gospel, is daily and hourly dragging the bark of Peter down beneath the surface and on toward the depths of the ocean.
The apocalyptic tragedy is brought to a close in the remaining references to the book of Revelation; namely, xx. 1—9, xx. 2, xx. 10. The same thought that I have already expounded is continued and completed here. What has been said of the earlier acts of the drama holds good of the last act.
Only I must guard you, my young friend, against a possible mistake. To all appearance, the references just repeated are three distinct authorities, and as such they wear an imposing aspect, at least to the uninitiated. In reality they are but one—one text, namely, xx. 1—10, in three forms. This is an effectual way of making a little do the work of much.
A more important fact is this, that there is an appendix at the end of the drama, not unlike what is occasionally found in the explanatory epilogues of old English plays. This appendix describes, as the final triumph of the kingdom of God and Christ, so the final condition of the moral universe. Only for a few words can I find room for what scarcely appertains to my history; and yet, seeing that it is its natural, nay its inevitable, sequel and permanent result, I. cannot feel altogether disconnected with it.
“And I saw” (the seer of the Apocalypse is the speaker, xxi.)—”And I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away. And I John saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband; and I heard a great voice out of heaven, saying, Behold the tabernacle of God is with men, and he shall dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be their God. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain; for the former things are passed away. But there is a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb, and on either side of the river the tree of life bearing fruits for the healing of the nations: and there SHALL BE NO MORE CURSE!”
“No more curse” means, no more sin and no more devil. I am unutterably happy at seeing myself thus extinguished by New Testament authority. The ideal is delightful, if its realization is remote; but the certainty of its fulfilment is guaranteed by the great principles, aims and tendencies of the religion of Jesus; for its paternal Deity cannot accomplish his designs without delivering the human race from iniquity and superstition. These evils at an end, my reign is over.
I resume the specific consideration of the passages of Scripture brought forward by M. Meylan. Let us see what he adduces from the letter ascribed to the apostle Peter, yet not without grounds of doubt.
“Be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary the devil as a roaring lion walketh about seeking whom he may devour.” (1 Pet. v. 8).
This passage our authority takes literally. Manifestly, whatever the apostle intends, he here employs a figure. Were I to walk about in the shape of an actual lion seeking my prey, I should find no mortal so silly as to be caught by me. I might terrify; I could not entrap. And so the literal sense is untenable, inasmuch as it would rob me of the very power which the clerical theory invests me with. It is indeed little, if at all, better than an assumption that a particular person is here intended. Instead of devil, understood as referring to me, the Rev. Gilbert Wakefield, a superior scholar and an enlightened divine, has in his excellent translation of the New Testament, “your slanderous adversary,” thus expressing the two epithets, “your adversary the devil,” in a single phrase. To the same effect is the translation given by the “Improved Version,” namely, “your adversary, the false accuser” thus wisely regarding the term ****** as a descriptive and not a personal noun. And beyond a doubt this is what Peter meant. Obviously he wrote the letter in order to put the Jews of the dispersion in Asia Minor on their guard against a terrible persecution. The letter is full of allusions and advice to this effect. Read the whole, and you will not fail to see that the apostle had no reference to “the chief of the fallen angels,” but to some human foe who employed calumny as a means of ensnaring and destroying his victims.
Pastor Meylan in the same connection declares that I even perform miracles in order to seduce my victims. If I perform miracles, I do so either with or without the Almighty. If with the Almighty, he performs the miracle, not I, who am but an instrument in his hand. If without him, then, if I am not the Almighty, I share his power, and so sharing his power take from him his almightiness. In other words, I dethrone God, which means that I am God rather than he.
Such are the conclusions to which these theological figments inevitably lead. How can those who minister at the altar thus desecrate the altar at which they minister?
And now mark the extent of the power and dominion with which these absurdities invest me. The correlation and general equilibrium of forces in the universe involve the fact, that a note touched here has its vibrations everywhere; consequently a discord produced in Palestine reverberates throughout the universe. This declares that the rupture of one of God’s laws is the rupture of all. But what, as ordinarily understood, is a miracle? What but a rupture of some law of God? If then I work a miracle, I, in breaking one physical law, set all the physical laws in clash and clang. But a universe in clash and clang is a universe in ruins. I then have the power to cast all things into chaos. For order I can introduce disorder; beauty I can replace by deformity. Nay, I have done so. I did so when Jesus in Palestine withstood me. I do so every day. Verily, I am a wonder-worker indeed; for over and over again have I reduced the universe to confusion, and that without taking the trouble to piece together the fragments of one blow before I proceed to another. These are miracles—miracles greater than any wrought by Jesus, for I break the broken, as if broken it had never been.
A truce to such absurdities! And I check myself, remembering that Tertullian, that redoubtable Latin Father of the second century, who delighted in theological parodoxes, believed, and taught others to believe, what was unbelievable, on the very ground that unbelievable it was. I quote his words in a literate version:
“The Son of God died it is credible because it is absurd: ‘the Son of God was buried and rose again’ it is certain because it is impossible!”
The worst of this very bad instance remains to be mentioned. The miracles, our authority declares—the miracles I perform, I perform for the purpose of seducing souls. Take the whole, then, as a whole, and it comes to this, that God through me sets the physical universe in irretrievable confusion, in order to confound and stultify the moral universe. After this, nothing more needs be said to expose the awful impiety involved in the supernatural, or rather preternatural, agency ascribed to me. And here you have an instance of the way in which one falsity is often intensified by another. When miracles are ascribed to me, and when by miracles is meant an interruption of the laws of nature, then ensue the fearful consequences I have just described. But such an interruption is the essence of miracle, according to the common view. I am not going out of my path to correct theological errors in general, but I must caution you against the common misconception of miracle. Miracle, as usually understood, is the very impossibility that Tertullian contemplated; for impossible is it for God to break his own laws. This would be nothing short of God warring against God. Whatever Jesus was or did, that was he and that did he in complete unison with the Divine will, which is the Divine law.
I have dealt with M. Meylan’s evidence from one apostle. I turn to that which he adduces from another. Four references are made to the writings of the apostle Paul, and first the words in 2 Thessalonians ii. 9. Turn to the passage, and you will be easily able to verify my allegations. The apostle speaks here (1—9) of some false interpretation of the second coming of Christ, by which members of the church at Thessalonica had been troubled and misled (1—3). Consequently we have to do with, not an everlasting truth, but an error of the day, a misconception which the writer proceeds to correct. In order to do so, he declares that before Christ comes, “the man of sin,” “the son of perdition,” who even assumes the functions of God and is worshiped, must be manifested, and not only manifested, but destroyed. The manifestation of this “mystery of iniquity” is for a time delayed. When the delay ceases, the wicked one will appear. His coming is Satanical, being accompanied with “unreal power, and signs, and wonders.”
Here is a clear description of Antichrist. Antichrist is imperial Rome, the great foe and assailant (“he who opposeth,” literally the opponent) of the Gospel. His personality is prudently concealed under the designation of a mystery, “the mystery of iniquity.” When, however, he does make his appearance, it will be “after the working of Satan, that is, with all lying power and signs and wonders.” In other words, the great persecution on the part of some advisedly unnamed Roman emperor which must precede the second coming of Christ, and to which that coming will put at end, will be accompanied with power, signs and wonders, which have their source and their support in deception. What then postpones the coming of Antichrist? The cause is represented as a person, o Kareytov, the restrainer (7). By this phrase the emperor Claudius, Nero’s predecessor, is intended. Accordingly the passage, taken as a whole, is to this effect: “Be not disturbed, as if the coming of Christ were immediate. Before that event, there will be a sanguinary persecution of the Church which will occasion apostasy. The dire assailant, as I have intimated, is imperial Rome. For a time that iniquitous power is restrained. When that restraint is withdrawn, the lion will break loose and rage far and wide. His raging will be short, for his power is unreal. Then will the power of God in Christ appear and destroy the ravager.” You have, then, in the passage in manifest features, 1st, “the man of sin,” the Antichrist of the Apocalypse; 2nd, he by whom the man of sin is curbed, the reigning emperor; 3rd, the persecuted Church; and 4th, the Lord Jesus. M. Meylan puts in the claims of Satan. To Satan no act is ascribed. “After the working” (or according to the operation) of Satan, is a periphrastical adverb, signifying Satanically, and that Satanically is forthwith explained by the words, “with all unreal power and signs and wonders.” Yon thus see that in substance this passage of Scripture describes the great and ever-enduring conflict that proceeds between God, Christ, and the foes of man—sin and delusion, controlled and impelled by the policy of civil despotism.
I deny, then, that the apostle introduces me here as a person at all. He does mention my name, but allusively alone. He does mention my name, but not so as to shew that he believed in my existence. His language may intimate that my name was current as symbolical of the false, the unreal, the perishable. But this is all that it necessarily implies. And this is in complete agreement with my averment, namely, that the language of the day was coloured and darkened by Oriental demonology.
The man of sin is characterized by the usurpation of divine honours. The emperors of Rome, in the middle of the first century, took the title of divine, and were even called gods. As such they were worshiped. But the disciples of Christ, who worshiped God alone, could not and would not worship them. Hence to worship them became a test and proof of being a Christian. When, then, a person was brought before the Roman tribunals, charged with the crime of believing in Christ, this test was applied to him: “Sacrifice,” said the Proconsul, “sacrifice to Caesar. You hesitate? You have only to throw a little frankincense upon the altar that stands there beneath his bust: sacrifice, I bid you, sacrifice to Nero Caesar. You will not? Then, lictor, do your duty; this is one of the sect of Christians.” Such in effect was the scene which at the time that the letter was written was being enacted in the more civilized parts of the Roman empire. This, “the man of sin,” is further described as acting Satanically by means of misrepresentation and imposture. Here, again, some immediate operation is alluded to. The context suggests that it is the delusion by which the Thessalonians had been misled and troubled. This delusion had apparently been put forwards by agents of the “man of sin,” that is, by the civil government of Thessalonica. Nor was that power incapable of deception. Indeed, it was supported in its opposition to Christ by jugglery. No sooner had Christianity stept forth into the world, than it was encountered by a combination of all manner of falsities. The oracles, struck dumb with fear, made spasmodic exertions to extinguish the new light which they dreaded. Dealers in the black arts of magic, witchcraft, divination, &c., seeing that their craft was in danger, hastened to array their forces against the common foe, whom they instinctively recognized in the Christian Church. Never in the ancient world were the cultivators of pretended science more numerous or more active on their own behalf than they were in the Roman empire immediately after the establishment of the Church. And the pagan priests, conscious of their intrinsic weakness and alarmed for the safety of their system, encouraged mountebanks whom they should have been the foremost to expose and put down. Nor was even imperial Rome unwilling to bolster up its authority by the aid of arts and practices which it knew to be false and deceptive, but which it also found to be useful. With this “mystery of iniquity” Paul was familiar. He encountered it on his missionary travels in Elymas, the magician who tried to turn away from the faith the proconsul Sergius Paulus, whose heart was moved toward the gospel (Acts xiii. 6, seq.).
Not long after, the apostle came into collision with it in the neighbourhood of Thessalonica, when it appeared in a certain damsel possessed with a spirit of divination, which brought her (Roman) masters much gain by soothsaying” (Acts xvi. 16). These vile means are referred to by the apostle when he describes the opponents (verse 4) as working Satanically with (so the passage should be rendered) “all false power and signs and wonders.” Observe, then, that the miracles ascribed by M. Meylan to me are denounced by Paul as falsities. Indeed, independently of the correction I have made in the translation, the apostle, by the words, “with all power and signs and lying wonders” no more pledges himself to the reality of those means, than does the writer in the Acts teach that Simon’s magic (Acts viii. 9), or the maiden’s divination, were realities. Clearly, these black arts are spoken of according to the view of them which commonly prevailed.
And now you see how groundless is Pastor Meylan’s assertion, “He (the devil) even works miracles to seduce them” (the disciples of Christ).
But at this point I must draw your attention to a not uncommon artifice. First, bear in mind that whatever is said in the passage which we have studied, is said in regard to the men and the circumstances of the day when it was written. This must be taken to be the case, unless in any particular case the writer makes a clear exception by announcing a general fact or a universal truth. Nothing of the kind has’ come under our eyes. Nevertheless, the proposition which this scripture is adduced to support is a general fact and a universal truth. How is it made so? Simply by assumption on the part of the writer. He writes in the present tense, and so universalizes what he says; and universalizing what he says, he creates all the comprehensiveness there is in his statement. This is not to interpret Scripture, but to invent and enforce beliefs; and to do both in the most effectual manner, because silently, unpretendingly, and as if unconsciously.
A second passage adduced from the writings of the apostle to the Gentiles is found in these his words: “Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil; for we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places” (Ephes. vi. 11, 12). The passage is brought forward by M. Meylan to sustain this his proposition: “the devil and his angels exercise an influence over the heart of men in order to impel them to evil.” Now this statement, and that made by Paul (whatever it signifies), are clearly not tantamount, You cannot, I mean, put the one for the other; the two are not interchangeable. If not, they differ. The difference may be in substance or in form, in one particular or in several No matter; they differ; and, differing, this cannot be taken for that, nor that for this. I give as an instance the fact, that while Paul does mention the devil, the theologian mentions “the devil and his angels.” This one difference vitiates the whole, for it destroys the identity of the two.
The writer, however, by implication tells you in the twelfth verse what he means by “the devil” mentioned in the eleventh; and it is no person at all, but certain abstractions which he describes as not flesh and blood (that is, ordinary humanity), but “principalities and powers, the rulers of the darkness of the world, against spiritual wickedness in high places;” namely, the evil authorities in church and state that did their utmost to crush the religion of Jesus in its cradle. This formidable, idolatrous and libertine power was the devil or adversary that Paul had in view, and with which he had to wrestle in common with all the children of God. By such rulers the apostle was detained in prison while writing this Epistle (comp. i. 20). The imagery is a scenic representation derived from the Oriental philosophy, and as such not to be taken to represent reality. As well suppose that the kings and queens that fret and stalk upon the mimic stage are kings and queens indeed.
When war devastates lands, cities and homes, or when persecution slaughters the elect ones of the Church, what more natural than that prophetic indignation, or the outraged sense of humanity, should blast the criminals by names which in the olden time were used to denote diabolical potentates? No one that at this hour (Jan. 1,1870) witnesses the widely-spread disaster, ruin and woe, under which France is suffering, could hesitate to denounce Louis Napoleon, its guilty cause, as a demon, as Apollyon the destroyer.
The two remaining passages quoted from Paul may appear to shew that the apostle believed in the devil. The passages (2 Cor. xi. 3; 1 Cor. x. 20) in combination state that “the “serpent beguiled Eve through his subtlety,” and that “the Gentiles sacrificed to devils, and not to God.” Both these propositions we have previously met with. The former rests on the second account of creation, and has been already judged. The second is connected with the falsity already condemned, to the effect that the objects worshiped by the pagans were the fallen angels. This is a Jewish fable. That is a Persian legend. Both were received by Paul among the rudiments of the education which he underwent in the schools of Tarsus and at the feet of Gamaliel. Whatever Pio Nono may do, Paul never pretended to infallibility. Ever does he speak of himself in a tone of modesty. In a matter of practical morals, after declaring his “judgment,” he adds, “and I think that I also have the spirit of God” (1 Cor. vii 40). Even in regard to so momentous a matter as “the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord,” he says, “Not that I have already obtained or am already made perfect, but I press on, if so be that I may lay hold on that for which also I am laid hold on by Christ” (Philipp, iii. 8, seq.). In general terms he confesses, “We know in part, and we prophesy in part; but when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part will be done away; for now we see through a glass darkly; but then face to face” (1 Cor. xiii. 9, seq.). What a rebuke, too, does he utter against all who set up their knowledge as the standard of divine truth, measuring every man’s corn by their own bushel, when he says, “If any man think that he knoweth anything, he knoweth it not yet as he ought to know it. Knowledge puffeth up, but charity edifieth. If any man love God, the same is known (owned) by him” (1 Cor. viii. 2—4).
I am now brought to the one historical passage in Acts xxvi. 18 referred to by pastor Meylan. The words form part of the address which Paul heard when, on his mission of persecution to Damascus, he was struck to the earth and converted to Christianity: “The Gentiles unto whom I (the risen Jesus) now send thee, to open their eyes, that they may turn from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among those that are sanctified.” Were it certain that this speech received no unconscious colouring from Paul’s belief in Satan, and that the speaker believed in the devil as a personal being, then the passage might be adduced as an instance in which a recognition of Satan fell from the lips of Jesus; but as an independent testimony it has no logical value. I shall immediately proceed to consider what position Jesus held in regard to belief in myself, and consequently leave this point in the scales. If, however, we look at the passage itself, we find its tenor adverse to the personal hypothesis. The mission was designed to “open the eyes” of the Gentiles; that is, to communicate religious truth to them, to convert them to the religion of Christ. This office is, for the sake of emphasis, described as turning the Gentiles from darkness to light. A third view is given, namely, to turn them from the power of Satan to God. Not necessarily is Satan to be here understood as denoting in the mind of Jesus a person, myself. The meaning is fully expressed, if instead of Satan we understand the speaker to indicate the power of error and sin. Satan may indeed be a popular personification of those moral evils. What else am I when Jesus says to Peter, “Get thee behind me, Satan” (Matt. xvi. 23). This admitted, all is averred that can be averred with certainty. Clearly the speaker is here in the regions of spiritual imagery. To open the eyes is one image; to turn from darkness to light is another image. It is a fair inference that to turn from Satan is a third. The presumption, then, is clearly against M. Meylan when, overlooking the figurative language of the two previous instances, he takes the third figure as a literal reality.
Something more substantial seems to present itself in the passage quoted from the Epistle of James in these words:
“Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well; the devils also believe and tremble” (ii. 19). I will first consider the passage as it stands before you now. Be so good as to read the next verse. It runs thus: “But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead?” So, then, agreeing with the devils in belief denotes “a vain (in the Greek it is empty) man.” If such agreement is an empty thing when it involves the acknowledgment of God as one, how much more empty must it be when it asserts the existence of devils! Nevertheless, that existence is not asserted by James. He merely quotes a common form of speech, and he quotes it in order to shew how vain belief in any mere proposition is, for “belief without works is dead” (v. 20). It follows that belief in me is really of small importance. And yet what deadly influence has it had on human beings and human affairs! But now let us look at our Greek New Testament. The word rendered devils is *****, that is demons, and by the Latin daemones is it rendered in the Vulgate or Roman Catholic Version. The English term devils comes from Luther’s translation, which has Die teufel, the devils. Luther was a great * believer in devils, and he has left the impression of his belief in the English authorized translation, which gives devils as the equivalent of the Greek ***** in all cases except one. In Acts xvii. 18, the Epicureans and Stoics who withstood the apostle Paul on the hill of Mars in Athens, say of the apostle, “He seemeth to be a herald of foreign gods” Which translation is right? Here, too, the English slavishly follow Luther. Which is the proper rendering—devils or gods?
To prosecute the inquiry as to what the ***** or demons of the New Testament really were, would occupy us too long. You will remember that Josephus describes them as the spirits of departed men of bad character. This opinion has been backed up by much learning. If this is correct, then James does not speak of me and mine, but of deceased human beings who took possession of and tortured living human beings. Now that possession was imaginary and not real, the effects which occasioned the notion arising from mental disorders. And in that case James does nothing more than reflect the common opinion of his day. Nor, indeed, whatever may be the view which he took of possession or of the demons in general, can more be ascribed to him in this passage. For, notice, he does not declare that devils exist; still less does he declare that they are personal beings; but, while treating of a totally different subject, namely, the necessity of works to faith, if faith is to be real, he uses in the way of illustration a statement which, implying the existence of devils and implying their having belief, pledges him to nothing more than the recognition of a common saying or proverb. In other terms, you here find in the language of ordinary Jewish society that belief in devils of which I have supplied you with abundant proof. It still, however, remains an open question, how far that belief was shared by the apostle; for certainly the question is not settled by this, the one sole reference to the subject supplied in this Epistle.
Having examined the one solitary passage taken from the Epistle of James, I will now set down the proposition which it is adduced by M. Meylan to establish: “The devils tremble before (or in the presence of) God.” Now “before God” is a mere addition. The text does not contain these words. Be-move them, and the proposition becomes, “The devils tremble.” This statement is made in the nineteenth century. The words of James were uttered in the first century. If the devils trembled then, it does not follow that they tremble now. But the author’s theory says that they tremble always. Always, therefore, are they made to tremble.
Here comes my parting word on this point. In the Gospels we find the demoniacs or maniacs (“lunatics” they are called in Matt. iv. 24, xvii. 15) were sometimes troubled and distressed in the presence of Jesus. Thus the demoniac mentioned in Luke iv. 33, says on seeing Jesus approach, “Let us alone; what have we to do with thee, thou Jesus of Nazareth? Art thou come to destroy us? I know thee, who thou art; the Holy One of Israel.” The poor maniac, sharing in the popular superstition, speaks as one under the influence of a malignant spirit. He is afraid of the Messiah, who, in the popular tradition, was to destroy my kingdom of darkness. Accordingly he trembles before “the Holy One of Israel.”
Here, my faithful companion, you find the root of the statement made by the apostle James, to the effect that “the devils believe and tremble.” You now see what it is they do believe touching God. They believe that olla podrida, or mess of traditional pottage, to which I have frequently alluded. In such a soil man’s illusions may grow, but not God’s realities.
“The Acts of the Apostles” supplies M. Meylan with one passage; one, and no more. Here, perhaps, I shall find a distinct and explicit statement of this doctrine of devils, which is so fundamental that a learned German theologian says in relation to it: “He who believes himself constantly beset by devils, to whose baleful influences his soul is subject, is placed in a totally different religious atmosphere to that of us, who find evil solely in a diseased condition of our own will, and accordingly have to fight with ourselves, and not with spirits of the air.” How clearly and exactly Jesus laid down the fundamental principles of his religion is exemplified by the greater portion of his teachings. Take, for instance, “the Parable of the Prodigal Son;” take the Beatitudes; “the Sermon on the Mount,” as instances. Yet even these invaluable instructions are not more important than is a view of God, the world and the universe, which changes the position, character and issues of all, at least as much as Galileo’s discovery of the centrality of the sun changed the view of the physical cosmos, and changes it not for the better but for the worse, and so as to make the whole look like a huge aggregate of at least moral chaos and dismay. I am then justified in demanding a scriptural statement equally formal and emphatic with that of M. Meylan. Nay, more; let him, if he can—let him, as he ought, according to his own principles, adduce the Scripture which states exactly and in its own words what he states in his words, and requires his readers to believe as infallibly true because taught in the Bible. I have said “the Scripture;” I want one Scripture which makes the affirmation or affirmations on behalf of which he adduces the sole passage he has found in the book of Acts. He is wholly unable to comply with the demand. What, however, does he bring forward? These words: “I (Jesus in his glorified state) send thee (Saul of Tarsus) to open the eyes of the Gentiles, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God” (Acts xxvii. 15—18). Instead of a distinct, explicit and formal statement, you have here, dear Theophilus, words spoken in a vision, and heard in an overpowering excitement, which at the utmost speak allusively of me, and of me as possessing power. But what realities the words represent, remains wholly uncertain. Are the words the words of the speaker or the hearer h Was the hearer in so sound a state of mind as to hear clearly and report exactly what the speaker said? Did that other speak at all? And if sordid he in speaking to an overwhelmed Jewish bigot do aught else than employ phraseology which was current in his day touching the kingdom of Satan? One thing, however, is certain, namely, that the language is metaphorical, and that the metaphor employed finds its explanation in the world of reality in two preceding phrases; viz., “to open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light.” Hence it appears that the mission which Paul really received was a religious, a spiritual mission. It follows, that if “the mind of Jesus” may be learnt from the bulk of his own words as given in the Synoptical Gospels, he commissioned the converted Saul to the work of teaching men “to repent and turn to God, and to do works meet for repentance, that they might receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that is in me” (Acts xxvi. 16—20, compare 23).
I have now conducted you through nearly one half of the New Testament. We have, under the direction of M. Meylan studied the Apocalypse, the Epistles, and the book of Acts, Every proof-text we have looked carefully into. What is the result? We have, as I led you to expect, found instances in which mention is made of devils, but not one clear case in which the sacred writer declared his belief in them. Some of the passages, indeed, are such as, if the existence of the ecclesiastical devil had been previously established, would admit of that interpretation. But no solid independent proof thereof have we found. It is easy to see that belief in me existed in the medium in which the writers lived and worked. It is not easy to determine to what extent, or whether at all, those writers held the vulgar opinions; but we have no positive evidence whatever that those opinions were the same as are now a constituent part of the “saving faith” of orthodoxy.
SECTION II. THE GOSPELS: JOHN, MATTHEW, MARK, LUKE.
And thus I am, in due course, brought to the Gospels. The question to be decided is: Do the Gospels shew that Jesus believed in a personal devil, such as I am now described to be?
Certain points have been previously established. First, the Hebrew nation, a branch (indeed the chief branch) of the Shemitic people, after emerging from their state of religious pupilage, were, and persistently remained, rigorous monotheists, who not only owned the one only living and true God, but waged war against all false divinities, and specially opposed the Zoroastrian dualism, in which the notion of a devil, or originator of moral evil, first came into full and definite existence. In consequence, their classic literature presents no trace of a personal devil, and it is only at a late period, and among popular superstitions, that diabolical mythology makes an appearance. That appearance, at first shadowy and infrequent, if not equivocal also, taking place in degenerate ages, when the monotheism of the prophets had been distempered by foreign ingredients, increased alike in bulk and diversity, until in what, in a large sense, may be termed the age of Jesus, it became a substantial part of the national belief, and, mixed up with Messianic misconceptions and apocalyptic dreams, went far to madden the populace and precipitate the fatal collision with Rome. In a word, during the public ministry of Jesus, the air, so to say, was in Judea full of devils and demons. Was the vulgar conception shared by Jesus? This one or two considerations will shew to be improbable. If Paul was “a Hebrew of the Hebrews” (Philip, iii. o), Jesus was a Shemite of the Shemites. He seized, appropriated and taught, the grand Shemitic idea of one only God, the Creator and Benefactor of all. Proofs are not needed of a fact that most will at once admit. This idea of one God, Jesus so modified as to bring out, in the utmost fulness and beauty, the moral element which it contains. Hence his invocations, “Our Father” (Matt. vi. 9), “Righteous Father’’ (John xvii. 25). Of this one righteous Father the providence is universal, extending not only to the physical and the animal world (Matt. vii. 24, seq.), but also to the intelligent world, and in that world embracing the bad no less than the good (Matt. v. 45), and embracing the bad with such tender and sympathetic care, that he loves even his enemies (44), and sends his Son to minister to the sick rather than to the sound, to call not the righteous but sinners to repentance, to seek and save the lost, and that with such singleness of purpose, as to leave of his flock ninety-and-nine that are quietly browsing the downs, in order to go over hill and dale, and through wood and wilderness, to recover the one lost sheep, which, when found, he lays on his shoulder and bears home rejoicingly.
Here you have the positive side of the mind of Jesus in regard to the solemn and all-comprehensive subject of God and Providence. Now I submit that a mind such as that of Christ, which was pervaded and actuated by that idea, could never, along side of it, have admitted the manifest contradiction thereof which is involved in the notion of the common ecclesiastical devil. To such an extent are the two incompatible, that now, just in proportion as individuals and churches make the first a reality in their minds and lives, does the old superstition recede, until it finally retires and passes into congenial darkness. Of all minds, that of Jesus most fully realized his own idea of God in conception, in sentiment, and in act. Consequently he could not have held its antagonist.
I further observed that Jesus stood before the religion of his forefathers and the religion of his contemporaries as an eclectic. The fact is proclaimed and exemplified by his Sermon on the Mount. Not indiscriminately did he follow either the ancients or the moderns. Not by wholesale did he appropriate the contents of their sacred books. No one feature of his character is more marked and decided than its eclecticism. It is all contained in his own phrase, “It has been said by those of old—but I say unto you,” &c. (Matt. v. 21, seq.). And the general tenor of his antithesis proves beyond a doubt that it was a moral and spiritual power of the ‘widest and deepest kind by which he was actuated in the mental processes by which he chose that and rejected this, enlarged the narrow, converted the partial into the universal, and in the fact dived down and took up its underlying principle, thus in all cases casting aside the external and the temporary, so as to lay firm hold of the intrinsic and everlasting. A mind habituated to such processes could not fail to leave behind the speculative and legendary elements connected with a personal devil.
This eclectic power is essential to his typal character as “the Son of Man.” The child of his race, he stood forth in one aspect as the model man. Being the model man, he contained in himself all possible human perfections. In consequence, he was in his own qualities an anticipation of humanity made perfect. But as humanity has evolved its essential elements, a personal devil has sunk out of sight. At present, moral science does not take the trouble to disprove his existence, so ludicrous does its averment appear. If, then, Jesus did believe in a personal devil, he loses at least so much of his typal character. But something less than perfection is simply imperfection, and so those who uphold the devil disparage Christ, and that in so momentous a matter as to rob him of moral perfection. Yet, without that attribute, if the Christ of yesterday, he is not the Christ of to-day and for ever. Already has a Christ with whom belief in a personal devil is an essential, lost influence over the most intelligent and cultivated portions of the human race. Should the teachers that have the popular ear, following in the footsteps of Pastor Meylan, continue to enforce belief in me, beyond a doubt their loss of the philosophers will be supplemented by the loss of the people, and that in the degree in which knowledge and culture shall cover the earth.
The only other general consideration I offer now is, that the known words of Jesus are free from this spurious element. Those words are presented in his parabolic teachings. The amount is very considerable, and so various are its contents, as to comprise all he had to say on the great object of his mission, namely, the kingdom of God, the kingdom of heaven, the nature and attractiveness thereof, the conditions of admission, and the rewards and retributions which membership involves. Here you have that “gospel of the kingdom” which is “the good seed” and “the word of God.” Make your mind familiar therewith; it is what his heavenly Father taught Jesus in order that he might teach, and in teaching save the world. The whole sphere of this most wise, most salutary, most simple, most sublime and most impressive doctrine is, almost without exception, free from national, local, partial, legendary elements. To exhibit this fact to your eyes would require me to extract the larger part of the four Gospels. I must here leave you in the main to your own studies. And this I can do with the greater confidence, because I am about to consider the real or fancied exceptions as they are presented by M. Meylan.
In number, the passages in the Gospels to which he refers in proof of his views on Satan are 17. Of these, 6 are in Matthew, 4 in Mark, 6 in Luke, and 1 in John. His zeal and knowledge may be taken as a guarantee that he has adduced the whole adducible evidence on the point.
Let me first ask your attention to the one reference to the authority of the fourth Gospel. Observe, it is one: what, only one? Only one. And yet this Gospel contains so very many words ascribed to Jesus. Taken as it stands in the common English Version, it contains 919 verses. Of these, two-thirds at least consist of Christ’s words. Of (say) 600 verses, only one verse refers to our subject. Why, this is marvellous indeed! And yet Satan lies at the centre of orthodox theology. The whole system turns round that pivot. Take away the devil, and, the key-stone of the arch being removed, the bridge falls into ruins. And with all the implied reticence on the part of Christ touching myself, not a single word does the Gospel contain touching what are called my angels. Yes, the demoniacs are left out of the fourth Gospel. Nevertheless, it is a requirement of orthodoxy to believe that it was written by John, the beloved disciple, who saw his Master daily casting out demons. What greater testimony can be alleged against the supposition that Jesus believed in a personal devil? Either John must have lost his eyes and ears or lost his memory, or Jesus could not have held the view ascribed to him by Pastor Meylan. You deny that the Gospel is the work of John. Critics of a high character make the affirmation. But then the affirmation clears the way for the statement, that the author of the fourth Gospel wrote expressly, as to universalize the testimony in both its character and its effects, so with a view to that important end to winnow out of the mind of the Church all the legendary tares of devilism and demonism, and to transmit to posterity a portrait of Jesus as he really was, and consequently as free in word as well as thought from “the wood, hay and stubble” of the pagan as well as the Hebraic past.
The one sole passage runs thus: “Ye (the Jews) are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth,, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own; for he is a liar, and the father of it” (viii. 44).
These words represent the opinions either of the speaker or the hearers, so far as the existence and character of Satan are concerned. They cannot have been meant by the writer to represent the opinions of Jesus, since the former has studiously avoided ascribing a belief in a personal devil to the latter, either directly or indirectly, throughout the Gospel. [Moreover, such a belief stands in contradiction with the severe and spiritual monotheism held and published by Jesus. There is, indeed, an alternative which deserves attention. May not the words represent the opinions of the author of the Gospel? It is taught by most eminent modern critics that the fourth Gospel, though containing many historical traits, is yet not so much a biography as a disquisition, written to throw into relief the divine side of Christ, by means of a succession of scenes freely painted by the author out of materials he had at his command. In such a composition, the views of the writer would inevitably interweave themselves with the texture of his work. This view is not a little recommended by the fact, that the author is known to have held the popular notion of a personal devil, since he expresses it in 1 John iii. 8, in these words: ”He that committeth sin is of the devil, for the devil sinneth from the beginning; for this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil.” As, then, it is generally held that the writer of this Epistle is the author of the Gospel, and as we know that he believed in a personal devil from these his own words, we are warranted in asserting that consciously or unconsciously he put his own notions into the mouth of Christ, while placing him on the stage in conversation and conflict with the Jews.
And this he might do with the less hesitation, because, apart from the question of my personal existence, both passages contain a most important and ever-recurring verity. Beyond a doubt, a great conflict is proceeding on the surface of the earth—a conflict between moral evil and moral good. It is also clear that the readiest way to express the fact is to term the conflict as one between God (or Christ) and the devil. This conflict went forward while Jesus was on earth between himself and the Jewish authorities in Church and State; and if ever such authorities deserve to be designated Satan or the devil, they unquestionably did. Indeed, they exhibited in broad and high relief those baser qualities of human nature which led even the earliest ages to acknowledge a prince of darkness and death, as well as a prince of light and life. In those qualities you see the origin and the source of my existence in a personal shape. I am the impersonation of man’s evil, and as man’s evil is found wherever man exists, I have “a local habitation and a name” all over the surface of the earth.
I now ask you to accompany me in an investigation of the more important passages (together with one or two others) adduced by our authority from the three first Gospels. These writings are specially Jewish. They are the products of the Jewish state of thought. As such, they are of course deeply tinged with the prevalent hues of the popular mind. In presenting those colours, they attest their origin and date. They are manifestly productions of the middle of the first century, as the first century was then in the land of Judea. The more closely that age is studied, the more accurately it is known, the clearer does it appear that the Gospels according to Matthew, Mark and Luke, are growths of the Jewish soil, as it was in the days of “Herod the king” and the emperors Tiberius, Nero and Vespasian. Not in vain, then, does this ineffaceable stamp lie on the surface of these writings. Beyond a doubt they contain a genuine and veritable portrait of the Saviour of mankind. But then the likeness is cut in marble that may contract some discolouring, rather than painted in encaustic that ever remains the same.
Let us first look at the references made to the Gospel of Matthew. For the sake of facility I repeat them: they are Matthew iv. 1, xii. 24, ix. 34, xii. 24, iv. 1, xxv. 41; in all, six. But two of these are repeated, namely, iv. 1 and xii. 24. Remove these two, and we have four texts to deal with, namely, iv. 1, ix. 34, xii. 24, and xxv. 41.
The reference iv. 1 is given to substantiate the meaning of the word ***** as given by M. Meylan. That meaning is “calumniator.” Whether this is the primary sense of the word or not, certainly the reference does not sustain or illustrate it. The passage is what is called ”the Temptation of Christ.” Now in that temptation I do not appear in the character of a calumniator. I calumniate no one in it. I speak ill of nothing sacred. I quote Scripture respectfully. But though these are simple facts, and though I do not wish even to seem to bear unduly hard on a Christian minister, I must injustice to myself say, that it is somewhat curious that I find occasion to correct a sacerdotal authority so often and so much. Pursuing this idea, I am compelled to tell him that, in defining anything, it is unwise and unsafe to clutch your definition out of the air. Yet what else does M. Meylan? At the beginning of his article he defines the word devil in these terms: ”(calumniator, Matt. iv. 1) the chief of the rebel angels.” Now these same rebel angels of which he speaks, as if universally known and recognized, are, I have shewn you, my beloved pupil, a mere Jewish version of an old and defunct pagan figment. He adds, that “he is also called Satan.” Well, you and I have studied the Satan of the Old Testament and found that he is no rebel angel at all, but is picturesquely put forward in a kind of dramatic poem as holding a recognized place and discharging a recognized function in “the court of heaven’s high King.” The narrative of the temptation is, as it stands in Matthew (iv. 1), so crowded with improbabilities, not to say moral impossibilities, as to make it seem to me most marvellous that an intelligent teacher of religion should, at this time of day, insist on its being simple history. I abstain, out of reverence, from setting forth the considerations that justify my implications. Bat if this is history, then Christianity must acknowledge that it stands in the issue on a level with Islamism, for this history equals in absurdity certain historical narratives in the Koran. But if this is history, then tell me what differences history from parable. “The parables of our Lord” is a customary phrase which acknowledges that he did utter parables. Now a parable is indeed in form a history—an historical narrative. Take as an example “the Parable of the Prodigal Son.” Here the form is historical, and yet who acknowledges a history in this impressive story? The composition is simply a “moral tale,” say after the manner of Miss Edgeworth. Well, then, how do you know that this is a tale, and that the temptation is a history? You reply (it is all that you can say), that manifestly in the case of the Prodigal Son the events did not take place. If so, then it is a fiction, a fiction full of a moral—a moral, I will add, most precious and most attractive. But what do you mean by ”manifestly”? Give me the distinctive signs and tokens of a parable, as opposed to an historical narrative. You can assign none but a certain degree of improbability. Take Jotham’s parable of how “the trees went forth to anoint a king” (Judg. ix. 7, seq.). You call this, not a history, but a parable: why? “Trees cannot walk or talk.” Very good. Can moral perfection be tempted by moral baseness? Could even “the man Christ Jesus” be tempted by a creature so vile as I am said to be? What! in my own proper form?—and I am not described as assuming another. Why, even Schaeffer, with all his masterly skill, has not succeeded in throwing over his picture of “The Temptation” an air of even aesthetical probability, though he has painted me with such features as almost to tempt me to wish that I were as grand as he represents me. If this fails to reach the height of moral impossibility, that height is surely reached when Christ, who is, the creeds say, God the Son, of the same power and majesty as God the Father, is described as carried through the air from the desert up to the pinnacle of the temple in Jerusalem (Matt. iv. 5). Had such a representation been possible before the eyes of Isaiah, with what holy indignation would he have repeated his glowing words (xl. 18):
“To whom then will ye liken God?
Or what likeness will ye compare unto him?”
In brief, orthodoxy breaks down, and is crushed here under the load of the incredibilities which it has been made to bear.
The temptation of Jesus, as described in the Synoptics, is a parable or allegory, setting forth in a certain dress the states of mind through which Jesus went when brought into connection with the spirit of his age. That spirit was one of gross, selfish, enervated materialism, which was making the ever-recurring mistake of attempting to. overcome evil with evil, and so to reform society by force of arms and the manipulation of wonder-working power of some kind or other. That spirit, during his public ministry, was ever, when he had said or done some one of his glorious realities, eager to take Jesus and make him a king of its own mean sort, that under its gaudy and flaunting banner it might lead the Jewish zealots to victory, and drive the hated Roman from the land. That evil spirit presented itself to the mind of Jesus in attractive colours and with brilliant promises. It met him and solicited him at every turn he took and every step he set, on his missionary journeys, to found the kingdom of God in the land. It assailed him only to be repelled. Foiled under this guise, the evil spirit returned, hoping to seduce him from his loyalty by working on the cravings of his appetite. Failing again, it appealed to his ambition. The most powerful incentives of the human heart were wrought upon, in order to turn Jesus aside from his purely spiritual mission. It was all in vain. He remained faithful to God and duty, and so rose superior to the blandishments of sense.
Thus viewed, the parable which is called “the Temptation” is a dramatic anticipation of the real history which Jesus lived, while founding on earth the kingdom of heaven. Thus much for its substance. Its form it inevitably took from the phraseology of the age. Even while speaking of it now, I am obliged to use, as I have done, the phrase “this evil spirit.” To make my form into the form of the narrative, I have only to use a capital instead of a small letter, writing this, this Evil Spirit, and I employ language which may be understood as denoting myself.
So slight is the difference between the natural sense and the demonological sense. That slight difference existed in the first century, no less than in the nineteenth. Along side of the vulgar state of mind, that regarded “the devil and his angels” as personal realities, there stood another of a higher, a purely moral order, which, looking through these dark shadows, discerned the substances which they represented as well as veiled. With such persons, Satan was man’s adversary in general; for did not his name signify adversary; and might not any one who acted adversely to another be called Satan, without it being implied that he was one of “the fallen angels”? In short, these infernal divinities were at the time as fast falling from their thrones, as are Italian, French, German and other princes in the present age. In men whose spiritual vision was pure and piercing enough to get below the surface to the eternal realities, the heathen divinities were divinities no longer, and I myself had sunk to an empty name. Such an eye was that of Jesus, who, seeing objects as they are seen of God, saw me in the aerial lineaments of verbal imagery, and accordingly applied my name to human beings when their character or conduct was low, mean or treacherous. Did he not call his own apostle Satan h What! was the prince of the apostles—was he on whom, as the rock, the Papal Church claims to be built—was Peter really Satan? And yet can words be more distinct, or, I may add, more reproachful? ”Get thee behind me, Satan; thou art a stumbling-block unto me; for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men” (Matt. xvi. 23). A similar use of the term Satan is in the original found in 2 Samuel xix. 22, in these words used by David: “What have I to do with you, ye sons of Zeruiah, that ye should this day be adversaries (Satans) unto me h Shall there be any man put to death this day in Israel? for do not I know that I am this day king over Israel? What difference, then, is there between Christ’s, “Get thee behind me, Satan,” addressed to Peter, and his “Get thee hence, Satan” (Matt. iv. 10), forming part of “the Parable of the Temptation”? In the same figurative manner Jesus used the word Satan when the seventy disciples reporting to him the success of their mission in this figure of speech, “Lord, even the demons are subject unto us through thy name,” Jesus, with his prophetic eye foreseeing the downfall of the kingdom of sin and evil, figuratively described as the kingdom of Satan, replied: “I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven” (Luke x. 17), immediately adding, as if to shew that it was with the aid of striking imagery that he spoke of the evils and woes of human kind: “Behold I give you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall by any means hurt you; notwithstanding, in this rejoice not that the spirits are subject to you; but rather rejoice that your names are written in heaven.” The last member of the whole suffices to emphasize the figurative character of this language. “Your names are written in heaven,” is an image declaring that these successful missionaries were called and elect servants of God. If, however, you will insist on taking Satan as a proper name, contrary to the general tenor of the passage and without any logical necessity, then be consistent, and take serpents as meaning serpents, and scorpions as meaning scorpions, though to do so you must act in direct opposition to the obviously spiritual and religious import of the whole. Clearly you can deduce no argument in favour of Christ’s recognition of a personal devil from the circumstances, because had he ever so much wished to employ spiritual phraseology to describe spiritual realities, he had not here, nor indeed in any case when he addressed the people, any sort of option, since he was compelled to speak to them of moral and religious things in their own tongue, and beyond a doubt that tongue, as you have already had reason to know, overflowed with demonological phrases.—Before I leave this point I must add a word or two. I opened it by declaring that the word “calumniator” was not the essential meaning of the term *****, and all that I have said goes to shew that, in this application at least, tempter is the right term. There is no reason why the devil should be vilified. Why calumniate the ”calumniator? True Christian “charity” thinketh no evil even of Satan. The next proof alleged is Matthew ix. 34, which is more fully reported in Luke xi. 14, which I cite in a corrected version: “Jesus was casting out a demon that was dumb. And when the demon was cast out, the dumb spoke, and the multitudes wondered. And others, trying him, sought of him a sign from heaven. But he, knowing their thoughts, said to them: Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to ruin, and a family divided against a family falleth. If Satan also be divided against himself, how can his kingdom stand? I ask the question because ye say that I cast out demons by Beelzebub. But if I by Beelzebub cast out demons, by whom do your sons cast them out? Therefore they shall be your judges. But if I by the finger of God cast out demons, then the kingdom of God is come unto you.” The answer is beyond a doubt an appeal to the argumentum ad hominem. Jesus, the more effectually to confute his detractors, looks at the matter from their point of view. Believing in devils, demons, Satan and Beelzebub, and ascribing dumbness, with other maladies, to demoniacal influence, as you have seen from Josephus, they accuse Jesus of employing for his purposes demoniacal aid. Whereupon out of their own charge, and in their own words, he constructs a contradiction of the most effectual kind. The passage, good to tell us what his assailants thought about Satan, actually leaves the thought of Jesus on the subject totally unuttered.
And here I may say a word of one of the designations which M. Meylan and men of his caste bestow on me, namely, Beelzebul. In the authorized English translation this word stands as Beelzebub. Beelzebul is the correct reading. I mention this the rather because it leads me to give you a brief history of the Biblical use of the word, so as to enable you to judge how far I have any right to the name. The form Beelzebub (lord of flies, or wasps, or locusts) was the specific designation of the false divinity of Ekron (2 Kings i. 2; 1 Sam. v. 10), one of the five royal towns of the Philistines (Josh. xiii. 3, xv. 45). In order to turn this idol into an offensive abomination, the Jews, after their custom, by a slight change in the second part of the compound term, that is, by changing bub into bul, called him lord of the dung-heap. This stercorous divinity of Philistia his enemies then made prince of the demons, giving him a throne as little honourable as his newly-fabricated title. Now by that title (lord of the dung-heap) they meant to denote the contemptible nothingness of the pagan divinities: what else, then, could they mean when they placed on him the crown of the kingdom of the demons? All this looks like the workings of indignant passion, more than the sedate and earnest opinion of religious men. Nevertheless, it is eagerly seized and freely used in order to first make me a reality, and then to make that reality as frightful as possible.
Among the forms of speech which Jesus employs are, “the kingdom of God” and “the kingdom of heaven.” These are so numerous as to need no reference. By this utterance he denoted God’s beneficent rule on this side of the grave and on the other. God’s rule in man’s heart is in itself the achievement of God’s aim, and in its consequences the moral order, beauty and beatitude of man’s intelligent, moral and undying nature. This was the doctrine of Jesus. By the side of this view of the moral universe, as in the hands of God, stood in sharp and broad contrast the kingdom of Satan or the kingdom of hell. The latter was the popular conception as to the antagonism which it placed over against the rule, sway or dominion of God.
Both views Jesus found in the land of Palestine when he went forth from his cottage home at Nazareth to have an interview with the Baptist on the banks of the Jordan. He found both views represented, the one by the phrase “the kingdom of God,” the other by ”the kingdom of the devil.”
Now “mark, learn and inwardly digest” the fact. He used the former constantly. Not once did he use the latter. What is this but to say that the former was his own view, the latter not his own view? This he drops out of his diction altogether. That he employs, and for what? To describe the work his Heavenly Father had given him to do, in all its simplicity, graciousness, comprehension and grandeur. The religion of Jesus, then, does not involve “the kingdom of Satan.” On the contrary, it excludes it; and when it is true that it is totally excluded, while “the kingdom of God” is ever on the lips of Jesus, it is not too much to affirm that the exclusion was conscious and intentional. There is one exception, and the exception proves the rule. In Luke xi. 18 (Matt. xi. 26; Mark iii. 22), Jesus employs the words “his kingdom,” referring to Beelzebul. But in doing so he does but take up the diction of his assailants in order the more effectually to rebut their charge. The accusation against him was made by “the Pharisees,” who were overrun with demonism: “This fellow,” they said, “doth not cast out demons but by Beelzebul, the prince of demons.” The “kingdom of Satan” being thus introduced, Jesus could do no other than take up the falsity and the phrase in order to confute both. And this he does by affirming as the result of the whole, “the kingdom of God is come unto you.”
It is lamentable that so gross an error of the Pharisees should have been attributed to Jesus; for undoubtedly, as they were Christ’s ceaseless assailants, he bade his hearers “take heed and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees” (Matt, xvi. 6; Luke xii. 1).
The third of the four texts adduced from Matthew needs no particular attention. It is simply a repetition (xii. 24) of the last testimony I have investigated.
Nevertheless, please to observe that what appeared to be six proofs, having been previously reduced to four, is now seen to be only three. Three short passages in the twenty-eight chapters of which the Gospel consists and of these two have been seen to offer no positive proof that Jesus believed in me. The ascertained facts leave in our hands no presumption in favour of the opinion that the Light of the spiritual world believed in me at all.
However, let us look at the passage in Matthew xxv. 41, ”Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels.” Here, undoubtedly, yon find the notion which I have led you to expect, namely, a reflection of the Persian Ahriman as held and coloured by the age of Jesus. But even here there is no direct averment of my existence, but only an implication of it, such as exemplifies what I have just said. Equally does the passage fail to prove that Jesus believed in a personal devil All that the passage requires is admitted, if I state that he here uses the ordinary language of the times. The common opinion refers the scenery found in the whole of this twenty-fifth chapter of Matthew to what is called “the day of judgment,” which it fixes at the end of time. This notion is unwarranted by Scripture. In the fourth Gospel, Jesus expressly declares: “Now is the judgment of this world: now shall the prince of this world be cast out” (xii. 31). With its author, judgment is not postponed to some indefinite point of time after death, or what is called “the end of the world,” but is a ceaseless and ever-recurring process. Such, indeed, the general tenor of Scripture represents it as being. God’s retributory providence is co-extensive with, his own existence, and successive as the lapse of the minutes, hours, days, years, centuries, of what men customarily denominate time. Man’s assizes open and close. God has but one assize, and is ever in permanent sitting. It follows that “the day of judgment” is only a form of speech. That form can be distinctly traced back to the false Messianic and apocalyptic notions which, as I have said more than once, filled and agitated the popular mind of Judea in the age of Jesus. With imagery of the kind the “book of Enoch/’ already mentioned, is full to overflowing. The system of thought which has “the devil and his angels” as a central element, existed antecedently to the days of Jesus. As so existing, it cannot be a part of the message he was commissioned to proclaim to man. His doctrine, he repeatedly declares, he had learnt of his Father. Instead, then, of appropriating existing opinions, he had it in charge to correct them, at least so far as incompatible with the fundamental truths which he was inspired to teach. Now among those truths, the great and solemn doctrine of God’s retributory providence held a prominent position. But, in the mind of Christ, that retributory providence was so thoroughly parental, as to involve the greatest and tenderest care for “the lost.” But how are the lost regarded and treated in this chapter? They are denounced as “ye cursed,” and they are consigned to never-ending woe. These two forms of speech were, then, uttered by Jesus within a few hours the one of the other: First speech: ”‘Depart, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels.” Second speech: ”Father, forgive them; they know not what they do.”
Can these utterances have proceeded from the same lips and from the same heart? Then truly “out of the same mouth proceedeth blessing and cursing,” notwithstanding the express prohibition given by James in these words: “My brethren, these things ought not to be” (James iii. 10). Has Jesus then a superior perhaps in his own family? and was his love, after all, so infirm, that, after having bidden his disciples to love and not hate their enemies, and to bless them by whom they were cursed, he, when near his last struggle, broke down and practically pronounced a curse on the greater number of the human race, condemning them to everlasting fire? If this is a certain fact, then Jesus ceases to be the perfect man, ceases to be the model of his race, and has been actually excelled by no few of his disciples, who passed from “the fiery trial” with words of peace and blessing on their lips. Moreover, if this is a simple fact, then all law and sequence in even men of distinguished morals are at an end; you cannot reason from one word, however emphatic, or from one thought, however central, to another of the same kind, but must, in your ethical and historical studies, prepare for the greatest and most sudden contrasts, the clearest and most unappeasable contradictions.
But you are not driven to results so distressing. The entire twenty-fifth chapter of Matthew is a series of dramatic scenes, full indeed of divine and everlasting truth, but, as scenes, by no means to be taken ad unguem, to the letter, as representing actual reality. It is of the nature of such compositions to be, while true in substance, untrue in certain details, which are introduced not so much for themselves as for their picturesque effect in the general drama, the evolution of which to its close being the great object and aim of the author. If it is pleaded that anything so artistic is not to be attributed to Jesus, since his own certain utterances are no less incomparably simple than incomparably sublime, I admit the allegation, and find in it a confirmation of an opinion, that faithful as in its general bearing and issue is the thought of the whole to the known “mind of Christ,” the structure and form do give intimations of the presence of another, and, as another, so of necessity an inferior hand. Perhaps all the facts of the case admit of explanation if we suppose the thoughts to proceed from Jesus—and unquestionably they are such as he employed—while the form is attributable to some disciple, a Judaic Christian, who was as imbued with the spirit of the age, so pervaded by the popular demonology, which, as you now well know, involved the recognition of “the devil and his angels” as personal beings. This is rendered the more probable because the speaker introduces into his imagery “everlasting (aeonian) fire” and “everlasting (aeonian) punishment.” These were the figures which constantly recurred in the apocalyptic phraseology of the age, as also is the sharp and fast line of division between the sheep and the goats, the wicked and the righteous. I quote illustrations from the book of Enoch already cited:
“Behold he cometh with ten thousand of his saints, to execute judgment and destroy the wicked. The Lord said to Raphael: Bind Azazyel hand and foot; cast him into darkness; there shall he remain for ever; and in the great day of judgment let him be cast into the fire. To Gabriel also the Lord said: Go to the reprobates and destroy the children of fornication. To Michael the Lord said: Bind Samyoza and those who are associated with him for seventy generations under the earth; then shall they be taken away into the lowest depths of the fire in torments, and in confinement shall they be shut up for ever. Then Enoch said to Azazyel: A great sentence is gone forth against thee. Thou shalt be bound; neither shall relief, mercy or supplication, be thine. And I came to a river of fire, which flowed like water, and emptied itself into the great sea westward, and in the columns of heaven I beheld fires. And I beheld seven stars like great blazing mountains. Then the angel said: This place will be the prison of the stars and of the host of heaven. The stars which roll over fire are those which transgressed the commandment of God. This place of suffering is the prison of the fallen angels, and here they are kept for ever. Then I saw a chasm; and on the other side a strong rock and four delightful places, the abodes of the blessed spirits. Here souls are separated. The souls of the wicked are bound and punished there for ever.”
Here I present you in outline the scenery whence came that curse and that everlasting fire. If you would fully see the whole in detail, you must study the original whence come this that I have transcribed, as well as those allusive words you find in the New Testament. More particularly, if you would be familiar with the entire demonology of which orthodox priests have made so free a use, you will make yourself familiar with the book of Enoch. I will now, with Enoch’s aid, supply the names and offices of the good angels.
“These are the names of the angels who watch:”
“1. Uriel, who presides over clamour and terror:”
“2. Raphael, who presides over the spirits of men:”
“3. Raguel, who inflicts punishment:”
“4. Michael, who presides over human virtue:”
“5. Sarskiel, who presides over the spirits of transgressors:”
“6. Gabriel, who presides over paradise.”
The full system of good and bad angels now stands before you, to some extent as it stood before the eyes of the people of Judea some generations before the advent of Christ, no less than during the period of his earthly ministry. Varying, according to its source, in each particular version, it took up its seat in the hearts of the first converts to Christianity, and, coming with them into the Church, struck an imprint of itself on their ordinary religious notions, which passed into the words that they used when they reported their great Master s teachings, whether by word of mouth or in written documents. And thus, together with their impressions of Jesus in his words and deeds, they left and transmitted impressions of their own angelology and demonology, which became a permanent possession in the Church, and that the more readily because Christ in his intercourse with the men of his day could not avoid more or less employing their peculiar phraseology.
I have led you through Matthew’s evidence of my existence as indicated by our authority: what is the result The result is here the same as presents itself in the New Testament wherever the subject comes into view, namely, that while the popular belief recognizes me as an evilly-disposed person, Jesus Christ shews no trustworthy signs of having held any opinion of the kind. In the pure and shining atmosphere of his spirituality, he remained a sterling Shemite, knowing no angelic nor any human antagonist to God.
Let us turn to “the Gospel according to Saint Mark.” Here four, authorities are referred to, viz., i. 24, v. 7, vi. 7, xvi. 9. These all concern, not me, but the demoniacs, of whom I have already said something. One or two additional words may be desirable. Speaking of the demoniacs in general, I ask your attention to the fact that there are two suppositions for explaining the phenomena. My operation is one; the other is disease. Which is to be accepted? The latter is now admitted by the most competent judges as widely as the latter is denied. It may be said that the voice of general culture supports the hypothesis of disease, while it contradicts that of a personal devil. There cannot then be a doubt which you ought to accept. The disorders of mind and body which possession implies are still common. They are treated, mitigated or removed, by medical appliances. In Protestant countries, the man would be accounted insane that attempted sacerdotal exorcism. Even in Catholic lands, medical resources have all but superseded priestly ones. Yet, while the old superstition is thus obsolescent outside the Church, in one corner of the Church itself it still lingers, darkening and degrading that science, namely, Theology, which ought to lead the cortege of the light-bearers of the world. Among the references made by M. Meylan is Mark xvi. 9, where Mary Magdalene is spoken of as a woman out of whom Jesus had cast “seven devils.” Now here I must reprove this Protestant divine in that he allows the unlearned to believe that this passage is as much Scripture as the rest which he quotes. Orthodox zeal is’ often deaf, blind and dumb to God’s truth, while busy in enforcing its own opinions. If now you, my companion, who have been so patient while I have been en-ga.ged in these verbal criticisms and recondite researches—if you, who seem to have a taste for these studies and a desire to discriminate between primitive and genuine Christianity on the one side, and old corruptions and new obstinacies on the other—if, I say, you would like to read the New Testament pretty much as it was when it proceeded from the hands of its authors, then purchase (you can get it for two shillings), “The New Testament, the Authorized English Version, with Introduction and Various Headings from the Three most celebrated Manuscripts of the Original Text, by Constantine Tischendorf, Tauchnitz Edition, 1869,” and, turning to the passage in question, you will find that those three manuscripts omit the words adduced as of divine authority by our clerical guide, together with the entire remainder of the chapter. Had I been guilty of this deception, I should have had a heap of hard words flung at my head. I make no return in kind; I only express a wish that facts, which are God’s words, may become with us all more authoritative than our creeds.
But here I must make another complaint against your English divines. In the Authorized or Common Version, Mary Magdalene is said to be possessed by “seven devils.” The original Greek has, not devils, but demons. Of course the unlearned reader thinks that Mary was possessed by me, the devil or Satan, or some minor devil, who equally with myself was a fallen angel. Nothing of the kind. She is not said to be possessed by seven devils, but seven demons. I do not, because from what you have heard I need not, dwell upon the difference. It is huge; and one terrible effect of the use in your English version of devil instead of demon is to fill the air of the New Testament with devilism. I seem to be everywhere in the Synoptical Gospels, when I am almost nowhere. Not fewer than 59 times does this gross misrepresentation occur in the New Testament. And is this the way in which the professed lovers of God’s truth teach the people? Sufficient reason have such public instructors to be civil even to me.
I return to the passage in the appendix to “the Gospel according to Mark.” Were this the only passage in which demons are mentioned, the adduction of it by M. Meylan would not justify any additional words. But it may serve as an occasion for adding a little more information on the matter of demoniacal possession. Celsus gives the true idea when he speaks of Mary as having been cured by Jesus of “raving madness.” The phrase is unnecessarily harsh. She was an epileptic. As such, she was often suddenly seized and thrown on the ground. Healed of this shattered state of her nervous system by Jesus, she felt toward him (as she might well do) unutterable gratitude. And it was in beholding cures so striking and benignant, which seemed so many victories over demoniacal agencies, that led the popular mind to think and speak of Jesus as my antagonist and conqueror. This view of the case I could easily back up by the opinions of divines no less learned than liberal.
The Gerasene (“Gadarene,” is a false reading) demoniac is manifestly a maniac (Luke viii. 26—40), whom Jesus in virtue of his human and divine power tranquillized and restored to soundness of mind. This appears manifest from the descriptions given by the historian. The poor creature was naked (or all but naked), had no home, and wandered about among tombs. He had been in confinement, but he broke his chains and rushed into deserted spots. There at least he was at liberty from human control and cruelty, and there he could indulge his fits of rabid melancholy apart from risking his personal freedom. So much did he, in consequence of what he had suffered, dread the very sight of a human being, that, the moment he saw Jesus land on the eastern shore of the lake of Galilee, smitten with terror, he threw himself at the great Teacher’s feet, exclaiming, “Torment me not.” Instead of tormenting, Jesus soothed him, and for this purpose, wisely entering into the man’s morbid notions, for the benign purpose of removing them, he acquiesced in the request that the legion of demons, to which the maniac believed he owed his madness, might pass into a herd of swine that was feeding on the mountain. Thus, partly by humouring the victim of superstition, Jesus relieved his mind, deeply impressed with the power of the Messiah. In consequence, spectators on the spot shortly after saw the patient sitting at the feet of Jesus, “clothed and in his right mind.” That result may have been facilitated by explanations from the wise and gentle lips of Jesus, to the effect that the demons whom he dreaded were not demons, but his own crazy dreams and fears. Any way, the process is termed by Luke a healing (verse 36). The case seems to have been a very bad one. The invalid, from the intensity of his sufferings, fancied himself under the power of so many demons, that he had called himself legion to denote their number. And here we are put into possession of a key to the nature of the disorder and the nature of the cure. The man identifies himself with his tormentors. He has lost his individuality. It is sunk in his tyrants. They are a legion, and consequently legion is his own name. What a slavery is this! Sanity yields the helm to insanity. Insanity assumes the command. Of course, having superseded the man, it speaks in his stead, while sometimes it speaks in its own name. Both these instances of false personation must be taken into account in studying the morbid conditions of the demoniacs of the New Testament. And it is in part by entering into the facts, that Jesus proved so effectual a physician in their case. Accordingly, in the instance before us, he concedes the madman’s demand. The swine rush down into the lake. Seeing his torturers thus scattered, the sick man is restored to soundness, and, thrilling with gratitude, places himself at the feet of his great benefactor.
The sole difficulty that remains is that rush. Its reality is necessary as a means of the cure. What was it, and how was it occasioned? All you are told is, that Jesus “suffered” it, intimating that it was not his act, but rather the act of those by whom it was requested. Who were they? It may have been the spectators. Any way, one remark is valid, namely, that of course the whole narrative wears the demonological hues of the age and the people, and where such an element bears sway, entire conformity of representation with your modem modes of thought is not to be expected. Enough, however, is clear to take from the incident all support of my existence and personality. The disorders I inflict are not curable, but incurable—at least so says orthodox demonology.
This incident brings into view two opposite methods of treating the insane, viz., that of force, and that of gentle and wise sympathy. The former only exaggerated the disease, the latter removed it. Yet in a civilization which worships Christ, the former, till recent days, held undivided sway. Only within the present century has the latter found practical recognition. That acknowledgment is as yet but partial. What wonder, when those who administer the religion of the highest culture teach that God’s method with sinful men is one of wrath which, in regard to the great majority, burns and rages into eternity 1 What wonder, when those same officials make fear their lever rather than love? It is only when belief in me, God’s great torturer, shall have ceased to worry, distress and degrade men, that the intrinsic gentleness of Jesus will heal wounds which now fester into deadly gangrenes. How lovely is that sympathetic, tender and all-subduing gentleness, as it shines softly out from the cure of the Gerasene demoniac!
The passage in Luke xiii. 16 involves the cure of the woman whom Satan is represented as having held bound eighteen years. The “infirmity” was a disease. The original denotes loss of strength, a weakness or partial paralysis. Such was its nature and power, that “she was bowed together, and could in no wise lift herself up” (11). She was restored by Jesus. The act, being performed on the seventh day, called forth indignation from a “ruler of the synagogue,” whom Jesus rebuked as a “hypocrite;” adding, “Ought not this woman, whom Satan hath bound, lo, eighteen years, to be loosed from this bond on the sabbath-day In this reply Jesus used the term Satan as indicative of the paralysis itself, considered in a personification. In the original Greek it is the Satan, that is, as we should say, the evil, the disorder. The term the Satan was supplied by the current phraseology. In his excellent “Attempt toward revising our English Translation of the Greek Scriptures” (2 vols. 8vo, 1796), Archbishop Newcome in a note on this scripture remarks, “In the popular language of the Jews, diseases and infirmities were attributed to Satan. See Acts x. 38; 1 Cor. v. 5; 2 Cor. xii. 7; 1 Tim. i. 20.”
And so we obtain aid toward understanding the last reference to Luke’s authority, viz. xxii. 3, 31. It is the case of Judas, the betrayer of Christ. In the third verse the historian tells us that just before Judas delivered Jesus up, “Satan entered into him.” This is merely the Jewish form’ of saying that Judas was seized and mastered by an evil design, namely, to betray his Lord. How natural a figure this! for, observe, it is a figure of speech. The image is psychologically justifiable. Bad thoughts, as it were, rush into the mind sometimes. Even in trying to be literal, I have undesignedly employed the figure of rushing into a mind. Another form of speech makes sudden thoughts rise in the mind, or seize (as from without) the heart. And yet the sense is not exhausted when we describe bad (or good) thoughts as sometimes suddenly taking possession (another figure) of the mind. The phrase implies in such cases that the person spoken of is not habitually bad, nor usually so good, as the case may be; and so Luke seems to have meant to intimate that Judas was not wholly and habitually corrupt.
It has been truly said that “figures of speech are edge-tools; they cut the fingers of those who use them.” Certainly those who use them, not knowing what they do, are sure to injure themselves and mislead others. Language abounds in these dangers. You can scarcely speak of any state or operation of man’s intelligent nature but you incur a risk of employing a figure which may mislead yourself or others. Take the phrase I have just employed, incur a risk. To incur, when translated out of its Latin form into plain Saxon English, is to run into, and to run into a thing is to go speedily into it of your own accord. But in the sentence where just before the phrase is found, there is properly no running at all, and the figurative running into is plainly unintentional.
Of all the figures of speech, personification involves the greatest turning aside from simple fact, since it makes mere qualities into real persons. The principal source of my personal existence is personification. I am indeed historically only a figure of speech.
Had these facts been uppermost in Pastor MeyIan’s mind, he would not have put this among his proof-texts. The words (Luke xxii. 31) are, as they stand in the common version, “Simon, Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat.” What! sift, really sift, a man? What sort of a sieve would accomplish the operation? Clearly we have here again a figure, and a bold one too. A physical process is applied to a state of mind. Now what does sifting do? It separates the corn from the husk. Such a process is beneficial and useful. Yes; but it is a severe process. Here lies the point of the metaphor which Jesus intended. When Christ had just before said, “The hand of him that betrayeth me is with me on the table (of the last supper), the disciples began to inquire among themselves which of them it was that should do this thing. And there was also a strife among them which of them should be accounted the greatest” (in the coming kingdom). A lamentable state of mind indeed; most lamentable and painful was it to all, the Master as well as the disciples. Judas had already fallen. Now others are tempted. Gross selfishness has the upper-hand, and, as ever, it breeds contention and strife. Clearly these men are in danger of deserting him whom they are pledged to support. Among the most prominent and the most effusive of these excited weaklings is Peter. Known by Jesus, Jesus had prayed that his fidelity might not break down. But what was he now to expect after that dispute and that strife? The prospect was dark. But he would put them on their guard: “Beware, you are sorely tempted. I fear for your constancy in my approaching struggle.” Peter replied: “Lord, I am ready to go with thee, both into prison and to death.” A few hours after, the same disciple said to a woman-servant, “I know him not.” Here there was a sifting indeed. The grain was violently sundered from the husk and the chaff. And the husk and the chaff came forward and enacted Peter.
There are few human beings that have not shared in Peter’s bitter experiences.
Yet those experiences were his schoolmaster, and they led him to Christ and made him Christ’s for ever.
If, then, I did that which led to such a result, I clearly acted against what are said to be my own interests; for my evil was in truth the occasion of the greatest good to Peter. Such absurdities ensue from the supposition of a personal devil.
You have seen that when Jesus speaks of sifting, he uses a metaphor. In the same connection he speaks of Satan, and Satan as desiring to sift: what, then, is the whole but a lengthened figure of speech? If the operation is metaphorical, why not the operator? especially considering that one of the men who were to be sifted was himself, not long before called Satan by Jesus. “Get thee behind me, Satan; thou art an offence to me” (Matt. xvi. 23).
I have investigated the scriptural proofs in favour of a personal devil adduced by M. Meylan, and found no independent evidence thereof. At most, language is used which implies my personal existence, but none that cannot be accounted for by the usages of the day. In treating the subject, I have intimated that the parabolic teachings of Jesus are free from the Satanical element. An apparent exception asks for attention. When, in Matthew xiii., Jesus has uttered what is called “the parable of the Sower,” he is requested by his disciples to declare, that is explain, “the parable of the tares of the field” (v. 36). This leads him to say: “He that soweth the good seed is the Son of Man; the field is the world; the good seed are the children of the kingdom; but the tares are the children of the wicked one; the enemy that sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the end of the world; and the reapers are the angels. As therefore the tares are gathered and burned in the lire, so shall it be in the end of this world. The Son of Man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity; and shall cast them into a furnace of fire; there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth: then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father” (37—43).
That in the substance of this passage you have a declaration of the essentially Christian and most solemn truth of God’s discriminative and retributory providence as exercised in Christ, is beyond a doubt. But in what form? In a series of figures.- These figures begin with the titles of the parable. It is a sower that goes forth to sow; and when he has sowed, an enemy comes and scatters tare-seed among the wheat-seed. The words wheat and tares to denote good and bad men are figures of speech. The sowing is a metaphor. He that is by a metaphor called a sower, is by another metaphor called “the Son of Man.” What wonder, then, that the sower of the tares, now made into an enemy, is shortly after made into the great enemy, the devil? Add to these two metaphors, “the world” for human beings; “the children of the kingdom” for faithful disciples of Jesus; “the angels” for the apostles and their legitimate successors. Next comes the metaphor of “the harvest;” then the “kingdom” (of Christ) for the Church; then a ”furnace of fire” for a guilty conscience; wailing and gnashing of teeth for the pangs and throes of conscious guilt; then sunshine to denote moral blessedness; and the “kingdom of the Father” to signify the rule of God in men’s hearts and lives. Take the realities thus indicated by this passage, and it becomes one of the most solemn and the most momentous ever uttered by Jesus. Convert these divine realities into the images in which they are clad, and you fall into the perishable forms of language which Judea borrowed from mythological paganism. The latter Jesus did not originate; what then really belongs to him? The former; that is, the everlasting truth, of God. A similar process explains the parable of what is called Dives and Lazarus, where the retributions of the world to come are painted in a picture, the scenery of which, is borrowed from the current Hellenism of the day.
A passage not adduced by M. Meylan is held by some to point to me. It is the last petition in what is called “the Lord’s Prayer “Deliver us from evil” (Matt. vi. 13). It is not pretended that the entreaty expressly mentions the devil, but that the Greek for “evil” may be rendered the evil one, or Satan. A rendering is a very, different thing from an affirmation. A translation is the product of a translator, whereas an affirmation is the product of the speaker. To make the former equivalent to the latter, is to lend the authority of the Master to that of the disciple. In other words, it is to deny Christ and to put yourself in his place.
It is true that some translators have recognized me in the original, and so in “evil” acknowledged “the devil.” But how? Almost exclusively by way of a gloss. It would be very difficult to find an instance in which “the devil” was placed in the scriptural text.
The chief point in the issue is, whether the Greek for “evil” is of the neuter or the masculine gender. If of the neuter, the rendering in the common version is right; if of the masculine, it should stand “the evil one” for even then the laws of translation do not allow “the devil.” Whether the form should be taken as masculine or as neuter, nothing in the text determines. Accordingly those who go to the passage believing in a personal devil, find me there; those who do not take me into the passage, simply leave me out.
A passage in Matthew’s Gospel, however, shews that Jesus need not be supposed to have meant the personal devil that darkened and troubled the mind of his contemporaries. In v. 39, he forbids his disciples to “resist evil,” “the evil.”
Say he meant me, then he wills that I should have my way uncounteracted. This is absurd. The command is to resist not—what? Aggression. Bather give a kiss for a blow?
The matter as it stands is clear enough. But there are persons with whom authority prevails where fact and argument fail. I therefore quote the words of the already-cited Biblical scholar, Dean Alford: “In another view, as expressing the deep desire of all hearts to be delivered from all evil (for **** IS HERE CERTAINLY NEUTER; THE INTRODUCTION OF THE MENTION OF ’THE EVIL ONE’ WOULD HERE BE QUITE INCONGRUOUS AND EVEN ABSURD), these words form a seventh and most affecting petition, reaching far beyond the last (‘Lead us not into temptation’). They are the expression of the yearning for redemption of the sons of God (Rom. viii. 23), and so are fitly placed at the end of the prayer, and as the sum and substance of the personal petitions. So Augustine very beautifully says: ”When we say, Deliver us from evil, we remind ourselves that we are not as yet in that good wherein we endure no evil. And the last request made in the Lord’s Prayer goes so far as this, namely, that the Christian man, in whatever tribulation he finds himself, groans for this, weeps for this, begins with this, dwells on this, and terminates his supplication with this: ‘Deliver me from evil.”
There are two passages in the New Testament, on which I have not spoken, which receive not illustration only, but explanation, from the fact which has been so fully established, namely, that the fall of the angels is a pagan fable that became a Jewish dogma, being received in the Jewish Church, whence it passed into the Church of Christ. One of these passages describes me as a murderer (John viii. 44), the reference being to my alleged influence, which Milton describes when he speaks of the disobedience of the first pair as having “brought death into the world and all our woe.” I am a murderer inasmuch as, according to tradition, I seduced Eve into sin which brought universal death. Accordingly I am the great manslayer. It is marvellous how far men stray from the truth when they yield themselves up to the guidance of ecclesiastical speculations. Is it not a fundamental principle of the monotheism of the Bible, that death as well as life is in the hands of God! “Jehovah killeth and maketh alive” (1 Sam. ii. 6). “See now that I, even I, am He, and there is no God with me; I kill and I make alive” (Deut. xxxii. 39). If, then, death is in God’s hand, and in God’s alone, it is not in mine. The statement is universal, and may be expressed in these words: Death is an ordination of Jehovah. The statement finds illustration in the geological discovery that death was in the world long anterior to “the fall.” It is also corroborated by the manifest fact, that death is in this state of things a correlate of life. No death, no successive life. In other words, no death, no human history. Had the first pair (whatever their name) given birth to a race of immortals, the earth would soon have been peopled to such overflowings as would require other planets to receive the inevitable emigrants from our tiny globe. But the perpetuation of Adam and Eve’s existence would have been the perpetuation of their liability to disobey God, and that liability would, ere many generations had elapsed, have been stimulated into actual disobedience by the stern and unsparing competition for food which must have ensued from an ever-multiplying population of immortals, possessed of bodies which somehow or another needed the reparation bestowed by nutriment. And so you see that the change of which I am made the author, by occasioning death, led to a state of things in human society which avoids the greatest evils and produces the greatest good. Here, then, I stand pre-eminent among the benefactors of your race. If I did introduce death into the world, I was the source of forms of life and civilization incomparably superior to those of any stereotyped existence could have been. I gave birth to progress, and progress has raised man out of savage life into an approach to the divine life. In thus superseding God’s appointments, I cease to be mans foe and become his best friend, while the Creator is thrown into the shade by my superabounding glory. Tell me, then, can it be for the honour of Him whom ecclesiastics call the Almighty, that I should have either inherent or permissive power to alter the whole course of man’s existence, so as to transmute evil into good, by giving him the faculty of an ever-growing and rising life, instead of the stagnation of childish innocence at the best? Tell me, too, if you, my simple-minded listener, do not feel supreme satisfaction in thus beholding the idle legends torn to pieces by the fingers of fact and common sense?
The other passage to which I allude you may find in Hebrews ii. 14, where Christ is described as having by his death destroyed death, and me, its source. The author manifestly writes under the control of the Jewish fable. That cycle of phantasms taught that I, as the angel of death, and under the name of Samael, slew the protoplasts, and through them their descendants, over whom, in virtue of their obeying me, I obtained the power or dominion of death. The name according to its etymology, signifies the God of poison and so, you see, specution contradicts the Scripture quoted above, which, with hundreds of other passages, asserts that Jehovah is God, God alone. According to this figment, the God of creation was defeated by the God of poison. In other words, I poisoned, and so killed, God’s intelligent creation. This I did at one blow. The fall of Eve was the fall of her race. But now, how is it with my slayer, Christ? His death on the cross is said to have been my death, and yet lam still alive. I poisoned the human race in one moment by a single apple. Christ has taken two thousand years to slay the poisoner, and he is not yet slain. Nay, if the creeds are right, I never shall be slain, for eternal torments stipulate an eternal tormentor. When will the official teachers of religion cease to “teach for doctrines the commandments of men” (Matt. xv. 9), and in so doing cease to mislead those they teach, and dishonour the God and the Christ whose glory they profess to seek? Of this “god of poison” things are said in Jewish tradition with which I will not sully your pure ear nor distress your tranquil mind, my friend.
The ease with which I have dealt with these two passages may serve to illustrate the advantage of the historical method I have pursued, and to aid you in dealing with other similar evidences of my real personal existence.
Before I leave this important portion of my task, I must recur to the subject of the dualism out of which I have logically and historically sprung, since the view I am now about to put before you bears with no small force on the opinion held by Christ as to the demoniacs of the Gospel.
There is a dualism in every individual. Good and evil appear in each human being, and often in strong contrast. Now the good is in the ascendant, now the evil. The contrast extends itself to states of mind, e.g. whether sad or joyous. Temper too steps in with its varying moods; here, again, is a contrast as between the bad and the good. These diverse dispositions, if tolerated, still more if encouraged, acquire great power, and recur frequently, if they do not become habitual. At last they create, as it were, two persons in every individual; and these two are so different, that your friends, when you are at your worst, hardly know you. Accordingly they say of you, “He has lost self-control “he is no longer master of himself” (sui compos non est); “he is quite another person.” And here is the essential element of possession. You are no longer one, but two. Of those two, one is yourself, and the other is your master. As your master, he is within you. If he is within you, you are possessed by him; you are his servant, his slave.
Language is full of such phraseology. Do you not say, “The drunkard is ruled by his passion for drink,” as if the drunkard and his passion were two persons? Is it not said, “Man’s vices are his bitterest foes”? as if the foe were not the man himself. After the same manner you personify conscience: “Your conscience condemns you, flogs you, tortures you,” as if you and your conscience were two beings. So also your conscience may be your accuser, and, in certain states of mind, your false accuser, your adversary—in a word, your Satan, your devil. If this dualism arises in ordinary corporeal and mental conditions, how much more so in disorder of body or mind! Hence the phrases, “he is out of his mind;” “he has lost his wits “he is beside himself” (Mark iii. 21); and in the New Testament as the source of evil-speaking, “he hath an unclean spirit” (Mark iii. 30). The dualism to which I have now referred is not confined to one age or one nation. It has its ground in man’s inmost nature. Man is at once subject and object. Hence the words self, myself, yourself, in contrast with I and you. Accordingly you say, “I contemplate myself;” “Look within “Keep yourself pure.” And for this second self, language has several synonyms: e.g. “Study your own character” ”Look on your heart” “Keep your breast free from guile.” At this point the word spirit offers itself as our second self. Numerous instances are found in the Scripture: e.g. “Pharaoh’s spirit” (that is Pharaoh) “was troubled” (Gen. xii. 8). “Why is thy spirit so sad?” (1 Kings xxi. 5). “The Lord stirred up the spirit of Pul” (1 Chron. v. 26). In these instances, spirit is simply a dualistic pleonasm. Caleb, however, is said to have “had another spirit with him, and hath followed me fully” (Numb. xiv. 24). This was a good spirit, in opposition to the evil spirit by which the rebellious Israelites were actuated (22). The contrast between good spirits and bad runs through the Bible: e.g. “a lying spirit” (1 Kings xxii. 22); “a spirit of divination” (Acts xvi. 16); “spirit of antichrist” (1 John iv. 3); “spirit of bondage” (Rom. viii. 15); also “thy good spirit” (Ps. cxliii. 10); “spirit of counsel” (Is. xi. 2); “spirit of truth” (John xiv. 17); “the spirit of truth and the spirit of error” (1 John iv. 6). It is hardly necessary to add, that Jesus in this particular shared in the phraseology of his day: e.g.
“The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak” (Matt, xxvi. 21). In this instance, a new form of dualism presents itself. Accordingly, man is made up of two beings, the spirit and the flesh; the former, the source of will; the latter, the possessor of control. The diction brings us to the side of that used to speak of the demoniacs in the Gospels. For spirit, say good spirit; for flesh, say unclean spirit; and you not only have the language of possession accounted for, but the fact explained. The. unclean spirit is man’s spirit of moral impurity, which, weak for good, is powerful for evil. And that impure spirit breeds moral disorder, and moral disorder occasions impotence; and when man has lost his moral power, he is held and scourged by his own wickedness. For wickedness, substitute “the wicked one” by an act of impersonation, and you have before you the birth, growth and prevalence of the New Testament possession, so far as man’s constitution is concerned. Owing to the strong tendencies which sprang up under these circumstances, the notion and the recognition of a second self arose more or less in all nations, and emphatically in tribes and individuals with whom imagination was vivid and active. And this natural and inevitable dualism has a bad being for one of its constituents. I am, then, the natural offspring of humanity. I am an image of the human mind.
But then what at the bottom am I? When all personification is removed, and figures of speech laid aside, I sink into man; I am a human being, who, as such, has two-fold moral tendencies, the one which lift him up, and the other which drag him down. Yet in this description imagery intrudes itself. To avoid imagery is very difficult. I will, however, say that one direction within you injures you, and the other benefits you: but even here the inevitable dualism recurs, and makes you two somewhats—a “direction” and a “you,” whereas in fact that direction is nothing but a form or state of the you, that is yourself.
With these facts before them, how is it that men have ceased to use the language of possession, and to disbelieve in “the evil spirit”‘? Because possession and Satan, though springing from human nature, are seen to have their roots in forms of speech which are as changeful and perishable as they are diversified and contradictor. Other dualistic forms have been preserved because, though simple figures, they are useful without being injurious, whereas possession, with its accompaniments, has been the most deadly of phraseological inaccuracies.
That Jesus should have taken these films of fancy for personal realities is inconceivable. Knowing God and God’s relation to the universe; knowing God’s moral order in the government of the world; moreover, “knowing all men,” “knowing what was in man” (John ii. 24, 25), and “knowing men’s thoughts” (Matt. ix. 4), he must have been intimate with the human heart and the human mind; he must have been lifted up into oneness of vision with God in regard to the great moral powers and forces of the moral universe, so as to know that demoniacal possession had not its origin in a fallen archangel, and was not inflicted by that alleged infernal power. With him, doubtless, it was an opinion, or rather an idiom of the day; an opinion held by others, an idiom as used by himself. That idiom he was compelled to employ, since the only way for him to get into men’s hearts and renew their lives was to speak the language which was spoken by his contemporaries. Philosophers do so at the present hour, even in the most accurate of all the applied sciences, namely, Astronomy, when they say “the sun rises” and “the sun sets,” and that “the moon waxes and wanes.” Indeed, the arts and sciences in general, inasmuch as they come out of periods of ignorance, not to call them children of falsities, are overrun with fossil remains of departed theories and opinions, the existence of which is unknown except to the students of language.
By no means has Jesus left the immediate cause of evil a matter of debate. By a very clear statement and as clear an implication, he placed the source of evil in the heart of man.
I cite his words: “Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man; but that which cometh out of his mouth, this defileth a man. Out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies; these are things that defile a man” (Matt. xv. 10). Still more emphatic is Mark’s report: “There is nothing from without a man that, entering into him, can defile him; but those things that come out of him, those are they that defile the man” (vii. 15). First, observe here the universal negation: “there is nothing from without a man that entering can defile him.” If so, then neither can I defile any one by entering into him; for I am relatively to men “from without.” The adverb ***** denotes the source or origin of temptation. Then observe that, by his assigning man’s heart as the origin and source of his criminality, he shuts out any and every other such origin and source. In using language such as this, could he have known and acknowledged a being existing outside the human race, who had led them into all crime and all wretchedness by entering into Eve and exciting there some guilty passion, whatever the schools may assume the impulse to have been?
And thus my history leads me to record and celebrate
The Supremacy of Jehovah.
Jehovah reigns; let every nation hear,
And at his footstool bow with holy fear;
Let heaven’s high arches echo with his name,
And the wide-peopled earth his praise proclaim:
Then send it down to hell’s deep gloom resounding,
Through all her caves in dreadful murmurs sounding.
He rules with wide and absolute command
O’er the broad ocean and the steadfast land;
Jehovah reigns, unbounded and alone,
And all creation hangs beneath his throne:
He reigns alone; let no inferior nature
Usurp or share the throne of the Creator.
Mrs. Barbauld.
4. Period Of Composition: Elevation
1. My Ecclesiastical History
SECTION I. THE APOSTOLICAL FATHERS.
I am attempting to interpret in the ear of the world the evil consciousness of the human race as felt in certain great categories. It would be too bold and painful a task to describe it as it exists in certain individuals; else what portraits might be drawn of great political villains and great ecclesiastical hypocrites! Yet such as these, being the personal embodiments of the lowest human elements, are the true devils which degrade and infest humanity. Shrinking from so ungrateful a task, I sketch my own history in the impressions given of me by writers of greater or less repute. Those impressions I reproduce, so far as I can, in their original form, in order that my Natural History may stand before the reader in a credible shape. The sketches, though made by others, may be said to contain my personal experiences. Certainly they in union present something like an historical portrait of myself. “What the world has thought of me, and what the world has made me, these pages directly or indirectly reveal.
The Shemitic monotheism of the Old Testament passed into the writings of the New Testament with little adulteration. Devilism and demonism appeared on the lips of its great representative Jesus only on rare occasions, and then only as the language of conventionalism. It is true that both superabounded in the vernacular of Judea, but the foreign element was for the most part kept at a distance from the fold of Christ by the force of his own pure monotheistic spiritualism. For a century after his death, it stole into the church but little, and that all but insensibly. In the earliest of the post-New-Testament literature it is least found. A series of writings bearing the general designation of “The Apostolical Fathers,” and whose age extends from the end of the first century to the middle of the second, offers authentic sources of information touching the early opinions of the church, as to its central ideas, and in particular as to myself. Let us, my young friend, spend a little time in collecting the testimonies they supply.
The first of these is a letter addressed by Clemens Roman us, when holding office in the church of Rome, to the church in Corinth. The author stands in close proximity to the apostles. How rigid a monotheist he was may be learnt from this fine passage:
“The heavens, moved by God’s management, are obedient to him in peace. Day and night run the course appointed by him, nowise hindering each other. Sun and moon and the choruses of the stars roll on in harmony, according to his command, within their prescribed limits, without any deviation. The pregnant earth, according to his will, sends up at the proper seasons nourishment for men and beasts, and all the living things that are on it, neither hesitating nor altering any of the decrees issued by him. The inexplorable parts of abysses, and the inexplicable arrangements of the lower world, are bound together by the same ordinances. The vast immeasurable sea, gathered together into various basins, according to his fashioning, never goes beyond the barriers placed round it, but does as he has commanded. For he said: ‘Thus far shalt thou come, and thy waves shall be broken within thee.’ The oceans, impassable to men, and the worlds beyond it, are directed by the same commands of the Lord. The seasons of spring and summer and autumn and winter give place to each other in peace. The stations of the winds at the proper season perform their service without hindrance. The overflowing fountains, fashioned for enjoyment and health, never fail to afford their breasts to nourish the life of men. And the smallest of living things meet together in peace and concord. All these the Great Fashioner and Lord of all has appointed to be in peace and concord; doing good to the whole, but exceeding abundantly to us who have fled for refuge to his mercies through our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom be glory and majesty for ever and ever. Amen.”
This calm picture of the universe looks little like the shattered and distracted world of “the fallen angels,” as often lugubriously described by modern orthodoxy.
Not once is my name mentioned or my existence affirmed by Clemens Romanus. Thus far the church of Christ had preserved itself from marked demonological taint.
The next apostolical Father, Polycarp, is known to us from the writings of Irenseus of Lyons, in France (177—202), who, when he was a boy, saw and heard the venerable man and narrated his martyrdom. Polycarp, in dealing with the Docetes and the Marcionites of his day, uses these words: “Whoever does not confess that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is antichrist; and whoever does not confess the testimony of the cross is of the devil; and whoever treats deceitfully the words of the Lord to suit his own desires, and says there is no resurrection and no judgment, is the first-born of Satan.” This is the only reference to me left by Polycarp. The tendency of his remarks makes it a matter of doubt whether by the devil he meant an adversary of Christian truth or a personal being. The phrase, “the first-born of Satan,” is manifestly a figure of speech. Whence it is likely that Polycarp is answerable in this matter only so far as employing the usual imagery of his times.
The Epistle of Barnabas was probably written by a person of that name, but who or what he was, nothing is certainly known. The work, however, is Christian in substance and spirit, and doubtless presents a specimen of very early Christian thought. Free from the cobwebs of Oriental speculation, the writer is not free from the demonology of his age. Of angels, all that he says is, that good angels are set over the way of light to guide men to the truth. The devil and his angels are more frequently spoken of. He is said to have the power of this age, to be the ruler of the season of iniquity; and the writer is anxious that his readers should be on their guard against him, lest he find entrance into their hearts, and exclude them from the kingdom of the Lord. The action of the devil through angels is also referred to. He has angels set over the way of darkness to lead men to ruin. The fatal errors of the Jews are ascribed to the bewildering and bewitching power of an evil angel, and the heart of man before conversion is described as a habitation of demons. It is also said that all the wicked shall be destroyed with the wicked one.
The Pastor of Hermas—a practical rather than a doctrinal work, divided into three books—Visions, Commands and Similitudes, and designed to lead the soul to God—speaks somewhat of angels, and more of the devil, probably as uttering the author’s own opinions, but possibly as a part of the structure and imagery of his artificial composition. Angels appear in his pages as employed in some work; good angels in works of goodness, and wicked angels in evil deeds. While the story of the fallen angels is not introduced, the reader is told that God entrusted the whole creation to six angels, whom he first made, to increase and rule over it. Six other holy angels are also mentioned who are inferior to the former. Those who were first created were also called by God into his counsel in regard to the salvation of man.
The devil is mentioned especially as the enemy of Christians. In their pilgrimage, they are tempted by the devil, who lies in wait for them and plans mischief against them. Yet Christians are not to fear him. If they put their trust in God, the devil will give way. He is hard indeed and sure to wrestle, but he must yield. Only those who waver have reason to .fear the devil. Christians are to fear the deeds of the devil. All doubt comes from him; from him comes evil desire. False prophets are filled with his spirit, which is an earthly spirit. He is most wicked.
This is ecclesiastical commonplace, the language of ordinary religious gymnastics, which probably involves an underlying recognition of me as a person, but which may be explained by the theory of my being a personification of evil, and so an enemy of God and man.
In agreement with Josephus, Justin the Martyr (145 A.D.) believed that the demons were the souls of wicked men, separated from their bodies. This opinion was generally spread among the Greek and the Roman Christians; nevertheless, it did not become dominant in the Church, whose doctors almost unanimously taught that the devils were corrupted by the abuse of their liberty, and that, falling themselves, they introduced sin into the world. It was also the general opinion that, like the angels, they had bodily forms, but of less subtle matter, although less gross, than that of the human frame; for they held that a being that had no body was incapable of punishment. Most of the apologists of Christianity affirmed that the devils fed on the smoke of the incense offered in idol worship, as well as the odours of the pagan sacrifices. This opinion was, however, refuted by Augustin, who declared that they fed on human errors,—a diet more suited for the mind than the body, and which suggests that the saintly Father, who not seldom changed his opinions, and was at first even imbued with the Manichean heresy, indulged in what more robust believers would regard as on this point a dusky dreaminess.
According to the testimony of Irenaeus (177—202), the Christian Church generally believed in my eternal damnation, as well as in that of the fallen angels. The reason assigned for the charitable opinion is, that the fallen angels were not incited to sin by the flesh, but trangressed through simple wickedness, and by the sole act of their will. Some, however, among the Alexandrine Fathers, such as Clement, Origen and Gregory of Nyssa, ventured to maintain that even for me there was hope, as of amendment so of forgiveness, because I am a reasonable being, and since every reasonable being enjoys liberty to either return to good or to persist in evil. This humane idea, which contrasts so favourably with the modern horror of the eternity of hell torments, was first combatted by Jerome and Augustin, then formally rejected by the fifth (Ecumenical Council in 553, and finally condemned by the Reformers themselves, out of hate toward the Anabaptists, by whom it had been revived.
It remains to say in this summary a few words on the part which the ancient Church ascribed to the bad angels and the demons, between whom it established a confused and vacillating distinction. It attributed to them knowledge incomparably superior to that of men, and a supernatural though restricted power. It took pleasure in confounding them with the divinities of the pagan mythology, accused them of having established idolatry in the world, and of deceiving nations and individuals by oracles and prodigies. Specially did it reproach them with the persecutions which Christians had to suffer. It also regarded them as the authors of the temptations of the members of the Church. It threw on their already overladen backs heresies, apostasies, infidelity—in a word, all the physical and moral evils that afflict the human race, and in me it saw and proclaimed the absolute antagonist of God and Christ; thus ignorantly or thoughtlessly describing a house divided against itself, although its great Founder had said of such a kingdom, that it could not endure (Matt. xii. 25), and as if it had been the aim of its Divine Architect to introduce into it, together with “envying and rivalry, confusion and every evil work” (James iii. 16), and forgetting that the Supreme Ruler of the universe “is not the author (or the tolerator) of confusion, but of peace” (1 Cor. xiv. 33).
And yet, lest they should overdo their dark work and drive their supporters to despair, the ecclesiastics taught them that, after all, I was not so very formidable, for that I and mine might be put to flight by fasts, by prayer, by exorcism, or even by the sign of the cross. A struggle indeed was needful, and it may be said that man’s life, especially his moral life, was from first to last a struggle. He had to struggle not only against earth, but also hell; not only against his own passions, but against a monster who took a fiendish pleasure in stimulating them ceaselessly; so that there was no natural tranquillity, no spontaneous and successive growth in individuals or society, but all was turmoil and conflict, leading mostly to defeat after defeat, which could be repaired only by the magic of priestly incantations. And here in this internal confusion there was also an outer confusion of doctrine and exhortation. At one moment I was all but omnipotent; at another I could be overcome by a drop or two of holy water. Now, when it suited the purpose of the sacerdotal magician, I was raging around a tempted soul, sure to gain my prey by persistence; now I was sent down into interminable banishment by the perseverance of a saint; but only to be brought up again out of the abyss to terrify and be overcome or to overcome, and to be at last foiled by sacerdotal guile or force. Most repulsive as well as most signal was the work assigned to me every time a new-born babe came forth from its mother’s womb. Then and there, no matter how frequent the births, nor how numerous the wide world over—then and there, whether in the arctic or the antarctic regions, at the equator or at either pole, in Europe, Asia, Africa and the two Americas—then and there, at every second of time and in every point of space, I had to be present, to seize that babe and make it my own by entering into its soul and taking possession of it. Yet, be there but an orthodox priest at hand, I am the next moment driven out, and he (or she) who was a child of the devil, a child of wrath, and. under its Maker’s curse, became (and over three-fourths of the Church still becomes) a child of grace, dear to its Creator, and an heir of eternal life through the merits of Jesus Christ, and permissu superiorum, or the act of the rector of the parish. In the degree in which the darkness of the middle ages grew thicker and thicker, the ecclesiastical demonology received fresh developments, and superstition established in the popular Christianity a veritable dualism, dividing the world between God and me, though assigning to me by far the larger share of power and dominion. Of these developments I shall give some account in their more striking instances. Meanwhile I must finish this general outline.
SECTION II. THE CLEMENTINES.
The Clementines, consisting of the “Clementine Recognitions” and the “Clementine Homilies,” and including “the Proclamation (or Gospel) of Peter,” and “the Travels of Peter,” if, as their name indicates, written by Clement of Rome, are a very early product of Christian thought, which any way cannot be brought down later than the beginning of the third century. These pieces I cannot altogether pass over, if only that they reflect the thought and spirit of the earlier ages of the Church more vividly, if not, on the Judaic side, more exactly than any one of the Fathers, inasmuch as they are free compositions, or, in plain English, fictions illustrative and commendatory of a certain style of Christian thought. They also, in their introduction of distinguished names, such as Clement, Peter, Andrew, Zaccheus, &c., exemplify a practice by no means uncommon in those early days, by which attention was innocently and almost unconsciously claimed for ideas and statements of which the anonymous author and authors were the zealous but unavowed advocates. Bearing this character, the Clementines serve to throw a strong light on some points in which I am deeply concerned, especially my alleged connection with magic and the occult sciences. What a wonder-worker the magician was held to be may be learnt from the account given of himself by Simon Magus, that is Simon the Magician, who is mentioned in the book of Acts (viii. 9—13) as converted by Philip, and rebuked and repelled by Peter (18—24):
“I am able to render myself invisible to those who wish to lay hold of me, and again to be visible when I am willing to be seen. If I wish to flee, I can dig through the mountains, and pass through rocks as if they were clay. If I should throw myself headlong from a lofty mountain, I should be borne unhurt to the earth, as if I were held up. Being shut up in prison, I can make the barriers open of their own accord. I can render statues animated, so that those who see suppose they are men. I can make new trees suddenly spring up, and produce sprouts at once. I can throw myself into the lire and not be burnt. I can change my countenance, so that I cannot. be recognized; and I can shew people that I have two faces. I shall change myself into a sheep or a goat; I shall make a beard to grow up on little boys; I shall ascend by flight into the air; I shall exhibit abundance of gold, and shall make and unmake kings; I shall be worshiped as God. And what need of more words? Whatever I wish, I am able to do. For already I have achieved many things by way of experiment. In short, once when my mother Rachael ordered me to go to the field to reap, and I saw a sickle lying, I ordered it to go and reap; and it reaped ten times more than the reapers. Lately I produced many new sprouts from the earth, and made them bear leaves and fruit in a moment; and the nearest mountain I successfully bored through.”
Thus powerful himself, the magician, in virtue of his alliance with a higher power, exercises unbounded control over angels and demons; so at least it is declared in the Clementine Homilies (Homily v. chap. v.).
“I will tell you how the demons are under necessity to obey the magicians in the matters about which they are commanded. For as it is impossible for a soldier to contradict his general, and impossible for the generals themselves to disobey the king, so is it impossible for the demons not to serve the angels who are their generals; and when they are adjured by them, they yield trembling, well knowing that if they disobey they will be fully punished. But the angels themselves, being adjured by the magicians in the name of their ruler, obey lest, being found guilty of disobedience, they be destroyed.”
That ruler in some cases is even God himself. So Peter is made to teach in the seventh Homily:
“Simon (Magus) is a power of the left hand of God, and has authority to do harm to those who know not God, so that he has been able to involve you (the Tyrians) in diseases; but by these very diseases which have been permitted to come upon you by the good providence of God, you, seeking and finding him who is able to cure, have been compelled to submit to the will of God on the occasion of the cure of the body, and to think of believing, in order that in this way you may have your souls as well as your bodies in a healthy state.”
So, then, I am God’s instrument for good to men, and good in both body and soul. Like Simon Magus, I am “a power of the left hand of God.” And this prerogative I claim on the authority of him who is the rock on which the Church is built. Bow down, then, before me, and own in me God’s instrument, ye popes, bishops, priests, and see to it that ye teach the people the doctrine, which is not only as true as yours, but more salutary. Moreover, observe the extent of power I thus obtain. Sin is universal, and consequently God’s left hand work is also universal. And as I control the magicians, and the magicians control angels as well as demons, my power extends from earth to heaven, and spreads throughout the heavenly hosts. Even Peter recognizes the power of the magician:
“Simon is a minister of evil to them who know not the truth. Therefore he has power to bring diseases on sinners. By that evil-working magician, then, you (the Tyrians) were stricken with diseases because you revolted from God.” (Chap. xi.).
I am, however, not without a fear that exception may be taken to the authority I have cited. You are surprised? Well may you be surprised, and more ground for surprise will you have when you hear what I am about to cite—words which I am sure would convict the apostle Peter, the rock of the Church, of rank heresy in any ecclesiastical court of Christendom. You are not ignorant of the orthodox doctrine of “the fall of the angels” and “the fall of man”. Now listen to Peter’s statements on these points:
“The only good God made all things well and handed them over to man, who was made after his image, and breathed of the Divinity by whom he was made. Moreover, he appointed to them a perpetual law. By obedience to the law they had all things in abundance—the fairest of fruits, fulness of years, freedom from disease and grief, with all salubrity of the air. But they, because they had at first no experience of evils, being insensible to the gift of good things, were turned to ingratitude by abundance of food and luxuries, so that they even thought that there is no Providence. But then they were overtaken by a certain just punishment, following from a certain arranged harmony, removing from them good things as having hurt them, and introducing evil things instead, as advantageous. This misconduct led the angels to ask God to allow them to enter into the life of men, in order to correct them. The request was granted. Whereupon the angels metamorphosed themselves into various natures; for, being of a more godlike substance, they are able easily to assume any form. So they became precious stones and goodly pearls, and the most beauteous purple and choice gold. And they fell into the hands of some, and into the bosom of others, and suffered themselves to be stolen by them. They also changed themselves into beasts and reptiles, and fishes and birds. But when, having assumed these forms with a view to the good of men, they became in all respects as men; so they partook of human lust, and being brought into subjection to it, they fell into cohabitation with women, and, sank in defilement, became unable to turn back to the first purity of their proper nature. Wherefore they have never been able to ascend into the heavens again. Wishing to please their mistresses, they got charmed stones from the bowels of the earth, and imparted the discovery of magic, and taught astronomy and the powers of roots; also the melting of gold and silver, and the various dyeing of garments. And all things, in short, which are for the adornment and delight of women, are the discoveries of these demons bound in flesh. But from their unhallowed intercourse spurious men sprang, much greater in stature than ordinary men who were afterwards called giants—wild in manners and huge in size, inasmuch as they were sprung of angels, yet less than angels, as they were born of women. Therefore God, knowing that they were barbarized to brutality, that they might not, from want of food, turn to the eating of animals, rained down showers of manna on them suited to their various tastes, and they enjoyed all that they would. But, on account of their bastard nature, not being pleased with purity of food, they longed only after the taste of blood. Wherefore they then first tasted flesh. And the men who were with them for the first time were eager to do the like. But when irrational animals fell short, men also ate human flesh; for it was not a long step to the consumption of flesh like their own, when they had tasted it in other forms. The defilements that ensued led God to destroy with a flood all men except Noah and his three sons, with their wives and their children. Then God gave a law to them and their descendants, to the effect that every one who worships demons or sacrifices to them, or partakes with them of their table, shall become subject to them and receive all punishment from them, as being under wicked lords.”
And so you see, my intelligent friend, that while, on the authority of Peter, I am exempted from the serpent work which orthodoxy attributes to me, I nevertheless exercise all but boundless power over men, fallen angels and demons. The sole restriction put on that authority is effectual resistance to my temptations on the part of God’s intelligent creatures, whose feebleness is made fully manifest by the account you have just heard of the origin of evil from the lips of the apostle Peter, who, under Christ, is the head of the Church, the infallible Pope included. For myself, I have no complaint of injustice or harshness to make against “the Rock;” but I do think he has fallen rather heavily on the ladies, and I shall be surprised if, in these days of agitation about “women’s rights,” a great number of them do not shew by their secession from so ungallant a body as Peter’s bachelor Church, that they have a better chance of being justly treated by even me than by the priests; while I am sure that I, a most maligned potentate, have solid grounds for expecting fair treatment from the fair sex.
A stinted reparation to Eve and her descendants is however made in the following extract, one of the “Fragments of the lost Writings of Irenaeus,” bishop of Lyons in France (177— 202), which I quote the rather because it is more temperate than most of what is said of me by the ecclesiastical Fathers, and will serve as a link in the line in which I unfold their demonology:
“How is it possible to say that the serpent, created by God dumb and irrational, was endowed with reason and speech? For if it had the power of itself to speak, to discern, to understand, and to reply to what was spoken by the woman, there would have been nothing to prevent every serpent from doing this also. If, however, they say again that it was according to the Divine will and dispensation that this serpent spake with a human voice to Eve, they render God the author of sin. Neither was it possible for the evil demon to impart speech to a speechless nature, and thus from that which is not to produce that which is; for if that were the case, he never would have ceased, with the view of leading men astray, from conferring with and deceiving them by means of serpents and beasts and birds. From what quarter too did it, being a beast, obtain information regarding the injunction of God to the man, given to him alone and in secret, not even the woman herself being aware of it h Why did it not prefer to make its attack upon the man instead of the woman? And if thou sayest that it attacked her as being the weaker of the two, I reply, that on the contrary she was the stronger, since she appears to have been man’s helper in the transgression of the commandment. For she did by herself alone withstand the serpent, and it was after holding out for a while and making opposition that she ate of the tree, being circumvented by craft; whereas Adam, making no fight whatever nor refusal, partook of the fruit handed to him by the woman, which is an indication of the utmost imbecility and effeminacy of mind. And the woman, indeed, having been vanquished in the conquest by a demon, is deserving of pardon; but Adam deserves none, for he was worsted by a woman—he who in his own person had received the command from God. But the woman, having heard of the command from Adam, treated it with disregard, either because she deemed it unworthy of God to speak by means of it, or because she had her doubts, perhaps even held the opinion that the command was given to her by Adam of his own accord. The serpent found her working alone, so that he was able to confer with her apart. Observing her then eating or not eating from the tree, he put before her the fruit of the forbidden tree. And if he saw her eating, it is manifest that she was a partaker of a body subject to corruption; ‘for every thing that goeth in at the mouth is cast out into the draught’ (Matt. xv. 17). If, then, corruptible, it is manifest that she was also mortal. But if mortal, then there was certainly no curse; nor was that a condemnatory sentence when the voice of God spoke to the man, ‘For earth thou art, and unto earth shalt thou return’ (Gen. iii. 19), as the true course of things proceeds now and always. Then, again, if the serpent observed the woman not eating, how did he induce her to eat who never had eaten? And who pointed out to this accursed man-slaying serpent that the sentence of death pronounced against them by God would not take effect, when he said, ‘For in the day that ye eat thereof, ye shall surely die’? And not this merely, but that, along with the impunity, the eyes of those should be opened who had not seen until then? But with the opening of their eyes referred to, they made entrance upon the path of death.”
Had the writer allowed his own logic to have its full force in his mind, he would not have descended to the abusive terms, “this accursed man-slaying serpent;” for the tenor of what he says goes to shew that the whole story, taken in its ordinary acceptation, is untrue, and so to acquit me of complicity in the alleged transaction. But here real knowledge steps in to utter the most decided and irrefragable “No!” to the narrative, which breaks down at its centre, and so altogether and irreparably. For the serpent, which is that centre, is not now, nor ever was, under a curse, but on the contrary shews forth the blessedness of the Divine presence in the admirable structure with which it is endowed for the fulfilment of the Divine purposes. I cite the words of one of the high-priests of science:
“Most annotators to Scripture represent serpents as the progeny of a transmuted species, degraded from its original form as the penal consequence of its instrumentality in the temptation of Eve. Thus Drs. D’Oyly and Mant, in the edition of the Bible printed under the direction of the Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge (ed. 1823), write— ‘The curse upon the serpent consisted first in bringing down his stature, which was probably in great measure erect before this time: ’upon thy belly shalt thou go,’ or ‘upon thy breast,’ as some versions have it. Secondly, in the meanness of its provision—’and dust shalt thou eat inasmuch as, creeping upon the ground, it cannot but lick up much dust together with its food.’ Almost every commentator writes under the same impression of the special and penal degradation of the serpent to its present form. But when the laws of the science of animated nature form part of the preliminary studies of the theologist, he will appreciate the futility of such attempts to expound the symbolic text as if it were a statement of matter of fact. What Zoology and Anatomy have unfolded of the nature of serpents in their present condition amounts to this: that their parts are as exquisitely adjusted to the form of their whole, and to their habits and sphere of life, as is the organization of any animal which, in the terms of absolute comparison, we call superior to them. It is true that the serpent has no limbs; yet it can out-climb the monkey, out-swim the fish, out-leap the jerboa, and suddenly loosing the coils of its crouching spiral, it can spring so high into the air as to seize the bird upon the wing; thus all those creatures fall its prey. The serpent has neither hands nor claws; yet it can out-wrestle the athlete, and crush the tiger in the embrace of its overlapping folds. Far from licking up its food as it glides along, the serpent lifts up its crushed prey, and presents it, grasped in the death-coil as in a hand, to the gaping mouth. It is truly wonderful to see the work of hands, feet, fins, performed by a mere modification of its vertebral column. But the vertebrae are specially modified to compensate by the strength of their individual articulations for the weakness of their manifold repetition, and of the consequent elongation of the slender column. But what more particularly concerns us in the relation of the serpent to our own history is the palaeontological fact, that these ophidian peculiarities and complexities of cranial and vertebral organization, in designed subserviency to a prone position and a gliding progress on the belly, were given, with their poison apparatus, by the Creator, to the serpents of that early tertiary period of our planet’s history, when, in the progressive preparation of the dry land, but few, and those only the lower, organized species, now our contemporaries, had been called into existence—before any of the actual kinds of Mammalia (the class to which man belongs) trod the earth, and long ages before the creation of man! Biblical commentators in this matter have erred, knowing only, or believing that they knew, the Scripture, and ‘not knowing the power of God.’ The admonition of Christ has been needed in all times, and is particularly applicable to the present time.”
If now, my beloved companion, you cast your mind back on the survey I have set before you of the highest ecclesiastical authorities—those to whom the Papal and the Protestant Church are alike indebted for the substance of their doctrine and the form of their worship; if you carefully observe the character of their state of mind, and the diversity in their several views and opinions on even central points; and if you receive as true my statement that this is that tradition on which the present ecclesiastical organizations “stand at ease,” as if their ground was solid and their future secure—what can you do hut adopt, as soon as I repeat it, John Milton’s concise hut pregnant description of the whole as given in these terms:
“Whatsoever time, or the heedless hand of blind chance, hath drawn down from of old to this present in her huge drag-net, whether fish or sea-weed, shells or shrubs, unpicked, unchosen—these are the Fathers .” I add what follows as my own apology for reciting to you, and through you to others, my own Autobiography: “Seeing, therefore, some men deeply conversant in books have had so little care of late to give to the world a better account of their reading than by divulging needless tractates (e.g., the ‘Tracts for the Times’) stuffed with the precious names of Ignatius and Polycarpus; with fragments of old martyrologies and legends, to distract and stagger the multitude of credulous readers, and mislead them from their strong guards and places of safety, under the tuition of holy writ; it came into my thoughts to persuade myself, setting all distances and nice respects aside, that I could do religion and my country no better service for the time, than doing my utmost endeavour to recall the people of God from this vain foraging after straw, and to reduce them to their firm stations under the standard of the gospel, by making to appear to them, first the insufficiency, next the inconveniency, and lastly the impiety of those gay testimonies that their great doctors would bring them to dote on.”
5. Period Of Composition: Debasement
1. My Fabulous History
SECTION I. HOW EYE FELL: THE MOHAMEDAN FABLE.
“Venerable Teacher, I cannot quite understand what distinction you intend when you speak of your ‘fabulous history:’ is not the whole a fable’?” In a certain sense it is. My history, considered as the history of a person, is a pure fable or an unconscious fiction, the growth of ages of speculation on the origin of what men call evil. But there are fables and fables. Fables vary with their authors; and never was there a greater variety of authors and of fables than in my case, “said or sung,” as I have been by the Aryan mind as well as the Shemitic, in nearly their highest and lowest tones. And it is just this variety that I want to put before you, since it involves that universality which defeats the claim of the ecclesiastic speciality, and establishes the important fact that everywhere and at all times men have speculated on the origin of sin and come to pretty nearly the same conclusion, whether arrayed in the philosophical garb of an Augustin, or enshrouded in an archaic Mexican group of figures. It is of this lower element I think when I speak of my fabulous history. Not a few opinions of it have I collected during my travels. I select two as least unworthy, while faithfully descriptive of certain states of mind, and of the debasement of conception under which I have gone in less ancient times.
In the midst of paradise there stood a silken tent, supported on golden pillars, and in the midst of it there was a throne, on which Adam seated himself with Eve. Whereupon the curtains of the tent closed around them of their own accord. When Adam and Eve were afterwards walking through the garden, Gabriel came and commanded them in the name of Allah to go and bathe in one of the four rivers of paradise. Allah himself then said to them, “I have appointed this garden for your abode; it. will shelter you from cold and heat, from hunger and thirst. Take at your discretion of everything that it contains; only one of its fruits shall be denied you. Beware that ye transgress not this one command, and watch against the wily rancour of Iblis. He is your enemy, because he was overthrown on your account; his cunning is infinite, and he aims at your destruction.” The newly-created pair attended to Allah’s words, and lived a long time, some say five hundred years, in paradise, without approaching the forbidden tree. But Iblis also had listened to Allah, and resolving to lead man into sin, wandered constantly in the outskirts of heaven, seeking to glide unobservedly into paradise. But its gates were shut and guarded by the angel Ridwhan. One day the peacock came out of the garden. He was then the finest of the birds of paradise, for his plumage shone like pearl and emerald, and his voice was so melodious that he was appointed to sing the praises of Allah daily in the principal highways of heaven. Iblis, on seeing him, said to himself, Doubtless this beautiful bird is very vain j perhaps I may be able to induce him by flattery to take me secretly into the garden. When the peacock had gone so far from the gates that he could no longer be overheard by Ridwhan, Iblis said to him, ”Most wonderful and beautiful bird! art thou of the birds of paradise?” “I am; but who art thou, who seemest frightened as if some one did pursue th.ee?” I am one of the cherubim who are appointed to sing without ceasing the praises of Allah, but have glided away for an instant to visit the paradise which he has prepared for the faithful. Wilt thou conceal me under thy beautiful wings? “Why should I do an act which .must bring the displeasure of Allah upon me?” “Take me with thee, charming bird, and I will teach thee three mysterious words which shall preserve thee from sickness, age and death.” “Must then the inhabitants of paradise die?” “All without exception who know not the three words which I possess.” “Speakest thou the truth?” “By Allah the Almighty!”
The peacock believed him, for did he not swear by his Maker? Yet, fearing lest Ridwhan might search him too closely on his return, he refused to take Iblis along with him, but promised to send out the serpent, who might more easily discover the means of introducing him unobservedly into the garden.
Now the serpent was at first the queen of all beasts. Her head was like rubies, and her eyes like emeralds. Her skin shone like a mirror of various hues. Her hair was soft like that of a noble virgin, and her form resembled the stately camel; her breath was sweet like musk and amber, and all her words were songs of praise. She fed on saffron, and her resting-places were on the blooming borders of the beautiful Cantharus (one of the rivers of paradise). She was created a thousand years before Adam, and destined to be the playmate of Eve. The serpent ran forth out of the gate, and Iblis repeated to her what he had said to the peacock. “How can I take thee into paradise unobserved?” “I will contract myself so that I shall find room in the cavity of thy teeth.” When they had passed Ridwhan, the serpent opened her mouth, but Iblis preferred to speak to Adam from that place of concealment and in her name.
Arrived at Eve’s tent, Iblis heaved a heavy sigh—the first which envy had forced from any living breast. “Why art thou so cast down to-day, my beloved serpent?” inquired Eve, who had heard the sigh. “I am anxious for the future destiny of thee and thy husband,” replied Iblis, imitating the voice of the serpent. “How? Do we not possess in these gardens of Eden all that we can desire “The only fruit which can procure you perfect felicity is denied you.” “Knowest thou the reason?” ”I do, and it is precisely this knowledge which fills my heart with care; for while all the fruits which are given you bring with them weakness, disease, old age and death, that is the entire cessation of life, this forbidden fruit alone bestows eternal youth and vigour.” “Thou hast never spoken of these things until now, beloved serpent; whence derivest thou this knowledge?” An angel informed me of it whom I met under the forbidden tree.” Eve answered: “I will go and speak with him;” and leaving her tent, she hurried towards the tree. On the instant. Iblis, who knew Eve’s curiosity, sprang out of the serpent’s mouth, and was standing under the forbidden tree in the shape of an angel, but with a human face, before Eve had reached it. “Who art thou, singular being?” “I was man, but have become an angel.” “By what means?” “By eating of this blessed fruit, which an envious God had forbidden me to taste on pain of death. I long submitted to his command, until I became old and frail; my eyes lost their lustre and grew dim; my ears no longer heard; my teeth decayed, and I could neither eat without pain nor speak with distinctness. I then longed for death, and expecting to meet it by eating of this fruit, I stretched out my hands and took of it; but lo! it had scarcely touched my lips when I became strong and beautiful as at first; and though many thousand years have since elapsed, I am not sensible of the slightest change’ either in my appearance or my energies.” Eve ate and offered of the fruit to her husband. Adam refused for eighty years; but when he observed that Eve remained fair and happy, he also ate.
Scarcely had Adam eaten of the fruit when his crown rose towards heaven, his rings fell from his fingers, and his silken robe dropped from his body. Eve, too, stood spoiled of her ornaments and naked before him, and they heard how all these things cried to them with one voice: ”Woe unto you! your calamity is great, and your mourning will be long. We were made only for the obedient—farewell until the resurrection!” The throne which had been erected for them in the tent thrust them away and cried: “Rebels, depart The horse Meimun, on which Adam attempted to fly, would not suffer him to mount; saying, “Hast thou thus kept the covenant of Allah?”
All the creatures of paradise then turned from them, and besought Allah to remove the human pair from that hallowed spot. Allah addressed Adam in a voice of thunder, and said, “Wast thou not commanded to abstain from this fruit, and forewarned of the cunning of Iblis, thy foe?” Adam attempted to flee from these upbraidings, and Eve would have followed him: but he was held fast by the branches of the tree Talh, and Eve was entangled in her own dishevelled hair, while a voice from the tree exclaimed: “From the wrath of Allah there is no escape—submit to his divine decree.” ”Leave this paradise.” continued Allah in tones of wrath;—”both you and the creatures which have seduced you to transgress: by the sweat of your brow shall you earn your bread: the earth shall henceforth be your abode, and its possessions shall fill your hearts with envy and malice. Eve shall be visited with all kinds of sickness, and bear children in pain. The peacock shall be deprived of his voice, and the serpent of her feet. The darkest caverns of the earth shall be her dwelling-place, dust shall be her food, and to kill her bring seven-fold reward. But Iblis shall depart into the eternal pains of hell.”
Hereupon they were hurled down from paradise. Adam was flung out through the gate of Repentance, teaching him that he might return through contrition; Eve through the gate of Mercy; and the serpent through the gate of Wrath; but Iblis through the gate of Curse. And Allah said: “You disobedient and impenitent ones shall suffer the pains of everlasting lire, but the faithful shall be blessed in paradise.” Adam and Eve lamented so loudly, that the east wind carried Eve’s voice to Adam, while the west wind bore his to Eve.
The tears flowed at last in such torrents from Adam’s eyes, that those of his right eye set the Euphrates a flowing, and those of his left eye, the Tigris. All nature wept with him and -entreated Allah for pardon. Allah sent Gabriel to him with these words:
“There is no God besides thee. I have sinned; but forgive me through Mohamed, thy last and greatest prophet.”
As soon as Adam had pronounced these words, the gates of heaven flew open, and the angel Gabriel cried, “Allah has accepted thy repentance!”
At the same time the angel Michael was sent to Eve, announcing forgiveness to her also.
Iblis, emboldened by the pardon of the human pair, ventured also to pray for a mitigation of his sentence, and obtained its postponement until the resurrection, as well as an unlimited power over transgressors who do not accept the word of Allah. “Where shall I dwell in the mean time?” “In ruins, in tombs, and all other unclean places.” ”What shall be my food?” “All things slain in the name of idols.” “How shall I quench my thirst?” ”‘With wine and intoxicating liquors.” “What shall occupy my leisure hours?” “Music, song, love-poetry and dancing.” “What is my watchword?” ”The curse of Allah, until the day of judgment.” ”But how shall I contend with man?” “For every man that is born, there shall come into the world seven evil spirits— but they shall be powerless against the faithful.”
SECTION II. THE DEVILS WITHSTAND THE APOSTLE ANDREW IN “THE CITY OF MAN-EATERS.”
When the apostle Andrew at the command of Christ was preaching the gospel in the city of the man-eaters, he was withstood by me in person, whereupon he addressed me in these terms: “Woe to thee, the devil, the enemy of God, and to thine angels; for the strangers here who preach Christ have done nothing to thee; and how hast thou brought on them this punishment h how long dost thou war against the human race? Thou didst cause Adam to be expelled from paradise, and didst cause men to be mixed up with transgression; and the Lord was enraged, and brought on the deluge so as to sweep men away. And hast thou made thy appearance in this city too, in order that thou mayest expose the men-eaters to execration and destruction, thinking in thyself that God will sweep away the work of his hands? If there be any punishment prepared, it is for the sake of taking vengeance on thee.”
Behold, the devil appeared in the likeness of an old man, and began to say in the midst of all: “Woe unto you, because you are now dying, having no food. Rise up, and make search for one who has come to the city, a stranger named Andrew, and kill him, in order that henceforward you may be able to collect your food.”
And Andrew saw the devil as he was talking to the multitude, but the devil did not see the blessed Andrew. Then Andrew answered the devil, and said, “O Belial, most fiendish; thou art the foe of every creature; but my Lord Jesus Christ will bring thee down to the abyss.” And the devil having heard this, said, “I hear thy voice indeed, and I know thy voice, but where thou art standing I know not.” And Andrew answered, and said to the devil, “Why, then, art thou called Samael? Is it not because thou art blind, not seeing the saints V’ And the devil, hearing this, said to the citizens, “Look round now for him who is speaking to me.” And the citizens, running in different directions, shut the gates of the city, but could not find the blessed one. Then the Lord shewed himself to Andrew, and said: “Andrew, rise up and shew thyself to them, that they may learn my power and the powerlessness of the devil that works in them.” Then Andrew arose, and said in presence of all, “Behold, I am Andrew whom you seek.” And the multitudes ran upon him, and laid hold of him, saying, “What thou hast done to us we will do to thee.” And they reasoned among themselves, saying, “By what death shall we kill him? If we take off his head, his death is not torture; and if we burn him, he will not be food for us.” Then one of them, the devil having entered into him, answered and said to the multitudes, “Fasten a rope to his neck and drag him through the city, and when he is dead we will share his body amongst us.” And they did so. And the flesh of. the blessed Andrew stuck to the ground, and his blood flowed like water. And when it was evening, they cast him into prison, having bound his hands behind him; and he was in sore distress. And in the morning they brought him out, and again dragged him up and down. And the blessed one wept, and prayed, saying, “My Lord Jesus Christ, do not forsake me.” And as he prayed, the devil walked behind, and said to the multitudes, “Strike him on the mouth, that he may not speak” (Acts xxiii. 2). And when it was evening they again took him to prison. Then the devil, taking with himself seven demons whom the blessed one had cast out of the countries round about, stood before him, intending to kill him. And the demons said to Andrew: “Now hast thou fallen into our hands; where is thy glory and thy exultation, thou that raisest thyself up against us and dishonourest us, and tellest our doings to the people in every place and country, and hast made our workshops and our temples become desolate, in order that sacrifices may not be brought to them? Because of this we will kill thee, like thy teacher Jesus, and John whom Herod beheaded.” And they stood before Andrew to kill him. But they beheld the seal upon his forehead which the Lord had given him, and fled.
And the devil said to them, “Why have you not killed him, my children?” And they answered and said, “We cannot kill him; but kill him thyself if thou canst.”
Then one of the demons said, “Come, let us mock 13™.’’ And they stood before him and scoffed at him.
And the blessed one wept. Then there came a voice unto him, saying, “Andrew, why weepest thou?” And it was the voice of the devil changed. And Andrew answered, “I weep because God commanded me, saying, ‘Be patient.”‘ And the devil said, “If thou canst do anything, do it.” And Andrew answered, “Forbid it that I should disobey the command of my Lord; but if the Lord shall make for me a bishopric in this city, I will chastise you as you deserve.” And having heard this they fled.
And when it was morning they again dragged him about the city. And the blessed one wept, saying, “Lord Jesus Christ, be not displeased with me; for thou knowest, Lord, what the fiend has inflicted upon me, along with his demons.” Then Jesus said to Andrew, “O our Andrew, heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away. Turn thyself, then, Andrew, and behold, thy flesh that has fallen and thy hair—what has become of them?” And Andrew turned, and saw great trees springing up, bearing fruit; and he glorified God. The fourth day Andrew’s executioners did the same. And the Lord appeared in the prison, and having stretched out his hand, said to Andrew, “Rise up whole.” And he rose up whole. And looking into the middle of the prison, he saw a pillar, having on its top a statue of alabaster. And Andrew went to the pillar and the statue, and said to them, “Tear the sign of the cross which heaven and earth doth dread. And do thou, O idol statue, bring up much water to punish all in this wicked city.” Straightway the statue cast out of its mouth water in great abundance. And when it was morning, the men of the city said, “Woe for us, because we are dying;” and they began to flee out of the city.
Then Andrew prayed: “O Lord Jesus Christ, send Michael thy archangel in a cloud of fire, and let him be a wall of fire around the city that no one be able to escape.” And straightway a cloud of fire came down and encircled the city like a wall. And the water was as high as the neck of the men. And they cried out, “God of the stranger, take away from us this water.” And the apostle said to the alabaster statue, “Stop the water, for they have repented. And I say to thee, that if the citizens of this city shall believe, I will build a church and place thee in it, because thou hast done me this service.” And the statue ceased flowing. And Andrew came out of the prison, and the water ran this way and that from the feet of the blessed Andrew. And an old man, who had given up his children to be slain to save himself, came and threw himself at the feet of the blessed Andrew, saying, “Have pity on me.” And Andrew answered, “Together with this water shalt thou go into the abyss.” And the blessed one, looking up to heaven, prayed before all the multitude; and the earth opened and swallowed up the water, and the old man along with the water. He was carried down into the abyss, together with the executioners.
And the men of the city, seeing what had happened, were exceedingly afraid, and began to say, “Woe unto us, because this man is of God; and now he will kill us because of the afflictions that we have caused him.” And Andrew said to them, “Fear not, children, for I shall not send you also to Hades, but those have gone that you may believe in our Lord Jesus Christ.” Then the holy Andrew ordered to be brought up all who had died in the water. And they were not able to bring them for there had died a great multitude both of men and women and cattle. Then Andrew prayed, and they all came to life. And after these things he built a church, and baptized the people, and gave them the ordinances of our Lord Jesus Christ. And the men of the city entreated him to stay with them. But he went his way.
And the Lord Jesus, coming down from heaven like a comely little child, said, “Andrew, why hast thou left them without fruit? Return and remain there seven days, until I shall confirm their souls in the faith.” Then Andrew turned and went back into the city, saying, “I thank thee, my Lord Jesus Christ, who wishest to save every soul, that thou hast not allowed me to go forth out of this city in mine anger.” And when he had returned into the city, they rejoiced with exceeding joy. And he stayed there seven days, teaching and confirming them in the Lord Jesus Christ. And the seven days being fulfilled, while the blessed Andrew was going out, all came together to him, from the child even to the elders, and sent him on his way, saying, ”There is one God, the God of Andrew and our Lord Jesus Christ, who alone doeth wonders, to whom be glory and strength for ever. Amen.”
What fatuous credulity have we here! No wonder the ages which invented, received, circulated and transmitted fictions so monstrous and marvels so absurd, held me to be a real person, and propagated their belief over land and ocean and down to distant ages!
“Is it not a popular legend? you ask, Theophilus. Possibly so; none the less gross must the credulity have been. There is, however, one redeeming quality in this narrative, as in many others of the same kind, viz., the moral glory of Jesus is sustained and even thrown into prominence by the deep shadows in which it is embedded. And if my moral ugliness serves to make Iris transcendent beauty appear more beautiful, I find consolation in the thought, and am content to live on if only to aid in bringing about its final supremacy.
6. Period Of Composition: Debasement
1. My Connection With The Philosophers: Apollonius Of Tyana, The Pagan Christ: Turning Tables And Rapping Spirits In The Olden Time
The advent of Christ is described by Milton as fatal to the superstitions of the pagan world:
From this happy day
The old dragon, under ground
In straiter limits bound,
Not half so far casts his usurped sway;
And, wroth to see his kingdom fail,
Swinges the scaly horror of his folded tail.
As a prophetic prolepsis, this is undoubtedly true. As the statement of a fact, it is contradicted emphatically by my own experience. The immediate effect of the appearance of Christianity before the eye of the world was to call forth opposition from all the actual powers of society. Alike the philosophic and the sacerdotal world rallied and concentrated their forces against the invader of their domains. Appealing to my worst passions, they invoked and secured my aid. 2so sooner was that guaranteed than the black arts assumed unwonted activity, and society was afflicted with delusious and marvels most numerous and most deadly. The plagues of Egypt were renewed by the magicians of civilization.
Special efforts were made by a philosophy which, losing its reason, became most unreasonable, and, ceasing to be divine, became demoniacal. Its entire effort was made with a view to withstand and throw back the swelling and advancing tides of the religion of Jesus. The labour was Herculean, and appeals came to me from all sides for aid in the tremendous issue. Then was it that I suggested a personal opponent to Christ. Christianity must be withstood with its own weapons. Surely philosophy could readily crush the babe of Bethlehem. Set Pythagoras in opposition to Jesus. Encounter the poverty of the latter with the asceticism of the former. Easily could the ethics of the Jewish prophet be eclipsed by the morality of the Academy and the Portico. And as to the alleged miracles of the gospel, it would be the easiest thing in the world for me to make them look tame and poor by marvels on the grandest scale and the most dazzling splendour.
Accordingly, with the aid of Philostratus of Lemnos, I produced and put before the world Apollonius of Tyana, a Greek city of Cappadocia. The pseudo-biographer was a member of the literary and cultured circle which had been brought together by the wife of Septimus Severus (A.D. 193 —211), Julia Domna, at whose command the book was compiled. I have lately renewed my acquaintance with its contents, and find that the volume, though a tissue of falsehoods, is not without a certain interest, particularly as illustrating the infatuation of the imperial court and the stolid credulity of the age. As a picture of the times the work is the more instructive, since it came forth under high auspices, and in its survey comprehends nearly the whole of the civilized earth. With a view to interest the reader and make the narratives impressive, Apollonius is represented as, like great people in modern times, making the tour, not of Europe only, but the world. Passing through the chief cities of Greece, he repairs to Babylon and penetrates India, accompanied by his disciple Damis. Asia Minor, Italy and Egypt he visits. Everywhere he seeks for and teaches true wisdom; everywhere he does his best to sustain or restore the sinking polytheism; everywhere he performs astounding feats of the wonderful. The Hindoo sages inhabit the summit of a mountain, whence they hurl thunderbolts on the rash men who try to ascend thither without their permission. The nearer you approach the lofty ridges, the more do you find yourself in the regions of the preternatural. It is, for example, an insect which produces an oil, from which may be extracted inextinguishable flames wherewith to besiege and capture hostile cities. Farther on it is a woman, black in hue from her head to her waist, and white from her waist to her feet; thus coloured expressly by nature in order to pay to the Indian Venus the homage which she claims. Elsewhere yon come upon fields of pear-trees cultivated by monkeys; and then enormous serpents, which are taken by extending along the mouth of their lair some yards of red linen, imprinted with magical characters. In the head of those reptiles are precious stones, whose virtue is the same as that of the ring of Gyges, which made its wearer invisible.
At last Apollonius reaches the sacred mountain. It is environed by mists which grow thicker or thinner at the will of the sage. As you ascend, you meet with a fire which purifies from all stain; a well which utters oracles; two large stone vases which contain, the one rain, the other wind, both at the disposition of the sage. According to the doctrine of the wise, this mountain is the navel of India. There they adore the fire which they boast of drawing directly from the sun, the prerogative of Prometheus, a symbol for them as well as him of inventive science. With his own eyes Damis sees those sages rise in the air without support, without any artifice, to the height of several feet. The sages have no house; when it rains they bring a cloud to shelter themselves with. They wear their hair long, white mitres, vestments woven from flax, which the earth allows them only to gather. Apollonius is disconcerted by their knowledge, and yet he is not easily astonished. They possess absolute science. They are familiar with the past of every one they come near. They have an answer for every question. When they themselves are asked, “Who are you?” they reply, “Divinities.” ”Why?” “Because we are virtuous.” “This answer appeared to Apollonius full of sense,” continues his biographer, who, among all the virtues with which he credits his hero, has some way forgotten modesty.
Having undergone his initiation into the Indian mysteries, Apollonius proceeds to traverse the rest of the earth as a prophet and a reformer. Ephesus, a totally frivolous and effeminate city, is by his preaching brought back to philosophy and virtue. The dissensions of Smyrna are composed by his wisdom. Meanwhile Ephesus, infested by a devastating plague, invites him back. To deliver the city, he thinks it enough to knock an old beggar on the head. When the mass of stones under which the beggar lies is raised, an enormous dog is found in his place. This brute was nothing else than an evil spirit, the source of the devastation. Then he sets out for Greece. Stopping 011 his way at Troy, he has a conversation with the shade of Achilles, and learns that the beautiful Helen was never in the city of Priam. Then he visits at Lesbos, the sanctuary of Orpheus; and disembarks at Athens, where he heals a young man possessed of a devil, while inveighing against the voluptuous dances of Attica. After that, he pays a visit in succession to all the oracles of Greece, everywhere presenting himself as a reformer or restorer of the rites. At Corinth he unseals the eyes of one of his disciples desperately in love with apparently a very rich and beautiful woman, but who in reality was nothing but a Lamia, one of those wicked female demons who entrap young men in the toils of love only to devour them at their leisure. At Lacedemon he revives the vigour of the ancient laws. At Olympia he takes part in the games, being all but worshiped by the crowd. Thence he passes into Crete, and from there he proceeds to Rome. Nero reigned. The enemy of philosophers, he persecuted them under the pretext of their being magicians. In consequence, most of the disciples of Apollonius desert him, not daring to encounter the fury of the tyrant; but Apollonius, who fears nothing, enters the capital and passes his days in the different temples, where his religious discourses produce an immense sensation. Tigellinus, the Praetor, has him arrested for sedition; but, struck with his astounding answers, and believing he had to do with a devil rather than a man, he sets him at liberty.
At length his career is run. After his death his native city paid divine honours to his memory, and the veneration of the whole pagan world bore witness to the indelible impression left in men’s minds by the presence of this celestial being, who called forth from his contemporaries the exclamation, “A god dwells amongst us!” The life of Apollonius suffices of itself to exhibit the extreme ignorance and superstition of the age. I have ascribed my personal existence to ignorance, speculation, vanity; but surely credulity such as prevailed in the world during the early centuries of the Christian era is of itself powerful and prolific enough to have brought me into existence. No wonder that in the Church and out of it, as there were “lords many,” so also were there legions of devils.
Indeed, society became so saturated with Oriental phantasms, that had I not been long in existence, I should have been invented by the third and fourth centuries after the birth of Christ. Regarded as the father of magic and theurgy, recognized in all the arts of the pagan divination, I had the world in my hands, all but superseding Providence, and controlled and shaped events by laws in direct contravention to those of the Creator of the universe. All the sorcerers of the time had not, indeed, the power and skill of Simon and Apollonius, but they had become so numerous and active in Rome, that the poets of the day complain of them as a pest, and the emperors were compelled to issue edicts of expulsion against them. The Roman magicians were masters in their art. They went so far as to invent divining tables. As early as Tertullian (220), you may find mention made of the magical tables which, my envoys are said to have employed.
“If,” says that high Church authority, “it is given to make spectres appear, to call up the souls of the dead, to force infants’ mouths to utter oracles; if those tricksters on a large scale imitate miracles which seem due to the circles or the chains which persons form one with another; if they send dreams; if they raise conspiracies; if they have at their order spirit-messengers and demons, under whose control chairs and tables which indicate the future are a common fact,—with what double zeal will those powerful spirits do on their own behalf what they do for the service of others!”
You see that superstition is a very hard thing to die. A personal devil, once brought into existence, still finds that existence supported by magical circles, chains, turning tables, and rapping spirits. A conspiracy was formed against the emperor Flavius Yalens, who lived in the fourth century. Among the conspirators were many persons of high rank that dealt in magic. In their number was a mystic philosopher of the school of Alexandria, the celebrated Jamblichus. This circle desired to learn who would succeed the reigning emperor, although the curiosity was by law a capital crime. One of them, by name Hilarius, delivered the following speech, in which he confesses the crime that was laid to their charge: “Magnificent judges, we constructed in the form of the Delphic tripod, with wands of laurel, under the auspices of hell, this ominous table which you see, and after having, according to the prescribed rules, subjected it, during several hours, to conjurations and mystic formulas, we at last set it in motion. Now when we wish to consult it as to secret things, the plan to make it move is this: we place it in the middle of a room, carefully purified with the incense of Arabia, and place thereon a round empty basin made of different metals. On his feet before it, one of the members of the assembly, skilled in magical practices, having conciliated by prayer the support of the divinity which inspires prophecies, balances above it a ring duly consecrated. This ring, leaping up and down in the intervals of letters which stop it one after another, composes heroic verses like those of the Pythoness. We then ask it: ”Who is to be the successor of the reigning emperor? and as it was said that it would be a man of a perfect education, the ring touched in its vibrations the letters which were held to indicate the name Theodore. ‘Theodore!’ exclaimed the spectators; ’Theodore is proclaimed by destiny!’”
The actors were put to death, and, if the historian, Zonaras, may be believed, Yalens also executed all the persons of distinction whose names began with the fatal letters. Jamblichus, Plotinus, Porphyry, and in general all the philosophers of Alexandria, professed to evoke spirits. _ Their philosophy was a theurgy in which names, ciphers, emblems and formulas, played a great part. The spirits, including God, thus evoked, had only to appear. The supreme object and perfection of this philosophy was the union of man with the God that filled the world. Plotinus died with these words on his lips: ”I make my last effort to unite what is divine in me to what is divine in the universe.”
Toward the sixth century, no trace remained of the school of the Alexandrine mystics; but their cabbalistic formulas had been preserved, and they were added to the treasures of the sorcerers on whom the Church, now powerful, made ceaseless war during the middle ages and afterwards.
2. My Connection With The Gnostics And The Manicheans
While in the pagan world I put forth Apollonius of Tyana to oppose Christianity in the Church and near the Church, I employed the Gnostics and the Manicheans as my allies to defile and corrupt the Church itself. And this I did the more easily because the human mind is ever prone to speculation, and in days of ignorance and impulse can hardly escape from producing a swarm of grotesque and heterogeneous figments. The topics which I selected for the subjects of these speculations were equally deep, important and attractive. In their most general form they ask, Whence this world of mixed good and evil; How can pure spirit come into contact and hold communion with impure matter? What is the source of sin? What will the end of these things be? Here are dualisms, contrarieties and oppositions of a most serious nature, which demand, but cannot easily receive, solution. I am myself the generally received solution. The human mind, pressed for an answer to these momentous questions, produced me, and that under various fancied shapes and characteristic names. Thus produced and invested with personality, I performed my part in the economy of human life, and on the wide area of heavenly and earthly movements. Through various human beings, e. g. Valentinus, Basilides, Nicolaus, Menander, &c., I put forth my demoniacal phantasms, and so augmented, if I did not enrich, the prevalent demonology of the Church and the world. These dark and fantastic conceptions borrowed different hues from the minds of my agents, being now pantheistic in their tendency, now theistic, and now positively atheistic. Whatever their colour, they were all true offspring of my nature, considered specially as representing the evil side of knowledge.
“The Gnostics” is a term which, literally rendered, signifies the knowers, the knowing ones. Now knowledge, or the thirst for knowledge, is good when the motive and the aim are right, and when it is sought in due proportion and harmony with other natural forces of man’s higher life. But knowledge becomes bad when sundered from morals and sentiment, and when, owing to partial culture, it degenerates into curiosity. Equally mistaken is it in its spirit and researches when it tries to force its way into the secret and inaccessible things of the universe. Before all, knowledge becomes bad when knowing is divorced from doing. Here, however, I must confess myself guilty of having charged innocent inquirers with guilt, and that, I add with regret, in the degree in which they were not only innocent but excellent. My misdeeds in this matter were facilitated and shared by the Church officials. Indeed, the greatest of my achievements has been to graft myself upon the Church, and to work through its agencies. The spirit of Gnosticism soon qualified, if it did not in part overpower, the Church itself. Having Gnostified the Church, I next inoculated it with the spirit of Manicheism. Far more successful than I was with the aid of Pagan philosophy, which, however, in the shape of Platonism or Aristotleism I contrived age after age to make alternately the mould which gave form and hue to what was called Christian doctrine, I transmuted that doctrine from being purely ethical, into being purely speculative, with the aid of the spirit and plastic influence of those two systems of speculation.
I must describe the agency I employed a little more exactly, by placing the Gnostic principle side by side with the Christian. The religion of Jesus is essentially ethical or spiritual. Founded on the two family ideas of fatherhood and sonship, as taught and exemplified in the words and the life of Jesus, Christianity is a moral power, the rule or sway of God and Christ in human hearts; the kingdom of God leading on and in to its natural consequence, the kingdom of heaven; or God in conscience, producing in men the blessed life, which, as being of God, is the everlasting life. Now the origin and human source of that life is not knowledge, but faith, that is, loving trust or trusting love. It is the reliance of the child on its mother. Consequently it is hungering and thirsting after God and goodness. And in regard to God, it is the continual infusion into the open and receptive soul of the rich and pellucid waters of the divine life. Rising thus in the inmost relations of God and man, and rising also in the instinctive sentiments of the human soul which have God for their author, the life that ensues manifests itself as the true life by its natural consequences; and these consequences are so many experiences and so many attestations which become knowledge and assurance of the things of God, the highest in kind, the most trustworthy in result. Here is true knowledge, knowledge which is religious not in name, but in reality, and knowledge which involves the highest possible human good.
But such knowledge was too pure, real, ethereal, for the dark ages. Its intrinsic worth is only now beginning to dawn. Profiting by men’s incapacity for the true religion of Jesus, I induced them to dethrone pistis (faith) and put gnosis (knowledge) on the seat of empire. This was a master-stroke on my part. “What did I but set the Church on an impossible task, and in so doing made it spurn and scorn the yoke which is easy and the burden which is light? (Matt. xi. 28). As an inevitable result, the ecclesiastical leaders gave themselves up to speculation, fabricated creeds, anathematized each other, and betrayed Christ with a kiss. Most strange of all is it that they charged on what I may term out-of-door speculators the very system and consequences of the system which had led them to eject Christ from his own temple, and later on led them to turn that temple itself into “a den of thieves” (Matt, xxi. 13).
I was not allowed to originate and impel the process of deterioration without counteraction. My gnosis was from the first quietly, but, though unconsciously, firmly resisted by the simple-minded members of the Church, who, knowing and finding that love was the fulfilling of the new law as well as the old, did their duty in lowly obedience to God and earnest service to man, and so passing on from generation to generation, became the light of the world and the salt of the earth; while sturdy and impetuous dogmatists like Tertullian and Augustin sowed tares among the wheat, and promoted the very spirit of speculation which they should have been the first to withstand. The final issue of this systematic perversion of the religion of Jesus received completion and consecration in the last (Ecumenical Council. But the day that the top-stone was placed on the edifice of sacerdotal usurpation and corruption was the day that sealed its doom and ensured its speedy downfall.
3. My Connection With Heresy
In contrast and, in a measure, in opposition to the speculative theology of the Church, there appeared in successive periods of its history a revival, greater or less, of the religion of Jesus, which bears in literature the name of Mysticism, and which clerical authority dubbed with the name of heresy. Another form of heresy arose from Gnostic tendencies, by exaggerating the force and the sway of the intellect in religious concerns. These may have involved errors to some extent, but they were a natural, and therefore a proper, reaction against the falsities of the Church, which ever increased numerically and grew larger and more injurious. Bad as this was, the Church took a far worse step when, at my dictation, it raised heresy into a crime, and defined the crime as “a pertinacious disregard of its authority, leading to impious opinions.” It followed that whatever deviated from the ecclesiastical standards was not so much an error as a heresy. The consequent evil would have been small, had not the Church effectually invoked the sword of the civil power for the assertion of its authority. Thus supported, the Church took the last downward step by setting up a tribunal which, under the name of ”the Holy Office,” commonly known as “the Inquisition,” took cognizance of religious opinions, and stamping with the brand of heresy every free thought, handed the criminals over to the stake here and the flames of hell hereafter. That I had a hand in this treason against humanity, I do not deny; but I deliberately and emphatically assert that alike in its ruthless principle and in its murderous results, the priest had far more to do than the man, and consequently that the huge mass of consequent blame lies not so much at my door as at the door of the Church. There is another aspect of the origin of heresy in which I had little or nothing to do. I will even venture to call it the divine side of heresy. Heresy is simply choice; and in the case the choice lay between this opinion and that, namely, the opinion which the chooser on inquiry found true and that which he found false. Strictly speaking, he had no option in such an issue. The conditions of the issue determined, the preference. All the inquirer had to do was to be faithful to his nature and obedient to Him by whom it had been made what it was. In this view, heresy is synonymous with honesty. Man’s duty to God and to himself and to his kind makes the avowal of this and the denial of that form of thought imperative. If, however, the prerogatives of individual judgment got prevalence, “the authority of the Church would soon be at an end.” Aware of its danger, sacerdotalism adopted the Herodian policy, and attempted to slay every infant in its cradle.
The atrocities which ensued have furnished to history its blackest and most odious page. The details are too horrible for me in my present state of mind even to relate. My complicity in the crimes I admit and deplore. It may serve as a slight extenuation on my part to add that, partaking of the improved spirit of the age, I have renounced the spirit and the practice of persecution; while there are Roman priests (whose names and words I would give had I space) who labour for the return of both, and who, expecting it to come ere very long, gloat over the agonies which, according to them, the guilty will undergo for ever. The criminality of papal Rome in this respect is the greater, because her draconic code, touching the results of free inquiry, has infected the mind and modified the conduct of Christendom. Hardly yet has the deadly infection ceased to operate even in the less illiberal ranks of English orthodoxy. So long as a man’s personal and social acceptableness is measured by his creed and not by his honesty, so long does the leaven of Romanism work in Protestant churches. What else but this leaven makes a Dissenter intolerable to a Churchman, and a Unitarian intolerable (or barely endurable) to a Trinitarian? In all these relics of bigotry I should rejoice exceedingly, were not my temper softened and mellowed by purer and nobler influences that float almost imperceptibly in the social atmosphere which I breathe, and which lead me to claim uncurtailed and unqualified freedom of thought and speech for every man on every topic, and particularly on the subject of religion. One condition, an indispensable condition, of the existence and free enjoyment of this liberty, is the utter extinction of the spirit and power of orthodoxy. So long as any one holds his own opinions to be essential to salvation in time and in eternity, so long will persecution survive in some form and admit of a certain subjective justification. The proof (if proof were needed) is supplied by the acts of persecution committed by some of the great leaders in the Lutheran Reformation. Take as an illustration the ensuing letter written by Earel, pastor of Neuchatel, to Calvin, to encourage the ecclesiastical despot of Geneva to put Servetus to death:
“The arrival of Servetus in Geneva is an admirable dispensation of God. May he repent even at the last hour! It will certainly be a great miracle to see him undergo death in a sincere spirit of conversion, and to force himself to edify the spectators—him who has willed to destroy so many souls. Yes, the judges will be not only cruel but hostile to Christ, and to the doctrine which is according to godliness; they will be true enemies of the Church, if they remain insensible to the horrible blasphemies by which that execrable heretic insults the Divine Majesty and endeavours to overturn the gospel of Christ and to corrupt all churches. But I hope that God will inspire those who so well know how to punish robbers and the sacrilegious, and lead them to act in this business in such a way as will bring them just commendations; and that they will put to death a man who has persisted in his heresies with so much obstinacy and destroyed so large a number of souls. Thy desire that his punishment should be mitigated is a friendly service rendered to one who is thy most mortal foe; but I beg thee to act in such a way that in future no one shall publish new doctrines and try to shake all foundations, as Servetus has done. Cast your eyes on that insolent heretic, Jerome Bolsec, who, though -often overcome in argument, has not yet been brought to reason; the indulgence of his judges, rather than equity, leading them astray from their duty, has done injury not to Servetus only, but to many others. However, thou art well informed of all this; but there are people who would let heretics alone, as if there were no difference between the functions of a minister and those of a magistrate. Because the pope condemns Christians for the crime of heresy; because enraged judges subject innocent persons to punishments reserved for hereties, it is absurd to conclude that the latter ought not to be put to death in order to guarantee Christians from harm. For me, I have often declared that I was ready to die if I had taught anything contrary to sound doctrine; and I add that I should be worthy of the most terrible punishments if I turned any one away from the true faith in Christ. I cannot then apply a different rule to others.—Neuchatel, 8th September, 1553”
Nor was this horrid judgment unsupported. The churches of Switzerland, being formally consulted, gave a unanimous opinion as to the theological culpability of Servetus, and differed solely as to the degree of his punishment.
While the cause at issue protracted itself, owing to a variety of circumstances, the innocent martyr suffered horribly in prison. Witness this most distressing letter:
“Magnificent Lords:—It is now three weeks since I asked the favour of being heard, and asked in vain. I beseech you, for the love of Jesus Christ, not to refuse me what you would not refuse a Turk. I beg only for justice. I want to say to you things of importance, things necessary to be said.
“As to your order that something should be done to keep me clean, it has had no effect, and I am in a fouler condition than ever. Besides, I suffer exceedingly from the cold, especially on account of my colic and my rupture, which occasion me sufferings that shame prevents me from putting on paper. It. is a great cruelty that I am not allowed to speak to you of my necessities. For the love of God, my lords, or for pity’s sake, or from a sense of duty, give the needful order. Written in your prison of Geneva, the 10th of October, 1553.”
The mitigation of the punishment desired by Calvin was the sword instead of the faggot.
The definitive decision of the Council is expressed in the following extract from the sentence it pronounced:
“Moved by these and other considerations, and desirous of purging the Church of God from such infection, and of cutting off so rotten a branch, having consulted our fellow-citizens, and invoked God’s name that we may pronounce a right judgment, and having the Scripture under our eyes, we, in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, decide definitively and condemn thee, Michael Servetus, to be bound and conveyed to the square of Champel, to be there chained to a post and to be burned all alive, together with thy book, until thy body be reduced to ashes; and thus shalt thou finish thy days, to give an example to others who may incline to similar crimes.
“And we command you, our lieutenant, to carry our decree into execution.”
The officer obeyed. This official crime was committed in the dawning presence of modern toleration, and has incurred such severity of rebuke as to make similar enormities impossible.
Let every one concerned therein, and every abettor thereof, learn from me to cover themselves with the sackcloth and ashes of profound humiliation.
4. My Connection With The Priests Of Rome
The priests, by working with and on the weak and the bad side of human nature, having made me what I am, naturally employed me for their purposes. How could they turn me to account so well as by spreading among their flocks such stories of my influence and operation as would at once delude and terrify at least the multitude. This they have freely done; this they continue to do at the present hour. But for this, their power would have been at an end long since; and when the priests are gone, I shall exist no longer in human society; though the real devil will not disappear until men, nor least kings and princes, have renounced all connection with folly and fraud.
The following examples of the services which priestcraft has exacted from me rest on high sacerdotal authority:
“These morals and these practices sustained in all minds, if not the fear or the love of Satan, at least the thought, so that it was not possible for him to be forgotten. The moralists profited by him to correct immoralities by ideas which circulated everywhere; they made frightening pictures of the Satanic power, of the acts of divine vengeance, of the punishments of the other life, and put them into apologues.” King Dagobert first enters on the stage. A Sicilian monk, by name John, saw his soul in the hands of the devils. The story is told by Aymoin. This prince, who is surnamed “The French Solomon,” was not always integer vitas,, or pure in his conduct. Accordingly on his death my imps carried away his soul in their infernal bark, when the saints Denys, Maurice and Martin, disputed the possession of it with them. It was agreed by both the claimants that a new trial should take place, that the king’s good actions should be carefully weighed against his bad ones, and that the decision should determine his fate. Now Dagobert had built the fine church which bears the name of Saint Denys, where his remains were deposited. The legal proceedings assumed a threatening aspect, when an official hand threw into the lighter scale the grand Abbey. Forthwith that scale kicked the beam; and the saints hastened to convey their prize into paradise, singing as they Hew, “Blessed are they whom Thou hast chosen and called into Thy everlasting habitations.”
A solid reason why men of bad lives should not die before they have built a church, an abbey, or at least a chapel! To serve the Church is to escape from hell.
Does this pious consideration still linger on earth under the fostering care of even Protestant priests? Certainly it is quietly approved by my authority, whose words I resume:
“This story, more moral than graceful, an inelegant compound of pagan and Christian ideas, was destined to inspire the hand of artists for ages. The subject is represented on a great number of monuments, among others on the tomb of the prince at Saint Denys.”
The substance once provided, nothing more was required than imitation and embellishment. However, the imagination did not flourish in those sterile ages; little progress was made in this matter, and always and everywhere it was the same theme. Invention, then, could do nothing else than give the old tale a new dress. An application of it was made to Charlemagne. Here it is under its new face: Turpin, archbishop of Rheims, one of the best friends of the magnanimous emperor, being one day engaged in prayer after saying mass, heard a noise in the street so great that he ceased his supplication in order to inquire what was the cause. He found it proceeded from a troup of devils going to take part in the trial of Charlemagne, who had just died, in order to claim his soul. The archbishop made them promise to report to him the result, and resumed his prayer. But lo! O admirable efficacy of prayer and good works! Saint Michael, Saint Dionysius and the apostle Saint James, come up in time to compel the devils to leave hold of their prey, and putting in the good works’ scale the stones, the wood and the other materials that Charles had used in constructing churches, houses of charity, monasteries, and the large sums of silver and gold he had spent in endowing them and furnishing them with costly furniture, it appeared that the good carried the day over the ill; and the devils had no alternative but to retire in shame and confusion, being maltreated by the bystanders.
This form of the history was also touched up and reproduced in later days, being used of other personages, among whom Gervais, a successor of Turpin in the see of Rheims, plays an important part.
Charles Martel furnished but too many grounds for such “apologues.” Accordingly he was damned without remission, and, what is more remarkable, damned in body as well as soul. Saint Eucher, bishop of Orleans, received information to that effect by revelation. With a view to confirm the revelation, Fulrade, first chaplain to Pepin le Bref, having . inspected the bier of the lost monarch that he might assure himself if the body was really gone, found the body of the coffin burnt, and saw there only a great serpent, which vanished in an ill-odorous cloud.
The English moralists possessed something better than this, i. e. terrible descriptions of purgatory and hell. The Venerable Bede, the first to speak of these, relates that one of his fellow-countrymen, named Drithelme, having been miraculously recalled to life, terrified his contemporaries by the recital of what he had seen in purgatory. There—such was his representation—you saw deep vales filled with flames, and high mountains covered with snow and ice; thousands of souls, alternately plunged in the fires and in the snow, underwent frightful tortures while waiting to be delivered by the prayers and good deeds of the living. So much was Drithelme alarmed by what he had seen, that he passed his second life in the most austere penance, declaring that the severest labour was pleasant in comparison with those tortures.
If I am not misinformed, fireworks of this kind are not, even in the year 1870, unusual, if not on the part of “English moralists,” certainly of English preachers.
A fabulist took it into his head to attribute to Charles le Chauve an ectasy, during which he traversed purgatory and hell under the direction of an angel, who tied to the king’s hand an Ariadne thread, for fear he should lose himself in the alleys and crossings of those vast and cloudy labyrinths. There he saw the grandest personages and the strangest marvels, but marvels which far outstrip those that the pagans tell of the black Tartarus and the domains of Pluto. Tantalus, Ixion and Sisyphus, the Danaides, are trifles in comparison. The story is intended for a lesson to bad kings, greedy ministers of state, ambitious courtiers and prelates of irregular lives.
Charles did not learn much from his adventurous course, or at least he did not profit greatly thereby, for a short time after he was himself found in purgatory by another fabulist. The king, in a most pitiable condition, lay sunk in an infectious dung-hill, covered with ulcers, eaten up by worms, halfclad in rags, his hair and beard in disorder. In sad terms he commended himself to his visitor, whose name was Berthold. Moved with compassion, the literary man, as soon as he was on earth again, paid for masses to be said for the peace of the monarch’s soul. The prince received consolation, as was ascertained afterwards, for Berthold made frequent visits to purgatory. There he often saw some of the loftiest personages of the day—bishops, kings, statesmen. He expounded to the living the reason of the tortures endured by those illustrious dead ones, and had masses said on their behalf.
Every one of which put something into the pocket of the clergy, the pay being made beforehand. And if the demand for masses was then as great as it is now, the wholesale trade therein which is driven at present was probably driven then. In most Catholic circles on the continent there is one popular priest. As popular, he carries on a large trade in masses, and gets a good price for the work. Indeed, on account of his spiritual influence, he has entrusted to him far more masses than he could say were he to spend in the task every minute of every four-and-twenty hours. What does he do h Leave them unsaid 1 O no! the holy man has a conscience. Consequently, hired himself to say the masses, he hires others, and so does the work by proxy. At the same time he puts money into his pocket; for a mass which brings him in a guinea, he can get said by an inferior hand for a shilling. Where’s the harm h He gets rich, and the dwellers in purgatory are none the worse.
In the way of money-making, I feel and own my inferiority to the priests.
The celebrated history of the conversion of Saint Bruno, consecrated by so many monuments and by the legends of certain Breviaries of the fifteenth century, was written in order to deter men from wrong-doing by the fear of me, whom, it was believed, none but the priests could keep in check. A funeral service was being said for a doctor of the university, who had been a free liver. His name was Raymond. The bier was placed in the choir of the church. When the reader came in one of the lessons to the words, Responde mihi, Answer me, the dead man sat up and said, “I am accused before the just judgment of God.” The officiants were awe-stricken, and the service was interrupted. The next day the ceremony was resumed, when the dead man again sat up and said, “I am judged according to the just judgment of God.” Fresh alarm, fresh interruption. The scene was repeated the third day, and called forth these words: “I am condemned by the just judgment of God.” A consultation being held on the prodigy, it was resolved to refuse ecclesiastical sepulture to one already in Satan’s hands. The event, however, was not profitless. One of the spectators, overcome with fear, vowed to bid adieu to a wicked world, and to pass the rest of his life in rigid penitence. He sold his property, and with the product established the famous monastery of Chartreux, near Grenoble in France (1084).
A more poetic tale is told by Oderic Vital of a vision seen by a priest of the diocese of Lisieux, named Gauchelme, which has for date the year 1091. Gauchelme, returning from the duty of bearing extreme unction to some sick persons, traversed a forest by night, when his attention was struck by a loud noise at a small distance. Curiosity overcoming fear, he approached and hid himself. Then he witnessed a scene which literally made his hair stand on end. There passed before his eyes a long procession of damned souls, among whom he recognized distinguished personages lately deceased—prelates and abbots, monks and seculars, high barons and lowly villagers, merciless masters and shameless valets, haughty knights, unjust judges, disloyal warriors, women without modesty and licentious poets, lying courtiers, tyrannical country squires, and I know not what scoundrels besides. The profaners of sacred places, the robbers of widows and orphans, the arrogant, the worldly, the intemperate—all the bad ones, have their representatives there. But all of them are miserably equipped for travelling; mounted on horses of fire, burning like iron at white heat, which bear them along with the speed of the whirlwind and without a moment’s pause or rest—onward, ever onward in a ceaseless gallop; while the horsemen strain, but strain in vain, to pull the fiery coursers in: no! onward! onward! with you, ye vile firebrands of Satan! They try to tear from their hands those bracelets, those jewels from their heads, those laurel wreaths and those crowns, from their feet those spurs, from their shoulders those armlets, from their bodies those coats of mail, all of gold and set with precious stones, yet all blazing with the inextinguishable fire of hell; but no 1 the burden of their bravery weighs them down; they sink in flames under their glittering load; they sink, but they do not disappear; they sink and they rise, they rise and they sink, until they have passed down and entered the gates of the ever-burning mansions of the damned!
With such stories “the Golden Legend” and the Service-books of the Church of the day are literally filled. The priest and the devil ruled and ravaged the civilized earth (if the epithet is not a sarcasm). Yet, when I pleased, I was too powerful even for the priests. Witness the Legend of
The Old Woman of Berkeley.
The Raven croaked as she sat at her meal,
And the old woman knew what he said;
And she grew pale at the Raven’s tale,
And sickened and went to her bed.
“Now fetch me my children, and fetch them with speed,”
The old woman of Berkeley said;
“The monk my son, and my daughter the nun,
Bid them “hasten, or I shall be dead.”
The monk her son, and her daughter the nun,
Their way to Berkeley went,
And they have brought with pious thought The holy sacrament.
The old woman shrieked as they entered the door,
And she cried with, a voice of despair,
“Now take away the sacrament,
For its presence I cannot bear.”
Her lip it trembled with agony,
The sweat ran down her brow;
I have tortures in store for evermore,
But spare me, my children, now.”
Away they sent the sacrament;
The fit it left her weak;
She looked at her children with ghastly eyes,
And faintly struggled to speak.
All kind of sin I have rioted in,
And the judgment now must be;
But I secured my children’s souls;
Oh! pray, my children, for me 1 .
“I have anointed myself with infants’ fat,
The fiends have been my slaves,
From sleeping babes I have sucked the breath,
And breaking by charms the sleep of death,
I have called the dead from their graves.
And the devil will fetch me now in fire,
My witchcrafts to atone;
And I, who have troubled the dead man’s grave,
Shall never have rest in my own.
Bless, I entreat, my winding-sheet,
My children, I beg of you;
And with holy water sprinkle my shroud,
And sprinkle my coffin too.
And let me be chained in my coffin of stone,
And fasten it strong, I implore,
With iron bars, and with three chains,
Chain it to the church floor.
And bless the chains and sprinkle them,
And let fifty priests stand round,
Who night and day the mass may say,
Where I lie on the ground.
And see that fifty choristers
Beside the bier attend me,
And day and night by the taper’s light
With holy hymns defend me.
Let the church bells all, both great and small,
Be tolled by night and day,
To drive from the nee the fiends who come
To bear my body away.
And ever have the church-door barred
After the even-song;
And I beseech yon, children dear,
Let the bars and bolts be strong.
“And let this be three days and nights,
My wretched corpse to save;
Till the fourth morning keep me safe,
And I may rest in my grave.”
The old woman of Berkeley laid her down,
And her eyes grew deadly dim,
Short came her breath, and the struggle of death
Did loosen every limb.
They blest the old woman’s winding-sheet
With rites and prayers due,
With holy water they sprinkled her shroud,
And they sprinkled her coffin too.
And they chained her in her coffin of stone,
And with iron barred it down,
And in the church with three strong chains
They chained it to the-ground.
And they blessed the chains and sprinkled them,
And fifty priests stood round,
By night and day the mass to say
Where she lay on the ground.
And fifty sacred choristers,
Beside her bier attend her,
Who day and night by the tapers’ light
Should with holy hymns defend her.
To see the priests and choristers,
It was a goodly sight,
Each holding, as if it were a staff,
A taper burning bright.
And the church bells all, both great and small,
Did toll so loud and long;
And they have barred the church-door hard,
After the even-song.
And the first night the tapers’ light
Burnt steadily and clear;
But they without a hideous rout
Of angry fiends could hear:
A hideous roar at the church-door,
Like a long thunder peal;
And the priests they prayed and the choristers sung
Louder in fearful zeal.
Loud tolled the bell, the priests prayed well,
The tapers they burnt bright;
The monk her son, and the daughter the nun,
They told their beads all night.
The cock he crew, the fiends they flew
From the voice of the morning away;
Then undisturbed the choristers sing,
And the fifty priests they pray;
As they had sung and prayed all night,
They prayed and sung all day.
The second night the tapers’ light
Burnt dismally and blue,
And every one saw his neighbour’s face
Like a dead man’s face to view.
And yells and cries without arise
That the stoutest heart might shock,
And a deafening roaring like a cataract pouring
Over a mountain rock.
The monk and nun they told their beads
As fast as they could tell,
And aye as louder grew the noise
The faster went the bell.
Louder and louder the choristers sung
As they trembled more and more,
And the priests as they prayed to heaven for aid,
They smote their breasts full sore.
The cock he crew, the fiends they flew
From the voice of the morning away;
Then undisturbed the choristers sing,
And the fifty priests they pray;
As they had sung and prayed all night,
They prayed and sung all day.
The third night came, and the tapers’ flame
A frightful stench did make;
And they burnt as though they had been dipt
In the burning brimstone lake.
And the loud commotion, like the rushing of ocean,
Grew momently more and more;
And strokes as if a battering-ram,
Did shake the strong church-door.
The bellmen, they for very fear
Could toll the bell no longer;
And still as louder grew the strokes,
Their fear it grew the stronger.
The monk and nun forgot their beads,
They fell on the ground in dismay;
There was not a single saint in heaven
To whom they did not pray.
And the choristers’ song, which late was so strong,
Faltered with consternation,
For the church did rock as an earthquake shock
Uplifted its foundation.
And a sound was heard like the trumpet’s blast,
That shall one day wake the dead;
The strong church-door could bear no more,
And the bolts and the bars they fled;
And the tapers’ light was extinguished quite,
And the choristers faintly sung,
And the priests, dismayed, panted and prayed,
And on all saints in heaven for aid
They called with trembling tongue.
And in he came with eyes of flame,
The devil to fetch the dead,
And all the church with his presence glowed
Like a fiery furnace red.
He laid his hands on the iron chains,
And like flax they mouldered asunder,
And the coffin lid, which was barred so firm,
He burst with his voice of thunder.
And he bad the old woman of Berkeley rise,
And come with her master away;
A cold sweat started on that cold corpse,
At the voice she was forced to obey.
She rose on her feet in her winding-sheet,
Her dead flesh quivered with fear,
And a groan like that which the old woman gave
Never did mortal hear.
She followed her master to the church-door,
There stood a black horse there;
His breath was red like furnace smoke,
His eyes like a meteor’s glare.
The devil he flung her on the horse,
And he leapt up before;
And away like the lightning’s speed they went,
And she was seen no more.
They saw her no more, but her cries
For four miles round they could hear,
And children at rest at their mothers’ breast
Started and screamed with fear.
Southey.
5. My Connection With Men Of Letters
Having possessed myself of the vulgar great as well as of the refuse of the world, I am now about to assume dominion among the men of science and literature. The story is long and my time is short. I can give only one or two instances.
The eighth to the twelfth centuries are steps up to the throne of my empire. Everywhere magic and similar pseudosciences, everywhere demonology. Can I not boast of such scholars as Pope Sylvester II., Albert the Great, St. Thomas, Pierre d’Ailly, Roger Bacon, Arnauld de Villeneuve? True, rigid and exacting theology forbad the black arts, but how easy for me to nullify the prohibition! Mine were the thinkers, the great souls of the age. They even thought they were throwing the powers of hell into chains, while in reality I held them in my hands and employed them at my pleasure. Belief in magic was universal. God was replaced by Satan; or at least the latter was acknowledged by the side of the former. At the voice of the enchanter, the tempest sank, the waves grew calm, the skiff glided safely over the waters, or the winds broke their chains, and, traversing the ocean, bore me their master on their tranquil back. A breath extemporized armies; at a breath they vanished. When the magician spake, tigers lost their ferocity and reptiles their venom.
False science and true were strangely blended together, if indeed the distinction was really recognized. The employment of magic was a ground of distinction. The author of Le Y’mage du Monde is seriously annoyed at any that speak ill of the science of sciences. “They are,” he says, ”mere ignoramuses who dare to calumniate what they do not possess, simply because not only do they not possess it, but are ignorant of its intrinsic virtues.”
During the tenth century, so sterile in appearance and so little given to letters, the following centuries received their life and were prepared for their birth. Then took place in the intellectual world a process of transformation, producing materials for a new literature, new moral conditions, a new mental world. It was the interval between the acts which allowed a completely new arrangement behind the scenes.
Two fabulous chronicles, filled with demons, composed during that century, became the starting-point of the literature of the following ages; that of the pseudo-Turpin, the origin of the numerous romances of Charlemagne, and that published by Geoffry of Monmouth, the origin of the still more numerous romances of “The Round Table.” The elements of these fictions were miracles, relics, the intervention of angels, saints, demons; themes taken from Christian history; enchantments, magic, traditional giants, fashionable dwarfs, fantastic apparitions, deeds of martial heroism. In the midst of this diabolic literature two currents appeared, which, diverging at the first, united afterwards. In France, magic had the ascendency; in England, fairy lore; and the latter absorbed the former. In France, the chronicle, the legend, the romance, present nothing but enchanters and the most disgraceful figures of demons. Demonology was universal. It even forms the substance of works of asceticism. Pierre le Venerable relates in his letters the following incident which, as he states, befel a Count de Macon, a great devastator of churches and monasteries, an impious blasphemer and a persecutor of the monks. He was surrounded by his court, when a tall black man suddenly presented himself, requesting to speak to him in private. The Count, free from distrust, went out unattended. No sooner had he passed the threshold than he was requested by the stranger to try the mettle of a black horse which stood there saddled and bridled. Quietly mounting the beast, he was immediately hurried away, not over the earth, but through, the air, preceded by his ravisher. The Count was heard to utter cries, shrieks, requests, importunities. All in vain. Onward rushed the black man; onward rushed the black horse. The Count was seen no more. The Count’s son was forthwith smitten with hate toward a sinful world. He turned monk, and was followed by thirty of his knights, weary of life and repentant like himself.
Clearly enough the men of letters had taken pay of the priests, and turned me to their own advantage.
It would require pages to characterize the half-historical, half-fictitious works which exhibited this part of society in conflict, that in collusion, and the third in compact, with myself, during this period. I can only select an illustration here and there, La Legende Doree (The Golden Legend) of Jacques deVoragine, just mentioned, describes among other things Saint Anthony assailed by the seven deadly sins in the form of seven devils, and reducing a lion in appearance, but me in reality, which had attempted to devour his monks, to serve in the monastery in character of a penitent. Then there is the story of Saint Patricius and of his famous Irish purgatory. Moreover, the reader is edified with the historiette telling how Saint Margaret scourged the demons. Another is the story of Saint Christopher, who, submitting to be my valet, served me for long years in the deserts of Ethiopia. Robert of Lincoln, in his Tremor de l’Ame (The Soul’s Treasure), amplifies the marvels of the under-ground purgatory of Saint Patricius. Other amplifications of the Treasury gave pictures of purgatory so vivid, that pilgrims took the matters in earnest, and by thousands inquired their way thither.
I must also mention Le Livre des Saints Anges (The Book of the Holy Angels), composed by the Franciscan monk Eran-9ois, who died in 1392, which gives the curious law-suit of myself versus Christ.
The romance of Les Faits Merveilleux de Virgile (The Miraculous Deeds of Virgil) affords a curious and striking instance of the way in which in credulous ages fictions become facts, and dealers in magic, princes of hell, thus illustrating how I, who am but human nature mirrored in language, pass for a malignant being, second in power to God himself.
The hero of the story is a son of Remus. While he is studying magic in the college of Toledo, Romulus resolves to take possession of his inheritance; but, informed of the fact by his imps, the young magician returns in time to foil his uncle’s nefarious designs. During a year, the nephew, aided by diabolical resources, plays, like a cat with a mouse, on Romulus so effectually, as to reduce the founder of Rome to so miserable a condition, that he is compelled to own himself overcome, and to allow the youth to enjoy his rights in peace. Then the latter, acting in full liberty, passes his time in falling in love with damsels in parts very distant from himself and from each other. He marries the daughter of a Sultan of Babylon, and travels on aerial bridges, of which clouds form the buttresses. As a mere game of play, he founds the city of Naples, erects in it a column, on the top of which he places a talismanic blue bottle, which will preserve the city from all winged insects. He erects at one of the gates two statues, one of which bears for name, Joyeuse et Belle (Beautiful and Joyous), the other, Triste et Hideuse (Ugly and Sad). Whoever enters the city by the former succeeds in all his affairs; whoever enters the city by the second is condemned to universal failure. Another statue, made of brass, is in reality a trumpet, through which the winds, when high, rushing in fury, lash the sea into a rage, and drive the poisons of the Puzzeoli marshes down into the ocean. He constructs a huge brazier holding constant fire, whose heat protects the inhabitants against the chills of night. A second statue of brass is armed with a bow and arrow, ready for use, which will extinguish the fire if the arrow is discharged, and it discharges itself if the bow is but touched. Long did it remain untouched, till at last a simpleton put his finger on the bow. The fire at once went out, and thousands perished from the cold.
If, however, I wished to describe what a magician may be and do under my assistance, I should have to tell of a huge mirror which reflects all the deeds and thoughts of every inhabitant of a whole city. But this was never in great request, most people preferring to have no spies over their persons and their breasts. There was a greater demand for a bronze horse, which cured brother horses when sick by casting a look upon them. Still more in fashion was a talking head, which reported to the magician all he wanted to know. You have only to go to Naples, and you may hear from the native cicerone all about these and other marvellous contrivances.
I may add en passant that it is by speaking heads of gigantic dimensions that I become acquainted with men’s thoughts and deeds. Of these “gentlemen of the press,” vulgarly termed reporters, I have one placed in each of the four quarters of hell, corresponding to your four quarters of the globe. They communicate with me either separately or through the medium of a central head, whence I learn at the same moment what is thought, said or done in any and in all parts of the inhabited earth.
Fictions as extravagant as this readily obtained credence in the dark ages, which in consequence greedily swallowed all that was told them by priests or poets respecting me and my concerns.
Do you doubt this? Then know that in the twelfth century the “Marvellous Facts of Virgil” had become history for the Neapolitans, as you may learn if you will read a narrative written by John of Salisbury, as well as the Life of Saint Guillaume, founder of the Abbey of Montvierge. Indeed, you need go no further than the name Virgil itself. This hero of romance was confounded with the poet of Mantua. In the twelfth century the confusion was complete. The same took place in later days with another name. .
The tale is worth telling. In order to gain credence, the fabricator entered into particulars. John Faust, the celebrated magician and necromancer, was born at the end of the fifteenth century, in the country of Anhalt. He first studied at Ingolstadt in Bavaria, then at Wittenberg in Saxony, acquiring all the knowledge of the age—theology, jurisprudence, philosophy, astronomy, and giving special attention to the occult sciences, such as astrology, chiromancy, demonology. A wealthy relative having bequeathed him a large fortune, he gave himself up to all kinds of excess. Impoverished thereby, he sold his soul to me, who, as the fiction runs, appeared to him under the form of a grey friar, named Mephistophiles. By the compact, he gave me right of possession over his body and soul, on condition that I would serve his purposes during twenty-four years. Accordingly, my slave succeeded in everything he undertook. He even wrought miracles profusely. The hour came for his delivering himself up to me; but instead of doing so like an honest man, he decamped. Thus another villain was thrown on society, and I was cheated of my prey. The people laughed and the priests chuckled. To do the devil was clever and frolicsome. I have said the tale was worth telling. My reason was, that it depicts the spirit of the age. None the less is that spirit depicted in the fact that so manifest a fiction passing into history made my fraudulent creditor identical with Faust (or Fust), the goldsmith of Mayence, who shares with Guttenberg and Schaffer the honour of having invented the art of printing. I may also remark that the detection of this transition confirms my doctrine that I am only human nature with its black side named and personified.
In a similar way I have been called Satan so long and so much, that I am now taken for the devil everywhere; and I fear I shall have no end of trouble to cleanse myself of the mud which has been thrown upon me in consequence.
However, one reason why I have written this history is supplied by the hope I have of finally obtaining justice by becoming known in my real character as a reflex of your own mongrel humanity. “A fellow-feeling,” it is said, “makes one wondrous kind and so, when men know that I am nothing better nor worse than themselves, they will probably, in learning to pity, cease to blacken me, in spite of all that ignorance, credulity and superstition, may do to the contrary; though I have my fears when I call to mind that the memory of the great inventor of printing is not yet thoroughly washed from so deep a stain.
My narrative has taken an argumentative tone. Pardon my weakness (it is—is it not?—thoroughly human) if I pursue my self-justification a little farther.
How can it be otherwise than that strong and impressive fancies, when they are in unison with the spirit of an untutored period, should imprint themselves on the mind in sharply and deeply cut images, which, while mere images, re-acting on men and manners, increase ignorance and intensify superstition, until, finding a concrete form in writing, and passing from lip to lip in family circles during long winter evenings, they at length assume the shape of reality, and soon become current in something more historical than ”Historical Romances”? The history of England, which has done so much toward making England what it is, was written by William Shakspeare; and Walter Scott’s History of Scotland in his novels, not his “Grandfather’s Historical Stories,” have rendered Scotland a familiar and delightful reality all over the world, even in these cold and sceptical days.
One more illustration from the middle ages.
Gerbert, a young monk of Anrillac in France, whose birth is half-Satanic, flees from his convent to go to study the occult sciences in the University of Toledo. Already advanced in that study, he finds it easy to deceive the confidence of the tutor under whom he places himself, and again runs away, carrying with him a work on magic, which he has stolen from his master. The professor, informed of the escape, calls to his aid his astrological knowledge, and pursues the fugitive, under’ indications supplied by the stars. Gerbert has recourse to the same art, in order to evade his pursuer. The pupil, however, proves inferior to the teacher. Gerbert is on the point of being caught, when he tries a masterly trick. In order to interrupt the scent in virtue of which the latter tracks the former, he suspends himself under the vault of a-bridge, and there remains, like Mohamed’s coffin, between earth and heaven. The learned and skilful hunter gives up the chase.
Thus at liberty, Gerbert returns into France, and makes good use of his science and his volume to climb to honours and dignities. As a final and infallible means of success, he makes a covenant with me (the parchments can be produced before a duly-qualified tribunal!), and with my aid encloses one of my cleverest young fellows in a speaking head, by which he keeps in constant communication with me, and I with him.
Aided by my best resources, he even becomes Pope, and sits in the chair of Saint Peter, with as good a right as most others who bear the name. However, I am not fond of giving unconditioned titles. Absolute realities are managed with difficulty, and so Gerbert is not to say mass in Jerusalem. Now there was at that time of day, in the centre of the Campus Martius at Rome, a statue which bore this inscription, Strike here, pointing with its finger to some distant place. Curiosity was excited. Where was it? What was it? Many struck the statue itself. Many struck the ground in different parts. Gerbert, with a wiser head, carefully traced the spot to which the finger pointed. There he struck, and there he dug, until after untold labour he came upon a subterranean palace, built of gold, with gold furniture and gold statues. The principal hall was lighted up by a gold chandelier which gave forth a body of light equally soft and brilliant.
How does the pope’s heart leap and bound for joy! Here are treasures literally inexhaustible. He resolved forthwith to send a whole wagon-load to Rome. The wagon is obtained, the horses are harnessed, the servants proceed to carry away the articles which Gerbert prefers. Not one of them will move. There they stand as if riveted to the spot by adamantine bars and bonds. In his extremity, the pope consults his magical Bible. He consults it, but gains no light.
He falls into a rage, and bids the slaves tear the things from their place. They lay their hands on a capacious bag of gold. But that moment a golden archer, standing in a corner of the hall, shoots an arrow which extinguishes the lights of the splendid candelabra, and leaves the whole in darkness as black as that of winter midnight. The bag of gold is dropped. Then the lights rekindle of themselves. Again the servant’s hand is on the bag, and hardly has he touched it when again the lights go out. Seized and frozen with terror, Gerbert and his followers hasten from the ill-omened spot.
He closed the mouth of the cavern, and made his way to Jerusalem. Arrived there, he was tempted to say mass on the very spot where his divine Master had suffered crucifixion. Had he not once before done the same, and nothing had come of it? Was he to be afraid of Satan? he who was the representative of Christ and the organ of the Holy Spirit on earth?
He enters the Church of St. John of Jerusalem outside the walls of the city of David, and begins the sacred service full of holy courage. Clad in pontificals and attended by a large choir in procession, bearing crosses the most elaborate and glittering, he ascends the steps, kneels at the altar, and opens his Missal. Ere he can utter a word, he is struck dumb and prostrate by a rushing wind howling with infernal cries, and shouting, ”Your soul is forfeit! your soul is forfeit! Once you did succeed to break your oath. Once you received a warning in the golden cave. No more indulgence. Your end is come!”
The pontiff was taken up and carried home. Conscience-stricken, he remembered the contract into which he had entered with me. Yes; he had gained the great object of his ambition by my aid, and having broken faith with me, he knew he must die.
But he was a perfect master of magic. Might he not save his soul from my hands h He gives his last commands in due form and according to the prescriptions, saying: “As soon as the breath is out of my body, cut it in pieces and scatter them over and around this chamber. They are baits which Leviathan cannot resist. You will see him either here or there in the shape of a crocodile. Fall on him, put a ring in his nose, and confine him in the deepest crypt of the Church of Saint John.”
I was, however, too wily to be caught by so worthless a thing. Instead of my occupying those vaults, Gerbert lay there: that is, what remained of him lay there. And there, the credulous say, he lies still in a marble tomb, the prophetic perspiration of which has never ceased to foretel to the eternal city, now the death of its pontiffs, and now the evils with which they are threatened.
This legend, some features of which are reported by Cardinal Benon in his Life of Pope Hildebrand, considered as historical already, less than a century after the death of the veritable Gerbert, is narrated by Sigebert, who died in 1112, and in much greater detail by William of Malmesbury, who died in 1141. In the following century it became unquestionable history. Vincent de Beauvais, Helinand, Alberic, Martin Polonus, reproduce it as such unhesitatingly.
Why, then, may not I, a mere figment, have become in men s apprehension a veritable fact? And as that transformation has been detected and exposed, may not my personality return into the aerial state out of which it grew?
6. My Connection With Witchcraft
The thirteenth century brought me to the verge of my supremacy. From that time until the days of Luther I revelled in power surpassing even that of the Pope himself. Indeed, the Pope’s authority stood on mine. Had there existed “a solemn league and covenant” betwixt him and me, he could not have advanced my kingdom more than he did, nor could I have promoted his with more zeal and effect. It was a period of dense and all but universal darkness. Ideas and practices were then prevalent, even among the less ignorant, which, taking the government of the world out of the hands of its Maker, put it under the control of astrologers, necromancers and magicians, who, at once deluded and deluding, exercised dominion on earth through infernal’ powers, and turned nature itself into one wide arena of preternatural combatants, on which man was tossed and beaten about as is the foot-ball in country sports. Indeed, the gaunt figure of Superstition raised herself between earth and heaven j and from her attitude in the clouds, no less tempestuous than black and” frowning, hurled down on individuals, societies and nations— in a word, the entire (so-called) civilized world—fiery and consuming thunderbolts, the missives of her unappeasable wrath. Not easy is it to understand how human life was, under the overwhelming torrent of the consequent disaster, endured, upheld and transmitted.
Naturally, men looked to the Church for succour and consolation. The Church was in alliance with their deadly foes. The battle-ground on which “Science falsely so called” and “Mother Church” arrayed their combined forces against human beings, was the fabled crime of witchcraft. Here my heart, overladen with blackest recollections and heaviest misdeeds, sinks within me, all but crushed with the horrible load. I plead guilty. Miserable am I in the thought how readily and how fully I lent myself to those innumerable barbarities. But then who is at the bottom to blame? The substance itself, which lay in the vices of humanity, and not the shadow under whose name popes, kings, judges and commonality, raged against an incriminated class of persons who were really as innocent as the new-born babe. And if I feel justified in claiming extenuation on the ground of being but an instrument, I must in justice add that ecclesiastical cruelty and civil injustice, though they were my masters and employers, may in their turn justifiably claim to be only accessories to the great criminal, society itself, which, maddened with frightful phantoms of all sorts, rushed, as is its wont, into cruelties the most atrocious, in which it revelled even for centuries.
In this horrid crusade against itself, society spared neither high nor low. Popes, kings, princes, were scourged with rods made by their own hands. The crime and punishment of witchcraft was indiscriminately universal. Nevertheless, the weak suffered most. You read of few wizards, while witches are innumerable. Nor was this mortal preference totally blind. Maleficarum totus fere est globus, dicitur enim femina a fe et minus, quia semper minorem habet et servat fidem, et hoc ex natura; that is, “Witchcraft is all but exclusively in the hands of women; the very name Woman itself denotes a faithless thing; besides, woman has and keeps less faith than man, and this faithlessness has its roots in her nature.” Certainly, man, availing himself, of his superior brute force, has inflicted many injuries on woman; but never, within my reading, did he put so much of insult and injustice into a charge as is contained in the reason he here assigns for the gigantic and monstrous persecutions he has carried on against witches.
Here is a versified form of a description of the common parish witch: “An old woman with a wrinkled face, a furred brow, a hairy lip, a gobber tooth, a squint eye, a squeaking voice and a scolding tongue, having a rugged coat on her back, a skull-cap on her head, a spindle in her hand, and a dog or cat by her side.”
A witch is one who has entered into a covenant with Satan on certain conditions, namely, he undertakes to serve her in one point or in many, provided she puts her soul into his power. This is the essence of witchcraft. With the conceptions entertained of my despotism and my resources, the prevalence of compacts of this nature put the world into my hands to use and abuse at my pleasure. What, then, is such an agreement but a denial of Heaven and the Church? Heaven and the Church accordingly are against the contracting parties, who are guilty of high treason, terrestrial and celestial. But the celestial power has delegated its juridical functions to the sacerdotal, and the sacerdotal, wielding that awful authority, feels the need of a ruthless system of criminal jurisprudence, else its own interests and the interests of heaven will pass into my hands. Hence war to the knife between the Church and Satan. Aware of the extreme magnitude of the issue, the Church deliberately and carefully prepares for the conflict. What better could it do than assume the shield of Scripture, one word of which was known to possess power to put me to flight? Accordingly, Moses is brought on the held, and heard to declare that witches and wizards, being abominations in the sight of God, must be extirpated by the Church, God’s representative (Deut. xviii. 10, seq.). Here was unquestionable and unquestioned authority for a holy war against witchcraft. But where are the legions, officers and men, who will implicitly receive and faithfully obey the orders of the supreme pontiff, the god on earth, whose throne is 011 the seven hills? The Dominicans and the Inquisition come into existence at the Pope’s command for the purpose. The army is organized and fully equipped for the war; the enemy is exactly described—his crimes and his punishments. And the dogs of war are let loose, rabid with ecclesiastical fury and begirt with irresistible civil power. The war, which has scarcely ended yet, went on for many centuries with, increasing rage and ruin. Of all the wickedness and folly which humanity has committed, none equals this deadly crusade in terror and desolation. Yet none so groundless. The whole, from first to last, was a huge and frightful delusion. So barefaced is the deception on all sides, that everywhere beyond the darkest spots of papal darkness and despotism, the very name of witch, once so terrible, is now an object of contempt, scorn or derision. What, then, are the factors of this huge and devastating imposture? The Pope on one side, Satan on the other, and debased and down-trodden humanity in the midst. It is fair to judge potentates by the manifest effects of their rule. Look, then, on man as blinded, manacled, fettered, wounded and bruised by the papacy in conflict with me; and, having looked on the poor victim again and again, give your verdict and pronounce your judgment. You find the papacy guilty of high treason against God and man, and write this writing (Dan. v. 25):
Mene, Menel, Tekel, Upharsin:
God hath numbered thy kingdom and finished it.
When the papacy is no more, then will the religion of Jesus reign and rule, and then too will my empire vanish with that which, if not its origin, has been its principal support. Sacerdotalism and kingcraft no more, mankind will have reached its ideal, and in doing so made my rule no longer a possibility. A thoroughly trained and fully developed race of men will no more be accessible to the illusion of Satanical possession, than the ordinary ploughman is now afraid of ghosts or hobgoblins. This most desirable result is doubtless far, perhaps very far distant; but who can look from the pure, serene and wholesome air of the present back into the atmosphere of the middle ages, odorous with sulphur, lurid with flame, disturbed with demons, and laden and darkened with priests, without feeling assured that a few more centuries of continued, if not accelerated progress, will have left far in the rear the principal tormentors of human beings in their actual condition? Certainly, the moment I see the retiring shadow of sacerdotalism, I shall make my bow and quit the stage. Where the priest is not, I cannot live; and where I do not live, the priest must die.
7. My Connection, Through Astrology, Magic, etc., With The Highest Functionaries In Church And State
Constantinople has fallen, and in its fall sent scholars into various parts of the West, every one of whom is a torch-bearer. The revival of letters is at hand. Printing is discovered, and the people can no longer be kept in the dark. A new era, I feel, is approaching.
Jerome Savonarola lifts his powerful voice, and moves the multitudes as the tempest tosses the ocean. One object on which he pours forth his impassioned oratory is the papacy, then represented by the sovereign pontiff Alexander VI. Roderic Borgia, born in 1431 at Valencia in Spain, got himself appointed Pope in 1492, after purchasing the votes of several cardinals. Dissipated in his youth, he had by a Roman lady named Vanozza four sons, the most known of whom is Csesar Borgia, notorious for his crimes and perfidies, which, however, did not disqualify him for the highest ecclesiastical dignities. Another of Alexander’s natural children was Lucretia Borgia, celebrated for her beauty, her wit and her vice. Her father, Roderic Borgia, whose papal name was Alexander, played an important part in the politics of his day. After having waged an unsuccessful war against Charles VIII., king of France, he formed a close alliance with Louis XII., his successor (1498—1515). Aided by this connection, he succeeded in despoiling the princes who were his neighhours, and in augmenting the temporal power of the Holy See. “To satisfy his ambition,” says a high authority,* “he trod under foot divine and human laws, and did not fear to have recourse to perfidy, and perhaps even poison. He died in 1503, poisoned, it is said, by drinking a draught he had prepared for one of his victims.” The state of society over which such a man could have been the spiritual head must have been very depraved. This single fact explains the appearance of the Dominican monk Savonarola, who, as with “the voice of an. archangel and the trump of God,” uttered his terrible rebukes against the vices of the Pope and the vices of the world, foretelling the greatest calamities to Italy, and the reform of the Church by the sword of Charles Till. “Woe to thee, Rome!” he exclaimed; “woe to thee, Florence! I see the Alps covered with clouds of barbarians, who rush down on Italy like eagles on their prey. What blood, great God! what blood in the streets of the cities! Satan is the prince of the air, and God grants him permission to use his power to harden those who insult him by crimes so monstrous. I hear the voice of the grave-digger, who cries as he goes, ‘Who has any to bury? who has any to bury? This one brings him his father, that one his wife, a third his son. O Italy, array thyself in mourning weeds!”
Savonarola poured forth the indignation he felt at seeing pagan art revive in Rome and Italy under all forms. He endeavoured to create a Christian art. He founded schools of art, encouraged artists, aimed at a radical reform, expecting from it the best results in favour of religion. His genius was equal to so serious a task; but he reckoned too much on the support of an enervated and impressionable people. His boldness aroused his enemies. He was thrown into prison. He suffered martyrdom (1498), and multitudes stood by in total indifference. What else could be expected in an age which endured the turpitude of Pope Alexander VI.? This event calls forth from a Roman Catholic authority these words: “Satan triumphed; the revival of letters, turned aside from its proper direction, remained pagan.” In one sense this is true. I did triumph in thus supporting “that man of iniquity.” Looking back upon the event, I am grieved beyond measure. O yes; do not be astonished. I have moved with my age; and I cannot regard things now in this nineteenth century as I regarded them in the fifteenth. And yet in reporting to you my Autobiography, I ought to report the state of mind I felt at every successive stage of my very lengthened life.
Give a specially attentive ear, excellent and patient Theophilus, while in fast ascending to the throne of this lower world, I subjoin a few sketches illustrative of the hold I had during the fourteenth, fifteenth and sixteenth centuries on the hearts and lives of the highest individuals in the highest ranks of society. The shadows will be very deep. Deeper might they be easily made; but frowning and disgraceful as they are, they describe not my influence alone, but that of the Church and of the State. After all, how can words paint the horrible evils which Satanism, in the shape of astrology, magic and other black arts, inflicted on high as well as low, on the learned as well as the ignorant, on men, women and children, in all classes and conditions? Justice to the subject my words cannot do; but they may exercise some influence to induce you, my pupil, and others alike pure, simple-minded, benevolent and earnest, to strive to the utmost for the extinction of this Satanical hydra.
About the year 1370, the wise Charles V. founded in Paris the College de Notre-Dame de Bayeux, the direction of which he entrusted to Gervais Chretien, who is described as a canon as well as “head physician and astrologer in his majesty’s pay.” Other astrologers were in favour in his court. Andre de Sully cast the horoscope of Charles VI., the Duke of Orleans and Duke John of Burgundy.
In imitation of the king, princely houses and great personages kept astrologers in their service. Not only did these men of science exercise their art on behalf of their employers, they discharged the highest functions as their representatives at home and abroad. Astrology and divination of all kinds took an intimate part in the different events of life. Not a hero was there whose history was not foretold. A nun read on the hand and in the features of Bertrand du Guesclin that he would one day be the saviour of France, predicting the fact when he had scarcely quitted his cradle. A necromancer of Toledo had often announced that Henri de Transtamare would become king of Spain long before the thought entered his head. And yet nothing was more futile than these predictions. Everything was divined beforehand, without anything being prevented. It was as if the people that were threatened by prophecies did their best to prevent their accomplishment. An old sorceress of Grenada predicted to Peter the Cruel that he would murder his excellent wife, and in consequence lose his crown. He remembered the words only when too late. Driven from his throne, he again had recourse to divination; and the learned clerk whom he consulted told him, after a magical operation, that he would recover his kingdom, that he would not amend his life, and that he would lose his dominions again. So it came to pass.
The credit of astrology was not lessened during the reign of the successor of Charles V. Scarcely had he returned from his expedition into Flanders, when an English knight, named Peter de Courtenay, reputed for bravery, and who stood high in the graces of the king of England, came into France and defied its chivalry by challenging Guy de la Tremoille to single combat. With permission from the king, de la Tremoille accepted the challenge; but wishing to put the chance on his side, he consulted the court astrologers. Having consulted the heavens, according to the rules, they fixed the day for the duel, promising that the Englishman would be defeated, and promising also a radiant sun to throw splendour on the occasion. The time came; but the sun did not appear for even a moment. Instead, torrents of rain descended on the ground, so as to make the encounter impossible. Not always were the astrologers so unfortunate. Jacques de Tortona, physician and astrologer of Charles the Bad, declared to that prince that he would die from excess of heat. He did die from excess of heat, being burnt alive in a sheet steeped in brandy, in which he had been enveloped in order to restore his exhausted strength. The cause was a candle imprudently put too near the patient.
Louis Delangle, physician and astrologer to Charles VII., besides other things, predicted his own death. It was to take place in a fortnight. He spent the interval in preparatory religious services. He died on the last day of the appointed time. Similar facts are on record in the history of astrology. The famous Jerome Cardan, having announced his death for the 21st of September, 1576, took leave of his friends during the three previous days, and then, at the time appointed, let himself, at the age of seventy-five, die of hunger to fulfil his own prediction. This great mathematical genius was so beset by the falsities of his day, that, believing in astrology, he, as others of his time, believed in the devil as its source, for he fancied he himself had a famulus or imp at his side. Astrology was so much in repute, that woe to him by whom it should be denied! If any one dared to protest in favour of reason, he was forthwith overwhelmed by the clamour of the multitude. The celebrated Jean Gerson had a bitter experience in this matter. Having attempted to discredit “The Book of Nativities” by Jean de Meun, and thus to check the ruling passion, in a modest treatise which he entitled Astrologie selon Theologie (Astrology according to Theology), he drew around his head such a storm of abuse, as to be beaten down and confounded. One charge against him was, that he was daring enough to withhold belief in his master, the celebrated Cardinal Pierre d’Ailly, who, conjointly with Entilianus, and after the example of Albert le Grand, had ventured so far as to draw the horoscope of Christ himself, in order, by so signal an example, to prove the certainty of astrological science. Those learned personages had found in the aspect of Mars and Jupiter, who, they said, presided at the birth of . the Lord, the exact number of demons that he would expel, and discovered the kind of death he was to die.
Charles VIII. shared his father’s weakness in regard to astrology. He paid two hundred crowns for a celestial sphere constructed by Guillaume de Carpentras. Accordingly, in an ordinance which he put forth against diviners and sorcerers, he did not mention astrologers. These, practising what was thought a respectable art, given up to profound studies and learned speculations, proudly disdained all contact with magic, and when, at a later time, the Church condemned their books and their predictions, felt equal surprise and indignation.
Whilst astrology thus disturbed and beclouded all the relations of life, when it did not lead to deadly crimes, it occasionally did some good service. No outcasts were so oppressed and injured in the middle ages as the Jews. Always driven away, they always came back. Even so early, they had in a measure become bankers to society. The power of the purse, when aided by the power of astrology, obtained for them sometimes a mitigation of their hard lot. Their business brought them into close relations with the higher nobility, whose luxury made pecuniary assistance very welcome; and so the sons of Israel became possessed of secrets which they well knew how to turn to account.
If Louis XI., who deceived everybody, deserved to be made a dupe in his turn, the credit belongs to an astrologer. The wise man predicted the death of a lady to whom the prince was strongly attached. The event justified the prediction. The outraged king sent for the astrologer, and said, “Thou knowest a great deal; dost thou know when thou shalt die “Yes,” he firmly replied; “three days before your Majesty.”
A science which, having no solid ground, was often falsified by events, was led to employ processes and forms of speech by which its patrons could, in appearance, prove themselves right, whatever the prediction and whatever the event. Hence astrology became as false in spirit, aim and practice, as were the oracles of Greece. A series of equivocations, evasions and deceptive interpretations ensued, which deluded the deceived and sustained the deceivers. Their phraseology became equally obscure and pompous. They introduced into their professional jargon comets, eclipses, atmospheric fires. Hence a crowd of false impressions and groundless terrors, the reign of which has not yet come to an end. Still, with the multitude, celestial phenomena are a source of ignorant wonder or secret alarm. An aurora borealis of imposing dimensions or unusual brilliancy portends good or evil according to the prepossessions or the momentary disposition of the observer. In former days, these illusions were far more formidable than now. The Queen Louise de Savoy, walking in the forest of Romovantin on the night of the 28th of August, 1514, perceived a comet in the western part of the sky. Immediately she exclaimed, “The Swiss! the Swiss!” concluding that her son was then in conflict with them. The battle of Harignan verified her second-sight. Of course she became a firm believer in astrology. In 1531, three days before her death, she was so smitten with fear at the sight of another comet, that she could not be tranquillized, and fell beneath a slight indisposition that might else have been easily removed. “It is,” said she, “a sign which God gives, not for low people, but for us the great. It is there for me; I must prepare.” She died of fear.
The spirit of the age was undergoing change. The subtleties and craft of the astrologers begat suspicion or disbelief in really superior minds. The magnanimous son of Louise de Savoy, Francois I., despised astrology as much as Charles A”., his adversary, held it in repute. Astrology was then fashionable in Spain. Charles loved astrologers and paid them well. He did not always receive his reward. It was in virtue of an astrological prediction that his great captain, the famous Antony de Leve, induced him to undertake the expedition into Provence which proved so disastrous to Spain. It was also in virtue of another astrological prediction that the Marquis de Saluces abandoned the cause of France to follow that of the emperor, and lost his Marquisate.
After the signature of the treaty of Madrid made between these two potentates, the French court sent the king’s two sons as hostages into Spain. Charles treated them Avith the same rigour as the lowest criminals. Scarcely could a ray of light make its way into their dungeon. Francis deputed his gentleman usher Bodin to ascertain the facts. Arrived on the spot, Bodin found the dauphin grown, and wished to take his measure. He was refused. He was not to touch the prisoners. ~No; nor was he allowed to put on them the velvet trousers he had brought for the purpose. The court even went so far as to send him back by another road, without carrying with him anything Spanish. Why these precautions? Charles feared lest his prisoners should fly away. A German astrologer had offered Francis to bring him his boys back through the atmosphere. Annoyed and distressed though the king of France was, he replied derisively, “I am not sure that that road is quite safe.” However, this high-minded and scornful prince had infused into his court, and through it into France, so much disdain for astrology and sorcery of all kinds, that it would have been all over with their practitioners had not his queen, the Italian Catherine de Medicis, succeeded in restoring its prestige for a moment. On entering France, she brought in her suite a great number of magicians and astrologers, among whom was the too famous Ruggieri, a Florentine, whom she honoured with her protection in spite of his crimes, or perhaps on account of them, and to whom she gave the Abbey de Saint Mahe in Brittany, to recompense him for the annoyance of an imprisonment which he had undergone for having made waxen images, in order to bewitch Charles IX. and Queen Margaret. Catherine erected l’hotel de Soissons and built an observatory, on the summit of which she followed the courses of the stars during the night, in order
to ask of them counsel as to her conduct on the morrow. She had purchased the land with a view of removing from Saint-Germain, Auxerrois, which had become intolerable to her, as well as Les Tuileries, although her own work, because an astrologer had predicted that she would die in a place having Saint-Germain for its name. She wore on her breast the” skin of an infant, prepared and covered with talismanic characters. Luke Gaurie constructed for her a magic girdle which was to preserve her from all accidents. This astrologer predicted to Henry II. that he would be the emperor of Germany, and that he would live to a good old age, if he could surmount the dangers of his fifty-sixth and sixty-fourth year. However, Henry was never emperor, and he died when forty.
Catherine de Medicis made astrology fashionable in France to such an extent, that most noble dames had an astrologer in their service, whom they called their Baron, and to whom they repaired every morning for advice. It would be difficult to draw up a list of all the prophetic almanacs which appeared during her reign. Jean Vostel, Toinot Arbot, Edmond le Maistre, Michel Nostradamus, Jun., Maria Colini, were distinguished among the most hardy and the most prolific prognostigators. In 1574, Michel Nostradamus put out his Predictions des Clioses Memorables qui sont a venir jusqu’en 1585 (Predictions of Memorable Things which are to come from now until 1585).
Pasquier in his Letters tells us that the superstitious princess was given to necromancy, not less than to astrology. “The deceased royal mother,” he writes, “desirous of knowing if all her children would ascend the throne, applied to a magician for information; who shewed her in a hall, around a circle he had formed, all the kings of France who had been and would be, each of which made as many turns about the circle as he either had reigned or was to reign; and as Henry III. (1574—1589) made fifteen turns, the deceased king (Henry IV., 1589— 1610) entered on his career gaily, and making twenty complete turns disappeared. Then a little prince (Louis XIII.), aged from eight to nine years, came forward, who made thirty-seven or thirty-eight turns. The queen had seen enough. The objects became invisible. If this was not a history drawn up after the events, as it was easy to do when Pasquier wrote, there was an error of a few years in regard to the reign of Louis XIII., which extended from 1610 to 1643.
To her inclinations toward magic, Catherine de Medicis added the faculty of prophetic ecstasy. Her daughter, queen Margaret, speaks of it with a thoroughly filial complacency. “To minds in which uncommon excellence shines, God/’ she says, “communicates knowledge of events prepared for them, whether good or bad. He does so to the queen, my mother, who during the night preceding the unhappy hunt dreamt that she saw my father wounded in the eye. This she reported to him, and begged him not to course that day.” “Being dangerously ill at Metz,” adds the queen of Navarre, “and having around her bed king Charles, my sister, and my brother of Lorraine, besides many dames and princesses, she suddenly cried out, as if she saw the battle of Jarnac, ‘See how they fly from my son! Victory! victory! Do you see there the prince of Conde lying dead V All who were there thought she was dreaming, but the night after M. de Losses brought her the news. ‘I am well aware of it,’ she replied; ‘did I not see it the day before yesterday? Then it was acknowledged that it was not a feverish dream, but special light which God gives to rare and illustrious persons; and for myself, I must say I have never been near signal accidents, whether sinister or happy, but I received previous notice of them in a dream or otherwise; and I can well take to myself this line:
De mon bien au mon mal mon esprit m’est oracle.”
I am my own oracle, whether for good or ill.
But the ecstasies of Catherine de Medicis did not give rise to so many dissertations as the famous cabbalistic medal presented to her by the physician Pernel in order to procure fecundity, on which she no longer reckoned after ten years of marriage. Catherine is represented upon it in the most immodest state, surrounded by multiform hieroglyphs, and having on her right hand and her left the constellations of the Bull and the Goat, and under her feet the name Ebuleb-Asmodee, with a javelin in one hand, and a heart in the other. The name Oxiel forms the device.
Perhaps more than astrology, magic was the passion of the age. The constant talk was of charm-makers. Charms were made for all sorts of objects. There was a charm to prevent a marriage, and a charm to render a marriage unprolific. There was a charm to stop a horse running at full speed, and a charm to unhorse the most skilful rider. One charm prevented the hounds from taking the game, and another prevented the gun from discharging its contents. Amulets abounded and were used for all purposes of self-protection. Society waged an internecine war, each trying to injure his neighbour, each trying to protect himself. If a person fell ill, an amulet was preferred to medicine; or, if the latter was used, it was only in union with the former. One year all the dogs and cats of Biom were taken with madness. Forthwith amulets were in universal demand. The law did something to arrest this magical insanity. Nevertheless, it went on. The supreme judge of Ancre in France boasts of having burnt a multitude of fabricators of charms. By the side of these were the givers of philters (love-potions). The king of the Romans, Frederic III., called the Handsome, died in 1330, poisoned by a philter given by a court lady in order to preserve the monarch’s favour toward her husband. By the same means Valentine de Milan poisoned the unfortunate Charles VI. of France. The emperor Charles IV. died of a philter given him by his wife, the duchess of Cleves. Peter Lotichius, one of the best German poets of the day, who died in 1560, and the celebrated engraver, Henry Gaud, of Utrecht, remained dolts till their death by the effect of similar draughts. By an abuse as criminal as the attempt itself, the magicians who prepared these drinks mingled with them sacred things superabundantly.
An ecclesiastical writer, speaking of these follies and crimes, says: “If justice has not funeral piles enough, certainly hell has plenty of fires, and Satan ought to be satisfied.”
To these individual and social disorders must be added the effects of predictions, and prognostications, and prophecies, which abounded everywhere. The end of the world was at hand. A new deluge was about to cover the globe. “Antichrist is born to-day.” ”Antichrist will appear at the end of the year.” Thus the popular mind was kept in a state of feverish agitation, and common life, becoming tame, lost all respect and attention. Albumazar had mentioned the years 1355 and 1376 as fated to be full of perils for society. Arnauld de Villeneuve adopted those dates, the first for the birth of Antichrist, the second for the end of the world. But these years proving altogether commonplace, a German astrologer, by name John Lubec, went over the calculations afresh, and found that Antichrist would be born the 10th of March, 1504, at four minutes past six o’clock.
Regiomantan fixed the year 1528 for the second deluge, and 1588 for the end of the world. This prediction was laid hold off by Savonarola, and he threw it out in the midst of the agitations of Italy on the approach of the wars with France. John Stofier and Gaspard Bruck took it up and put it into verse. Savonarola inserted it in the Liber Mirabilis (Book of Wonders), an ample collection of predictions the most threatening and the most fit to move Italian imaginations. This magical shell was fired off repeatedly. It was printed at Paris in 1520, reprinted in 1523, and then at Rome in 1524. Disquiet and terror gained ground on all sides. In various parts of Europe, prudent persons prepared vessels and provisions with which to encounter the approaching deluge. Blaise d’Auriol, professor of jurisprudence in the College of Toulouse, kept, as a means of safety, a small ship with its rigging under a shed until he died, which took place in 1540.
“Such, then is the work of Satan, and such his rule in the world. To lie in order to deceive; to mislead in order to lead astray; to create disorder and trouble for the purpose of turning souls away from sacred and useful things; to guide fools into the roads which lead to depravation, homicide, profanation; to give birth to criminal hopes; to foster them by chimerical and pernicious means; to agitate, without end and without truce to agitate, unhappy mortals; to commit these iniquities with as little regard to friends as enemies, and having friends only to destroy them; such is Satan’s mission, work, and such his rule.”
During the fifteenth century, Satanical societies multiplied themselves throughout Europe in a prodigious manner. The kings ordinance of 1490 against magicians, as a consequence of which the mayor of Paris issued a second with great pomp in 1493, uncovered to men’s eyes the depth of the wound as it was even in the capital of France. The zeal of informers being called into action by promise of one-fourth of the fines, informations, indictments and convincing evidence poured in from all quarters. The officers of justice could no longer tolerate the abuses for fear of appearing to connive at them; persons unconnected with the iniquities, but who were aware of their existence, durst not keep silent, lest they should pass for accomplices. Thus during this age and the next, the magistrates had their hands full of duties the most painful. A letter addressed in 1459, by Pope Pius II., to the clergy of the diocese of Treguier, shews how Brittany was then infected. “It has come to our ears,” says the sovereign Pontiff, “that the majority of the inhabitants of the Duchy de Bretagne have allowed themselves to be captured by the seductions of the devil. There are in that province a multitude of persons who make it their business to foretell the. future, to heal maladies by the force of enchantments, or to cause maladies by the same nefarious means. Not satisfied with carrying on such a trade, they impose celibacy on every one as an absolute condition of safety.” These revealing words shew us those same Gnostics that existed in the first ages of Christianity, and in opposition to it. Similar errors, spread abroad from the eighth to the fifteenth century, called forth the watchfulness of the Church and moved its arm for their removal. Then thousands on thousands of poor wretches were given over to the flames in all parts of Europe. This crime of Gnosticism came from Italy into France. Italy revived and supported it. The districts of Como, Bergamo and Brescia, were infested with it to the highest degree. In truth, those magicians were Gnostics whom Pope Leo X. in his Bull Honestis reproached with the crimes of renouncing God, baptism, confirmation, the immolation of infants, the worship of Satan under a visible form, charms, witchcraft, and similar dealings with the devil. So numerous were these, that when Bernard Retogno, sent as inquisitor in 1*505 into those provinces by Pope Julius II., had set up his tribunal there, he ascertained that already the prosecutions had been going on for a century and a half without applying an effectual remedy to the disease. And, says Spina, the evil was so great, that the inquisitor and his six vicars had to try more than a thousand criminals every year, and accordingly every year delivered many hundred over for punishment to the secular arm. In the county of Burbia, near Como, it was proved that those wretches served up the flesh of infants at their feasts. On the occasion, the inquisitor of Como committed forty-one persons to trial, all of whom were consigned to the flames. A greater number had fled from justice by taking refuge’ in the Tyrol. The Tyrol itself, and in particular the valley of Oglio, was not less infested. The inquisitor Bartholomew one night attended one of their sabbaths with the mayor of Mandrisco and the notary of the Inquisition, in order to ascertain what went on there, when they were so beaten by those wretches that they died a few days afterwards. The only testimony that they could give before they died was, that they saw a multitude of people of all ages, and the devil whom they worshiped.
In 1517, there were fresh inquiries and pursuits, as a consequence of which a great number of the inhabitants of the valley of the Oglio were consumed by fire. A revolt ensued. Then prosecutions were instituted for sedition. But soon justice had no longer power to execute its verdicts. The affair was taken up by the tribunal of The Ten at Venice, and brought to a settlement without correcting any one; for, in 1523, by order of Pope Leo X., inquiries and examinations were once more made in the neighbourhood of Como against these same sectaries, who renounced baptism and took Satan for their lord and master, trampling on the cross and sacred things, and casting lots on men and beasts. Saint Charles Borromeo, bishop of Milan, himself undertook a mission in the valley of Mesolieno, in the country of the Grisons. By force of sermons, patience and perseverance, he brought back a great number of sinners and re-established order, yet without being able to prevail with eleven old women, more obstinate than the rest, more habitually given up to Satanical practices; and also even the mayor of Rovereto; these he had to leave in the hands of the inquisitor. Sad in 1488 was the religious condition of German Switzerland, and destructive the ravages of the Lollards in Austria and Bohemia. The disorders spread into Franconia, for there one hundred and fifty persons were committed to the flames in the year 1627 and the two following years for the crimes of magic and the worship of Satan. In Frisia, Mecklenberg and Oriental Russia, even in the very heart of Protestantism, the funeral pile each day devoured new victims during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The contagion penetrated even into the mountains of Scandinavia. The first place in which it burst out was the district of Elffdale. In 1559, it appeared at Mohra and in the surrounding lands. The inhabitants whom it did not touch entreated the government to have recourse to prompt and vigorous measures for its eradication. Accordingly a commission was sent, composed of ecclesiastics and laymen, to make inquiries and take the necessary steps.
It was ascertained that in the town of Mohra alone there were seventy female magicians, who had communicated the charm or demoniacal impregnation to three hundred little children. Thirty-eight of the adults were burnt; thirty-six of the children underwent whipping, and twenty others were condemned to do penance in public. “To these great and general troubles the arming of the Lutheran Reformers added calamities still greater. Reform was an idea which floated in the atmosphere and was breathed in with the air; a word which was on all lips, now with bad intention, now with good. Reform what? To reform the Church in its head and members,’ to use the customary phrase; that is, the entire world, from the pope down to the shoeblack. Certainly it was a great undertaking, and the more difficult because every one wished to be a reformer, while not one was willing to be reformed. All reform in this respect was, is, and will be, impossible; the least reform would annihilate the Church: from the moment when it is reformable in a single point, it is no longer a divine dogma, but a human opinion, and then it is no longer Christianity. Whether proud reason wills it or not, the least breach made in the dogma of the Church brings the entire fabric to the ground. To reform morals? There was need: but this is exactly what each one demanded for others. A secondary question, that of the abuse of indulgences, raised by the disappointed ambition of a monk who had not been commissioned to announce the new privileges, made the mine explode. All the Reformers, enemies to each other as much as to the Church, whom they wanted to reform, each according to his own point of view, united nevertheless in a common negative, which they expressed by a single word, that of Protestants. Protesting from different considerations, they all protested against the Catholic Church. For three hundred and fifty years, Protestantism has remained what it was at the first, a thousand or a million negations to the capital unity of Christendom. It is not for us to write the history of Protestantism. Enough to have notified its birth, and to recall the torrents of blood it has shed. What ruins has it heaped up! what civil discords has it called forth! what sanguinary combats! what hate! what revenge! what murders, single or collected! and what hidden and reciprocal aversions, persisting down to our times, between the children of the same Father, God; the disciples of the same Master, Christ; pilgrims to the same land, Heaven!
“And in all this, what an ample harvest for Satan! what triumphs for his cause! what happiness for him, if happy he could be, to contemplate the evils he has inflicted on humanity!
“And let no one think that Protestantism has emancipated men and rescued them from the despotism of Satan. It is the contrary. Let no one think that it has put down trials for witchcraft; that it has regulated the forms and mitigated the laws on the point. It is the contrary! It is the contrary! Never was society so much occupied with Satan as under Protestantism at its commencements; never was justice more pitiless, more insatiable, more cruel.
“And first of all, Luther brought Satan into bold relief. Everything that was opposed to his changeful manner of seeing things was diabolical. All his adversaries were the devil’s imps. He said that the devil had stilled (Ecolampadius, a charge which grievously offended the Swiss. In 1533, he published his conference with the devil on the subject of Mass.
“Then Satan came out of hell, evoked by Protestantism, and everything was proclaimed Satanic in the ancient faith of the Christian: mass, the sacraments, ceremonies, liturgy, images, saints, the celestial and the terrestrial hierarchy, books, theology; yes, everything. From the pope and the cardinals, down to the servants who supply the holy water; the holy water itself, and the sprinkler—all became diabolical. Trials for witchcraft did not then fall into disuse in the reasoning and emancipated Church. Ear from it. Animated by a youthful and vigorous hate against the Catholic Church and against Satan, Protestantism armed itself with a two-edged sword. Lay judges superseded and surpassed the Inquisition. Hecatombs of human victims were immolated.
“The Anabaptists appeared at the same time as the Protestants, and added truly Satanical disorders to others. If the origin of this sect is obscure, it is because its cradle is in the forests and the caves where the Lollards and other Satanical societies concealed their mysteries. True imps of Satan, carried away with the demoniacal impregnation, they lost all reason, all sense, all shame, all modesty. Troops of them were seen to revel in the most disgraceful nudity; villages to practise, as necessary to salvation, bestial promiscuousness; entire bodies to mix human blood with their drink, in order to excite each other by a common effort to the extermination of all who did not think as they thought. Extermination, liberty to say anything and to do anything, a community of goods and of persons, and heaven for reward—such was their faith, their morality, their object.”
Much more of the same kind I might cite from the same Papal sources. I have made use of these authorities with a serious purpose. Throughout what precedes I have had it in view to exhibit my rise, growth and maturity, in order that you might have before your eyes indubitable evidence that I am a power rather than a person. With this Catholic testimony I consider the chain of proof complete. A power I undoubtedly am. Possessing as I do control over the rulers of hell and the rulers of earth, I possess universal dominion below, and very seriously control the venerable potentates and principalities on high.
Here I stand and rule supreme, sovereign over the majority of human beings, and sharer with the Church in determining the fate of millions on millions of human beings year after year.
I am monarch of all I survey.
The elevation makes me giddy, and already in looking forward I feel the pillar on which I stand sinking under my weight.
7. Period Of Decomposition: Debasement: Decline
1. My Transformations
Seated on the throne of universal empire, and looking back on my past and my future, I at this point of my narrative am led to ask after my own identity with a little special care. Am I from the first to the last one and the same? The answer I receive from my survey is an emphatic “No!” Yet, according to the ecclesiastical authorities, ever since I fell I have been what I am and what I shall always remain,—the chief of the fallen angels, known by the name of Satan. My clerical historians have not only put me together as the printer sets his letters, but they have stereotyped me. Moreover, they have spread copies of the plates everywhere. In consequence, my features and my attributes are as well known as those of the greatest earthly potentates. I am thus not merely impersonated, but individualized. Who under these circumstances can doubt my existence? If any sceptic should be so bold, is not my likeness there to put him to shame? And where may not my likeness be found, when every successive Sunday I am held up to view in pulpits in all parts of Christendom? Here is my portrait as painted in the seventeenth century by the hand of Reginald Scott: “Our mothers’ mayds terrifie us with the ouglie devel—with homes on his head, fier in his mouth, a huge tayle in his breech, eies like basons (basins), fangs like a boar, claws like a tiger, a skin like a bear, and a voice like a roaring lion.”
Nevertheless, I am of all creatures the most changeful. The Metamorphoses of Ovid are child’s play, compared with my transformations. I vary with every form and hue of civilization; with every aspect of the sky; with every variety of climate; with every age and almost every year of the world. I am the ecclesiastical Proteus—only intensified and diversified beyond the power of words to describe. Not long since, when in a pensive mood, I in thought went over my history, and gathered together a number of the variations through which I have passed, intending to communicate them to you.
There are certain natural facts which spontaneously create in the human mind a triune conception of the ruling powers of the universe. The most prevalent of this circle of phenomena are father, mother, and progeny. Hence the chief triunities of the Hellenic mythology. But behind and above Chronos and Dios is Moira, the distributor, i.e. Fate or Destiny, which affixes on each human being in his birth the history through which he is to pass, and has an ultimate and supreme control over the divinities, as of the first rank so of every kind. This control Moira exercises through her three daughters, Klotho the spinner, Lachesis the allotter, and Atropos the unchangeable. In other words, changeless Fate determines and spins the thread of human existence. That existence has two sides, of which the dark often preponderates. It may, indeed, to a gloomy mind appear that human life is on the whole a dark, if not a very dark tissue. This darkness is not undeserved. If allotted by fate, it is merited by man. To inflict due retribution is the office of the Erinyes, the Furies, whose avenging lashes were so cutting and cruel, that men, in hope of deprecating their fury, denominated them Eumenides, or the Good Ladies.
These pagan notions, absorbed in the Christian Church, not only conduced to its reception of the old Aryan myth of Satan, but stamped on that infernal divinity the image of a trinity already ascribed to God the Creator. When art was called on for aid wherewith to impress religious conceptions on the popular mind, a triune Satan, as shewn in the Frontispiece, was pictured and presented to the votaries of the Christian Church. Conceived as the antithesis of the triune God, I thus became the triune Satan. As a contrasted image of the Trinity, I appear possessed of three heads at the centre of the earth, not in Dante alone, but in various miniatures existing in Missals and other manuals of Catholic devotion. In agreement with the speculation that all lofty objects must find their opposite in me, I represent the vices drawn up in ten categories, so as to stand over against the ten commandments,, This conception produced at the time of the Reformation a new creation of devils corresponding to the new forms of vice that arose in those days, and the ludicrous shapes it became fashionable to ascribe to me. Hence came the drunken devil, the gluttonous devil, the court devil, the school devil, the racing devil, the gambling devil, the cursing devil, the pantaloon devil.
Scarcely one of these popular creations is yet deceased, and the cursing devil has been lately placed in Saint Peter’s Chair. In Petersburg, “the gold devil” is a title unceremoniously ascribed to me, as a personification of the intense greed of the Russian bureaucracy. According to an old legend, I divided my seven daughters (“the seven deadly sins” of the Roman Church) among the seven classes of men; only harlotry remained, and in consequence that became universal.
A step in the same direction had been set in another part of the world. When Christianity came to be planted among the Teutonic nations, whose genial nature unfitted them for the fierce and morose demonology produced by religious earnestness on Oriental speculations, it still produced an effect in the direction of diabolism, and that in importing into its mythology, with due changes, the whole pagan conception of Hel. This German goddess, who is pictured in the Frontispiece, and whom I may call my spouse, corresponding to the Greek Persophone, as ruling in the heavens, was at first a light divinity, or the moon. This side of her nature is indicated by her name, which, signifies to shine. She also spent nearly one-half of her time under the shades of night, and so was queen of the kingdom of darkness. Here was a dualism which, though it had none of the formidable absoluteness which attached to me in the Christian Church, furnished a germ out of which grew a two-fold nature on my behalf. And this qualified darkness of external form, denoting a similar partition of good and evil in my moral nature, well suited the less beclouded characteristics of the Teutonic races. Originally the goddess Hel fell into a demon and gave name to the realm of darkness (Helheim), with, in course of time, an additional letter, appearing in our Hell. But here, too, the original modifying power remained. The Hell of the German tribes, though gloomy, had its light side, and so differed from the ecclesiastical:
--dungeon horrible, on all sides round,
As one great furnace flamed; yet from those flames
No light, but rather darkness visible
Served only to discover sights of woe,
Regions of sorrow, doleful shades, where peace
And rest can never dwell: hope never comes,
That comes to all; but torture without end
Still urges, and a fiery deluge, fed
With ever-burning sulphur unconsumed;
Such place eternal justice had prepared
For these rebellious; here their prison ordained
In utter darkness; and their portion set
As far removed from God and light of heaven
As from the centre thrice to the utmost pole.
How different an idea of God had John Milton, when he drew that horrible picture, to what was entertained of the universal Father by the Holy and Loving One who spake the parable of the Prodigal Son, and forgave the woman heavy laden with sins because she loved much! No wonder that religious communities which have so far departed from the God of its Pounder, should also have gone so far in the dark and vengeful passions as to lay aside the less offensive view of their Teutonic progenitors, and paint me as sombre as their own priest-ridden natures.
However, this extravagance does but aid to confute their view by taking my revenge in returning good for evil; for the facts I have now been led to set forth go to relieve them, together with mortals generally, from that nightmare of fear of the devil under which they have all their lifetime been ignominiously kept (Heb. ii. 15). In what light do those facts place me? Am I not in every case an image and reflection of the minds of those in the midst of whom I arise, and by whom I am owned or worshiped? Black as charcoal to monks and misguided Protestants, I am at any rate half light among the northern tribes, and my domain, instead of being a furnace of fire, is more chilly than would be agreeable to such as find a good fire a luxury. “It became the hell where the old man hews wood for the Christmas fire, and where the devil, in his eagerness to buy the flitch of bacon, yields up the marvellous quern (mill) which is ‘good to grind almost anything.’ It was not so pleasant, indeed, as heaven or the old Valhalla; but it was better to be there than to be shut out in the outer cold beyond its padlocked gates. But more particularly the devil was a being who under a pressure of hunger might be drawn into acting against his own interest; in other words, he might be outwitted; and this character of a poor or stupid devil is almost the only one exhibited in Teutonic legends. In fact, as Professor Max Muller remarks, the Germans, when they had been indoctrinated with the ideal of a real devil, the Shemitic Satan or Diabolos, treated him in a most good-humoured manner: nor is it easy to resist Dr. Dasent’s conclusion, that ‘no greater proof can be given of the small hold which the Christian devil has taken of the Norse mind, than the heathen aspect under which he constantly appears, and the ludicrous way in which he is always outwitted.’”
The consideration which I have just adduced to shew that I am a changing quality and quantity, instead of a real, solid, permanent and everlasting personal devil, God’s stoker over the ceaseless fires of the hell in which he for ever tortures and will torture a very large majority of his children for the disobedience of their great-great-great-grandmother, albeit being born lame they can do nothing else than limp,—this consideration, namely, that, like the chameleon, I take colour and hue from every object near which I come, has already received tacit or express exemplifications, and might still be presented in forms as numerous as are the phases of culture or uncult are under which I am acknowledged. As every hue and shape of the skies are reflected in the lakes and tarns of the earth all over its surface, so do 1 vary as often as the mind or heart changes which conceives or describes a conception of myself. I am indeed the universal changeling. One single name given me suffices to illustrate the transmigrations (far greater than those of Indra) through which I have passed and am passing. Called by the Greeks diabolos, I am Latinised into diabolus, Italianised into diavolo, Frenchified into diable, and Teutonised into a score of forms; e.g., the Gothic tieval, Icelandic djofull, Swedish djeoful, German teufel, English devil. As many denominations, so many varieties.
“To this devil were applied familiarly those epithets which are bestowed in the Yedic hymns on the antagonist of Indra. Like Vrita, he is often spoken of as the fiend or the enemy; more often he is described as ‘the old devil’ or serpent, the ealda deofol of Caedmon, ’the old Nick’ and ‘old Davy’ of common English speech at the present day. Like Pani, he is Valant, the cheat or seducer, who appears in a female form as Valandinne. But to the Germans the fall of the devil from heaven suggested the idea that, like Hephaistos (Vulcan), he must have been lamed by the descent, and hence we have the limping devil, or ‘devil upon two sticks,’ who represents the limping Hephaistos not only in his gait but in his office. Like him, the Valant is a smith, and the name, which has assumed elsewhere the forms Faland, Phaland, Foland, Valland, passes into the English form Way land, and gives us the Wayland smith whom Tresilian confronts in Scott’s novel of Kenilworth. Like the robbers who steal Indra’s cattle, he is also the dark, murky or black being, the Graumann or Grey man of German folk-lore. This black demon is the Slavonic Tschernebog (Zernebog, as in the Frontispiece) who is represented as the enemy of Bjelbog, the white god,—a dualism which Grimm regards as of late growth. Like the Fauns and other mythical beings of Greek and Latin mythology, he has a body which is either wholly or in part that of a beast. Some time he leaves behind him the print of a horse’s hoof, and the English demon Grazt, another form probably of Greudel, shewed itself in the form of a devil. The devil of the witches was a black buck (compare bog, bogy, Bug, Puck) or goat; that of the Fathers of the Christian Church was a devouring wolf. Like Ahi, again, and Python, and Echidna, he is not only the old serpent or dragon, but the hell-worm, and the walfish or leviathan (a name in which we see again the Vala or deceiver). Like Baalzebub, he assumes the form of a fly, as Psyche may denote either a good or an evil spirit. As the hammer which crushes the world and inflicts the penalty of sin on the sinner, he plays the part of Aloadai and Thor Miolnir. As the guardian of the underworld, he is the hell-ward and the hell-shepherd or host. The same process which converted the kindly Holda into the malignant Unholda, attributed to the devil occupations borrowed from those of the Teutonic Odin and the Greek Orion.” “Lord of the dead,” I am the ruler of Deadman’s Land.
Similar is the office I sustain in Brazil under the name of Aygnan, the evil divinity, and in Mexico as Mictlanteucli in the shades below. Now I am the Samoan divinity Saveasinleo, ruler of the subterranean Bulotu, with a tail that stretches far away into the sea, in the shape of an eel or a serpent. The Samoyeds have contracted my name to the single vowel A, and given me a dwelling in impenetrable darkness, whence I send disease and death to men and reindeer. You thus see, dear secretary, that I am of the composite order. Like a Mosaic, I am made up of vari-coloured bits and scraps borrowed from all sorts of men, all manners of fancies, all times and all ages. Scarcely is there a feature in my character, or a hue on my countenance, but has its correspondent in some ancient or modern myth. Generally coloured black, I am sometimes so painted that the black is penetrated by a scarlet, glow, to represent the fire in which I dwell and the blood I am said to shed j while in China I appear in white, pure as a bride’s attire; in the witch-trials of the middle ages, I am described as green, in allusion to my familiarity with the vegetable world in the shape of elves, satyrs, etc. As with my person, so with my history.
As my lameness has its original in the injury suffered by Vulcan when hurled down from Olympus by Jupiter, his offended father, so in the same fable is my own fall foreshadowed, as well as in the overthrow of the ambitious Titans who conspired in order to scale the ramparts of heaven. In the Apocalypse (xx. 2), I am bound by an angel sent expressly for the purpose from heaven. This event is already familiar to every grammar-school boy who has read the Prometheus Vinctus of the Greek dramatic poet AEschylus, written some four centuries before the book of Revelation. Nor are our fates altogether unlike. My bondage arose from the displeasure of Elohim, his from the jealousy of Jupiter. I am shut up for a thousand years (though, by the way, for the last eighteen centuries I have travelled at will all over the earth, my enemies being the judges) in a huge subterranean dungeon; he was rivetted to Mount Caucasus. A bird of prey feasted on his vitals; mine are consumed in vexation and woe. As if to shew beyond a doubt how fully I share human possibilities, the penalty inflicted on Abelard by Canon Fulbert was, if the Talmudic legend may be believed, inflicted on me by Jehovah when I suffered castration at his hands. As, too, Ahriman, the evil principle of Parsism, is banished to the barren , steppes of Turan, so I, under the name of Typhon (the devil of the ancient Egyptians), have my dwelling-place, not in the ecclesiastical hell, but in the burning and thirsty desert. Even the indignities put upon me recall and attest my human condition. What am I but a slave—a slave worse treated than any African negro? Discharged from the service of God, I am degraded in being made a slave to men, whom, according to the ecclesiastical delusion, I wait on with hypocritical subjection, fawning and flattery, in order to entrap them by my wiles.
Among the liberties taken with me is this, that my features are made objects of ridicule. Here the Egyptian antiquities afforded a most richly-furnished treasury. Heads of various animals borrowed thence were put on my shoulders, in order in part to make me ludicrous, in part to symbolize qualities ascribed to me either by the monks or the populace. Before all other members, my nose supplied an object for humour, bad and good, to comic writers of various sorts. In how many legends an4 popular tales am I insulted in being taken by the nose! I give as an instance a concise report of that which is entitled Saint Dunstan and the Devil, rather because it serves to shew how events arising out of undue excitement in human beings were fathered on me.
Saint Dunstan was in his way a great man. He was born in the isle of Glastonbury in the early part of the tenth century. Under impressions fostered, if not in a measure produced, by this sacred spot, where history and fable combined to fill the mind with awe, and beautiful scenery’ stimulated the intellect and refined the character, Dunstan, conscious of having royal blood flowing in his veins, became not only a scholar and a saint, but an enthusiast. His various studies over-excited his brain and brought on a fever. When the disorder was at its height, being able to restrain himself no longer, he rushed out of his chamber and forced his way into the church. The efforts he had made and the tranquillizing associations of the sacred spot composed him into a slumber, out of which he awoke relieved of the delirium under which he had suffered. Assured of being under the restorative and reviving hand of God, he remained near the altar, still making progress toward recovery, until friends came in the morning and found him well. “A miracle! a miracle!” they exclaimed, and the averment found a response in the deeply religious heart of the patient, who expressly confirmed the belief of his visitors, reporting to them a dream in which he had been chased by demons in the shape of mad dogs, whose fury was put a stop to by an angel. When quite recovered, he entered the court of king Athelstan. There he became an object of suspicion from his silent and secret ways, and from acts which were ascribed to intimacy with myself. At length he came to be regarded as a wizard. This imputation his friends denied. Then, said his enemies, “he can endure the test; take him to the pond: if he sinks, he gets his desert; if he floats, he is a wizard.” Thrown into the water, he barely saved himself, and struggled on to the brink. Seeing he was about to escape, the intemperate youngsters who, half in mischief, half in earnest, were enjoying the sport, set their hounds upon him, and he escaped from death only by the loss of his senses. When partially recovered, he referred the whole to demoniacal rage. How escape the burning torches of these furies? He must renounce the love he felt for a fair lady of the court— so said his uncle, then Bishop of Winchester. The consequent conflict brought on a third fever. As soon as he was out of it, he became a priest and a monk. Henceforth he lived as
an anchorite. But it was a fearful conflict. With his sensitive nature, he could not help recurring to the loss he had suffered. Memory brought up all her virtues and attractions. He felt condemned, and imposed on himself severest penances. He prayed, he fasted, he wrought in his smithy. Yet every night he was beset, as the legend runs, by me, the reality being 4 that he was overcome by his passions. Yielding to the conceits and fantasies in which he had been brought up, he thought he was visited by Satan, now in the orthodox form of a goat, now a wolf, and now a serpent. These unwelcome visitors he managed to keep at bay, and in this victory he was greatly aided by his manual labour. One night, however, when he was still working at his forge, he saw before him a young woman unclothed, and bearing the features of his ladylove. Contrary to her wont £s much as to her nature, she tried to toy with him. Then he knew that it was not she, but I. Whereupon he seized his red-hot tongs and tweaked me by the nose so fiercely, that I ran off with the utmost speed. Such, at least, is the report he made when next day he was questioned as to the horrible screaming and howling that had awakened his neighbours in the dead of the night.
Another version of the revenge the Saint took adds to my history another metamorphosis. The fable runs, that hearing Dunstan play on the harp in his cell, I set up a terrific howling, and began to chaff the holy musician. Even saints are not perfect, and, losing his temper, he resolved to shoe my hoof as if I were a horse. Little suspecting what impended, I sauntered next morning into his smithy, and good-naturedly wished him success in his sooty employment. “I have had enough of your impudence,” said he. .Rushing unexpectedly on me, he seized me by my leg and applied the shoe burning hot to my right foot.
The Saint no pity had on Nick,
But drove long nails right through the quick;
Louder shreaked he, and faster.
Duncan cared not; his bitter grin,
Without mistake, shewed Father Sin
He had found a ruthless master.
And having driven, clenched and filed,
The Saint reviewed his work, and smiled
With cruel satisfaction;
And jeering said, ‘‘Pray, ere you go,
Dance me the pas seul named ‘Jim Crow’
With your most graceful action.”
To tell how Horney yelled and cried,
And all the artful tricks he tried,
To ease his tribulations,
Would more than fill a bigger book
Than ever author undertook,
Since the book of Lamentations.
What, continues the legend, did not I offer Saint Dunstan, would he only set me free! Sternly refusing all, he exacted from me, as the sole terms he would accept, my signature to the following bond:
“To all good folk in Christendom to whom this instrument shall come, the Devil sendeth greeting: Know ye that for himself and heirs said Devil covenants and declares, that never at morn nor evening prayers, at chapel, church or meeting, never where concords of sweet sound, sacred or social, flow around, or harmony is wooed, nor where the Horse-shoe meets his sight, on land or sea, by day or night, on lowly sill or lofty pinnacle, on bowsprit, helm, mast, boom or pinnacle, said Devil will intrude.”
The horse-shoe now saves keel and roof
From visits of this rover’s hoof,
The emblem seen preventing.
He recks the bond, but more the pain,
The nails went so against the grain,
The rasp was so tormenting.
“Which is true, the tweaked nose or the shoed hoof’?” did you ask, my pupil? I thought you had heard enough to decide, without my aid, that the one is as true, as the other— or indeed any part of my alleged personal history.
There is no virtue rarer on this earth of yours than impartiality. An old proverb says, “Give the devil his due.” In my multiform reading of books and manuscripts I have looked for something like my “due.” In vain. They are ecclesiastical pens for the most part that have described me, and they are dipped in nothing but gall. Lately, however, I came on an exception. It is from the pen of a humorous layman; but it is too acceptable to me not to be put before your eyes; and here, where I am speaking of “my Transformations,” is the right place, for it does truly shew a new phase of my character:
“Various beyond all conception or computation have been the conjectures entertained and the opinions promulgated by different nations and different men of every nation and tribe, respecting the nature and character of the devil; and it is a singular fact that in those countries and places where his dominion is known to be particularly established and himself worshiped, he is more frequently and extensively misrepresented. This doubtless proceeds from his having occasion to vary the shapes he is in the habit of assuming, as well as the mode of his proceeding, for the general purposes of his government, oftener in proportion to the degree of civilization and refinement at which his subjects may have arrived, and the consequent increased demand upon his attention and subtlety. Detection or a knowledge of his true nature being rendered more difficult, by being more dependent upon his actions than any particular form he might appear in, his character is constantly being vilified and misrepresented by a host of devils incarnate (or sublunary devils), who are in the habit of laying to the account of ‘Our Hero’ every atrocity of their own, and passing themselves off as saints among the better class of God’s creatures.
“So many wild and fanciful stories have indeed been told of him, and people have figured him in their imaginations in so many horrible and monstrous shapes, that the devil himself might reasonably be frightened at his own deformities. Happily, however, he has at all times had a few friends, particularly among the clergy, who have been enabled, by the eminence of their station and the force of example, to check the impositions practised to his prejudice; and if they have not secured to him that respect which they believe to be his due, they have at least acquired for him a more than tacit acknowledgment of his attributes and power. That he is a prince of ancient and noble lineage, and superior to all human pretensions on the score of birth and family connections, is beyond all question. Although fallen from that high estate, he has not ceased to be powerful and omniscient, and he is far more entitled to the respect which his origin claims for him than many aristocrats of our generation, whose fallen fortunes have left them nothing but their blood to boast of. If indeed titles give rank, there is no disputing his pre-eminence over mortals, however high their bearing; and even his Grace of Wellington, with all his honours, falls in the scale of comparison with him to a degree of plebeian insignificance. Besides being an honorary member of the different orders known among men, the following titles form but a small portion of the number by which he has been designated:
“The Devil! is
(Bel-Allon) the mighty lord! god of this world!
(Bel- Geh) the lord of health!—
(Bel-Ial) Belial, lord of the opposition!
(Baal-Zebub) lord of the scorpion!
{Baal-Berith) lord of the covenant!—
(Baal-Peor) lord of the aperture!
(Baal-Perizim) lord of divisions!—
(Baal-Zephon ) lord of the north!
(Baal-Samen) lord of heaven!
(Adoni-Bezek) lord of glory!—
Moloch-Zedek, Melchizedech.
King of righteousness!
Angel of light!—Prince of darkness!
Prince of the power of the air!—
Angel of the bottomless pit!
Lucifer, son of the morning!—
The day-star!
The great red dragon!—
Accuser of the brethren!—
The tempter!
The serpent!—
The scorpion!
The foul spirit!—
The unclean spirit!—
The lying spirit!
Satan!—Mammon!
Abaddon!
Legion!
“And among his more modern titles are the following, some of which are complimentary, others scarcely so:
The Old Gentleman!
Old Gooseberry!—Old Nick!—Old Bogy!
Old Harry! —The old Fellow!—The old One!
The Gentleman in Black!”
In conclusion I remark, that one epithet of which I am proud, and which I desire to make prominent, as obscurely denoting my human origin, was not so long ago prevalent in Scotland, and still lingers in the phrase, “The Goodman’s Croft,” being the corner of a field left untilled expressly for my advantage. This is one of the very few civilities I have received.
2. Am I A Person Or Am I A Power? The Verdict Of Art
You have already seen that I am the product of man’s imagination excited and controlled by external nature. I intend at this point to expand that fact a little, with a view to expose the groundless fiction of my being a person. In so doing, I make a specific appeal to ancient and modern Art in its statues, images, pictures and emblems, as they are scattered up and down in museums, galleries, ruins, and as represented to the eye in the rich and varied literature of Iconography. It is a wide subject. I can find room for only a few sentences. And I place them here because they supply a decisive proof of both my non-personality and my decline.
The majestic spectacle of nature; the dazzling lustre of the sun j the myriads of stars which move and sparkle in the immensity of space; the manifest and invariable regularity of their revolutions; the influence they exercise on the seasons of the year, on the life and growth of animals and vegetables; the numberless properties of the elements; the mysteries of the senses, of the passions, of thought, memory, imagination; of dreams and visions; the marvellous phenomena connected with generation—the great whole must have struck primaeval races with wonder and admiration, leading to the belief that the world was full of animated existences some way resembling, but far surpassing, themselves. This bright side of nature had its dark side. The two in combination produced the ”lords many and gods many” of the ancient world, including myself, ”the prince of darkness.” Over this celestial and diabolic hierarchy there were “thrones, dominions, principalities and powers.” These were the particular objects which, from their magnitude and brilliancy, most struck the minds of men. The sun, that radiant and ever-burning mass of light, all but intolerable to man’s eyes, with its fecundating action on all that vegetates and breathes on the surface of the earth, ruling in the heavens without peer or rival, received the earliest homage as “the king,” “the king of day,” the supreme monarch of heaven and earth. The recognition at first was as of a real living being; what we term a person. Next, but at a great distance, stands the moon, in some mysterious way dependent on the sun; inferior in magnitude and in splendour, yet not without a soft brilliancy and a fostering influence. What is this but ”the queen of heaven,” and as such the spouse of the sun? Bending his knee to these divinities, man soon learnt to worship, as members of the divine family, the wandering stars, the fixed stars, especially the constellations. In them we possess a permanent proof that the astral bodies were all regarded and adored as intelligent beings. The very name Zodiac denotes something that lives. I transcribe its twelve signs, together with the figures or emblems by which they are denoted:
1. Aries the Earn, denotes the month of March, when, as the phrase is, the sun enters this sign.
2. Taurus, the Bull, denotes the month of April.
3. Gemini, the Twins, corresponding with May.
4. Cancer, the Crab, with June.
5. Leo, the Lion, with July.
6. Virgo, the Virgin, with August.
7. Libra, the Balance, with September.
8. Scorpio, the Scorpion, with October.
9. Sagittarius, the Archer, with November.
10. Capricornus , the Goat, with December.
11. Aquarius, the Water-bearer, with January.
12. Pisces, the Fishes, corresponding with February.
These names were severally given in obedience to some assumed quality or function of the heavenly body, or rather divinity, in each case. Thus the Water-bearer, into which the sun enters in January, refers to the heavy rains of winter; the Archer, half-man and half-horse, armed with a bow, indicates the hunting season; while the Balance signifies the equal length of day and night, as though they had been weighed and adjusted. Resemblance too is the ground of the figured signs as well as the names. Thus the Ram is symbolized under a pair of ram’s horns, and the Bull under a bull’s head and horns. The same law of resemblance prevails throughout both the lettered accounts and the figured representatives of the divinities of polytheism in general. To you the resemblance may appear imperfect and faint. You must bear in mind that you live in a different age and in a different climate.
The very fact that this explanation is called for to make my meaning clear, suffices to shew that all these divinities are no divinities at all, but now simply signs of vanished realities, those realities having existed, not in the skies, but in the human brain. Persons once, they long remained powers; but with the passing away of “the dark ages,” they have ceased to be powers, and are now nothing more than shadows.
Their history is my history; their fate is my fate; and my career, like that of my several brothers and sisters, would have been run long ago, but for a class of men whose chief functions depended on my personal existence. The astrologers are gone, the priests are going. And as astrology has been succeeded by astronomy, so will Satanism be succeeded by Christ.
In the argument thus offered to you, the principal point is the original personality of these constellations severally. I will therefore add a few additional particulars.
The greater number of these twelve signs of the zodiac, or belt of animated beings, greatly exercised and quickened the imaginations .of the ancients, and in particular those of their theologians and poets. After having been immolated to the supreme god, Jupiter (Father of the Day), the ram, the Greeks said, was placed among the stars, that is among the gods, and specially in the zodiac. For a long time the ram was at once the beginning and the end of the year, and during that period his rich fleece is sought after by the fifty-two Argonauts, figuring the fifty-two weeks, and the mighty” Hercules, with his twelve labours, personification of the sun-god as he toils through the cycle of the twelve months. This allegory of the annual revolution of the head of the planetary system needs no special explanation.
“The heavenly bull,” which in an earlier age came, like the ram, at the spring equinox, plays a not less important part in the different mythologies. The Hindoos have their bull Nandi; the Japanese, the bull which breaks the egg of the world; the Persians, the bull Mithra. Among the Egyptians he was worshiped under the name of Apis; and to prevent his being taken for a vulgar and perishable animal, he wore on his hide several supernatural emblems; on his tongue, the likeness of a scarabeus or sacred beetle; on his back, that of an eagle; on his shoulders, the crescent moon; on the rest of his body, divers tokens of the generative faculty; in all twenty-nine characters or symbolical attributes, a number equal to the days of the moon, or Isis in the form of a cow, to which the Bull was united and consecrated. The Lion, says Elian, contains in himself an abundance of fiery matter which caused the Egyptians to consecrate him to Vulcan, the god of lire; they also placed him in the skies, that he might be the abode of the sun, and the sign at which that luminary arrives in the great heats of summer. The Lion often figures in the sacred legends of antiquity. Hercules kills the Nemean lion. It is a lion that Cybele commits to the guardianship of the faithless Atys. In Egypt, the lion was specially honoured, because the Nile overflowed at the epoch when the chariot of the sun touches the sign appropriated to that symbolical animal. My sign, or Ophiacus, the Serpent or Scorpion, holds a high position among the constellations. The celestial Serpent comes to the horizon at the time when the sun reaches the Balance, that is in autumn. At this moment the Persian magi fixed the beginning of the reign of Ahriman, or of darkness and cold, the introduction of evil into the universe. Accordingly the Serpent represented the Persian Ahriman, the Egyptian Typhon, the Greek Pluto, the Scandinavian Loki, and in due course the English Devil. As those have vanished into thin air, so will this. The serpent accompanies AEsculapius at the moment of his “descent into hell.” Typhon and Pluto assume the form of a serpent. Vishnu, a member of the Hindoo trinity, appears in paintings and sculptures lying on the serpent Adissechen. The serpent is an object of profound veneration in India, in Japan, in China. He was worshiped by the Egyptians, the Plienicians, the Greeks. Equally was he venerated at Rome, at Lavinium, among the Northern nations — Prussians, Lithuanians, Norwegians, Russians. He received divine honours among the Mexicans; and he does so still among the tribes of Africa.
There might almost have been an inkling in the olden time of the truth I have repeatedly asserted, to the effect that, as the child of man, I have a good side in me no less than a bad one. Does not fire burn up tares and refuse, purifying the land, the air and the home? As an emblem of the igneous principle residing in the ether, the Phenicians called me Agatho-demon, or the good divinity; and as the serpent of Apollo I instructed the Greeks by the oracles which I spoke.
The natural tendency to personification to which these figments owe their origin is exemplified in the religious plays of the middle ages, termed Moralities. In their scenes, not only virtues and vices appear in the shape of allegorical figures, but personifications of moral qualities and moral conditions of all sorts; also of abstract ideas, and that in marvellous intermixture with real characters borrowed from the sacred history. These are placed 011 the stage in order to unfold a portion of Biblical history, or to set forth and uphold positions, whether of scholastic or scriptural ethics, in their application to the concerns of daily life. In “The Marriage of the Soul with Jesus,” the spectators behold impersonations of Love, Truth, Illumination, Righteousness, and the seven deadly sins sustain parts in union with the Soul, Jesus and the Daughters of Zion. Other dramatic pieces exhibit human life in conflict with virtuous propositions and vicious inclinations. On other occasions the boards are occupied with personifications of Wealth Lasciviousness, Desire, Pride, Haughtiness, Beauty, Strength which wage war on personifications of the corresponding virtues, until at last there enter, as the sole sufficient helpers of men, Confession, Penance and the Mass. In the same way the manners of the times are depicted and chastised.
And now cast your eye on the various portraits which I have had drawn of myself, and which offer themselves in the Frontispiece. My favourable likeness does not appear among them. The reason is, I wished to present the image of Christ under the advantageous light of a broad contrast. The principal lesson these figures are intended to teach is, that they are figures and figures only, standing for nothing in rerum natura, but *****, films of human conceit, fancy and fear. Yes; the diabolic hierarchy with which ancient ignorance and superstition peopled what was called hell, has sunk into phantasms; nay, lower, into lines and curves in printed books; no less than the astral hierarchy which had the same parentage:
Sol oritur, diffugiunt umbrae.
The Frontispiece of itself suffices to shew that I am not a person, but a power, and a vanishing power. I say of itself, for it has a representative character. It contains the pith of a very large and very diverse amount of diabolical imagery, which is intended to set before human eyes, and so before human minds, the princes, kings and queens of the invisible world, as figured by artistic imagination in different periods of the world and various stages of culture. To make the logical appeal complete, I ought to have included a selection of acknowledged monstrosities, such as griffins, sphinxes, mermaids, &c., which are pure creations of man’s phantasy. With these figures you are, however, familiar enough for my purpose. Well, then, call up in your mind the figments to which I have referred, and then cast your eye over the whole Frontispiece, excepting the central figure. Compare the two carefully together, and tell me wherein they differ. Are they not all—these as well as those—conceptions of the human mind? mere conceptions of the human mind? Are they not human attempts to embody in visible form certain dark sides of human nature? They represent, not objective realities, but subjective modes of thought. They are images, not personalities; they are emblems or symbols, that is visible signs, of—what? Real beings? for instance, the mermaid? or the satyr? But if not the mermaid or the satyr, then why of Hades? why of Herli Khan’? consequently, why of Satan? Does Satan’s court there pictured contain real living courtiers? or the fancies of some monkish, brain infested with demonological bugbears h A few particulars will make the matter still more clear.
Figures one, two and three, contain the elements which constitute figure four. Here in brief you see my natural history. Mr. Darwin tells us that man is but a full-grown monkey. So you are here taught that Satan (4) is but an evolution of the Goat (1), the Fawn (1), the Satyr (3), and Pan (2). In other words, the Satan of the Churches is, with other pagan aid, an amalgam of the classic conceits incorporated in these figures. So obvious is the fact, that I need not enter into particulars; only I must explain one or two of my attributes as there pictured. Horns, you see, I wear; but in this figure the horns are not those of a goat, but those of a serpent. What have you here but the old and recognized symbol of diabolical cunning? Then those expanded wings on my shoulders, and those smaller wings on my feet, are nothing more than loans from the pagan god Mercury, who received them from the symbols of the Medo-Persian mythology. In his case as well as my own, they denote celerity. And here I must add, that these symbols declare very imperfectly the qualities which ecclesiastical fancy ascribes to me; for it not only makes me move hither and thither with incredible velocity, such as no wings can give, and which only the electric telegram can represent, but it also describes me as carrying on my business at the same moment in at least every part of the habitable globe. In one sense, the notion has a raison D’etre. Inasmuch as I am the dark side of humanity, so do I exist and operate wherever a human being is found. But then the fact implies that I am not a person, but a power.
The same conclusion ensues from another consideration. The Frontispiece in its contents represents very diverse degrees of culture. What more diverse indeed than the degrees of elevation involved in the classic figures on one side (1—3 and 8) and the Calmuck devil (Zernebog, 6) and the Slavonic (Herli Khan, 7) on the other?
Had I been able to give a greater number of artistic illustrations, I could have made this argument all but universal, so as to put it beyond a doubt that every nation, tribe and clan, makes each its own devil, and makes him out of the diversified elements of its own brain. Thus is it that in all these imitations I am but likenesses of my creators, who, being themselves human, can endow me only with human forms, faculties and attributes. Manifestly, then, I have no other personality than is reflected from those ever-varying images and distortions. Consequently, I am of necessity an evanescent being. As humanity improves, I lose the murky and furious elements of my character. When meridian sunshine comes in the heart of the human species, I shall be as bright as a seraph. The root of good in me will have grown into pure and beneficent man.
This most desirable issue is foreshadowed in 11, the halflight, half-dark figure of Hel, and foretold in the character, the attitude and the mission of the central figure, Christ (10), who has under his feet, not myself and my captains merely (9), but the principal symbols of devilry, that is the serpent, the basilisk, the lion and the dragon, thus predicting his final casting the demons out of the universe by the innate and cleansing virtue of his life, death and ever-growing, ever-enduring sway:
“Thou shalt tread upon the lion and adder;
The young lion and the dragon shalt thou trample under feet.” (Ps. xci. 13.)
“The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb,
And the leopard shall lie down with the kid,
And a little child shall lead them.
They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain;
For the earth shall be full of the knowledge of Jehovah,
As the waters cover the sea.” (Is. xi.)
A few more explanatory words must be subjoined.
Sheva (5). The Ahriman of Persia and the Satan of ecclesiasticism, are too concrete and definite for the genuine Hindoo mind. Hence its art presents no figure which can be strictly considered as the counterpart of me, although Vitra, Yama, and still more Mahasura, each has features in common with myself. I have consequently directed my engraver to present a figure of Sheva, who, as the destructive power in the Hindoo Trimurti or Trinity, wears symbols which more nearly describe the ferocity which is my chief characteristic, as pictured in the “fire-and-brimstone theology” of old-fashioned orthodoxy.
Hades (8), the king of the dead, sits in the cut receiving homage from his ghostly subjects as they descend into’ his invisible dominions, the shades where dwell the shadow’s. Like Hindooism, the Hellenic religion was little inclined to the clearly-defined and robust Satanism of the middle ages and the darker days of modern times. The two figures, 8 and 4, not unaptly characterize the spirit of the two religions, of which they adumbrate the shady side. This, put into other words, declares that the spirit of Hellenism is preferable to the spirit of Satanism. Accordingly you will look in vain in this monarch of the pagan hell for anything like the truculent rage of Sheva, much less of Herli Khan. Yet you may there find an illustration of a subterranean prince spoken of in Book vii. Chapter iv. Hades as a personification seems to be referred to in the original (Hades) for the term Grave of 1 Cor. xv. 55.
The all-conquering Christ (10) shews Jesus as treading under foot man’s great enemies, as symbolized by destructive beasts, and by Satan seated on the throne of his power and attended by representatives of his aristocracy. Here I appear in all my attributes. The fulness and completeness of my prerogatives are denoted by the threefold forms which crown my head, and shine forth from my breast and my knees. This triune honour was paid to me as the antithesis of the triune God of the schools and the churches.
Finally, the picture presented on the cover of the volume, copied from Airy Schaeffer’s “Temptation,” symbolizes to the eye the substance of its contents in presenting the great contest of good and evil which still proceeds in the world, and of which the final issue is predicted and guaranteed by the divine heroism of “the Son of God” and ”the Son of Man.”
3. Am I A Person Or Am I Power?—The Crucial Test
In the course of my autobiographical narratives I have laid before you, my diligent pupil, various considerations which conspire to prove that I am not a person, but a power. Before I set my foot on the ladder down which I am about to descend to the level of my fellow-men, I have asked myself whether there is any actual test of my impersonality so clear as to satisfy the least easily persuaded persons. I will lay one before you.
Were I a person, I should have access to the minds of men as men, that is all men indifferently. But there is a class of men whose minds are barred against me. Yet these men are not better than their neighbours. Vice, then, does not depend on my personality. Men may be vicious and not be seduced by me. But if vice is in one case independent of me, it must be so in all. It follows, that vice as such is independent of me. Whence then is it? Vice exists—whence but from vicious hearts? In other words, there is in human nature a proneness to moral evil, which, considered on the wide area of humankind, may be called a power. That power I am. In order to establish this position, I must exhibit the exception to which I have referred. The Roman Catholic clergy transmute what they call a “child of the devil” into a “child of God” by the sacrament of baptism, and by other sacraments secure that child, as holy in the eyes of Mother Church, an entrance into paradise. And even should the personal devil intrude upon their own domain, they possess means to drive him out in the efficacy of their exorcising power. This exorcism, open to all on certain sacerdotally enjoined conditions, is actually in the hands of the priests themselves, who, of course, are accordingly free from my personal influence. And yet, while actually unpolluted by me, they nevertheless are polluted. By what? I being excluded, by themselves. There is no alternative. But if they are vicious, though exempt from my control, other men are the same, for man is man under every clime and in every garb. It follows, that sacerdotal misconduct eliminates the devil and drives him out of the world of realities.
My crucial test, then, will be complete when I have shewn two things—first, that the priests of Rome are doubly guarded, being guarded by their sacraments and guarded by their power of exorcism. The first charm drives out Satan and keeps him at a distance through life; the second is an exceptional remedy against a possible disaster. Should Satan make his way into a priest, he is banished by exorcism. Their sacraments are too well known to be gone into in detail. Exorcism I shall describe. And moreover I shall say something of the morals of the Roman clergy thus guarded and preserved from Satanic depravation.
The Ordination of an Exorcist. The Bishop’s Address.
“O, dearest son, thou art to be ordained to the office of an Exorcist, and must be taught what thou undertakest. It is the function of an Exorcist to expel the demons, and to say to the people that he who does not communicate, gives place to them. Receive power, then, of laying hands on those who are possessed; and by the imposition of thy hands, by the grace of the Holy Spirit, and by the words of the exorcism,’ unclean spirits are expelled from the bodies of the possessed. Study therefore that, as thou expellest the devils from the bodies of others, thou mayest cast out all uncleanness and sin from thy mind and body, lest thou fall a victim to him whom thou drivest from others by thy ministry. Learn by thy office to command the vices, lest the enemy may have any part in thy character. For then wilt thou rule over other demons when thou hast first overcome all their wickedness in thyself: which may God by his Spirit grant thee to perform.
“Receive, then, and possess the power of laying hands on demoniacs, whether baptized or catechumens.”
Prayer.
“Holy Lord, Father Almighty, Eternal God, condescend to bless this thy servant in the office of the Exorcists; that, by the imposition of his hands and the words of his mouth, he may possess the power and authority of coercing unclean spirits, so as that, being built up in the grace of healing and in celestial strength, he may become an approved physician in thy Church. We ask it by our Lord Jesus Christ thy Son, who lives and reigns with thee in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God throughout all ages. Amen.”
That the power thus communicated inheres in the priest so long as it is not formally taken away by the episcopal authority by which it is given, appears in
The Form for degrading an Exorcist.
After the Book of Exorcisms has been taken from the culprit, the degrading bishop uses these words:
“We remove from thee the power of laying hands on possessed persons, and of expelling demons from their bodies, the function of exorcising being wholly interdicted to thee.”
Over priests, then, it is clear I have no power except by their own permission. Consequently you here possess a decisive argument whether or not I am a person, or the creation of men’s own fond imaginations. As I, the cause of all evil, have no independent power over priests, priests are of course free from my baneful influence. In other words, they are “holiness to the Lord.” What, however, has fact to say to this conclusion? The conclusion is contradicted by history in the most emphatical manner. Hence it follows that sacerdotal wickedness springs from the man, and not the devil. In other words, every priest, having the power to expel me, may have, and many of them have actually, another devil in their own vitiated nature.
Observances of the darkest kind wound there, sluggish and pestiferous way through the Christian Church during many centuries on toward the revival of letters. Civil as well as ecclesiastical legislation strove, and strove mostly in vain, to arrest the black flood. How, indeed, could the Church act with effect when, by upholding me, it perpetuated the foul source whence the polluting waters came 1 A monk or a nun who had been guilty of self-pollution threw the blame on me or some of my imps, and, having relieved himself or herself in conscience, easily paid the light penalties imposed by the father confessor or the Penitentiary of the Church.
Indeed, there exist volumes which, coming down from the sixth to the later centuries, and containing the nicely graduated penalties for misdeeds committed by ordinary or sacerdotal disciples, shew how terribly criminal the times were and how fearfully corrupt was the Church. The vilest deeds I must pass unmentioned.
I proceed to quote from the source just referred to, and in particular from a Penitentiary of the 9th century, entitled Paenitentiale Pseudo-Theodori, Chapter iii.
“On Fornication by the Clergy.
“1. Bishops, priests, deacons, committing fornication, in virtue of the canon shall lose their rank and do penance, according to episcopal judgment, yet they may take the communion. 2. Bishops, priests, deacons, monks, sub-deacons, and other clergy, together with all such as are dedicated to God, imitating fornication, shall, if clerks, do penance for v years, ii on bread and water; deacons and monks, viii years, iv on bread and water; priests, x years on bread and water; bishops, xii years, vii on bread and water. In the same way nuns shall do penance if they voluntarily imitate fornication with such persons. 3. But if, which God forbid, bishops, priests, deacons, monks, sub-deacons, and other clergy, beget sons with nuns, then the penance must be augmented thus: clerks shall do penance for vi years, iii on bread and water; sub-deacons, viii years, iv on bread and water; deacons and monks, for x years, v on bread and water; priests, xii years, vii on bread and water; bishops, xv years, viii on bread and water. After the same manner the nuns must do penance. But if they die during their punishment, they must do penance as long as they live. 4. Whatever bishops, priests, deacons, monks, sub-deacons and other clergy commit adultery with other men’s wives, let them do penance —clerks, v years on bread and water; deacons and monks, vii years, iv on bread and water; priests, x years, v on bread and water. If, however, they procreate children, then the penance must be augmented as is above laid down. 5. If any clerk who has a wife and lies with her after his reception of the honour of priesthood, let him know that he commits adultery, and let him do penance according to the scale already given. 6. A priest or deacon, if he marries another man’s wife, is to be deposed in the conscience of the people. But if he commits adultery with her, he shall be cast out of the Church and do penance among laymen as long as he lives. 7. Bishops, priests, deacons, monks, sub-deacons, and other clergy, imitating fornication with lay women, that is with widows or girls, shall do penance, clerks for iv years, i on bread and water; sub-deacons, v years, iii on bread and water; priests, viii, iv on bread and water; bishops, x, v on bread and water. In the same way those females shall do penance, if they are joined with such clerical persons, according to the rank of each, since the Christian religion forbids fornication equally to both sexes. 8. But with a view to concealment, they put their children thus begotten to death, the ancient law extends to the end of life the punishment not only of those women, but expels from the Church such women as procure abortion; but now it is more humanely decreed that they do penance for x years. 9. If a bishop commits fornication with a quadruped, let him do penance vii years; a priest, v; a deacon or a monk, iv; a sub-deacon, iii; a clerk, ii. If they are accustomed to the crime, let a bishop do penance x years, iv on bread and water; a priest, vii years, iii on bread and water; a deacon or a monk, v, ii on bread and water; a sub-deacon, iv, i on bread and water; a clerk, iii, half a year on bread and water.”
The priesthood of the ninth century is reproduced by the priesthood of the nineteenth, only with the difference of such mitigations and such concealments and secrecy as are occasioned or necessitated by the improvements, of modern social life in moral virtue and external decency. In the main, Popery is as corrupt and as corrupting now as of old. It is so from its very nature, being the enslavement of the human mind to the worship of man in that which is for himself and others his lowest form, namely, an infallible, impeccable and irreformable, unmarried and unmarriable priesthood, partly secular, partly regular. The crown of this rotten edifice is the Pope. He is the concentrated essence of priestism. He of all others is secured against my wiles. The very temple of the Holy Ghost on earth, he has full power to set me at nought. Yet what is his character? He over whom I have no influence is surely free from vice. He must be so if I am the author of all evil. What if he prove to be the reverse? Then human nature, apart from the devil, is capable of every kind and every degree of wickedness. This is my principal position. Man is his own devil. Witness the history of the Papacy. That history I am familiar with, and I solemnly declare that had I constructed the Papacy with my own hands, and were I the personal devil of priestly description and popular delusion, I could not have made it worse than it has been-—more unholy, more distracted, more smitten by Providence. Take as my voucher a recently published History, the last pages of which give this
Summary of the Papacy.
“The papacy from Simon bar Jonas, called Saint Peter, down to Pio Nono, the present Pope, has had 293 heads called popes. Thirty-one of these were anti-popes or usurpers. Of the remaining 262 legitimate popes, 25 came to a violent death, as follows: 18 were poisoned, namely, Jean XI., Clement II., Damasus II., Stephen IX., John XIII., Pascal II. —the same that disinterred and insulted the corpses of Henry IV. and Clement II.—Gelasius II., Benedict XI., Alexander V., Pius III., Alexander VI., Hadrian VI., Marcellus II., Urban VII., Clement XIV. and Clement VIII., Leo XI. and (perhaps) XII.; finally, Leo X. died either of poison or the small-pox, or, it may be, of both. Pour popes were assassinated—John VIII., Leo VI., Leo VII. and John XII. Thirteen others died by various means. Stephen VI. was strangled; Leo III. and John XVI. were mutilated and lamed; John X. stifled; Benedict VI. was killed by a cord round his neck; John XIV. died of hunger; Lucius II. by stoning; Gregory XVIII., being imprisoned, perished in an iron cage; Celestine V. of a nail driven into his temples; Boniface by his own hands from rage at having been whipped; Clement V. was burnt on his death-bed; Urban VI. was thrown from his horse and died of the fall; Paul II. died from apoplexy from over-eating; Pius IV. died from excess in a woman’s arms. Sixty-four popes, then, out of 262, perished in some extraordinary manner; without counting 20 others who suddenly died from vexation in consequence of reverses they suffered, notably Gregory IX., Innocent IV., Paul III. and IV., Gregory XIII.
“Twenty-six popes were deposed, or expelled, or exiled, without counting the popes of Avignon. These are Sergius III, Benedict V., Leo VIII., John XIII., Benedict VIII., Sylvester III., Gregory V., VII., IX., XII., Alexander III., Urban V. and VI., Pascal II., Gelasius II., Innocent II. and IV,, Eugenius III. and IV., Hadrian III. and IV, Lucius III., Martin IV., Pius VI., VII. and IX. (the present pope), John XXIII., who was hunted by his brother pope, Martin V, as if he had been a wild beast.
“Moreover, besides the first 14 popes, who did not believe in the Deity of Christ, first proclaimed by Zephyrinus in the year 202, 21 were clearly heretics; viz., Marcellinus, Zephyrinus, Cornelius, Marcellus, Sylvester I., Liberius, Damasus, Eleutherius, Innocent I., Vigilius, Pelagius I., Zozimus, Felix III., Honorius I., Hormisdas, John II., John VIII., Leo III., Sixtus V., and Anastasius and Gregory the Great, who were iconoclasts.
“Several popes were accused of murder. Twenty-eight popes invited foreigners into Italy for the sake of being supported in ‘the chair of Saint Peter.’ Nicholas III. opens the series of nepotist popes.
“In brief, 90 popes suffered violent deaths, and were expelled, deposed, banished; 35 underwent the same fate from being unfaithful to their office; 28 would have been subject to the same lot but for the intervention of foreigners: in all, 153 unworthy popes put of 262.”
What dynasty, what institution in the world, ever had a darker history?
“Civilization asks what share the Papacy has taken in its work. Is it the press? Is it electricity? Is it steam? Is it chemical analysis? Is it free trade? Is it self-government? Is it the principle of nationality? Is it the proclamation of the rights of man? Of the liberty of conscience? Of all this the Papacy is the negation. Its culminating points are Gregory I., who, like Omar, burnt libraries; Gregory VII., who destroyed a moiety of Rome and created the temporal sovereignty; Innocent III.., who founded the Inquisition; Boniface IX., who destroyed the last remains of municipal liberty in Rome; Pius VII., who committed the same wrong in Bologna; Alexander VL, who established the censorship of books; Paul III., who published the bull for the establishment of the Jesuits? Pius V., who covered Europe with burning funeral piles; Urban VIII., who tortured Galileo; and Pius IX., who has given us the modem Syllabus.
“Has not the Papacy stamped its brand on all the nations of Europe? In England, that brand is Mary Tudor; in Spain, Philip II.; in the Low Countries, the Duke of Alva; in Bohemia, the war against the Hussites; in France, Simon de Montfort, Saint Bartholomew, and the revocation of the Edict of Nantes; in Germany, the Thirty Years’ War; in South America, destruction; in Italy, division and foreign despotism.
“What ground of existence, then, has the Papacy? In Italy it impedes the settlement of nationality; in Mexico, the formation of the State; in France, the progress of freedom; in England, the pacification of Ireland. In virtue of what merit, then, does it claim its right to live? To travel through its past history of fifteen centuries is hideous and distressing, yet it is replete with instruction. It proclaims, beyond all contradiction, that the Roman world must be depapalized before it can be really free.”
Yet the specific title of each of this long line of popes is ”His Holiness.” Holy? What then is unholy? And how could several of these feeble mortals have been more wicked than they were, had they been under the temptation of a personal devil as wicked as the devil is described to be by the papal system? If men who are armed cap-a-pie against my influence, men who were the temple and the channel of the Holy Spirit, could be so base and so unfortunate, humanity contains vice enough in its own self to account for all the crimes of history and social life.
I have spoken of priests and popes in general, without intending to deny that many of them were and are (in a sense) Christian men.
On that very account are they more formidable. Sacerdotalism is not the less to be denounced and undermined because it proves in some natures to be compatible with a certain moral excellence. Whatever the man, the priest is, as a priest, that is as one devoted to the interests of a so-called sacred caste—the priest is to be feared, shunned, disallowed and superseded. In the kingdom of the Son of Man—that is, wherever true religion prevails, the religion which Jesus taught and lived—priests will be impossible. The Father of the universe admits no dark shadow between Himself and his children of the human race.
4. Ecclesiastical Tradition Concerning Me Halts In Its Course
The whole history of Church doctrines concurs to shew that when once a dogma has been planted, it continues to grow and expand until it has reached the summit of its logical development. Interruptions and even momentary recessions may arise in its course from incidental causes, but it can no more stop finally than the acorn can cease growing before it has become an oak. It was so with the dogma of the Trinity. Given the human and the divine life of Jesus, and given the social conditions into which the seed was cast, and in due time the Trinity of the creeds was inevitable. So too with the doctrine that makes me the absolute antagonist of God and the prince of the powers of hell. Yet here a halt must be noticed, as there were several interruptions of the line of the triune development of the idea of God.
Abundant, doubtless, at the end of the second century were the elements out of which a full-grown Satan might have come forth. Nevertheless, the process of the unfolding of such conceptions, if sure in its final issue, varies in time and place, with culture, individuals and opportunities, so that a long series of years, or even centuries, is required to fill up gaps, to supplement deficiencies, to correct error, and so to bring forth in completion the full logical result. I propose to exemplify these statements in speaking of the fabled descent of Christ into hell, having it for my purpose to educe from what is said an argument in favour of my impersonality and my final disappearance.
A scriptural passage of doubtful authenticity, and a universally admitted spurious Gospel, are the solitary sources which added to what is termed “The Apostles’ Creed,” the clause, “He (Christ) descended into hell.” The Scripture runs thus: “He went and preached unto the spirits in prison, which were aforetime disobedient when the long-suffering of God was waiting in the days of Noah while the ark was preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls, were saved by water” (1 Pet. iii. 18—20). The passage wears an apocryphal air. However here too the logical law of development to which I have referred is exemplified.
The general notion was, that Christ by his death had reversed the loss occasioned by the fall. But during many centuries men of God had died without having had an opportunity even of seeing and hearing Christ. They, with all the other dead, were in Hades. Being there, they suffered privation; some suffered punishment greater or less. The grand idea of the universality of the effect of Christ’s death came in at this point to lend aid in solving the question, “Are the worthies of the Old Covenant shut out from the greatest of all blessings, the blessing of a share in the benefits accruing from the New?” “He died for all,” was the reply. Thence the inevitable conclusion, “Then he went and preached to the spirits in prison.” “But they,” says theory, “are in Hades.” Consequently “he must have descended into hell.” The logic of the process was soon forgotten, and argument became history in this, as in so many other ecclesiastical dogmas and practices. From some date in the second century down into the last third of the nineteeth, the fact of Christ’s descent into hell, guaranteed by the highest ecclesiastical authority, and taught to Englishmen in “The Book of Common Prayer,” has been held, equally with the contradictions of the pseudo-Athanasian Creed, by all faithful Churchmen and sound believers.
Thus fancies become facts, and false deductions truths essential to salvation.
If I am guilty of misleading men, I might plead in excuse that I follow my ecclesiastical superiors. I now invite your attention to the spurious Gospel to which I referred. This is not the place to speak of its origin or literary character. As to its date, Tischendorf places it in the second century; Maury in the beginning of the fifth, It is scarcely so early as the former, nor so late as the latter. As shewing a growth of the tradition in the Epistle, it may be safely attributed to the fourth century. This is an approximation near enough for my purpose. It is certain that Cyril of Jerusalem, in the catechetical instructions he gave from the year 345 to the year 351 in that city, used the following words: “Christ descended into the bosom of death, and aroused the bodies of several saints who slept the sleep of the tomb. Death, at the sight of that stranger who descended into Hades (‘Hell’), was smitten with fear.” The Latin Version is more particular and emphatic: “Death and the Infernal One, contemplating their impious duties together with their cruel subordinates, were taken with, fear in their own kingdom, and exclaimed, saying? ”We are conquered by thee. Who art thon who, suffering corruption, by the incorrupt argument of thy majesty, furiously condemnest our power?” The Greek of Cyril has it: “On what account, O door-keepers of Hades, are you terrified at the sight of this one? What unusual fear has seized you The patriarch adds: “Death fled, and that flight convicts him of cowardice.” Then he represents the holy prophets, Moses, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Samuel, Isaiah, John the Baptist, as hastening to the scene. The last asks, “Art thou he that wast to come, or do we expect another?” David interposes, and says to Hades, that he recognizes the voice of the Saviour who commands the devils to open their gates. Isaiah also is struck with the truth of his prediction (xxv. 8; comp. 1 Cor. xv. 55): “O Death, where is thy victory; where is thy sting?” Saint Cyril puts these words also into the mouths of the holy prophets at the moment of the Saviour’s arrival: “Each of the righteous ones says, ‘Where, Death, is thy victory; where, Hades, thy sting?”
The appearance of John the Baptist here is accounted for by the belief then current, that, as the forerunner of Jesus, he had gone down into Hades to prepare the way before him there.
Cyril finishes with the words: “Thus were all the righteous men delivered whom death had devoured.” The general thought of the early Fathers is expressed by Epiphanius of Cyprus (368—402): “Thus were fulfilled the things foretold against the rulers Hades and Death, who, ignorant of the divine might of the man Jesus, thought to overpower him, but were themselves overpowered by him.” Accordingly the Christian orators are wont to employ this formula: ”God has by Christ delivered us from the power of Satan and of Death, or of Hades and of Death.”
Now, these Satan, Hades and Death, are in the early authorities to which I have referred, not mere personifications (they have passed out of that stage), but actual persons. Other instances might be adduced to the same effect. Here, then, are three infernal potentates, a trinity of demoniacal powers. Of that group I am inferior to Hades, who is the prince, the king of darkness, and I only his prime minister, and as such liable to the severity of his rebuke. My subordinate station appears fully in these citations from the Gospel of Nicodemus:
“And when all were in such joy (at the prospect given by John the Baptist of the advent of Jesus) came Satan, the heir of darkness, and said to Hades, ‘O all-devouring and insatiable! hear my words. There is of the race of the Jews one named Jesus, calling himself the Son of God; and being a man, by our working with them the Jews have crucified him; and now when he is dead, be ready that we may secure him here. For I know that he is a man, for I heard him say, ‘My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death’ (Mark xv. 34). He also has done me many evils in the upper world. For wherever he found my servants, he persecuted them; and whatever men I made crooked, blind, lame, lepers, or any such thing, by a single word he healed them; and many whom I had got ready to be buried, even these through a single word he brought to life again.’ Hades answers: ”And is this man so powerful as to do such things by a single word? or if he be so, canst thon withstand him? It seems to me that, if he be so, no one will be able to withstand him. And if thou sayest that thou didst hear him dreading death, he said this mocking thee and laughing, wishing to seize thee with his strong hand; and woe, woe to thee to all eternity!’
“Satan replies: ‘O thon all-devouring and insatiable Hades, art thon so afraid of hearing of our common enemy? I was not afraid of him, but worked in the Jews, and they crucified him, and also gave him gall and vinegar to drink (Matt, xxvii. 34). Make ready then, in order that you may lay fast hold of him when he comes.”
“Hades answers: ‘Heir of darkness, son of destruction, devil, thou hast just now told me that many whom thou hadst made ready to be buried he brought to life again by a single word. And if he has delivered others from the tomb, how and with what power shall he be laid hold of by us? For I not long ago swallowed down one dead man, by name Lazarus, and shortly after, one of the living dragged him up by force out of my bowels; and I think that it was he of whom thou speakest. If, therefore, we receive him here, I am afraid lest perchance we be in danger about the rest. For
lo! all those that I have swallowed from eternity are, I feel, in commotion; and I am pained in my bowels. And the snatching away of Lazarus beforehand seems to me no good sign; for not like a dead body, but like an eagle, he flew out of me. Wherefore I adjure thee, for thy benefit and mine, not to bring him here; for I think he is coming here to raise all the dead. And this I tell thee; by the darkness in which we live, if thou bring him here, not one of the dead will be left behind in it to me.’
“While Satan and Hades were thus speaking to each other, there was a great voice like thunder, saying: ‘Lift up your gates, O ye rulers; and be ye lifted up, ye everlasting gates, and the king of glory shall come in’ (Psalm xxiv. 7). When Hades heard that, he said to Satan: ‘Go forth, if thou art able, and withstand him.’ Satan therefore went forth to the outside. Then Hades says to his demons: ‘Secure well and strongly the gates of brass and the bars of iron, and attend to my bolts, and stand in order and see to everything; for if he comes in here, woe will seize us.’ The forefathers having heard this, began all to revile him: ’O all-devouring and insatiable! open, that the king of glory may come in.’ Then came there again a voice, saying: ’Lift up the gates, Hades!’ Hades, as if forsooth he knew not who was there, asked: ‘Who is this king of glory?’
“Then the angels of the Lord say: ‘The Lord strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle’ (Psalm xxiv. 8).
“And immediately with these words the-brazen gates were shattered and the iron bars broken, and all the dead who had been bound came out of prison.
“And the king of glory entered in the form of a man, and all the dark places of Hades were lighted up.
“Immediately Hades cried out: ‘We have been conquered! Woe to us!’
“Then the king of glory seized his chief satrap Satan by the head, and delivered him to his angels and said: ”With iron chains bind his hands, and his feet, and his neck, and his mouth.” Then he delivered him to Hades, and said: ”Take him, and keep him secure till my second appearing.’”
Another passage of the same writing declares, “And Death and Hell were cast into the lake of fire” (Apoc. xx. 14).
Vivid representations like these would do more for developing devilry than learned arguments and sober discourses. Doubtless, too, they represent the popular state of thinking and feeling at the time. Here, then, in my humiliation, you see that break in the line of demonological development to which I have referred.
My object, however, is not so much to shew you the progress and condition of devildom at this precise time, as to ask you to look calmly and earnestly on the well-defined and prominent personalities that stand before you in at least Hades and Satan. This is a simple creation of .the human mind. Scriptural inspiration is here out of the question. The whole, from first to last, is a result of man’s power to transmute his conceptions into personal beings, and to endow those personal beings with kindling life and individual attributes. If one age could effect so much toward creating a personal devil, how easy to believe that the result would not fail to ensue from a long series of ages, working in the same direction and under conditions the most auspicious!
However, with facts like this before me, what am I to think of the stability of my foundation? A personification is but a breath. If one personification brings me into existence, another may take me out of it. What, indeed, does the figure Death denote but decay and extinction? And what are all my names but figures of speech? As Satan, I am man’s adversary personified. As devil, I am either the old Parsic dew, a fallen divinity, or the universal accuser diabolus. As for “serpent,” “roaring lion,” “Apollyon” (the destroyer), clearly these are simple attempts to give a concrete form to the evil of the world. Language is a changeful thing; and as the old forms pass away or lose their import, they will take me with them. Having been thus sunk from “the prince of darkness” into one of his officers by man’s imagination, by the same power I must have been made, and at the will of the same power I manifestly hold my present position.
5. Luther Sustains My Tottering Throne
A power such as mine was not easily undermined. The old Saxon reformer, Luther, to whom the world owes so much of its highest good, was not free from the superstitions of his age; that is, the accumulated superstitions of centuries. Accordingly, I was to him a personal reality. Real, too, was my kingdom; as real as that of God and Christ. Owning my kingdom, he of course owned my subalterns and my subjects. Indeed, the whole of devildom, as handed down from the past, came into and was retained by his hands. This may seem strange on the part of one who by his superior intelligence liberated the human mind from so many falsities. But Luther was a rationalist only in part. He expressly disallowed all reasoning about what are called the mysteries of religion; and made the Bible as the word of God the test and measure of his belief in an absolute manner, so that whatever the Bible said implicitly or explicitly, he accounted divine truth. And this he carried so far, that cabbalistic misinterpretations, and pagan additions to the teachings of the Bible, he held as firmly as its fundamental principles and clearest declarations. Yet, as his was a genial nature, demonism does not wear so dark a robe as in the writings of many others. He is playful, not to say jocose, occasionally; nay, at times friendly and almost loving in the tone he takes toward devils.
These statements will find exemplifications in the following series of translated extracts from his celebrated Tischreden, or Table Talk, nearly two hundred closely printed octavo pages of which are occupied with the subject.
Of Good and Bad Angels.
The angels stand at our right hand to guard and protect us at the command of God, so that we may not be destroyed or injured by the devils. Consequently when the devil attempts to do us harm, our dear holy angel keeps him off and drives him away; for God’s messenger has long arms, and though he stands in the presence of God or in the sun, yet is he able to take part in our affairs and be our protector.
The devils also are near us, and every moment and ceaselessly plot against our life, health and salvation; but the dear guardian defends us against them, so that they cannot do what they would fain do. There are numerous devils in the woods, the waters, the deserts, in marshes and pools, lying in wait to injure human beings. Some are there in black and thick clouds, occasioning thunder, lightning, hail and storms; they blight meadows and poison the air. When such happens, the philosophers and physicists say that it is natural, ascribing it to the stars, and assigning I know not what causes of the evils and plagues.
A Guardian Angel.
Not far from Zwickau, in Voigtland, a pair of peasants one day sent their son, a little boy, into the neighbouring forest to bring home the cows. As the lad was dilatory, he was overtaken by night. There came so heavy a fall of snow that the hills were covered to their summits. Consequently the boy was unable to find his path. And as he returned not home the next day, his parents were greatly distressed, particularly as they were prevented by the snow from making their way into the wood. On the third day, when the snow had been partly swept away by the wind, they went out to seek their child. After long and wearying searches, their glad eyes fell upon him as he sat on a sunny knoll, on which lay no snow. The moment he saw his parents he jumped up, ran toward them, and laughingly asked them why they had come. In reply, they said, “What have you been about? Why did you not come home?” “Have I been so long absent?” “Yes; why have you tarried here?” “The sun set, and I could not find my way.” “Where did you sleep?” “Here, under this tree, on some dry straw” “How did you get it?” “A young man brought it to me—a very good young man.” “What have you done for food?” “He fed me.” “Who fed you?” “The good man.” “Where is he?” “I do not know; he comes and goes, and will not stay, though he says many a kind word to me, and I am so glad of his company.” “He will be here again this evening?” “Yes; but we must hasten home; already the day is beginning to decline.” “Will he follow?” ”O how I wish he would!”
Martin Luther often told this story, and said, “Is it not written:
“He will give his angels charge over thee,
To keep thee in all thy ways;
They will bear thee up in their hands,
Lest thou dash thy foot against a stone.’” (Ps. xci. 11.)
While in general describing me in all the worst features of commonplace theologians, Luther now and then has passages which, not differing greatly from the views I have set before you, speak of me as an impersonation of human wickedness, rather than as an individual being, concentrating all evil in himself. For instance:
A godless man is a counterfeit or image of Satan.
Do you wish to see the true form and likeness of the devil? Go over the ten commandments, and suppose the opposite of each incarnated in a human being, and you will have Satan himself before you in ten different shapes. Some one said to Dr. Luther that he should like to see the devil. He answered and said: “As God is the thesis of the Decalogue, so is Satan the antithesis.” If you would really know the devil, place before your eyes a godless, hopeless, wicked man, who has no conscience and leads a vicious life, and you see the devil in a bodily form, the devil himself.
Spiritual, not Papal. exorcisms expel Satan.
The poor creatures possessed of the devil are not set free by the words or the arts of the papal conjurors. It can be done only by the power of God in union with each one’s endeavour to give the devil a bad time of it so long as he remains.
Don’t ask the Devil to be your guest.
One of the German nobles invited Dr. Martin Luther to his mansion, in company with some of the scholars of Wittenberg, and made for them a hunting party. They soon started a fine fox. Off went the host, seated on a dashing racer, after the fox. He was speedily followed by a second and a third. But the fourth huntsman was carried by his horse up into the air against his will. The horse fell to earth and died, and the fox was seen careering through the atmosphere. That fox, said the doctor, was Satan: adding, ”Never invite the devil to a feast; we have all devils enough around us, and find enough to do to keep their hands from our bodies and our souls.”
How an hobgoblin tormented a parson, and Luther’s advice for his expulsion.
A country parson came to Luther from Siipz, hard by Torgau who complained to the doctor that by night a hobgoblin was used to enter into his house, and with frightful noises set . everything into confusion, overturning the tables, setting the chairs one on another, breaking the pots and pans, so that he and his family had no peace; for, said he, when he is at his devilish work I throw at his head whatever I can lay my hand on, and he does nothing but laugh and grin at me in the most annoying and insulting manner, until at last, when he sees me most vexed, he hurries away goggling and sniggling. This game Satan had carried on for a whole year, so that his wife and children could endure it no longer.
Then spake Dr. Martin Luther and said: “Dear brother, be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might; hold fast thy faith in Christ; yield in no way to the devil. This kind of devils go out only by contempt and neglect. Let him play his game out; disturb not yourself; throw neither pot nor pan at his head, but keep quiet in bed by the side of your wife, and he will get tired of playing the fool. Try this exorcism for three months, and then come back and report the result.” The good parson returned and said, with tears of gratitude in his eyes: “Dear Doctor Martin Luther, he is gone!” “Keep tranquil,” was the answer, “and he will never trouble you again.”
Luther himself worried by a hobgoblin in his Patinos.
In the year 1-546, when Luther was at Eisleben, he related the following history how the devil had worried him in the Wartburg, saying: When, in the year 1521, I was travelling from Worms and had come to Eisenach and sat in the castle of Wartburg in Patmos, I was then at a distance from other people in a study, and no one was to come to me except two noble boys who brought me meat and drink twice a day. Now they bought me a sack of hazel-nuts, which I ate from time to time, keeping them shut up in a coffer. “When I went to rest at night, I betook myself into the study, put the light out, and lay down in bed. Then my hazel-nuts came back, rising and cracking one after another right hard against the beams of the chamber, and rattling in the bed: but I made no inquiry into the cause. Then I fell asleep. After a short time, however, I was aroused by a sudden rattle and crash, as if of all the plates, dishes, mugs and jugs in the house falling down the stairs. I jumped out of bed and rushed to the top of the stairs to see who or what had caused the clash. I looked and looked again, and saw—the stairs; nothing more. Then I spake, saying, ‘What is it? what art thou? Receiving no answer, I quoted the Scripture which is spoken of Christ in Psalm vii. 8, ”Thou hast put all things under his feet.” Calm ensued, and all things being quiet now, I lay down on my bed and slept till late in the morning. The goblin was laid by the power of the word of God.
Contempt and merriment are a power fid exorcism.
Doctor Luther said: When he could not get rid of Satan by means of the sacred Scripture and earnest words of rebuke, he had often driven him off by a good joke, or a hearty laugh, or a biting sarcasm. As for instance, he said to him: “Dear devil, if the blood of Christ is not enough to cover my sins, be kind enough to offer for me a word or two of prayer thyself.” When I am idle and have nothing to do, the devil creeps into my soul, and before I am aware of it he fills me with fear, so that I break out into a profuse perspiration. What then is my resource? I fire at him a word of Scripture, and off he runs. You cannot drive him away by anything more readily than by contempt. On this point Dr. Luther used to tell of what happened to him at Magdeburg: In the beginning of my preaching, the devil did his utmost to suppress it. There was then a citizen whose child died, and who would not pay for vigils or masses for the dead. This irritated the devil, and he began to come every night into the good man’s chamber and whimpered like a child. The trick worked on the bereaved father, and he knew not what to do. Thereon the priests cried out: “Yes, yes; you see how it is when people won’t pay for vigils and masses. Poor soul! who pities thee?” ‘ In his sore trouble, the worthy man sent for me, and entreated my advice, stating that he had read my sermon on the words, “They have Moses and the Prophets” (Luke xvi. 29). On this I wrote to him not to be troubled at the matter, for it was simply an ill turn done him by the devil, adding that he was to despise both priests and Satan, and all would go well. He followed my counsel, bidding the priests to seek custom somewhere else, and saying to the devil, “What! is this the best you can do—to whimper like a child 1 Off with you, cursed spirit! off with you to your own place—the deepest spot in hell!” Thereon the devil began to storm and beat about; he howled like a wolf; he bellowed like a bull; but no one cared for what he did, not even the children; and so he was driven away by contempt. The contempt filled the house to such a degree, that when he laid hold of the skirt of a maid-servant who was carrying a child up the stairs, she beat him off by the simple phrase, “Bah! bah! silly thing!*’ After some time, Mr. Jacob, the mayor of Bremen, came to Magdeburg and took up his abode at the head hotel. ”I want,” said he to his host, “to hear this devil which is so much talked of here.” “You shall, honoured sir, hear him this evening at eight o’clock.” Sure enough, the devil came down the chimney, breaking and overthrowing everything in his passage. “Well, well,” said Mr. Jacob, “I have had enough of him. Let’s to bed.” There were two chambers near each other. In one lay the landlady, her children and her maid-servants; the other was occupied by Mr. Jacob and mine host. When now Mr. Jacob had gone to bed, the devil came and began to sport with him, taking away his coverlet. Mr. Jacob was horrified, and fell to pray with all his might. Then the devil went into the next chamber and began to play his tricks on the women, chaffing them and running over the bedclothes, now as a troop of mice and now as a troop of rats. And as he would not cease, the hostess threw at him a certain chamber convenience, saying, “Take that, vile wretch! and go on a pilgrimage to Rome, to worship thine idol the pope, and buy a score of indulgences at his shop! You need them all; and when you have got them, what good will they do you?’ That moment the devil and his imps fled away; quia est superbus spiritus et non potest ferre contemptum sui; for he is a haughty scoundrel, and cannot endure contempt.
The advice is excellent. If all the grown-up children in the world, and all the old women in male attire, would only despise me, I should soon be driven out of existence: and with me there would depart a host of phantoms, such as superstitions, fear of ghosts, fear of man, fear of self, and I know not how many more fears by which weak mortals now whip themselves with rods of iron and spikes of brass made by their own hands. No! the devil cannot stand against the dissolving force of persistent neglect!
The fact is owned by Richard Baxter, who has recorded a case relative to one Mr. White, of Dorchester, assessor to the Westminster Assembly at Lambeth, who being (as the account puts it) honoured with a visit one night from the arch-fiend, treated him with cool contempt. The devil in a light night stood by his bed-side. The assessor looked awhile whether he would say or do anything. Finding that nothing ensued, and annoyed at being thus trifled with, he said, “If thou hast nothing to do, I have and so turned and composed himself to sleep.
Without consulting the ecclesiastical casuists, I could not quite take on myself to declare contempt a Christian virtue; but certainly it is a less offensive method of exorcism than some others which fable has recorded. Beaumont says of the spirits which he saw: “I have seen several spirits, and pointed to the place where they ‘were,’ telling the company they were there. And one spirit whom I heard calling to me, as he stood behind me, on a sudden clapped his finger to my side, which I sensibly perceived and startled at; and as I saw one spirit come in at the door, which I did not like, I suddenly laid hold of a pair of tongs, and struck at him with all my force, whereupon he vanished.”
And yet, as he was a spirit, a blow could do him no harm. It would, however, be easy to multiply narratives, how the femulus of one man struck him on the right or left ear, as he did well or ill; how to another person an angel came with a similar design, and “whipped the offending Adam out of him;” how a third visionary fancied he was scourged on a bed of steel by devils; how a lad was killed by a spirit from a box on the ear; and, in short, how a cloud of other phantasms have not been content with a bodiless form, but have assumed a pugilistic character, and boxed, not (like honest Jack Tar) the compass, but their unhappy victims and indocile scholars; thus, by the incongruity of the functions ascribed to my agents, supplying a sufficient proof that the whole subject is clutched out of the air.
The passages which I have adduced from the great Saxon Reformer, while testifying the universality and depth of my influence in his days, bear witness also to the approach of my declining years. Already I feel the fresh breeze of the dawning day, which I am reputed to be unable to endure. “When a witticism, a vulgarity or disrespect, has power to put me to flight, I already foresee my grey hair and my tottering limbs.
If the following extract from Coleridge’s “Friend” (II. 236) is somewhat plainly spoken, it nevertheless contains much good sense in regard to Luther’s familiarity with me:
“Had Luther been himself a prince, he could not have desired better treatment than he received during his eight months’ stay in the Wartburg; and in consequence of a more luxurious diet than he had been accustomed to, he was plagued with temptations both from the flesh and the devil. It is evident from his letters that he suffered under great irritability of his nervous system, the common effect of deranged digestion in men of sedentary habits, who are at the same time intense thinkers; and this irritability adding to and vivifying impressions made upon him in early life, and fostered by the theological systems of his manhood, is abundantly sufficient to explain all his apparitions, and all his mighty combats with evil spirits.”
The sort of half-reverence with which my name is mentioned by ignorant persons, as if I were in some way a god myself, and a god to be conciliated at least by civil behaviour, not seldom extorts a smile from my lips, which may be taken in repayment of the smiles with which I am wont to be treated by the philosophers. It is said of Southey, that he could never think of me without laughing. This ludicrous vein has been ascribed to “the genuine humour of our Teutonic ancestors.” Nevertheless, I am, alas! something more than a joke. Ridiculous, if you will, as the cause of all the evil ecclesiastically referred back to me, I am a very serious reality in the Papal confessional and in Protestant churches and chapels all over the world. And though I would gladly consent to be laughed out of existence, if laughing would do it, I fear that I can never be driven away except by processes of a sterner kind. This consideration has had great weight in inducing me to write my own Autobiography.
The good sense which Luther shewed in regard to exorcism has led me to chat on in connection with a subject more profitable to others than myself. I must draw in the rein; yet I cannot withhold John Selden’s (1584—1654) method of treatment, since it presents a striking exception to the credulity of the sixteenth century:
“A person of quality came to my chamber in the Temple, and told me he had two devils in his head (I wondered what he meant), and just at that time one of them bid him kill me. With that I began to be afraid, and thought he was mad. He said he knew I could cure him, and therefore entreated me to give him something, for he was resolved he would go to nobody else. I, perceiving what an opinion he had of me, and that it was only melancholy that troubled him, took him in hand, and warranted him, if he would follow my directions, to cure him in a short time. I desired him to let me be alone about an hour, and then to come again; which he was very willing to. In the meantime I got a card, and wrapped it up handsomely in a piece of taffeta, and put strings to the taffeta; and when he came, gave it him to hang about his neck; withal charging him that he should not disorder himself either with eating or drinking, but eat very little of supper, and say his prayers duly when he went to bed; and I made no question that he would be well in three or four days. Within that time I went to dinner to his house, and asked him how he did. He said he was much better, but not perfectly well; for in truth he had not dealt clearly with me; he had four devils in his head, and he perceived two of them were gone with that which I had given him, but the other two troubled him still. ‘Well, said I, I am glad two of them are gone; I make no doubt to get rid of the other two likewise.’ So I gave him another thing to hang about his neck. Three days after he came to me to my chamber, and professed he was now as well as he ever was in his life, and did extremely thank me for the great care I had taken of him. I, fearing lest he might relapse into the like distemper, told him that there was none but myself and one physician more in the whole town that could cure the devils in the head, and that was Dr. Harvey (whom I had prepared); and wished him, if ever he found himself ill in my absence, to go to him, for he could cure him as well as myself. The gentleman lived many years, and was never troubled after.”
6. Attack And Defence: Bekker, Henry More, And Goadby
The sands of my existence are running down. What was once solid ground begins to tremble under my feet; and yet no’ pitched battle has been fought. To all outward appearance, my empire is as wide and my throne as firmly set as ever. If any disposition to yield on the part of my sacerdotal supporters has become manifest, it is only in consequence of the piercingness of my own eye, from which, as you may judge, my loving friend, few things are wholly hidden. In reality, however, I feel that the joints and bands of my existence are undergoing dissolution. And as I wish to communicate my own knowledge to you, I proceed to put before you two antagonists and one advocate of no ordinary mettle, who have their proper logical place at the point to which we have now arrived.
Balthassar Bekker, a Dutch Protestant clergyman, was the first to strike a heavy blow at the pestiferous superstitions connected with witchcraft, belief in apparitions and other supposed operations in human society of “the devil and his angels,” which, alas! still haunt and worry the less enlightened classes in both hemispheres. Dr. Bekker was born on the 20th of March, 1634, in a Friesland village, of which his father was the minister. Having been initiated into the elements of learning by that parent, he studied in the colleges of Groningen and Franker, where he made such progress in scholarship as to be thought at a later day not unworthy to receive the honourable title of Doctor of Divinity. As a country parson at Oosterlittens, in Friesland, he devoted himself earnestly to his sacred duties, and manifested special interest in the instruction of children, which was neglected throughout the province. For this important purpose he established a species of Sunday-school. As an aid to his instructional efforts, he published a short Catechism for children, and another for persons of more advanced age. These praiseworthy labours excited envy in some of his clerical brethren, whose indifference to the wants of the people seemed to be reproved by Bekker’s intelligent zeal. A cry was raised against him. Being a student of this philosophy of Descartes, then feared by traditionalists, he was described as an enemy to religion. The charge was sustained out of his second Catechism, which fell under the clerical ban as containing “strange expressions, unscriptural positions and dangerous opinions.” His assailants went so far as to charge him with Socialianism, which at that time was a serious crime in Holland, now among the freest lands of Europe and America, whether for religious or social liberality. The annoyances he underwent in consequence of his righteous endeavours, induced him to leave Friesland, and, after a change of place or two, he settled in Amsterdam (1679). The comet which appeared in 1680 and 1681, and which terrified the world, called forth from him another manly utterance in his Ondersoch over de Komet’ei, or Inquiry concerning Comets, wherein he attempted to calm men’s minds by shewing that comets are not the presages or forerunners of calamity. This piece gained him great reputation, as did his Exposition on the Prophet Daniel, in which he gave abundant evidence of learning and sound judgment. But the work on which his fame is built is his Betoo verde Wereld, The World Bewitched. What led him to write this important work was, as he declares in its Preface, his grief to see the great honours, powers and miracles which are ascribed to the devil. “It is come to pass,” he says, “that men think it piety and godliness to ascribe a great many wonders to the devil, and impiety and heresy if a man will not believe that the devil can do what a thousand persons affirm he does. It is now reckoned religious if a man who fears God fears the devil also. If he is not afraid of the devil, he passes for an atheist, because he cannot think that there are two gods, the one good, the other bad. But these, I think, with much more reason, may be called Ditheists (believers in two gods). For my part, if on account of my opinion they will give me a new name, let them call me a Monotheist, for I am a believer in but one God.” The object of the work, according to its author, was “to strip the devil of his power, and to drive him back from earth to hell.” Guided by the Cartesian doctrine, which places the essence of spirits in the faculty of thought, he expressly denied the operation of evil spirits on human beings, and described the references to good angels in the Scripture as figurative representations of the agency of God. In a scriptural confession of his belief, which he laid before the Upper Consistory of Amsterdam, he denies the existence of angels as well as that of devils, but without giving his reasons. More emphatic are his declarations against the popular falsities which tell of covenants with the devil, of magic, of witchcraft, of ghosts, of demoniacal possessions, &c.; repudiating altogether the kingdom of Satan, to which was attributed a power equal to, if not greater than, that of the Creator.
He shews how that Scripture does not propound or set forth any doctrine or view of the devil as a matter of belief, but finding the notion already in existence, makes use of it for its own purposes. There are, he states, many things in Scripture on which no information is given and no acceptance demanded (e.g., the Urim and Thummim). The Bible is not given to teach us the nature of things or their real existence, but to shew us them in their relation to God and our own good; in other words, its position is not a strictly scientific one, but a religious and practical one. Accordingly, much of what is said of the devil must be looked on as faded flowers; and even the temptation of Christ, Bekker explains as an alternation of opposite thoughts which determine Jesus in favour of duty in its highest claims. The passage in 1 Peter v. 8, which describes the devil as a roaring lion which walketh about seeking whom he may devour, makes reference to the emperor Nero. Many other things which the Bible says of the devil, are to be understood of men. Instead of the fear of the devil, this wise man and true minister of Christ recommends the fear of God; yea, “by banishing the fear of the devil from men’s hearts, the wisdom and power of the Saviour will only become the more signal.” The advanced position which he took up in theology is manifested in the fact, that he does not suppress reason by Scripture, nor Scripture by reason, but declares them two equally legitimate powers.
His work speedily excited attention, and was soon put out in a translation in French. Forthwith arose a general clamour. Bitter tongues soon produced injurious deeds. The clerical authorities of Amsterdam proceeded against the daring heretic who did not even spare their falsities in his zeal to emancipate his fellow-men from imaginary terrors. Having first suspended him from the holy communion of the Supper, they, on finding him intractable, deposed him from the ministerial office (1692). The magistrates of Amsterdam, however, being more merciful than his ecclesiastical brethren, paid him his salary as long as he lived. His deposition did not satisfy his assailants. They excommunicated him. Driven from their Church, he sought shelter and sympathy among the French Protestant refugees settled in Holland. And so he remained faithful to his published convictions down to the day of his death, which took place June 11th, 1698. He passed onwards in the faith and hope of a simple-minded and earnest Christian.
As an illustration of the extremes to which his persecutors went, reference may be made to a medal which they struck at the time of his deposition, and which represented the devil, clad like a clergyman, riding upon an ass, and holding in his hand a banner, in sarcastic reference to the victory he had gained in the ecclesiastical assemblies. ‘With the medal was published a small piece in Dutch to explain its import, by stating what had been done in the consistory classes and synods. While, however, the clergy cursed and sneered, impartial persons declared that “his morals were pure, and his soul firm and unyielding.” The great philosopher Locke felt and expressed an interest in the unjust treatment Bekker underwent. And while Collins, in his Discourse on Free-thinking, attributed the prevalence of belief in diabolical agency to the influence of priests, and its decline to a freedom of thinking encouraged at the Revolution, Dr. Bentley, in his Remarks on that composition, observes: “What has lessened in England your stories of sorceries? Not ‘the growing sect’ of atheists, but the growth of philosophy and medicine. No thanks to atheists, but to the Royal Society and College of Physicians; to the Bayles and Newtons, the Sydenhams and Ratcliffes. When the people saw the diseases they had imputed to witchcraft quite cured by a course of physic, they too were cured of their former error. They learned truth by the event3 not by a false position a-priori that there was neither witch nor devil. And then as to the frauds and impostures in this way, they have most of them been detected by the clergy. The two strongest books I have read on this subject were both written by priests; the one by Dr. Bekker in Holland, and the other by a doctor whose name I’ve forgot, that was afterwards Archbishop of York.”
Five years before the death of Bekker, a man of high culture and of lasting fame, a clerk of the Church of England and a distinguished member of the University of Cambridge, the Platonic spiritualist, Henry More, passed from what had been to him a world of reverie into the world of everlasting realities, on the 1st of September, 1687. If Bekker’s words were the first breath of the new life that was then coming forth, More’s words were the last thorough and unconscious wail over the then dying past. Not that I was in those days gasping for breath; but mine was already, except with the ignorant, a mutilated existence. Men believed and doubted, and so ceased to tremble. Of course the priests grew alarmed. If I were gone, what would become of them i With them, to deny the devil was to deny God. The incoming deluge must be dammed out. Among those who put their hands to the task was the Eev. Henry More in his “Antidote to Atheism.” If the extracts that I am about to lay before you create astonishment, as proceeding from so learned and cultivated a divine, you, my attentive and intelligent listener, may judge how thick and murky must have been the darkness of the popular mind under the oppressive incubus, especially when you know that the author was a member of that school of what is called “the Latitudinarian divines,” whose legitimate successors are in the present day Arnold, Hare, Whately, Maurice, Kingsley, Alford, Conybeare and Howson—and last, but by no means least, Stanley, Dean of Westminster, the comparatively free and brave.
In Book iii. of his “Antidote against Atheism,” Henry More speaks (p. 170), as of a matter of truth, of a witch, who to satisfy the curiosity of them that could punish her, was set free, that she might give a proof of that power she professed she had to raise tempests. She therefore, being let go, betakes herself to a place thick set with trees, scrapes a hole with her hand, fills it with urine, and stirs it about so long, that she caused at last a thick dark cloud charged with thunder and lightning, to the terror and distress of the beholders. However, she bids them to be of good courage, for she will command the cloud to discharge its contents upon what spot they should name; which promise she made good in the sight of the spectators.
In the same place he tells of a young girl, who to please her father, complaining of a drought, raised a cloud that watered his ground only, all around remaining as dry as before.
He tells also of two persons who, having by the power of the devil coursed aloft in the air, were cast headlong out of a cloud upon a house. One of them being but a novice, and inexperienced in those supernatural exploits, was astounded and afraid; but the other, being used to such feats from his youth (his parents having devoted him from his childhood to the devil), did but make a sport of it, and, laughing at his friend, called him a fool for his fear, bidding him be of good courage, for their master, in whose power they were, would carry them safe through greater dangers than those. And no sooner had he said these words than a whirlwind seized them and set them both safe upon the ground; but the house they were carried from so shook as if it would have been overturned from the very foundations.
He adds another relation of a witch, by name Constance, who being vexed that all her neighbours in the village where she lived were invited to a wedding, and so were drinking, dancing and making merry, while she was solitary and neglected, got the devil to transport her through the air, in the midst of day, to a hill hard by the village, where, digging a hole and putting urine into it, she raised a great tempest, and directed it so that it fell upon, and only upon, the village, and pelted them that were dancing with that violence that they were forced to discontinue their sport.
Another instance is related of a man, who at the persuasion of his wife anointing himself, as she had done before him, was carried away in the air to a great assembly of wizards and witches, where they were feasting under a nut-tree.. But this stranger, not relishing his cheer without salt, besought that condiment, and at last the salt came, when he blessed God for it. At that name the whole assembly disappeared; and he, poor man, was left alone naked a hundred miles from home.
The learned and refined clerk, after giving these and many other similar narratives, says: “I have produced such narrations that cannot but gain credit with such as are not perversely and wilfully incredulous.”
In another chapter (p. 232) the Doctor speaks of men transformed into wolves by the devil, and argues for its being a real transformation, not a delusion of the fancy. “For I conceive.” says he, “that the devil gets into their body, and by his subtle substance, more operative and searching than -any fire or purifying liquor, melts the yielding compages of the body to such a consistency, and so much of it as is fit for his purpose, and makes it pliable to his imagination; and then it is as easy for him to work it into what shape he pleaseth, as it is to work the air into such forms and figures as he ordinarily doth. Nor is it any more difficulty for him to modify what is hard, than it is to harden what is soft and fluid as the air. And he that hath this power, we can never stick to give him what is lesser, viz., to instruct men how they shall for a time forsake their bodies and come in asrain. For can it be a hard thing for him that can thus melt and take in pieces the particles of the body, to have the skill and power to loosen the soul, a substance really distinct from the body, -and separable from it; which is at last done by the easy course of nature, at that final dissolution of soul and body which we call death? But no course of nature ever transforms the body of man into the shape of a wolf: so that this is more hard and exorbitant from the order of nature than the other?
Pause here, my beloved pupil—pause and reflect. These are the opinions of a scholar, a divine, a philosopher, and a good man. They are not to be slighted. Yet consider how .such convictions cut into the very flesh, bone and marrow of ordinary life, and what torture, distress and confusion they must have inflicted on individuals, homes, society, the State, the Church. Still to this hour the kernel of all this mass of living corruption retains some life. Religion, the heart and the soul of man, is perplexed and horrified with these terrors. God’s own universe is not in God’s hands, nor does he fill infinite space and time with his presence. Everywhere he is beset with a competitor who throws his order into disorder, his law into suspension, his behests into contempt, his happiness into misery, his peace into confusion and warfare. Say, then, if it is not a sign of my taking a turn for the better, when I thus come forward and, through yon, explode the whole as a pestiferous mass of human folly and fraud!
Had those who by profession are “sons of the light” not loved their own darkness rather than God’s light, come forward and swept these Augean stables with their own hand, I should have been content to retire silently into well-merited oblivion. But no! the example of the Rev. Dr. More shews how little there is to be expected from the priests. I make this qualification in acknowledgment of the just reported services rendered by the Rev. Balthassar Bekker. And I have taken up this tone in order to introduce to you a name which, when the true lights of the world shall find recognition, will shine as a star in the firmament.
Not long after the time when More was darkening counsel with words without knowledge in England, and Bekker was opening the eyes of thousands on the continent, there lived, worked and wrote at Sherborne, in Dorsetshire, a humble printer, by name R. Goadby, who put forth and widely circulated what he called “An Illustration of the Holy Scriptures,” in four large folio volumes, containing above 3000 pages of matter, partly collected, partly original, in which are found the seeds of many of the .most advanced ideas of the present day. Among other passages of similar tendency, the following, which bears directly on our theme, deserves respectful attention as the first free and emphatic utterance in England against this, the most prolific and baneful of superstitions:
“Another” (I quote Mr. Goadby’s words, Preface to his “Illustration of the New Testament,”“ p. 4)—”Another little less important and little less certain truth” (than that “the Almighty Rather of the universe made heaven, and earth and sea, and all that in them is, without any coadjutor”) “upon which true religion must be founded is, that God only reigneth supreme; that he hath prepared his throne in the heavens and his kingdom ruleth over all (Ps. ciii. 19); that there is no evil being in the universe, who vies in power with him, and is in declared opposition against him; that there is no being of superior order that can injure or draw to evil and bring to eternal misery the human nature; for this would degrade God from the character of a Father, a Master and a Sovereign; for how can he be a Father if he suffers his children to be injured or drawn to evil by any being of far superior power, who attacks them in a manner they know not how; who is about their paths and about their bed, and they know it not; whom on the left hand, where he doth work, they cannot behold; who hideth himself on the right hand that they cannot see him? And how is God a Master, if he suffers another, in declared opposition to him, to bring his servants into subjection, to turn them to his will, or to use them despitefully? How is he the all-powerful Sovereign, if another, in declared opposition to him, can harass and ruin his subjects; can frustrate his intentions for their good, and introduce disorder and misery into his kingdom? Or where is his power, if he is under a necessity of using the power and malevolence of an evil being, and even his declared enemy, to punish his subjects? Does he who, as his prophet speaks of him, can smite the earth with the rod of his mouth, and slay the wicked with the breath of his lips,’ stand in need of the assistance of his enemy to punish his rebellious subjects t Or does he who knows all things from the beginning to the end, need his aid to try their fidelity by temptations’? Will he who has declared by his prophets that he will not give his glory to another, enable a malevolent being to do as mighty acts as himself? for such and even mightier have men, and even the learned, attributed to the devil. How is it possible there should be concord between God and an evil being, between the most perfect and adorable goodness and the extremest and most detestable malignity? If it be said that God does not assist or enable this evil being to do what he is supposed to do in the world, but only permits it, then it must follow that he has the power in himself; and if so, then it may be asked, which is God? since, as is supposed, they shew equal acts of power. If it be said that all the good we experience conies from God, all the evil from the devil; what is this but to set up two gods—a good one and an evil one; and do we not by this contradict God himself, who has expressly declared by his prophets, form the light and create darkness, I make peace and create evil; I the Lord do all these things’? (Is. xiv. 7).
“Let us not deem so unworthily of the Great Father of the universe, the infinite, pure and perfect Spirit, as that he associates with himself, or employs in any manner, a malignant being, exercising a power superior to nature, and doing as God does. Let us not have so low conceptions of his almighty power and all-perfect wisdom, as to imagine that there is always existing any being throughout the whole universe in an open, declared opposition against him, and always endeavouring to injure and destroy his works. Let us have higher and more just thoughts of the Almighty’s justice and goodness than to imagine he sets so vastly powerful and malignant a being, as is supposed, in competition against weak man, the potsherd of the earth; who is, as imagined, so greatly inferior to this evil being, that the famous Luther once said: ‘Though I had with me a hundred thousand men such as myself, I could not resist one devil.’ Let us ask ourselves how any such notions are consistent with the doxology Christ has taught us to address daily to the Father of the universe, ‘Thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory.’”
It is a fine illustration of the way in which a simple, rational and devout piety may rise in purity of religious conception to the altitude of the highest art, that is offered in Goadby’s view of the temptation of Christ; which embodies in words the idea embodied by Schaeffer in one of the greatest of paintings (see the Cover). Denying a personal devil in what may be called an essay on the scriptural account of that most expressive and salutary mental process, this intelligent and most laborious tradesman declares that the spirit by which Jesus was led into the wilderness was the spirit of God, and consequently that he was under God’s influence and guidance. In this state of soul Jesus passed through certain pictures, or vivid states of thought, which represented as many trials which would beset him in his public ministry. Contemplating the forecast of these his coming perils, he learnt how, with God’s aid and the aid of Scripture, to put away the inferior, though full of earthly promise, and to accept the superior, though full of earthly pain, contempt, and even death. He thus freely chose the better way. In the language of the day, he owned God and repelled Satan. In plain English, he in the greatest of all issues rejected evil and embraced good. To cite my author’s own words: “Why (it might have been suggested to him), instead of spending your life in affliction and then ending it upon the cross, will you not use your power for your own benefit, and make yourself master of the world? But this temptation did not at any time prevail over our Lord, notwithstanding the desire of honour, wealth and dominion, is natural to every human mind, and is with greater difficulty than any other subjected to the control of reason and conscience; and notwithstanding universal empire carries with it charms almost irresistible, especially to noble and heroic minds conscious of their superior wisdom and abilities, and an intention to employ their power to the true ends for which it was bestowed. If anything can heighten the virtue of despising worldly greatness when it comes in competition with our duty, it is the being practised in circumstances of indigence. And therefore to refuse, as our Saviour did, the offer of grandeur and royalty and universal empire, while he was struggling with poverty, reproach and persecution in the cause of God, was the highest act of virtue that humanity could exhibit. This account of the temptation of Christ obviates all the objections made to the common interpretation, and justifies the wisdom of God in this dispensation. It is not a series of external occurrences, some of them absurd and impossible, all of them useless and improbable, but an internal vision (like that of the apostle Peter, Acts xi.), and this is ascribed, not to a diabolical, but to a divine agency; agreeably to its instructive and beneficial design and tendency. The several scenes of which it is composed do each of them contain a real trial, such as occasioned a very bright display of the virtue and piety of Jesus. If, besides the probationary nature, we take into our account the symbolical design of this vision, it was a proper preparation for that important office with which Christ was now invested. With what divine skill are the scenes of this vision framed, so as to answer both these purposes! What just ground then do they afford for censure 1 The account which has been given serves to exalt the character of Christ and to confirm our faith in his divine mission.”
Mr. Goadby also shews in the same connection how the removal of scriptural difficulties tends to lessen the prevalence of scepticism and unbelief. Most true and important are his words. iSTine-tenths of existing doubt and disbelief in regard to Christianity are born and bred of an acceptance more or less real and vivid of my personality. Yes, the very men that ought in their teachings to exhibit the religion of Jesus in all its divine and human simplicity and acceptableness, obstruct and prevent its spread by old wives’ fables begotten of ignorance and superstition. And yet Christ said of himself, “I am the light of the world; he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life” (John viii. 12). How can such an averment be reconciled with popery as depicted by Pio Nono in his recently issued Syllabus, in which he pronounces a curse on modern civilization 1—as if that culture were not a blessing from the hands of Divine Providence, bestowed in reward partly of opposition to Romanism, and chiefly in repayment of mental freedom, moral integrity, and personal energy and devotement such as have never before been witnessed on earth.
7. Efforts For My Revival: De Foe, Wesley And Doddridge
The seventeenth and eighteenth centuries witnessed a great and rapid decline in the belief of my personal existence. Not, however, without serious opposition was its demolition to he effected. The professional ministers of religion, whether Papal or Protestant, had long been assured that the interests of their faith and ministry were welded together with the belief in the various lines and manners of action ascribed to me in connection with alchemy, necromancy, apparitions and witchcraft. Accordingly, in their opinion, to contradict these unrealities was to endanger Christianity. Hence ensued a new batch of spiritualistic falsities. The tendency of the period is illustrated by the trick played by the celebrated De Foe on the credulousness of his age. One Dr. Drelincourt had written a treatise on Death. The subject, not one of the most attractive, consigned the lucubrations of the pious author to total neglect. The sheets of the work lay a heavy burdenon the publisher’s shelves. But publishers have their resources in cases of a bad investment; and might not a loss be turned into a gain, perhaps a considerable one, if the popular author of Robinson Crusoe could be induced to write a Preface to the heavy and cumbrous volume? He undertook the task, and produced a ghost story which was so simply and naturally told as to defy disbelief, while in its tenor it put to flight all the objections taken by the active and daring infidels of the day to the existence of another and invisible world. The narrative is too characteristic of the manner in which, from being the offspring of speculation, fancy and fear, I have become a divinity, to be omitted in this my Natural History.
“A True Relation of the Apparition of one Mrs. Yeal, the next Day after her Death, to one Mrs. Bargrave, at Canterbury, the Eighth of September, 1705, which Apparition recommends the Perusal of Drelincourt’s Book of Consolations against the Eears of Death.
“This thing is so rare in all its circumstances, and on so good authority, that my reading and conversation has not given me anything like it. It is fit to gratify the most ingenious and serious inquirer. Mrs. Bargrave is the person to whom Mrs. Veal appeared after her death; she is my intimate friend; and I can avouch for her reputation for these last fifteen or sixteen years on my own knowledge; and I can confirm the good character she had from her youth to the time of my acquaintance. Though, since this relation, she is calumniated by some people that are friends to the brother of Mrs. Yeal who appeared, who think the relation of this appearance to be a reflection, and endeavour what they can to blast Mrs. Bargrave’s reputation and to laugh the story out of countenance. But by the circumstance thereof, and the cheerful disposition of Mrs. Bargrave, notwithstanding the ill-usage of a very wicked husband, there is not yet the least sign of dejection on her face; nor did I ever hear her let fall a desponding or murmuring expression; nay, not when actually under her husband’s barbarity, which I have been a witness to, and several other persons of undoubted reputation.
“Now you must know that Mrs. Veal was a maiden gentlewoman of about thirty years of age, and for some years last past had been troubled with fits, which were perceived coming on her by her going off her discourse very abruptly to some impertinence. She was maintained by an only brother, and kept his house in Dover. She was a very pious woman, and her brother a very sober man to all appearance; but now he does all he can to null and quash the story. Mrs. Veal was intimately acquainted with Mrs. Bargrave from her childhood. Mrs. Veal’s circumstances were then mean; her father did not take care of his children as he ought, so that they were exposed to hardships. And Mrs. Bargrave in those days had as unkind a father, though she wanted neither for food nor clothing; while Mrs. Yeal wanted for both, insomuch that she would often say, ‘Mrs. Bargrave, you are not only the best, but the only friend I have in the world; and no circumstance of life shall ever dissolve my friendship.’ They would condole each other s adverse fortunes, and read together Drelincourt upon Death, and other good books; and so, like two Christian friends, they comforted each other under their sorrow. Some time after, Mr. Veal’s friends got him a place in the Custom-house at Dover, which occasioned Mrs. Veal, by little and little, to fall off from her intimacy with Mrs. Bargrave, though there never was any such thing as a quarrel; but an indifferency came on by degrees, till at last Mrs. Bargrave had not seen her in two years and a half, though above twelvemonth of the time Mrs. Bargrave hath been absent from Dover, and this last half-year has been in Canterbury about two months of the time, dwelling in a house of her own. In this house, on the eighth of September, one thousand seven hundred and five, she was sitting alone in the forenoon, thinking over her unfortunate life, and arguing herself into a due resignation to Providence, though her condition seemed hard. ‘And,’ said she, ‘I have been provided for hitherto, and doubt not but I shall be still, and am well satisfied that my afflictions shall end when it is most fit for me;’ and then took up her sewing work, which she had no sooner done but she hears a knocking at the door; she went to see who was there, and this proved to be Mrs. Veal, her old friend, who was in a riding habit. At that moment of time the clock struck twelve at noon. ’Madam,’ says Mrs. Bargrave, ‘I am surprised to see you; you have been so long a strangerbut told her she was glad to see her, and offered to salute her, which Mrs. Veal complied with, till their lips almost touched; and then Mrs. Veal drew her hand across her own eyes, and said, ‘I am not very well;’ and so waived it. She told Mrs. Bargrave she was going a journey, and had a great mind to see her first..’But,’ says Mrs. Bargrave, ‘how can you take a journey alone? I am amused at it, because I know you have a fond brother.’
‘Oh? says Mrs. Veal, ‘I gave my brother the slip and came away, because I had so great a desire to see you before I took my journey.’ So Mrs. Bargrave went in with her into another room within the first, and Mrs. Veal sat her down in an elbow-chair in which Mrs. Bargrave was sitting when she heard Mrs. Veal knock. ‘Then,’ says Mrs. Veal, ‘my dear friend, I am come to renew our old friendship again, and beg your pardon for my breach of it; and if you can forgive me, you are the best of women.’ ‘Oh,’ says Mrs. Bargrave, ‘do not mention such a thing; I have not had an uneasy thought about it; I can easily forgive it.’ ‘What did you think of me V says Mrs. Veal. Says Mrs. Bargrave. ‘I thought you were like the rest of the world, and that prosperity had made you forget yourself and me.’ Then Mrs. Veal reminded Mrs. Bargrave of the many friendly offices she did in her former days, and much of the conversation they had with each other in the times of their adversity; what books they read, and what comfort in particular they received from Drelincourt’s book of Death, which was the best, she said, on the subject ever wrote. She also mentioned Dr. Sherlock, and two Dutch books which were translated, wrote upon Death, and several others. But Drelincourt, she said, had the clearest notions of death and of the future state of any who had handled the subject. Then she asked Mrs. Bargrave whether she had Drelincourt? She said, ‘Yes.’ Said Mrs. Veal, ‘Fetch it.’ And so Mrs. Bargrave goes up stairs and brings it down. Says Mrs. Veal, ‘Dear Mrs. Bargrave, if the eyes of our faith were as open as the eyes of our body, we should see numbers of angels about us for our guard. The notions we have of heaven now are nothing like what it is, as Drelincourt says; therefore be comforted under your afflictions, and believe that the Almighty has a particular regard to you, and that your afflictions are marks of God’s favour; and when they have done the business they were sent for, they shall be removed from you. And believe me, my dear friend, believe what I say to yon; one minute of future happiness will infinitely reward you for all your sufferings. For I can never believe (and claps her hands upon her knees with great earnestness, which indeed she did through most of her discourse) that ever God will suffer you to spend all your days in this afflicted state. But be assured that your sufferings shall leave you or you them in a short time. She spake in that pathetical and heavenly manner, that Mrs. Bargrave wept several times, she was so deeply affected with it.
“Then Mrs. Veal mentioned Dr. Kenrick’s Ascetic, at the end of which he gives an account of the lives of the primitive Christians. Their pattern she recommended to our imitation, and said, ‘Their conversation was not like this of our age. For now,’ says she, ‘there is nothing but vain frothy discourse, which is far different from theirs. Theirs was to edification, and to build one another up in faith, so that they were not as we are, nor are we as they were. But,’ said she, ‘we ought to do as they did; there was a hearty friendship among them; but where is it now to be found V Says Mrs. Bargrave, ‘It is hard indeed to find a true friend in these days.’ Says Mrs. Veal, ‘Mr. Norris has a fine copy of verses, called Friendship in Perfection, which I wonderfully admire. Have you seen the book P says Mrs. Veal. ‘No,’ says Mrs. Bargrave; ‘but I have the verses of my own writing out.’ ‘Have you?’ says Mrs. Veal; ‘then fetch them;’ which she did from above stairs, and offered them to Mrs. Veal to read, who refused, and waived the thing, saying holding down her head would make it ache, and then desiring Mrs. Bargrave to read them to her, which she did. As they were admiring Friendship, Mrs. Veal said, ‘Dear Mrs. Bargrave, I shall love you for ever.’ In these verses there is twice used the word Elysian. ‘Ah,’ says Mrs. Veal, ‘these poets have such names for heaven!’ She would often draw her hand across her own eyes, and say, ‘Mrs. Bargrave, do not you think I am mightily impaired by my fits?’ ’No,’ says Mrs. Bargave; ‘I think you look as well as ever I saw you.’ After this discourse, which the apparition put in much finer words than Mrs. Bargrave said she could pretend to, and as much more than she can remember (for it cannot be thought that an hour and three quarters’ conversation could all be retained, though the main of it she thinks she does), she said to Mrs. Bargrave that she would have her write a letter to her brother, and tell him she would have him give rings to such and such; and that there was a purse of gold in her cabinet, and that she would have two broad pieces given to her cousin “Watson. Talking at this rate, Mrs. Bargrave thought that a fit was coming on her, and so placed herself on a chair just before her knees, to keep her from falling to the ground, if her fits should occasion it; for the elbow-chair, she thought, would keep her from falling on either side. And to divert Mrs. Veal, as she thought, Mrs. Bargrave took hold of her gown-sleeve several times, and commended it. Mrs. Veal told her it was a scoured silk, and lately made up. But for all this, Mrs. Veal persisted in her request, and told Mrs. Bargrave she must not deny her. And she would have her tell her brother all their conversation when she had opportunity. ‘Dear Mrs. Veal.’ says Mrs. Bargrave, ‘this seems so impertinent that I cannot tell how to comply with it; and what a mortifying story will our conversation be to a young gentleman. Why,’ says Mrs. Bargrave, ‘it is much better, methinks, to do it yourself.’ ‘No,’ says Mrs. Veal; ‘though it seems impertinent to you now, you will see more reasons for it hereafter.’ Mrs. Bargrave then, to satisfy her importunity, was going to fetch a pen and ink; but Mrs. Veal said, ‘Let it alone now, and do it when I am gone; but you must be sure to do itwhich was one of the last things she enjoined her at partingand so she promised her. Then Mrs. Veal asked for Mrs. Bargrave’s daughter; she said she was not at home.
‘But if you have a mind to see her,’ says Mrs. Bargrave, ‘I’ll send for her.’ ’Do,’ says Mrs. Veal; on which she left her and went to a neighbour’s house to see her; and by the time Mrs. Bargrave was returning, Mrs. Veal was got without in the street, in the face of the heast-market, on a Saturday (which is market-day), and stood ready to part as soon as Mrs. Bargrave came to her. She asked her why she was in such haste. She said she must be going, though perhaps she might not go her journey till Monday; and told Mrs. Bargrave she hoped she would see her again at her cousin Watson’s, before she went whither she was going. Then she said she would take her leave of her, and walked from Mrs. Bargrave in her view, till a turning interrupted the sight of her; which was three quarters after one in the afternoon. Mrs. Yeal died the 7th of September, at twelve o’clock at noon, of her fits, and had not above four hours’ senses before her death, in which time she received the sacrament. The next day after Mrs. Yeal’s appearance, being Sunday, Mrs. Bargrave was mightily indisposed with a cold and a sore throat, so that she could not go out that day; but on Monday morning she sends a person to Captain Watson’s, to know if Mrs. Yeal was there. They wondered at Mrs. Bargrave’s inquiry, and sent her word she was not there, nor was expected. At this answer, Mrs. Bargrave told the maid she had certainly mistook the name, or made some blunder. And though she was ill, she put on her hood, and went herself to Captain Watson’s, though she knew none of the family, to see if Mrs. Yeal was there or not. They said they wondered at her asking, for she had not been in town; they were sure, if she had, she would have been there. Says Mrs. Bargrave, ’I am sure she was with me on Saturday almost two hours.’ They said it was impossible, for they must have seen her if she had. In comes Captain Watson while they were in dispute, and said that Mrs. Yeal was certainly dead and the escutcheons were making. This strangely surprised Mrs. Bargrave, when she went to the person immediately who had the care of them, and found it true. Then she related the whole story to Captain Watson’s family; and what gown she had on, and how striped, and that Mrs. Yeal told her that it was scoured. Then Mrs. Watson cried out: ‘You have seen her indeed; for none knew but Mrs. Veal and myself that the gown was scoured.’ And Mrs. Watson owned that she described the gown exactly; ‘for,’ said she, ‘I helped her to make it up.’ This Mrs. Watson blazed all about the town, and avouched the demonstration of the truth of Mrs. Bargrave’s seeing Mrs. Veal’s apparition. And Captain Watson carried two gentlemen immediately to Mrs. Bargrave’s house, to hear the relation from her own mouth. And when it spread so fast, that gentlemen and persons of quality, the judicious and sceptical part of the world, flocked in upon her, it at last became such a task, that she was forced to go out of the way; for they were in general extremely satisfied of the truth of the thing, and plainly saw that Mrs. Bargrave was no hypochondriac, for she always appears with such a cheerful air and pleasing mien, that she has gained the favour and esteem of all the gentry;” and it is thought a great favour if they can but get the relation from her own mouth. I should have told you before that Mrs. Veal told Mrs. Bargrave that her sister and brother-in-law were just come down from London to see her. Says Mrs. Bargrave, ‘How came you to order matters so strangely?’ It could not be helped,’ said Mrs. Veal. And her brother and sister did come down to see her, and entered the town of Dover just as Mrs. Veal was expiring. Mrs. Bargrave asked her whether she would drink some tea. Says Mrs. Veal, ‘I do not care if I do; but I’ll warrant you this mad fellow (meaning Mrs. Bargrave’s husband) has broke all your trinkets.’ ‘But,’ says Mrs. Bargrave, ‘I’ll get something to drink in for all that;’ but Mrs. Veal waived it and said, ‘It is no matter; let it alone;’ and so it passed. All the time I sat with Mrs. Bargrave, which was some hours, she recollected fresh sayings of Mrs. Veal. And one material thing more she told Mrs. Bargrave, that old Mr. Bretton allowed Mrs. Veal ten pounds a year, which was a secret, and unknown to Mrs. Bargrave till Mrs. Veal told her. Mrs. Bargrave never varies in her story, which puzzles those who doubt of the truth, or are unwilling to believe it. A servant in the neighbour’s yard adjoining to Mrs. Bargrave’s house, heard her talking to somebody an hour of the time Mrs. Yeal was with her. Mrs. Bargrave went out to her next neighbour’s the very moment she parted with Mrs. Yeal, and told her what a ravishing conversation she had had with an old friend, and told the whole of it. Dre-lincourt’s book of Death is, since this happened, bought up strangely. And it is to be observed, that notwithstanding all the trouble and fatigue Mrs. Bargrave has undergone upon this account, she never took the value of a farthing, nor suffered her daughter to take anything of anybody, and therefore can have no interest in telling the story.
“But Mr.Yeal does what he can to stifle the matter, and said he would see Mrs. Bargrave; but yet is it certain matter of fact that he has been at Captain Watson’s since the death of his sister, and yet never went near Mrs. Bargrave; and some of his friends report her to be a liar, and that she knew of Mr. Bretton’s ten pounds a year. But the person who pretends to say so has the reputation of being a notorious liar among persons whom I know to be of undoubted credit. Now, Mr. Yeal is more of a gentleman than to say that she lies, but says a bad husband has crazed her; but she needs only present herself, and it will effectually confute that pretence. Mr. Yeal says he asked his sister on her death-bed whether she had a mind to dispose of anything. And she said, ‘No.’ Now the things which Mrs. Yeal’s apparition would have disposed of, were so trifling, and nothing but justice aimed at in the disposal, that the design of it appears to me to be only in order to make Mrs. Bargrave so to demonstrate the truth of her appearance, as to satisfy the world of the reality thereof, as to what she had seen and heard, and to secure her reputation among the reasonable and understanding part of mankind. And then, again, Mr. Yeal owns that there was a purse of gold; but it was not found in her cabinet, but in a comb-box. This looks improbable; for that Mrs. Watson owned that Mrs. Yeal was so very careful of the key of her cabinet, that she could trust nobody with it; and if so, no doubt she would not trust her gold out of it. And Mrs.Years often drawing her hand over her eyes, and asking Mrs. Bargrave whether her fits had not impaired her, looks to me as if she did it on purpose to remind Mrs. Bargrave of her fits, to prepare her not to think it strange that she should put her upon writing to her brother, to dispose of rings and gold, which looked so much like a dying person’s request; and it took accordingly with Mrs. Bargrave as the effect of her fits coming upon her, and was one of the many instances of her wonderful love to her and care of her, that she should not be affrighted; which indeed appears in her whole management, particularly in her coming to her in the day-time, waiving the salutation, and when she was alone; and then the manner of her parting, to prevent a second attempt to salute her. Now why Mr.Veal should think this relation a reflection (as it is plain he does, by his endeavouring to stifle it), I cannot imagine; because the generality believe her to be a good spirit, her discourse was so heavenly. Her two great errands were, to comfort Mrs. Bargrave in her affliction, and to ask her forgiveness for her breach of friendship, and with a pious discourse to encourage her. So that, after all, to suppose that Mrs. Bargrave could hatch such an invention as this from Friday noon till Saturday noon (supposing that she knew of Mrs. Veal’s death the very first moment) without jumbling circumstances, and without any interest too, she must be more witty, fortunate and wicked, too, than any indifferent person, I dare say, will allow. I asked Mrs. Bargrave several times if she was sure she felt the gown. She answered modestly, ‘If my senses be to be relied on, I am sure of it.’ I asked her if she heard a sound when she clapped her hands upon her knee. She said she did not remember she did, but said she appeared to be as much a substance as I did who talked with her. ‘And I may,’ said she, ‘be as soon persuaded that your apparition is talking to me now, as that I did not really see her; for I was under no manner of fear, and received lier as a friend, and parted with her as such. I would not,’ says she, ‘give one farthing to make any one believe it; I have no interest in it; nothing but trouble is entailed upon me for a long time, for aught I know: and had it not come to light by accident, it would never have been made public.’ But now she says she will make her own private use of it, and keep herself out of the way as much as she can: and so she has done since. She says she had a gentleman who came thirty miles to her to hear the relation: and that she had told it to a room-full of people at the time. Several particular gentlemen have had the story from Mrs. Eargrave’s own mouth.
“This thing has very much affected me, and I am as well satisfied as I am of the best grounded matter of fact. And that we should dispute matter of fact, because we cannot solve things of which we can have no certain or demonstrative notions, seems strange to me: Mrs. Eargrave’s authority and sincerity alone would have been undoubted in any other case.”
There is the story of Mrs. Veal’s apparition told in full on the best vouchers and argumentatively rounded off in every particular. I venture to say that not any of the thousand and one” stories quoted to prove my personal existence can bear comparison with this for internal probability and external demonstration. Yet Mrs. Veal’s apparition is a known fiction —what else then can the other stories be but collusions, illusions, or delusions \ In general, they are made up of all three of those deceptive influences. If Mrs. Veal’s apparition is a fancy, then ghost stories and other devilisms are fancies too. But the first is known to be such; such consequently are the second.
By a fancy, I mean a figment of the imagination set in action by morbid sentiments of some kind or other. The morbid sentiment in the Veal apparition was desire to get a literary fee. The morbid sentiment in matters Satanic is a compound product of low religionism, intense credulity, overriding love of what is called the Church, and a pretty strong infusion of self-interest. De Foe forged an apparition to “put money into his pursethe priests forged me to sustain their priestism. The only essential difference between the two is, that De Foe knew what he did, and thought all whose opinion he valued would know it as clearly as himself; while the priests know not, or but dimly know, what they do, and in their ignorance turn bigots for what is really an eidolon of their own brain and their own position. As morals improve, cheats like that palmed off upon the credulous will become impossible; as intelligence spreads, I shall cease to be the great patron of the Church. And bad as I am, I am not so bad as not to be willing to decay and die for the sake of a pure, spiritual and disinterested religion.
However, so little did John Wesley understand the true principles of the religion of Jesus, and so overrun was he with the superstitious credulity of the age, that he protested against the efforts made in his day to relieve the human breast from the bugbear of devilry.
“It is true likewise,” says Mr. Wesley, “that the English in general, and indeed most of the men in Europe, have given up all accounts of witches and apparitions as mere old wives’ fables. I am sorry for it; and I willingly take this opportunity of entering my solemn protest against this violent compliment which so many that believe the Bible pay to those who do not believe it. I owe them no such service. I take knowledge, these are at the bottom of the outcry which has been raised, and with such insolence spread throughout the nation, in direct opposition not only to the Bible, but to the suffrage of the wisest and best of men in all ages and nations. They well know (whether Christians know it or not) that the giving up witchcraft is in effect giving up the Bible. And they know, on the other hand, that if but one account of the intercourse of men with separate spirits be admitted, their whole castle in the air (deism, atheism, materialism) falls to the ground. I know no reason, therefore, why we should suffer even this weapon to be wrested out of onr hands. Indeed, there are numerous arguments besides which abundantly confute their vain imaginations. But we need not be hooted out of one—neither reason nor religion require this.”
Mr. Wesley is not the only distinguished divine that has encouraged superstition without intending it, and substantiated my existence while endeavouring to undermine my throne. Apparitions are said to arise for the very purpose of promoting Christianity. Hence the remarkable story of Colonel Gardiner’s conversion, as related by Dr. Doddridge. “This memorable event,” says the pious writer, “happened toward the middle of July, 1719. The Colonel had spent the evening (and if I mistake not, it was the Sabbath) in some gay company, and had an unhappy assignation with a married woman, whom he was to attend exactly at twelve. The company broke up about eleven, and not judging it convenient to anticipate the time appointed, he went into his chamber to kill the tedious hour, perhaps with some amusing book, or some other way. But it very accidentally happened that he took up a religious book which his good mother or aunt had, without his knowledge, slipped into his portmanteau. It was called, if I remember the title exactly, ‘The Christian Soldier, or Heaven taken by Storm,’ and it was written by Mr. Thomas Watson. Guessing by the title of it that he would find some phrases of his own profession spiritualized in a manner which, lie thought, might afford him some diversion, lie resolved to dip into it; hut he took no serious notice of anything it had in it; and yet while this book was in his hand an impression was made upon his mind (perhaps God only knows how) which drew after it a train of the most important and happy consequences. He thought he saw an unusual blaze of light fall upon the book while he was reading, which he at first imagined might happen by some accident in the candle; but lifting up his eyes, he apprehended, to his extreme amazement, as it were suspended in the air, a visible representation of the Lord Jesus Christ upon the cross, surrounded on all sides with a glory; and was impressed, as if a voice, or something equivalent to a voice, had come to him, to this effect (for he was not confident as to the words): ‘Oh, sinner! did I suffer this for thee, and are these thy returns? Struck with so amazing a phenomenon as this, there remained hardly any life in him; so that he sunk down in the arm-chair in which he sat, and continued he knew not how long insensible.’ The appearance issued in the conversion of Colonel Gardiner. The phenomena, about the exact nature of which, however, the reverend reporter does not seem fully certain on all points, are so many recollected images of the mind, made preternaturally vivid and impressive by the contrasted force of their sanctity and his own pollution. Not impossibly a severe fall from his horse under which the gallant soldier was suffering may have conduced to the morbid action of his mind. Doubtless the tale was devoutly believed by Dr. Doddridge, who says: “It is with*all solemnity that I now deliver it down to posterity, as in the sight and presence of God; and I choose deliberately to expose myself to those severe censures which the haughty but empty scorn of infidelity, or principles nearly approaching it and effectually doing its pernicious work, may very probably dictate upon the occasion, rather than to smother a relation which may, in the judgment of my conscience, be likely to conduce so much to the glory of God, the honour of the Gospel, and the good of mankind.”
The transmission of the story would not have been less solemn and edifying had the good Doctor withheld the blow which he dealt against those who should think the phenomena explicable without intruding into the secret things of God. To impute infidelity to persons who differ from you is not the way to promote Christian truth.
If the spirit of the passage is bad, the logic is not good. If Christ appeared to convert a soldier to Protestantism, he has (so Rome declares) appeared again and again to work in monks and nuns religious changes of one sort or another. Kay, avowed unbelief is not without its miraculous attestation. When Lord Herbert of Cherbury doubted whether or not he should publish his deistical book, De Veritate prout distin-guitur a Revelatione, &c., he took the following expedient for ascertaining his duty:
“One fair day in the summer, my casement being open toward the south, I took my book De Veritate in my hand, and kneeling on my knees, devoutly said these words:
“O thou eternal God, Author of the light which now shines upon me, and Giver of all inward illuminations, I do beseech thee, of thy infinite goodness, to pardon a greater request than a sinner ought to make. I am not satisfied enough whether I shall publish this book De Veritate: if it be for thy glory, I beseech thee give me some sign from heaven; if not, I shall suppress it.
“I had no sooner spoken these words, but a loud, though yet gentle, noise came from the heavens (for it was like nothing on earth), which did so comfort and cheer me, that I took my petition as granted, and that I had the sign demanded; whereupon also I resolved to print my book. This, how strange soever it may seem, I protest before the eternal God is true; neither am I any way superstitiously deceived herein, since I did not only clearly hear the voice, but in the serenest sky that ever I saw, being without all cloud, did, to my thinking, see the place from whence it came.”
It would have been more satisfactory to others had his lordship reported the words (if any) which the “gentle noise” conveyed. Inarticulate sounds do not say much. Unconscious credulity is the most extreme state of the disease. In so rank a soil as that of the mind of Wesley, Doddridge, Herbert, I may well have grown from a fancy and a dream into a person and a fiend, especially when my impersonation was favoured by the conscious craftiness of a De Foe.
8. I Am Become An Object Of Derision
There is in human nature an inherent contempt for what is base. Accordingly, men have almost in all ages taken liberties with me. If in a certain way this does credit to humanity, it works my ruin. What is laughed at becomes contemptible, and what is despised contains the seeds of its own dissolution. Only goodness in this universe possesses the attribute of everlastingness. An illustration or two of this undermining influence will give additional firmness to the logical structure I am here building up. These instances will be none the worse if they are taken from points somewhat distant from each other.
In the sixteenth century, when a fresh breath was coming over Europe, there lived in England one “Thomas Nash,” who writes himself “Gentleman.” This scholar and penman, being more skilful in spending money than making it, bethought him of applying to me as the source whence many drew great treasures, who were no more moral than himself, and yet, as did he, vibrated constantly between contempt and fear in regard to me. Yes, he would put out a book dedicated to me, in which he would set the timid wits a laughing at my expense, and so obtain readers, and thereby repair his shattered fortunes. Accordingly, under the name of “Pierce Penilesse,” he writes “His Supplication to the Devil, describing the ouer-spreading of Vice, and the suppression of Vertue; pleasantly interlac’d with variable Delights, and pathetically intermixt with conceipted Eeproofes. London: Imprinted by Richard Jhones, dwelling at the Signe of the Eose and Crowne, Holburne Eridge, 1592.” The author describes himself and his object as follows:
“Opus and Usus are knocking at my door twenty times a week when I am not within; the more is the pitie that such a franke gentleman as I should want; but since the dice doo runne so vntowardly on my side, I am partly provided of a remedie. For whereas those that stand most on their honour shut vp their purses, and shift vs off with court holly-bread; and on the other side, a number of hypocriticall hot-spurres, ~ that have God alwayes in their mouthes, will give nothing for God’s sake; I have clapt up a handsome supplication to the Diuell, and sent it by a good fellow that I know will deliver it.”
Having thus introduced to you my petitioner, I shall read to you what there is in his petition which bears on the treatment I receive at his hands:
“And because you may beleeve me the better, I care not if I acquaint you with the circumstance. I was informed of layte dayes that a certaine blinde retayler, called the Diuell, used to lend money upon pawnes or anie thing, and would let one have a thousand poundes vppon a statute merchant of his soule; or if a man plyde him throughly, would trust him vppon a bill of his hand, without anie more circumstance. Eesides he was noted for a priuie benefactor to traytors and parasites, and to aduance fooles and asses farre sooner than anie; to be a greedie pursuer of newes; and so famous a politician in purchasing, that Hel, which at the beginning was but an obscure village, is now become a huge citie, wherevnto all countreys are tributarie.
“These manifest conjectures of plentie, assembled in one common-place of abilitie, I determined to clawe Avarice by the elboe, till his full belly gave me a full hand; and let him blood with my pen (if it might be) in the veyne of Liberality and so (in short time) was this paper monster, Pierce Penilesse, begotten.
“But written and all, here lies the question; where shall I finde this old asse that I may deliuer it? They say the lawyers have the Diuel and all, and it is like enough he is playing ambitexter amongst them. ’Pie! fie! the Diuell a driver in Westminster Hall? it can never be.’
Now, I pray, what do you imagine him to be? Perhaps you think it is not possible for him to be so grave. Oh! then you are in an errour, for hee is as formale as the best scriuener of them all. Marry, hee doth not vse to weare a night-cap, for his homes will not let him; and yet I know a hundred, as well headed as he, that will make a jolly shift with a court-cap on their crownes, if the weather be colde.
“To proceed with my tale. To Westminster Hall I went, and made a search of enquirie, from the black gowne to the buckram bag, if there were anie such serjeant, bencher, counsailer, attorney, or pettifogger as Signior Cornuto Diabolo, with the good face? But they all (una voce) affirmed that he was not there; marry, whether hee were at the Exchange or no, amongst the ritch merchants, that they could not tell; but it was the likelier of the two that I should meete with him, or heare of him in those quarters. ‘I’ faith, and say you so?’ quoth I; ‘and I’ll bestow a little labour more, but i’ll hunt him out.’
“Without more circumstance thether came I; and thrusting myselfe amongst the confusion of languages, I askt whether he were there extant or no? But from one to another, Non novi Dcemonem, was all the answere I could get. At length (as fortune serued) I lighted vppon an old, straddling usurer, clad in a damaske cassocke. Of him I demanded if hee could tell me anie tidings of the partie I sought for. ‘By my troth,’ quoth he, ‘stripling (and then he cought), I saw him not lately, nor know I certainly where he keepes j but thus much I heard by a broker, a friend of mine, that hath had some dealings with him in his time, that hee is at home sick of the goute, and will not be spoken withall under more than thou art able to giue, some two or three hundred angels, if thou hast anie suite to him; and then perhaps hele straine curtesie with his legges in child-bed, and come forth and talk with thee; but otherwise non est domi—he is busy with Mammon and the Prince of the Nortli, ho we to build up his kingdome, or sending his sprites abroad to vndermine the maligners of his government.’
“I, hearing of this colde comfort, tooke my leave of him very faintly, and like a careless malcontent, that knewe not which way to turne, retyred me to Paule’s to seeke my dinner with Duke Humfrey; but when I was there the olde souldiour was not up. He is long a rising, thought I; but that’s all one; for he that hath no money in his purse, must go dine with Sir John Best-be-trust, at the signe of the Chalke and Post.
“Two hungry turnes had I scarce fetcht in this wast gallery, when I was encountered by a neat pedanticall fellow in form of a cittizen, who, thrusting himselfe abruptly into my com-panie, began to question with mee about the cause of my discontent. I discourst to him the whole of my care. ’Why’ (quoth he) ‘had I been privie to your purpose, I could have easd you of thys trauell; for if it be the deuill you seeke for? know I am his man.’ ‘I pray, sir, how might I call you?’ ‘A Knight of the Post,’ quoth he, ‘for so I am tearmed; a fellow that will sweare you anie thing for twelve pence; but indeed I am a spirite in nature and essence, that take upon this humaine shape, only to set men together by the eares, and send soules by millions to hell.’
“‘Now, trust mee, a substantial trade; but when doe you send next to your master? Why, every day; for there is not a cormorant that dyes, or cut-purse that is hang’d, but I dispatch letters by his soule to him, and to all my friends in the low countreys; wherefore, if you have anie thing that you would have transported, give it me, and I will see it delivered.’
“‘Yes, marry have I a certayne supplication here to your master, which you may peruse if it please you.’ With that he opened it and read as followeth:
“‘To the High and Mightie Prince of Darknesse, Donsell dell Lucifer, King of Acheron, Styx and Phlegeton, Duke of Tartary, Mar quesse of Cocytus, and Lord High Eegent of Lymbo, his distressed Orator, Pierce Penilesse, wisheth encrease of damnation, and malediction eternal, per Jesum Christum Do minum Nostrum.
“‘Most humbly sueth unto your sinfulnesse, your single sould orator, Pierce Penilesse; that whereas your impious excellence hath had the poore tennement of bis purse any time this halfe yeere for your dauncing schoole, and he hath received no penynor crosse for farme, it may please your grace-lesse Majestie to give order to your servant Avarice he may be dispatched; insomuch as no man heere in London can have a dauncing schoole without rent, and his wit and knavery cannot be maintained with nothing. Or, if this be not so plausible to your honourable infernalship, it might seem good to your helhood to make extent upon the soules of a number of uncharitable cormorants, who having incurd the daunger of a proemunire with meddling with matters that properly concerne your owne person, deserve no longer to live (as men) amongst men, but to be incorporated in the society of divels.
By which meanes the mighty controuler of fortune and imperious subverter of destiny, delicious gold, the poore man’s god, and idoll of princes, might at length be restored to his powerfull monarchic, and eftsoon bee set at liberty, to helpe his friends that have neede of him.’ * * *
“‘Atheists triumph and reioyce, and talke as proplianely of the Bible, as Beius of Hampton. I heare say there be mathematicians abroad that will prooue men before Adam; and they are harboured in high places, who will maintayne it to the death that there are no diuells.
“It is a shame (Senior Belzibub) that you shoulde suffer yourselfe thus to be tearmed a bastard, or not approve to your predestinate children not only that they have a father, but that you are hee that must own them.’ * * *
“‘It is saide, Lawrence Lucifer, that you went up and downe London crying like a lanterne and candle man. I meruaile no laundresse would giue the washing and starching of your face for your labour, for God knowes it is as blacke as the Blacke Prince.
‘“It is suspected you haue been a great tobacco-taker in your youth, which causeth it to come so to passe; but Dame Nature, your nurse,t was partly in fault, else she might have remedied it. She should haue noynted your face ouer with lac virginis, which, bakeing upon it in bed till the morning, she might haue pild off the scale like the skin of a custard; and making a posset of vergis mixt with the oyle of Tartary and camphire, and bathde it in it a quarter of an houre; and you had been as faire as the floure of the frying-pan.’ * * * “‘I do not doubt (Doctor Diuell) but you were present in the action of Philip of Spaine, and helpt to bore holes in ships to make them sink faster, and rence out galley-foysts with salt water, that stanke like fusfcie barrells with, their masters’ feare.’ * * *
Is it your wil and pleasure (noble Lants-grave of Lymbo) to let us haue lesse carousing to your health in poyson. fewer under-hand conspyrings, or open quarrells executed only in wordes; as if men will needes carouse, conspire, and quarrell, that they may make Ruffians’ Hall of hell, and there bandy balls of brimstone at one an other’s head, and not trouble our peaceable Paradize with their priuate hurliburlies about strumpets, where no weapon (as in Adam’s Paradize) shold be named, but onely the Angell of Prouidence stand with a fiery sword at the gate to keep out our enemies.’ * * *
“‘Be advertised,Master Osfcetidum, bedle of blacke-smithes,. that lawyers cannot deuise which way in the world to begge, they are so troubled with brabblements and sutes euerie tearme, of yeomen and gentlemen that fall out for nothing. If John a Nokes his henne doo but leap into Elizabeth de Gappes close, she will never leaue hunting her husband till he bring it to a nisi prius. One while the parson sueth the parishioner for bringing home his tythes j another while, the parishioner sueth the parson for not taking away his tythes in time.”‘ With one or two disjointed extracts I close the book “I pray ye, Timothy Tempter, be an arbitrator between these two, and couple them both by the neckes and carrie them to hel on your backe.” * * *
“Clim of the Clough, thou that vsest to drinke nothing but scalding lead and sulphur in hell, thou art not so greedie of thy night geare. O! but thou hast a foule swallow of it come once to the carousing of humane blood.” * * *
“Some men ther be that, building to much vpon reason, perswade themselves that there are no diuells at all, but that this word daemon is such another morall of mischiefe as the poet’s Dame Eortune is of mishap; for as vnder the fiction of this blind goddesse we ayme at the. folly of princes and great men in disposing of honours, that oftentimes preferre fooles and disgrace wise men, and alter their fanors in toning of an eye as Fortune turns her wheele, so vnder the person of this olde Grathonicall companion called the Diuell we shrowd all subtletie, masking vnder the name of simplicitie all painted holines devouring widowes houses, all gray-headed foxes clad in sheepes garments, so that the Diuell (as they make it) is onely a pestilent humour in a man, of pleasure, profit or policie, that violently carries him away to vanitie, villanie, or monstrous hypocrisie.”
I have long been sensible of a rapid decline. I feel growing chilly in my extremities. The freezing hand of death is moving near my heart. In this condition I not long since paid a visit to the north-east parts of Lancashire. The Lancashire lads and lassies are fond of a joke, and their jokes are not seldom somewhat rough and practical. As I wandered up and down, catching every now and then a sight of my emaciated form as reflected from this piece of water and that, I found myself somewhat pensive in the thought of my manifest decay; when proceeding from the river side up a gently ascending bank, I saw a sign-board bearing the words, The De’el upon Dun. What have we here? said I. The sign is to me a mystery. I will enter and inquire what it means. Ordering refreshment by way of introduction, I asked my host, “What, sir, does your sign mean’?” “O,” he replied, “it’s only a bit of a joke. The chap did the ou’d on’.” “Who’s ‘the oud on’?” ”What, dinna ye know that? Where were ye born and bred? Why, the ou’d on’ is the devil for sure.” “And who’s ‘the chap’?” ”His name were Nicholas Gosford.” “Will ye tell me the tale?” “I dinna mind.” The landlord complied, and I take leave to put his Lancashire into ordinary English.
The De’el upon Dun.
“Paddy Gosford was a tailor by trade, and in times gone by occupied the house there on the bridge. Nicholas was honest, for he cabbaged only a quarter of the cloth entrusted to him, and good-natured; but, like many of that sort, he liked a drop of drink. The money which should have supplied him and his family with the necessaries of life never could get past the door of this house, then called the Black Cat, so that Nicholas was for the most part miserably poor. One evening as he, with some of his pot-companions, was in that chimney corner, a stranger was announced. He was bronzed by travel, and indeed he had seen much of the world, for many were the wonderful tales he told the villagers. In course of conversation he mentioned a young man of Lower Saxony who had gained immense riches through the devil, and he talked much of the incantations that had been used in the transaction of the business. The stranger’s words appeared to strike Paddy greatly, for he dropped many mysterious hints about them afterwards. The next morning but one, taking advantage of his wife’s absence at a neighbour’s, he performed the magical operation; when forthwith the tempter stood before him with two attendant imps. With a terrific voice ‘Old Nick’ asked Nicholas what he wanted with him. ‘Nothing, nothing, sir,’ replied the tailor, shuddering from top to toe. ‘Nothing? What! am I to come all the way from home to this petty place for nothing? You do not know, Mr. Snips, whom you have sent for; but I will let you feel that I am not to be trifled with.’ ‘Pardon me, great sir,’ exclaimed Paddy, falling on his knees. ‘Well, then, what do you want?’ ‘I only thought you’d aid me a bit in the money way.’ ‘Well, what price will you pay?’ ’Price? I’m very poor, your reverence.’ ‘Your soul’s your own?’ ‘Well, I thought so once, but I’m turned Catholic, and I fancy my soul belongs to them Whalley priests.’ ‘No jeering, Paddy; this is a serious matter. Now if you will sell me your soul, I will make you rich—as rich as you may wish.’ ‘It’s a bargain, your honour.’ ‘Look ye, then: I will give yon power to get as mnch money as you like. “Whatever you or your wife may wish for first after you meet, you shall have, on the express condition that you give me your soul twenty years after the bond is delivered to me signed with your own blood.’ ‘It’s a bargain, your honour. Twenty years I won’t I have a jolly time of it. Twenty years! twenty years!’
“By and by Mrs. Gosford returned home. ‘What makes you so light-hearted, Paddy? said she. ‘Paith and ye’ll know in time, but certainly I’m hungry.’ ‘You shall have your tea.’ The tea was made ready and put on the table. ‘I don’t like this bread; it’s very dry.’ ‘I wish I had a backstone of my own, Pad; wouldn’t I make cakes you’d like? A good backstone was forthwith put on the fire by an invisible hand. 0n hearing these words, Paddy, infuriated, exclaimed, ‘Woman, what did you say? I wish the backstone were broken into a thousand pieces.’ Broken it was. almost ere the wish was fairly out of his mouth. The wily husband then thought he had better tell the whole to his wife, as he had only one wish left. Mrs. Gosford, on hearing the matter, bade the reporter go and consult the Prior of Whalley. ‘No, ye see, I’ll not do that; they’d burn me for having to do with the devil; and it’s better to go to hell in twenty years than at once.’ The next morning Paddy got up in an ill-humour. He and his ‘mistress’ had some words, for she did not like his dealings with Satan. Paddy lost his self-possession, and his memory therewith, and having to go to the Hall that morning to measure Sir Humphry, he suddenly said, ‘I must shave; how I wish I had a can of hot water i’ A can was straightway placed on the table. That moment his recollection returned, and he exclaimed, ‘Its all over with the money!—and, whats worse, it’s all over with me!’ ‘No, no, Paddy,’ replied his thoughtful wife; ‘go and consult the Hermit of Pendle: you know vou once saved his life.’ After discharging his duty at the Hall, Paddy hastened to consult the Hermit, who said, ‘It is a bad case, Paddy, and you’re a fool for your pains; but give up your drink and do your duty to your family; then the Church will stand by you, and all may yet be well.’
“Time rolled rapidly on. Paddy, reformed in character, did well in business. His family also increased.
“But the fatal day came. The last hour of the twenty years found the Hermit of Pendle and Paddy’s wife on their knees in prayer in an inner room; while the husband, with his courage oozing out at his finger ends, waited in his shop, armed with a missal and holy water, the arrival of ‘the Foul Fiend.’ He came; and, shewing Paddy the bond, curtly said, ‘Come with me.’ ‘Your worship!’ the terror-stricken man said, ‘don’t be hard with a poor fellow like me; remember you did not use me well in the matter of those wishes, not one of which did me any good.’ ‘Well, as you’re but a poor simpleton, I give you another wish; turn it to account for the good of your family.’ The shop-door was open, and that moment Paddy saw a horse grazing in a meadow a short distance from the house. Thank your lordship a thousand times for your goodness. I wish that you were riding on that horse back to the place from which you’ve come.’
“The demon uttered a yell that was heard as far as Colne. The bond dropped from his hands. He leaped on the horse, and was carried away with the swiftness of the whirlwind.
“Having thus got rid of his troublesome creditor, Paddy, under the Hermit’s aid and direction, led a sober life, made a little money, took this inn, and put up the sign which drew your attention. The house flourished; for from all parts of Lancashire persons came to see the only man who had fairly outwitted the devil.”
The narrator of the story shook his sides heartily with laughing at what he called “a capital trick.” I confess his words had not relieved my melancholy.
“And so,” I said to myself, “it has come to this! I, who was first an archangel and then the Prince of Darkness, am now the object of sarcasm in village tap-rooms! My end is near!”
Little pleased with a spot where I had suffered so deep a humiliation, I winged my way to Rochdale;—why, I hardly know, except that change of locality was relief of mind. Arrived there, I went in the evening for a walk through its not very elegant streets. Coming to a book-stall, I stopped and ran my eye over its dingy treasures. It fell on an engraved portrait of Tim Bobbin, who, from certain symbols at the bottom of the picture, I found to be a quizzical son of the brush. I took the volume into my hand, and, running through its contents, came near the end on these words:
“To Mr. Robert Gordon in Salford, -With the Picture of the Devil on Horseback.”
Well! thought I; this looks very like Paddy’s tale over again. Til read it. It ran thus:
“Milnrow, April 8th, 1760.
“Sir,—When I began to form the design of old Belzee on horseback, which you and your Newcastle friend ordered, I repented I had not inquired what sort of a devil you would have; i. e. whether you would have a black or a red devil, as white, green, yellow or blue, according to all authors, are out of the question; and also what colour of a horse; and whether if he rid on a mare, it would not do as well. But these necessary queries being unfortunately neglected, I have been obliged to guess at the whole, and have now finished the piece, presuming you’ll not be so ungenerous as to turn it on my hands, because I believe it will suit no other person alive but your whimsical friend.
“If we can believe most authors, ancient and modern, clergy and laity, there are many legions’ of these awkward spirits, some of which go about and roar like lions; yet, though there are such incredible numbers and yell so loud, you cannot imagine how I stood staring with the chalk in my hand, being quite nonplused when I began to hunt for an idea, as having never seen the least glimpse of any one of them.
But remembering that old Lucifer might be a child of some man’s fancy in times of yore, I did not long hesitate, but thought I had as good authority as any other mortal to make a devil of my own.
“So I fell to it, and drew out my design, which pleased me tolerably well.
“But, alas! when I came to the colouring part, I was entirely gravelled, not knowing what colour to make his galloper. Here I had thoughts of annihilating my whole design, and giving up all thoughts of proceeding; but suddenly recollecting that I had heard old folks talk of ‘The Devil upon Dun,’ I gave a jump, as thinking I had cleared the most knotty point; but, alas! two circumstances soon quashed this sudden joy. One was, whether this dun must be a horse or a mare, or a gelding; and the other, whether it must be a fat or a lean nag. But not remembering any author that had ever wrote on these abstruse points, I resolved to guess at them; and accordingly have not only made him a dun, but a sprightly, able, dun horse: because it is agreed on all sides that he goes with surprising expedition, especially when employed by court ladies in their gallantries, their husbands in amours, or ministers of state in all treaties which tend to faith-breaking, leaving their allies in a quagmire, or robbing, ruining or seizing their neighbours’ territories:—and so much for the horse.
“As for the devil, his jockey, of whom I hinted before that I could not tell whether to make him ride in red or black, I have taken a method to obviate all objections, and made him ride in both. In short, he has the horns of a Scotch bullock in his head; a dragon’s tail; a negro’s hands and face; a lady’s scarlet capuchin on his head and shoulders; a rake’s ruffles: a parson’s coat; a beau’s breeches; a tailor’s ga-mashes; a jockey’s whip; and a lawyer s saddle. So if this horse and this jockey will not please your fantastical friend, you may tell him when you write to him that I’ll never pretend to paint a spirit again whilst I remain (as I hope I ever shall), ”Sir, your most, &c.,
“Tim Bobbin.”
This subtle raillery finished my resolution. In retiring from business, I must relieve my character of one stain thrown on it by Mr. Bobbin. I confess that I have worn the several liveries he has dressed me in; but for what he says as to treaty-mongers—no! I have never sunk so low as that; not but I might have done, had I been tempted by certain great diplomatists of this my dying hour, who have lately been busy in “robbing, ruining and seizing their neighbours’ territories;” but, in truth, they had no need of my aid, being fully equal of themselves to their atrocious plunderings and brutal devastations.
The freedoms taken with me by the last-mentioned writer and artist are far surpassed by a devotee of the quill and the brush of very recent days. I have fallen into the hands of George Cruikshank and his sarcastic playfellows. By them I am stript of my majesty, and held up us a laughing-stock to the world. I am, however, greatly indebted to them, for they write and paint in such a way as to throw my mortality into fullest and sharpest relief. Whoever peruses “The Beal Devil’s “Walk,” “The Devil’s Visit,” “Old Booty,” &c., can no longer doubt that thousands and tens of thousands in the highest walks of life present my character and, in a measure, my form, with all its human failings and few of its human virtues, before the eyes of the world every passing day. Indeed, these my humanities, as I may term them, are so truly Satanical in the bad sense of the word, that I have been smitten with the fear whether, after all, I can lay down my sceptre to any good effect, so long as there are so many prepared to take it up and sway it perhaps more tyranically than I have done myself.
9. Phases Of My Decline, Extrinsic And Intrinsic
This is the day of discrowned monarchs. As crowns when lost are of no value, I shall not waste my time in describing those that have been forfeited within the present century. Italy, Rome, Spain, France, Germany, have each and all seen that crowns and sceptres have no stability except as expressions of the popular will. With arbitrary crowns, the divine right to do wrong is rapidly coming to an end; and if the divine right, then beyond a doubt the diabolic right is for the purpose of no value. In both cases the solid ground on which those prerogatives rested has been removed to so large an extent as to make it prudent to prepare for the worst. Intelligence, having achieved its emancipation, and in consequence become active and energetic, is on all sides busy in examining old foundations. In Protestant countries especially I have lost my hold on the people, who either quietly drop me into half-unconscious neglect, renounce me with scorn, or amuse themselves at my expense. Deprived of the suffrages of the people, I am no longer of service to the priests, and already foresee the period of universal contempt. That trial I have not courage to endure, even if I had any hope of success. But what is the use of a devil universally denied? Not that the case is yet so bad as this; but the worst must come, and I think it more decent to retire of my own accord, if only thereby to give effectual warning to all whom it may concern.
One warning I have already given. I allude to a book published first as early as the year 1565. In the volume entitled Stratagemata Satanse, The Stratagems of Satan, by Jacobo Aconzio, both priests and people may find a programme of ecclesiastical reform, the execution of which would have gone far to bring my reign to an end some three hundred years ago.
A contemporary of Luther’s, Aconzio surpassed that great man both in principle and practice. Too liberal for Italy, he left his native land and found a fostering home under your English Queen Elizabeth. A greater honour she did not gain. Proceeding on the great and widely-reaching principle, that every individual is answerable to God in religious matters, he gave bold and emphatic utterance to ideas which contain the germs of the ecclesiastical and religious reforms which have been effected since the age in which he lived, and which remain to be completed in coming years. So thoroughly is this statement true, that the reader of the book is involuntarily led to think of Jesus when, page after page, he meets with ideas equally strange to that period and equally true, lofty, comprehensive and benign. With characteristic consistency, the learned, liberal and truly Christian author carries the popular doctrine of Satanic influence out to its full application. The ecclesiastics are not exempt from my influence, any more than other human beings. Indeed, they have vices peculiarly their own, and against these, in relation to themselves and to their disciples, he utters a voice of sober truth and earnest admonition. Indeed, he reproves and flogs vice as vice, sparing neither mitre, cowl nor crown, and uttering denunciations the most severe on all, whether Catholic or Protestant, who “point to heaven and lead the way” to hell. Viewed in this light, the book is a scourge for the priests even more than for the laity. The rights and liberties of the latter, indeed, he specially espouses and defends, never seeming more at home than when he sets forth the great, positive and ever-enduring principles and doctrines which constitute the religion of Jesus in contradistinction to the religion of the Churches. The entire volume, filled with the genuine spirit of prophecy, is a voice of warning, after the manner of the following, which is translated from its termination:
“Woe to you who, bent solely on your own fame and dignity and the good opinion of the vulgar, in order to obtain the position of gods on earth, despise, afflict and oppress your brother men, and usurp dominion over their consciences, thus surrounding their cities with Satan’s power, and building strongholds on its behalf. Woe, I say, to you; woe, woe! What fearful punishment awaits you in the great day of retribution! Nor do I say this to the high-priests of Rome alone —the cardinals and men of that sort; for what else would it be than to lose my labour? To them also I say it who, I hope, have still ears to hear; who, whila professing to love Christ, are assailed by Satan with such subtlety as to fancy they have no need of offering him opposition. Let each of them be on his guard. Rome is not the sole birthplace of the Pope; he derives his origin from, our parents; not one of us but carries a pope in his own breast, sure to shew his face and power on the first opportunity, unless the pontiff opposes the design and contrives to extricate himself from the peril. Woe to the miserable man who tells of the great number of the damned, yet forgets how much he has contributed to their destruction, it may be in ignorance, it may be (woe to him!) after due admonition! How, I ask, can such an one endure the terrible majesty of the Lord’s eye, when he stands before his judgment-bar? What then will be his thought? his feeling? his fear? Bid adieu, then, my brethren, to ambition, to pretension, to anger, to animosity, to strife, to discord. Let Christ be the end of all our desires and endeavours—Christ and the glory of his name. Let us shake off that mortal torpor by which we are blinded against the snares that are set against us. Nor let any one take credit for being already in harbour, while others, still at sea, need precautions. I repeat what I said but now, that whoever reasons thus with himself is either close upon a pitfall or actually in one. For whose speech is this but that of Satan, who persuades men that they are most safe when they are in the greatest peril, and promises peace when he means war? Take care of thyself, my brother. Consider who thy assailant is. The more thou seemest to gain power over him, the more be thou on thy guard. The greater thy confidence, the greater must thy lowliness be, and the more earnest thy prayer to God that he would shew thee the snares which beset thy path; thy path, I say; for each of us has his own. These perils thou must concern thyself with, not those which lie in thy neighbour’s way. The need of prayer is greater even than the need of faith.”
The advice was disregarded, and by none more than the ecclesiastics. In consequence, what woes have afflicted the world since those Tyise and heroic words were uttered! Nevertheless, they were not spoken in vain. A great change has come over society. Every passing year that movement becomes wider, deeper, more powerful. It is gradually undermining old foundations, and none more than my throne. I have in my own mind gone over the principal causes which have conduced to bring matters to this pass, and I will here mention some of them, if only to prepare you for parting company with me. Ere I apply to the task, let me express a hope that my connection with you, dear young friend, has not been altogether unprofitable or unpleasant. It is perhaps one of the most promising features of the day that the clericals are taking to popular education; and if they really find pleasure in companying with the young, may I not consider the communications I have made to you as likely to be of service to the rising generation?
Independently of that great social and religious cataclysm effected by the giant arm of Luther, and which in its main bearings was but a consequence of the extravagant power forced into my hands by the priesthood, and the unbounded tyrannical and cruel purposes to which it was turned for the suppression of thought and the aggrandizement of a caste, the restoration of the Bible to the haunts of men, breathing the warm and kindling breath of God, and so quickening men’s hearts and consciences with a practical and earnest sense of both the supreme prerogative of personal responsibility and of the supreme duty of personal inquiry, has produced throughout the world a fermentation of mind, which, being favourable only to the real, the true, the divine and the everlasting, has for three centuries been undermining all decayed and rotten bases, nor less establishing on their own native rock the great verities which serve man by owning and revering God and Christ. This one cause alone would have ensured my downfall. “Heaven and earth may pass away, but my words will not pass away,” is the declaration of him before whose advancing footsteps I have been secretly receding for now nearly two thousand years.
The Eible has begotten not only religious liberty, but also religious spirituality. It has gone far to bring back the simple, devout, loving and beneficent religion of Jesus himself. The reign of the Son betokens the empire of the Father; and in a universe created and governed by the former and newly created by the latter, there is no place for me, and as little for the priest. The momentum of these two mighty powers has been augmented by the introduction of the press (1423), which is the great light-bearer in the “new heavens and the new earth” which are now coming forth with the rapidity, richness and beauty of an Oriental spring all over the surface of the globe.
The operation of these three capital agents secures and guarantees a new order of civilization, which will leave shams, shows and shadows of all kinds behind.
Then consider how the earth itself has been laid open from pole to pole and from equinox to equinox. The widening of the area of man’s vision is the widening of his mental horizon. Where now are those deserts, marshes and gulfs in which of old I was supposed to have my home? Men have gone over almost every acre of God’s earth, and found not me, any more than they have found the fabled “Presbyter John” or the unhappy “Wandering Jew.”
Equally have astronomers disclosed the starry world. Have they discovered my dwelling-place? Have they come upon any traces of my footsteps? If even a shell-fish of the old world has left in stone an imprint of itself, surely so stupendous a potentate as I was did not traverse earth and skies without marking my devastating presence with my cloven feet somewhere.
But hell is said to be beneath. What is beneath, as contradistinguished from above, in a universe where to you on this globe beneath and above change places every four-and-twenty hours h And so astronomy even confutes my existence as a personal demon, by shewing that there is no radical and inherent difference between ascent and descent, and that consequently that my going down into hell was and remains a mere figure of speech, derived from the ignorance of the dark ages. Yes; clearly here, again, we have to do with men’s passing conceptions, rather than God’s everlasting realities.
The geologists, however, in the common sense of the phrase, have gone down into the depths of the earth: have they come upon me or my abode? It would be at least as correct to say that the hand that formed this globe has solidified its entrails and thrown them up into this light of day that they may be so seen and studied by human eyes as to reveal to human minds its whole interior, which accordingly is in all its parts as familiar to science as is a mother’s nursery to herself. Have the geologists come upon me or mine anywhere?
While these great disintegrating influences have been actively at work for some three centuries, re-casting the mind of man and re-forming civilized society, certain great currents of mental and moral force have removed the scales from his eyes, and given him glad sight of the glorious universe of reality that God has unfolded in his instructive panorama which unrolls day after day and night after night before all intelligent eyes.
Under the beneficent leadership of Bacon, Science, that is accurate and systematized knowledge, has been carefully and successfully studied. In a certain sense it may be said that science, considered in its method, is a creation of the last two or three centuries. Now science, thus understood, means not only free and thorough research, but also full satisfaction of mind arising from sufficient evidence. This one position has put a crowd of fancies and shadows to flight. Resuming the study of every department of knowledge and belief, Science has brought them all to the bar of cultivated intelligence, and, making them give an exact and full account of themselves, has convicted nearly all the old notions as more or less untrue. To this bar real science brought all the pretended sciences of past ages, and condemned them one after another. As a part of its duty, it took cognizance of me, and I must fairly confess that I was proved to be as a person an unreality. This proof is none the less effectual because informal; for in truth I have stood before the mind of every intelligent man in Europe, and been silently but emphatically condemned. The spirit of science and the spirit of demonology are so antagonistic, that where the one is, the other cannot be. Mental science has been specially busy within the last hundred years. The mind of man has been subject again and again to the most searching and minute analysis. Has it in its researches been led to me h Not the faintest trace has it met with of my presence. The mind of man is a unit, strictly and properly a unit. Having various qualities and aptitudes, it has one centre and is of one tissue, so as to be ever the same thinking organism, how different soever its manifestations.
The same may be said of man’s moral nature. Here at least you ought to find traces of “the fall” and of my ceaseless operation. But man’s moral nature Science pronounces not a ruin, nor a battle-ground between two or more extraneous powers, but one harmonious whole. The unity of man’s moral nature, as it is a datum of moral philosophy, so is it its fundamental axiom.
The science of Religion does indeed find me everywhere and at all previous times. But in what shape? A person? No. A personal devil it finds nowhere. The name it finds, as it finds the name of witch and gorgon. But the origin of all three it traces back equally into the remotest and thickest shades of antiquity, and the actual effacement of the two latter guarantees the effacement of the former. The ghosts, indeed, have hardly yet taken their final farewell even of England but they linger only to bear me company in my approaching departure.
Meanwhile, every day men are more and more enjoying the consciousness of their emancipation. Delivered from a brood of at least distracting and annoying falsities, they feel themselves each his own master, and as such no less able than willing to work out each his own destiny, in making the most of the fine endowments and opportunities he has received from the wise and bountiful hand of the common Eather. That generous and ennobling sentiment, no longer disturbed and darkened by the factitious distinctions of narrow theologies, makes every man the brother of every other and his co-heir of immortality. Hence the race of man is one family, the earth is the one great university, and heaven the one final home. Not least in consequence is the liberation that ensues from sacerdotal dictation as well as diabolical seduction and control. What ensues? “The glorious liberty of the sons of God.” Man stands alone in the presence of his Maker,—the child in the presence of his Father. As there is no wrath on God’s side, so there needs no vicarious pacification on the side of man. The Father leans toward his son, the son yearns toward the Father. True religion is born, and the birth of true religion unites the two. Religion now is a reality, and being a reality it is a power. Here is newness of life, and here is “joy unspeakable and full of glory.”
The morality of the religion of Jesus owes its value and its efficacy to its own intrinsic qualities. Founded in the will of God, recognized by the individual conscience, sanctioned by its adaptedness to human nature as well as its congruity with the universe, enforced by its appeals to the heart, and corroborated by every man’s personal experience,—its ethics need no external legislation for their support, and no adventitious rewards or punishments for their acceptance and observance. And yet there are priests of the sanctuary who hold that Christian duty has no valid claim and no certain tenure except as accompanied by outward threatenings and superadded promises. The following are the words of Mons. I’ Abbe Lecanu, of whose high authority in the Church of Rome I have already made use in my narrative:
“In the absence of heaven and hell, there is no reason for being virtuous. There is not even a place for saints. Instead of pursuing righteousness, it is far better to follow your inclinations. He would be a fool who should deprive himself of any pleasure, since there is no longer a reward for voluntary privation, or punishment for culpable enjoyment.”
This dictum measures the degradation into which morality has sunk under the extravagant use made by the writer and his co-workers of adventitious sanctions to virtue. That there should be “no place for saints” of this kind under a system of independent morality may well be believed; but then this is precisely its recommendation. Here, however, I have brought you face to face with the theoretical and practical ethics of Romanized Christendom. Its motto is, “No reward, no virtue; no punishment, no vice.” Consequently if I lose my personality and hell ceases to burn, the morality of the universe is at an end.
Such doctrines I brand as grossly and fearfully immoral. There is a moral order of the universe, and that moral order accomplishes its mission, under the finger of God, by intrinsic penalties and rewards. The divinely-appointed consequences of man’s actions assert and maintain their inviolability. Every truly religious thought carries in it the seeds of its own harvest. Every vice is a scourge which flogs the vicious. The vanishment of sacerdotal terrors and adventitious sanctions only leaves God’s moral machinery to work unimpeded, and therefore to accomplish its wise and beneficent ends with ease and full effect. When I sink into kindred nothingness, God will shine forth only the more fully, the more refulgently, and the more effectually.
Be at your ease, my gentle companion; the death of Satan is not the death of moral retribution. That can no more perish than the pillars that sustain the throne of God. God alone is quite sufficient for the government of the universe which he brought into being and constantly sustains.
Equally manifest then as now will be the enormity of sin. Rather I should have said, far more manifest will it be. At present its intrinsic enormity is darkened, distorted and weakened by fabulous intermixtures. One of the most important duties of the present hour is to de-theologise religion and morality. This will ensue when a personal devil is no more: then will it ensue—but never before.
Then, too, will mutual moral responsibility be felt in all its clearness and force. Mortals do lead each other into sin. The sin of the individual becomes the sin, first of a family, and then of a neighbourhood, and then of a country. There is in these facts a fearful account to give and a large repayment to make. But men’s sense of their liability is dulled and destroyed by my intervention under the hands of sacerdotal teachers of morals. Where there are two backs to bear one load, the load has a fair chance of not being borne at all. “Let each man bear his own burden,” says the wise apostle (Gal. vi. 5). And man’s own individual and relative burdens are numerous enough and heavy enough to need no increase from Satanical suggestions and impulses.
And here I must put before you one consideration which makes me totally hopeless in regard to my future. My assumed personal existence is thoroughly immoral in its tendency. Not only does it complicate all moral questions whatever, ex* tending even to the equity of God in his dealings with man, but it weakens and tends to nullify man’s moral sense. On one side, man must feel himself overmatched when, in addition to his own deep sinfulness, he is beset constantly by a fiend who is at least next to almighty, and whose rule depends on his success in misleading and corrupting human beings. On another side, he is relieved from his sense of personal responsibility by having another and a transcendently powerful being on whom, as the real author of sin in general and of his own sin, the individual is justified in casting no less the guilt of sin than the act. The notion, indeed, of vicarious demerit may have been possible as long as the corresponding notion of vicarious merit remained in vigour; but in the degree in which the great principle of the religion of Jesus, namely, individual responsibility, comes into prominence and finds acceptance, the falsities of Satanical deprivation and Messianic expiation become equally untenable and impossible. Nor when, in view of the numerous and horrible evils to which these pages bear witness as results of my supposed agency in God’s providential government of the universe, you contemplate the human and divine reality, viz., that of a world pervaded, guided and blessed by the wisdom, goodness and power of the one Infinite Father, can any lower feeling arise than an overruling desire to obey the Almighty, if only from the admiring and worshiping love with which the soul is flooded in the contemplation of the disappearance of all spots from the face of the central sun, and of the sole and exclusive prevalence of the pure and serene lustre of such goodness in absolute perfection as radiated from the life of “the Son of Man” during his public ministry on earth.
That all-pervading brilliancy will totally eclipse me, a blotch on the face of creation, cast there by human hands, if only because, while the influence of me as an incarnation of evil is most demoralizing, the spirit of God in Christ quickens human souls with all pure thoughts, all chaste desires, all holy aspirations, raising them into that higher sphere whither temptation cannot come, and whence in consequence all moral evil is for ever banished.
The process of decomposition thus effectually working in Great Britain, as well as in other Protestant lands, especially the United States of America, in connection with religion, was repeated on philosophical grounds and with all the rigour of the most cultivated dialectics in the schools of France and Germany, where it has produced results which either quietly ignore me as a phantom of the past, or assail my existence with the two-edged sword of reason and religion, the keenness of whose edge and the temper of whose steel I have too often felt, not to shrink from tempting it any longer.
The power of this adverse direction lies not so much in anything as to my origin and existence, as in the production of a freedom of thought and a lustration of mind which involve principles and sentiments with which the recognition of me, as a personal embodiment of evil, is utterly incompatible. Had not one dart been discharged against me by the hand of avowed assailants, I must have perished, as perish I shall, from the general tendencies of thought and effort which may be termed the spirit of the age. As much as the thirteenth century was “Satan’s day, so much is this the day of the children of light. And I may hint at one or two phases of this period which exercised an unusual influence in sapping my foundations.
When Descartes (1596—1650) laid the basis of his system of philosophy not so much in general doubt as in absolute denial, casting out of his mind (so far as he could) all its contents in order that honestly, thoroughly and safely he might build his intellectual house afresh, he recognized and recommended a principle whose observance was destined to be my ruin. Originated by speculation and supported on fable and authority, I received my death-blow the very day when these were set at nought, and a philosophic individualism was established in their place.
So long and so far as that individualism, however, dealt with vague intellectual speculations, I found myself in an atmosphere in which it was possible for me to sustain a temporary existence; but when Kant (1724—1804) had shattered all these entities and quiddities, and made moral truth the source, essence and pabulum of existence, then I found myself totally shut out of the universities by the conjectural nature of all belonging to me, and specially by the evil dispositions I was said to cherish.
And here, even at the risk of being misunderstood, I must place foremost some names who are of ill repute with rigid conservatives of all kinds. “The English Deists” of the last century did an important work, if only hy blighting the poisonous blossoms and withering the deadly fruit that they found on that tree of life which was intended to be for “the healing of the nations,” but which, alas! had been grafted with apples of Sodom.
Then came the great French scoffer, and did his utmost to crush what he called L’Infame—that is, the superstition of the priests. If he has in his composition too much of my bad side to deserve unqualified approbation, even I cannot deny that he rendered a high service to his race in his heroic defence of the persecuted Galas family, in such a way as to -command the admiration of Europe, and to give the last blow to that compound of atrocities, the Papal Inquisition. The day that the Protestant John Galas was broken on the wheel in Toulouse (10th March, 1762), for what Yoltaire proved to be the imaginary crime of murdering his eldest son in order to prevent his becoming Catholic—that day, owing to the noble and persistent efforts of the philosopher of Ferney, saw the rise in Europe and the world of the sun of religious liberty, nor less of religious earnestness and simplicity. Could I tarry to describe the scene and its actors, you would be disposed to say that in one of my worst moods I had transferred my slaughter-house for the occasion to the city of Toulouse.
About the time when this dreadful crime was committed,— reverberations of which passed over Europe, and everywhere stirred the hearts of righteous men with indignation,—a great ordinal change was on the point of emerging in that old stern stronghold of civil and religious liberty w’hich bears the name of England. William III., prince of Orange, ascended the throne in that land in 1688. Most auspicious event! Then Nonconformity undertook to relax the bonds in which the mind of the nation lay cramped, though not subdued, and its three chief denominations, the Presbyterians, the Independents and the Baptists, began that fight which, either together or separately, they have kept up to the present hour, and which has eventually issued in freedom of speech and freedom of act; leaving only one thing to be desired, namely, complete equality of all forms of religion in the eye of the legislature and in the intercourses of private life.
This atmosphere is too attenuated, pure and ethereal for me to breathe in long. Either it must be altered or I must depart. The first of these three religious bodies received of “the Pather of lights” a signal advantage. From being the strictest of the three in respect of religious freedom, it became the most liberal. Its liberality encouraged examination and research, and these led to the conviction that the central dogmas of Protestant orthodoxy were unsound. Among the condemned points of popular belief was my personality, which was openly disowned and combated among these people long before it was even doubted in the other denominations, with whom indeed it, for the most part, retains a weakened hold even to this hour. Here shine forth the names of Newton, Locke, Lardner, Taylor, Priestley, Price, and of many other lights of the world.
The great service rendered by these champions of a free and simple gospel lies in their liberation of the morality of Christianity from all sacerdotal accretions. This they effected to such an extent as almost to identify religion and morality. If in going so far they at all lessened the religious element and almost abolished the theological, the mistake may be excused in consideration of the fact that morality was almost sunk in ecclesiasticism throughout the Church. A morality that could assert its own rights and enforce its own claims was all but totally unknown in modern Europe until the English Deists began to exercise their influence in England and Lessing published his invaluable works in Germany. Then a new era dawned j and the degree in which its sun ascends toward the zenith is the degree of my decline.
The older German theologians retained more or less fully and firmly the ideas entertained by Luther, and which generally bear the name of orthodox; but philosophy and the spirit of the age gradually dissolved those views, so that the moderns, e. g. Morus, Beinhard, Storr, Knapp, Kaiser, Steudel, united with Michaelis and Doderlein to doubt the common opinions, or, like Schott, Eckermann, Henke, “Wegscheider, Yon Ammon, De “Wette, Hase, Baumgarten Crusius, Bretsch-neider and others, set them aside as notions of the day which did not belong to Christianity; while others, under the influence of Kant, conceived of Satan as simply the ideal of wickedness, and so concurred in the view of myself which I have given throughout this Memoir.
A still more distinguished authority, one who maybe called the originator and master of the modern spiritualism of the Protestant Church, Schleiermacher, constructing Christianity out of the Christian conscience, and finding no devil there, pronounces me a superfetation, and as such so ridiculous as not to be imputable to the belief of any one. “Belief in Satan forms no part of religion, and of his influence in consequence nothing can be said.” The first lance thrust into my side was handled by an Englishman, who in the person of Eeginald Scott* resolutely denied that I could change the laws of nature. Bekker of Amsterdam,+ as already set forth, went a step farther. Placing himself on the ground of Cartesianism, he rejected all action of malign spirits on the sensible world, and maintained that demoniacal possessions are only imaginations or diseases of the mind. This opinion, put forward by medical men of the time of Origen, is now generally held by the thinking and cultivated public.
English orthodoxy, both conformist and nonconformist, more conservative of error than curious after truth, does indeed continue to countenance me, at least in form and from the popular pulpits; but daily does the patronage in the higher and more scholarly levels grow, here subdued, there qualified, there timid, and there half-ashamed of itself; so that, unless I of my own accord renounce my claims, I shall, I foresee, ere long be deserted by the theology as well as the intelligence of the English nation. This impending abandonment will doubtless be due to the combined influence of the causes to which I have referred. But one or two special ones deserve mention.
The Unitarians of England and the United States have long denied my personal existence, and some of their best divines, Estlin, Simpson, Scott,J Grundy, and one of their most effective missionaries, have in print assailed my scriptural claims; moreover, the general tendency of their reasonable and spiritual direction of religious thought and effort, as seen in the writings of Parker and Martineau, being in favour of the final prevalence of the Divine will, and consequently of human purity and happiness, has worked silently but effectually so as to threaten to issue in my final overthrow. Yet had the example of these excellent men been less sparingly followed in more recent days, fanaticism would be nearer its sepulchre than it is, not in England only, but in Scotland, where I have been all but worshiped, and where I am still held in a slavish respect of which I am myself ashamed.
Another body of religionists must not be passed wholly in silence, since they, at least in their offspring in the United States, have contributed largely to the “decline and fall” of an empire more huge and more baneful than that of ancient Rome—I allude to the Universalists. They originated in the latter part of the last century in Great Britain in two centres. One was Trinitarian. Here the Universalists, holding to the doctrine of vicarious substitution, maintained that, since Christ died for all, all would share in the benefits of his death. Consequently Satan and hell were superfluities. Sin was a disease which would yield under the hand of God in death. Of persons holding these views, there were congregations in London, Salisbury, Portsmouth and Glasgow.
The other branch of English Universalists were more or less intimately connected with the rationalistic tendency which sprang from English Deism. Of these Mr. Vidler was an eloquent representative in the Metropolis of England. The Universalists are now a large and influential body, especially in the United States. Among their principal authors are Eallou and Chapin.
The joint operation of these and similar influences has utterly changed men’s view of the universe, and that not in its physical relations alone, but also, and emphatically, in its moral and religious. The universe is one. Its physical and its moral order are one severally and one in combination. This one universe has one Source and one Governor. Consequently one will produces, sustains and guides the whole. That will is the will of the One Universal Eather. The period in which this sublime verity is coming into recognition may be appropriately called the Rule of the Eather. As such, it is the rule of the Son. What else is it, then, than the kingdom of God on earth? Here you see the triumph of the religion of Jesus. Here you witness the fulfilment of prophecy. Here you behold God’s wise and benevolent purposes for his children of mankind, worked out and clearly presented, at least in outline. The outline is such as to expand into a full and august portrait—the portrait of the living God imprinted on the moral and spiritual creation. Seeing these sublime and enduring realities, you see so many tokens and premonitions of my decay. There is no place for me in a universe which is pervaded and blessed by the spirit of the Universal Father.
I have enumerated the principal causes of my decay as they have been in operation during some three hundred years. These are mostly extraneous. They produce their effect by operating mainly on the exterior. But in truth, like everything mortal, I carry within me the seeds of my own dissolution. As a name rather than a being I share in the corruptibility and decay of all forms of language whatever. The reflection of a day-dream of some “untutored Indian,” I only took an outward shape when his descendants had acquired the difficult art of linguistical articulation. Thus becoming an echo of the human voice, I spread from individual to individual and from hut to hut, an aerial phantom which all feared and none could describe. By and by that sound acquired the solidity and exercised the functions of a proper name. Now, then, my existence assumed a certain superficial reality. Centuries passed away, and still I was nothing more concrete than an articulate sound. However, the time came when from audible signs I passed, on the discovery of writing, into some kind of visible form. Then first men called me and wrote me down as Satan. But here, too, there is a history, which I can explain only by using the corresponding English term. I was the Adversary. Originally they had spoken of me as adverse, that is as evil. Opposition they found on every side, and opposition must, they felt, have its cause. I was that cause. But the assertion was at first particular, and became general only by degrees. Accordingly men said it (that which was opposite in any case to their wishes or their interests) —It was bad. It took centuries to transmute this bad into many bads, and centuries more to condense all these into badness. Still, however, we have no personal sign. Who can say how long it took to enable the semi-barbarous races to speak of a bad one? Another slow process of growth gave birth to the bad one. Another, again, was requisite to put the sound into writing, as “the bad One.” Here we have the components of the idea involved in “the Adversary.” But this Adversary is only local. Untold ages must have passed before the bad one or the advesary of one tribe became the adversary of an island, a continent, a hemisphere, the earth.
And so at last we are brought to the general conception of The Adversary. Comparatively very late in the progress of culture must be the date of the origin of the personal designation, The Adversary.
And now, my valued amanuensis, consider of what elements this written sign consists. You, like most other ordinary persons, suppose that in the Adversary or the Satan you have a concrete living and permanent individual. That, however, is a mere conception—a figment of your own plastic brain. Men create their own devil, and they create him out of the sounds which they have uttered and the visible signs they have invented. In reality, that which is denoted by the term The Adversary, is, if looked at, merely a certain combination of visible lines and curves, and, if uttered, certain reverberations of the stricken air.
“And is Satan nothing more substantial than this?” you ask. I reply, whatever else it is comes from your own prolific mind. The proof is, that “the Adversary,” if you go back through the process by which you saw it come into existence, can be reduced to its successive shapes, until at last it passes from a visible, audible and articulate something, into a notion, a fancy, a dream of your own, begotten of some piece of ill-luck, some raging tempest, some serious disappointment, some fit of ill-humour, some dark presage occasioned by annoyance, vexation, or even indigestion. It is himself that man throws outwardly in the visible and audible signs which are called written language. I am then in reality nothing more substantial than a projection of a certain state of man’s mind. Were the projection an image of man’s highest culture, it would be a reality. But in truth the projection is simply the deepest shade of mans unculture. In other words, it is a shadow of the hugest misconception man ever made, born of his ignorance, bred on his narrowness, nurtured in his lowest and fiercest passions, and brought to maturity long before truth and reality had dawned on the human race. As such, it is merely a projection of a state of the human mind which the race has outlived in all its higher representatives, and which now darkens and disturbs only the lowest and most depraved, that is the least human, circles of society.
This concise history contains a prophecy of my speedy downfall. As other personifications have ceased to be viewed as persons,—as the sun and the moon have passed from personal beings into mere organic matter,—so am I, in my turn, destined to dissolve and vanish into the empty air out of which I received my personal existence from some human lip long ago reduced to dust. Sic transit gloria mundi.
‘‘How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning!
How art thou cut down to the ground, who didst harass the nations!”
(Is. xiv. 12.)
Were any doubt left as to that fall by the previous considerations, I proceed to mention one which removes the possibility of a question. I am the child of a dualistic conception of the universe, and can live no longer than it survives. Arising in a barbarous age, the notion of two great powers or principles as the sources of good and evil, light and darkness, happiness and woe, spread so as to cover the whole area of the mind and life of man. Hence arose subaltern dualisms, such as mind and matter, body and soul, spirit and flesh, heaven and hell, which, sharply sundered the one from the other, set the whole world, not in contrast only, but in collision. Down to a recent date, this universal dualism governed thought, directed metaphysical speculation, moulded creeds, and shaped and coloured the Church. Accordingly, you had monarchs to rule and subjects to obey, priests to dictate and laymen to believe, soldiers to fight and civilians to pay the cost. The whole tendency of intellectual philosophy during at least a century has been adverse to this antagonism and favourable to a Unitarian view, as of God and the universe, so of human beings in all their relations. God and the universe are one in the sense that the former produces the latter, which he pervades and in which he is mirrored. In that universe is man, the least inadequate image of God. Man in himself is one being, endowed with various aptitudes, which differ but do not conflict, being all meant and all fitted to grow into concord, alike well proportioned, beautiful and efficient. Sin, therefore, though baneful, as consisting in actual disobedience to the Divine will, is overruled for good, and will in the end be made to serve the wise and benign purposes of the infinite Father. Meanwhile there is a counterworking of the animal and tbe spiritual nature, but not such as to involve an internecine war. Moreover, mind is only the root of which matter is the fruit, and matter is the form of which mind is the substance. The body, too, is the soul in outer and visible manifestation. In the same way death is but the first step on to the higher life; for man under God is immortal—man consisting of a spirit allying him to his Maker, and a body connecting him with the phenomenal world; and as that world will ever co-exist with the world of substance, so will men after death possess some aerial organism (Paul’s ”spiritual body”) by and through which spirits of all orders will intercommunicate. No longer then will the universe be a compound of antinomies, but rather a combination of harmonies. Heaven and hell, considered as places, will disappear. The kingdom or rule of God will have for its happy result the kingdom of heaven. The reign of the ”All-Father” will be my exclusion from sovereignty. One God, the Source, Author, Governor and Benefactor of all things, leaves neither place nor function for the devil. It follows, that the full realization of the Hebrew monotheism is the realization of the highest good of the universe, and the highest good of the universe necessarily excludes evil in person, in principle, in manifestation and in practice.
So much for what I may term the intellectual and historical aspect of this question. I pass to the ethical. Yes, there is something deeper still—something which, like a canker-worm, is eating out my vitals. Whatever I am, whether a person, a personification, a power or a word, I am, according to universal opinion, bad, wicked, base. In this description of myself I shall carry the world at large with me. As such, I am rotten at the core. Either there is no God, or goodness alone is permanent and everlasting. Deny the averment, and you make wickedness eternal no less than goodness; and two eternals are two gods. But two gods in conflict means the rule of infinite confusion. What is that but boundless weakness and uncertainty? And so here, again, you are brought to practical atheism, or, what is the same thing, all-pervading chaos. But as evil, I totally lack the element of permanency. Hence one of the two contending parties is an unreality. Evil, as evil, must perish or be permanent. If permanent, it makes good insecure, and an insecure God is no God at all. Evil, then, is not permanent. If not permanent, it is perishable; and whatever is perishable must come to an end. Such is my fate.
The result is merited. I cannot look back on my past without compunction. I have been the occasion to the human race of innumerable deceptions. Yet in extenuation I must plead that, after all, it is rather man Who has flogged himself with his own chimeras. Unhappily, those who should have delivered him from the viperous brood have nourished and propagated it. However, at this my extremely advanced age, I am too oppressed with contrition, in view of the terrors and woes I have caused, to tolerate the feeling of reproving others. I leave them to their own reflections, as I am prompted by mine in thus making my confession and expressing my sorrow. I cannot, however, refrain from saying, that as I have been led by penitence to expose the terrible deceit which my name represents, I hope that all who have been my masters or my servants will join with me in doing their best to rid the world of the most deadly of its plagues.
But I deny that I am solely evil. As a human offspring, I have my good qualities no less than my bad. The better side of my nature anticipates with serene satisfaction the sunder-ance and rejection of the inferior side. Anticipated death, then, has in reserve no alarm, no distress for me. On the contrary, I look forward with calm delight to the time when I shall be delivered from the body of this death (Kom. vii. 24). My deliverance will be at once cause and consequence of the deliverance of the human race. This bright prospect do you go forth and hold out to the nations. Men will be won by hope, while they are borne down and destroyed by fear. The reign of love in the Church will make the Church as universal as the sunbeam, and equally beneficent. But this attractive future is depicted by the great apostle more truly and more attractively than can be done by any words of mine, and therefore I ask you to study the following quotation from Paul’s Epistle to the Romans:
“As many as are led by the spirit of God are the sons of God. And ye did not receive the spirit of bondage leading unto fear; but ye received the spirit of adoption wherein ye cry, Abba, Father. The spirit itself beareth witness to our spirit, that we are children of God: and if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; since we are suffering with him to the end, that we also may be glorified with him: for I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are of no account in comparison of the glory which is to be revealed in us; for the earnest expectation of the creation is waiting for the revelation of the sons of God; for the creation teas made subject to vanity, not of its own will, but by reason of him v:ho made it subject in hope; for the very creation itself shall be set free from the bondage of corruption into the liberty of the glory of the children of God; for we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now; and not only so, but even ourselves, having the first fruit of the spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the end of the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body. Moreover, we know that to them that love God all things work together for good. “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall he able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
10. Testimonies
Mine has been a bold task. But for some noble members of your race it could not have been performed. In their writings I have found light, encouragement and courage. I will cite a few words; and I cite what follows with the greater satisfaction because, while it justifies the task I have performed and upholds the principles I have in part acted on, in part enforced, it relieves me from any charge of narrowness, since the witnesses I adduce in my own cause are for the most part ministers of religion. Were they the priests whom I warn the world against, no word of theirs could have been adduced in favour of the great aims of the composition which, having reviewed its sheets more than once, I now, dear Theophilus, put into your hands for publication.
Keppler.
The two revealing Books.
The day will soon dawn when pious simplicity will be ashamed of its blind superstition, when men will acknowledge truth no less in the book of Nature than in the Sacred Scriptures, and rejoice alike over both revelations.
Spinoza.
Harmony of right thinking and right acting.
What is most consonant with reason is most conducive to virtue.
Chillingworth.
Reason is the judge.
For my own part, I am certain that God hath given us our reason to discern between truth and falsehood; and he that makes not this use of it, but believes things he knows not why, I say it is by chance that he believes the truth, and not by choice; and I cannot but fear that God will not accept this sacrifice of fools.—Religion of Protestants, p. 133.
Bishop Jeremy Taylor.
Eeason is the judge; that is, we being the persons that are to be persuaded, we must see that we be persuaded reasonably.—Liberty of Prophesying (1687), p. 507.
Bishop Gibson.
It is universally acknowledged that Revelation itself is to stand or fall by the test of reason; or, in other words, according as reason finds the evidences of its coming from God to be or not to be sufficient and conclusive, and the matter of it to contradict or not contradict the natural notions which reason gives us of the being and attributes of God.—Second Pastoral Letter (1730).
Dean Prideaux.
Let what is written in all the books of the New Testament be tried by that which is the touchstone of all religions,—I mean that religion of nature and reason which God has written in the hearts of every one of us from the first creation; and if it varies from it in any particular, if it prescribes any one thing which may in the minutest circumstances thereof be contrary to its righteousness, I will then acknowledge this to be an argument against us, strong enough to overthrow the’ whole cause, and make all things else that can be said for it totally ineffectual for its support.—Letter to the Deists (1748).
Archbishop Tillotson.
All our reasonings about revelation are necessarily gathered by our natural notions about religion, and therefore he who sincerely desires to do the will of God is not apt to be imposed on by vain pretences of divine revelation; but if any doctrine be proposed to him which is pretended to come from God, he measures it by those sure and steady notions which he has of the Divine nature and perfections; he will consider the nature and tendency of it, or whether it be a doctrine according to godliness, such as is agreeable to the Divine nature and perfections, and tends to make us like unto God. If it be not, though an angel should bring it, he would not receive it.—Sermons, III. p. 485.
Dr. Conyers Middleton.
The fall of man a moral fable.
From the authority of many of the ancient interpreters and from my own reflections, I have ever been inclined to consider the particular story of the “fall of man as a moral fable or allegory; such as we frequently meet with in other parts of the Old and New Testament, in which certain religious duties and doctrines, with the genuine nature and effects of them, are represented, as it were, to our senses by a fiction of persons and facts which had no real existence. And I am the more readily induced to espouse this sense of it, from a persuasion that it is not only the most probable and rational, but the most useful also, by clearing it of those difficulties which are apt to shock and make us stumble, as it were, at the very threshold.—Works, II. 131.
Archdeacon Paley.
To remove what contradicts man’s intelligence is a service to Christianity.
Whoever can render religion more rational, renders it more credible; he who by a diligent and faithful examination of the original records, dismisses from his system one article which, contradicts the apprehension, the experience, or the reason of mankind, does more towards recommending the belief, and, with the belief, the influence of Christianity, to the understanding and consciences of serious inquirers, and through them to universal reception, than can be effected by a thousand contenders for creeds and ordinances of human appointment.—Moral Philosophy: Dedication to Bishop Law.
Dr. Priestley.
The gross darkness of that night which has for many centuries obscured our holy religion, we may clearly see, is past; the morning is opening upon us; and we cannot doubt but that the light will increase and extend itself more and more unto the perfect day. Happy are they who contribute to diffuse the pure light of the everlasting gospel. The time is coming when the detection of one error or prejudice relating to this most important subject, and the success we have in opening and enlarging the minds of men with respect to it, will be far more honourable than any discovery we can make in other branches of knowledge, or our success in propagating them.— Corruptions of Christianity: Dedication.
Lessing.
The love of God is true freedom and true power.
Intelligent love of God, the common Spirit of the world, will make men free. The time of a new and everlasting gospel will certainly come. Enough that I already see in the toys of children the weapons which men will one day wield with a firm hand.
Free inquiry.
Enter upon this inquiry like an honest man, I say to myself. See everywhere with thine own eyes. Pervert nothing, palliate nothing. As the consequences flow, so let them flow. Neither check the stream nor divert it.
“The Decrial of Reason from the Puljrit”
The author shews that to denounce the noblest human faculty, Reason, as a weak, corrupt, blind, seductive guide, is as little in accordance with the spirit and teachings of Christ, as the favourite recurrence to the fall of Adam and Eve, and the universal depravity therefrom, brought forward for the purpose of fostering a blind faith, corresponds to Biblical records and traditions. To the theological pulpit authorities who decry reason he calls out: “You make yourselves ridiculous by contradicting your own deeds: for you continue to calumniate that very reason which you are unable to dispense with in your demonstrations and refutations! You grudge to others the use of that which you apply for yourselves at every moment, and in this respect are not a whit better than the Catholic priests whom you so severely denounce, because they deny to the laity the reading of the Bible, which they prefer to keep to themselves and interpret according to their own pleasure.”
Belsham.
From Genesis to Malachi I see no account of any such malignant being as the devil is commonly imagined to be. All good and all evil is in the Jewish Scriptures ascribed to the one God, who is the great and primary agent in all events. It is Jehovah, and not the devil, that hardens the heart of Pharaoh (Exod. vii. 3); and if there is ”evil in the city,” it is “the Lord,” and not an evil spirit, “who hath done it.” The word devil never occurs in the Old Testament in the sense in which it is now used. And Satan properly signifies only an adversary. In the New Testament the word devil is sometimes used to personify the principle of evil, and sometimes the idolatrous and persecuting power; and the want of attention to this figurative mode of expression has misled many readers who were ignorant of Hebrew and Oriental phraseology, and has induced them to believe the real existence of an evil spirit. The possessing demons were not fallen angels, but human ghosts. And who can believe that human ghosts are permitted to enter into the bodies of living men and to torment them 1 Who can suppose that a man cannot fall into an epileptic fit without being struck down by a ghost h or that a lunatic cannot utter blasphemies in his raving paroxysm without being instigated by a ghost? The Isew Testament invariably distinguishes between the devil and demons, that is ghosts, and never speaks of a person being possessed by devils, but uniformly by ghosts.
Herder.
Satan the King of Shadows.
By Sheol or Hell the Hebrews meant nothing more than the permanent residence of the dead. The inhabitants of this abode were regarded as still possessing a kind of life even in the grave. On this account they called the grave the house of rest, the mansion of unbroken peace. The soul thus considered as a shade they placed in subterranean dwellings. There were found the ancestors of the Hebrews. Shadowy kings sat on shadowy thrones; nay, whole cities, kingdoms, and vanquished armies, were crowded together in this mansion of shadows. Thus in process of time the subterraneous kingdom obtained a monarch, whose name was Belial, the ghostly king of imaginary beings, without substance or power. Then Sheol became a palace, an impregnable fortress with gates and bars of brass. It was a devouring gulf which never restored anything it had swallowed. Even in the New Testament we find many expressions which bear the marks of this mythology, as in the king who had the keys of hell and death (Rev. i. 18), who opened gates which none but he could open, subdued potentates, and delivered souls, which he alone could deliver.
It would be a very improper manner of illustrating things to apply all this to our ideas of hell and death. It is nevertheless certain that this kind of misapplication has taken place with respect to many ideas and modes of speaking which ought to be confined to the particular times in which they were employed. In the meantime the idea of hero or governor, considered in the extensive signification of those terms in the ancient poetry, came to denote great things—awful power and dominion. The potentate who reigned over human souls and had the power of death became an unrighteous tyrant, and the anointed of the Lord wrested from him both his dominion and his prey. Thus during the space of five thousand years the human race, destitute of any defence or support against this Ivixg of Shadows, were in a long state of servitude and terror, or, to use the language of a sacred writer, were, through the fear of death, all their lifetime subject to bondage. Hence the doleful lamentations of Hezekiah. Hence that dejection which prevailed among the Hebrews at the prospect and approach of death, which the chieftains and people of other nations beheld and resisted with magnanimity and valour. In this respect the Hebrews were, if I mistake not, the most dastardly people upon earth. The dismal ideas of the shadow kingdom tormented them perhaps still more than the belief of a total annihilation would have done.
Religion endures nothing magical.
As the pagan temples lie in ruins on the spot where they once stood in pride, so will all altars be broken down on which worship is offered to a false god. This is the decree of the irrevocable law of the Supreme Father, the advance of human intelligence, the spirit of Christianity, and the great tendencies of creation. Nature can endure nothing unnatural, truth nothing untrue, religion nothing magical. A long night has covered everything, but the sun is rising and the spectres are taking to flight.
Dr. Lardxer.
It having been in those times (the age of Jesus) a very common opinion that there were very many evil spirits in the region of the air, it is not at all strange that many people should live under apprehensions of suffering from them. And many might be induced to ascribe to such spirits and to their power and influence several indispositions and other calamities that befel them. Moreover, some persons of a speculative and philosophical temper might think it best to cherish this opinion among the people, with a view to subserve divers ends and purposes which they deemed innocent and useful; one of which might be promoting the belief of the existence of spirits or invisible beings. Some there were, as the Sadducees among the Jews, who denied the existence of angels and the souls of men after death. The Pharisees, therefore, and some others might lay hold of and encourage the notion, that many bodily disorders were owing to evil spirits, the better to secure the persuasion of their real existence. This, therefore, may help us to account for the prevalence of this opinion, though it had no good foundation.
It is not unreasonable to hold that the notion of possessions was received by the Jews from the Chaldean or Greek philosophers.
It does not appear that the common opinion of possessions has any countenance in the Old Testament.
Possession by evil spirits is a thing in itself absurd and impossible; at the least unreasonable and improbable, and not to be supposed unless there be clear and full proof, which I think there is not.
Real possessions seem inconsistent with the goodness of God. For let any man think with himself, if it be not a strange and hard case for a man to be put into the power of evil spirits, or for apostate angels, or other impure and wicked spirits, one or more of them, to be allowed to take possession of him, and to teaze and torment him as they think fit. Can we fairly reconcile this to the wisdom and equity of the Divine government t ’All those persons who are spoken of as having demons, or an unclean spirit, had some bodily indisposition. iSTor does it appear clearly from their history that there was anything beside such indispositions, and that discomposure of mind which usually accompanies them. There were eminent persons in ancient times who were of opinion that those called demoniacs were diseased only. This has been the opinion of some judicious, thoughtful and pious men of late times. This opinion is confirmed by Scripture, which describes Jesus as healing these very persons: ”Who went about doing good and healing all that were oppressed of the devil” (Acts x. 38; comp. Matt. iv. 24).
It is no uncommon thing for opinions to prevail in the world which have no solid foundation. How many have been disposed to ascribe the diseases of the human body, and other disastrous events in the world, to the planets or other stars!—Lardner’s Works,Yol. I. 449, seq. London: Dowding.
Professor Neander.
Diseases of the mind in every age bear the stamp, to some degree, of the prevailing tendencies and ideas of the times; and those of the demoniacs reflected the peculiar and predominant features of the Jewish mind of that age. The wretched beings seemed to be hurried onward by a strange and hostile power that subjugated their intellectual and moral being, and whose chief characteristic, as displayed in their paroxysms, was a wild and savage destructiveness. The Jews explained these phenomena according to their own notions, and especially by the general opinion that man was surrounded on every side by the operations of evil spirits, who were the authors of both moral and physical evil. And as a fierce destructiveness was considered to be characteristic of these spirits, the condition of the demoniacs was ascribed to their being possessed by one or more of them.
The diseased persons themselves involuntarily conceived of their own experience according to the prevalent opinion, and their expressions, literally taken, contributed to confirm it. Everything irrational which suggested itself to them appeared to their consciousness as the work and the will of the indwelling spirit. They conceived themselves, in fact, as possessed of two natures, viz., their real proper being (the true I), and the evil spirit which subjugated them the other; and thus it happened that they spoke in the person of the evil spirit, with which they felt themselves blended into one, even in instincts and propensities utterly repugnant to their true nature. The sense of inward discord and distraction might rise to such a height as to induce the belief that they were possessed by a number of spirits, to whom they were compelled to lend their utterance.
We may find a reason for the remarkable prevalence of such phenomena, at that time, not only among the Jews, but also throughout the Roman empire, in the character of the age itself. It was an age of spiritual and physical distress, of manifold and violent disruptions, such as characterize those critical epochs in the history of the world at which, from the dissolution of all existing things, a new creation is about to unfold itself. The sway of demonism was a sign of the approaching dissolution of the whole world. Its phenomena —symptoms of the universally felt discord—were among the signs of the times which pointed to the coming of the Eedeemer, who was to change that discord into harmony. The insatiable craving of want is always a precursor of the approaching supply. There lay a profound truth at the bottom of the demoniac’s consciousness that his feelings, inclinations and words did not spring from his rational, God-allied nature (his true I), but from a foreign power belonging to the kingdom of the devil (evil), which had subjugated the former. And this truth offered the necessary point of contact for the operation of Christ’s spiritual influence to aid the soul which longed to be delivered from its distraction and freed from its ignominious bondage. In the mind of the demoniac, the fundamental truth was inseparable from the form in which he conceived it; it was therefore necessary to seize upon the latter in order to develop the former.
Dean Milman.
I have no scruple in avowing my opinion on the subject of the demoniacs to be that of Joseph Mede, Lardner, Dr. Mead, Paley, and all the learned modern writers. It was a kind of insanity, not unlikely to be prevalent among a people peculiarly subject to leprosy and other cutaneous diseases: and nothing was more probable than that lunacy should take the turn and speak the language of the prevailing superstition of the times. As the belief in witchcraft made people fancy themselves witches, so the belief in possession made men of distempered minds fancy themselves possessed.
The demoniac mentioned in Matthew (xii. 22—29) seems to have suffered under infirmity rather than lunacy; the afflicted person was blind and dumb; but such cases were equally applied to malignant spirits. There is one very strong reason which may have contributed to induce Jesus to adopt the current language on this point. The disbelief in these spiritual influences was one of the characteristic tenets of the unpopular sect of the Sadducees. A departure from the common language, or the endeavour to correct the inveterate error, would have raised an immediate outcry against him from his watchful and malignant adversaries, as an unbelieving Saddueee.—History of Christianity, I. 234.
Dr. Rowland Williams.
Many persons think that, when we read in the New Testament of men being possessed by devils, we ought to understand the words in what is conceived to be their most literal sense; that is to say, that each sufferer was possessed by an evil spirit, which should in each case be considered as distinct a personal agent as the human being over whom he tyrannized.
Again, on the other hand, many sober inquirers conceive the above view to be open to strong objections, both as regards the nature of the evidence on which it rests, and the moral conclusion to which it leads. They observe that all language must be interpreted according to the general habits and conceptions of the persons using it; that the phrase “demoniac possession” was commonly current in the ancient world to denote any violent form of disease, such as we now term epilepsy or mania; that manifest traces of this usage are found in Greek medical writers; and then they conceive that our Saviour, instead of entering on a hopeless argument with the delusions of a maniac, removes by his gracious power the very disease which was misinterpreted. The conclusion then will be, that the words put by the sacred writers in the mouths of supposed evil spirits are merely the distorted utterances of a shattered and blinded mind; while- the conception by our Saviour of this popular view’ of the case will be merely an accommodation (such as we often find) of his own language and gesture to the usages of his country and his time.
There are evil spirits of presumption, of backsliding, of doing what is right in our own eyes, of irreverence, the child of familiarity, and of a garrulous unreality in taking all holy words and things in vain.—Rational Godliness, Sermon XI.
Bishop Colenso.
The Devil a figure of speech. .
“He that hath died hath been set free from sin” (Eom. vi. 7: Dean Alford’s translation). It is noticeable that St. Paul in this passage does not represent death, as a doom which God inflicts upon the race—innocent as they must be, multitudes of them, babes and others, of all wilful sin. He carefully guards his words from this. It is sin, the tyrant who inflicts it—not God, the gracious Father of spirits; it is “the devil,” who “‘has the power of death,” who keeps “many all their life-time subject to bondage.” Of course this personification of sin is but a figure of speech. It implies that the death of the human race is a consequence of the sin in their nature, according to the moral order of the universe, not a doom which the Great and Blessed God, who is called in Scripture “the Faithful Creator/’ passes, as a judgment, upon his fallen creatures, however helpless, and innocent of real conscious guilt. Death in itself is no curse. Death was in the world for the countless races’ of animals and animalcules ages before man’s sin. There was no sign of a curse in their death. jSTor would the death of man be attended with any notion of a curse attached to it but for the consciousness of sin. But then comes the Law and brings home to our consciences the sense of sin, of evil committed against the light we had, and before the face of a most pure and holy Being. And the devil, the slanderer, the accuser of God and of the brethren, makes us aware of this to fill our hearts with guilty fears, which keep us away from our Father’s footstool. He teaches us thus to connect the idea of a curse with death. And many go trembling along the path of life, with the gloomy grave at the end of it, afraid to look the ghastly terror in the face. And so they turn their eyes ever to the ground as they go, and busy themselves with the petty things of this life, its business and pleasures, that they may for the present forget their fears, instead of making light of death, as they might, as they ought, and manfully pressing to do the work of their Lord.—The Epistle to the Romans, 1861.
The Devil an actor in a story: social evils of ecclesiastical demonology.
With such examples as these before us, we can scarcely doubt that the legend in the text (Matt. iv. 1),—with its evil spirit, speaking and visible, carrying our Lord through the air, just as we may read in many an Oriental story,—setting him upon a pinnacle of the temple, and then upon the “exceeding high mountain,” from which “all the kingdoms of the earth could be seen,” had a similar origin in the imaginations of devout men. * * * The prevalence of belief in demoniacal possessions bids me to say, Shake off the incnbns of that traditionary system of religious belief which prevents our standing up upon our feet as men, breathing joyously the health-giving air, the fresh-inspiring life, of this our day, rejoicing in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free. * * * Many are the stories which we may read in the records of the Church in different ages, of supposed demoniacal possession, sometimes of their cure, more frequently of diabolical punishments, inflicted by priestly power, combined with popular ignorance, upon the unhappy victims of these absurd accusations. Open, for instance, the works of Bishop Hall (he died in 1656), a most excellent Christian. What does he say on the subject of demons? ”How formidable is the number of those evil and hostile spirits! Had we the eyes of holy hermits we might see the air full of those malignant spirits, laying snares for miserable mankind. And if the possessors of one poor demoniac could style themselves Legion, a name that in .the truest account contains no less than ten cohorts, and every cohort fifty companies, and every company twenty-five soldiers, to the number of 1225 (the Roman legion contained properly 6000 soldiers)—what an army of these hellish fiends do we suppose is that wherewith whole mankind is beleaguered, all the world over!”—Works, VIII. 398.
Truly the glorious and blessed world in which our Father has placed us would be a fearful place to live in, if this account were true. We might find abundant excuses for sin, if this was really our condition; we might well marvel how it should be possible for any but a very few to reach their Father’s home in safety, if indeed we were exposed to such assaults as these.
The belief in the reality of demoniacal possession increased more and more in the Church, and during the middle ages reached a frightful intensity; and indeed it has only been abolished (?) in comparatively recent times by the light thrown upon such questions by God’s blessed gift of modern science.
But let the history of Christian Europe say how horrible have been the consequences when such views have been followed out to their natural results, and when that dire belief in witchcraft and sorcery, which we know prevails among the Zulus round us, filled not long ago the whole of Christian Europe with misery, malignant hate, and crimes of the blackest dye, committed for the love of God, in the name of the pitiful, compassionate Jesus. Eor, as Mr. Lecky tells us in his recent work, even Luther could say: “I would have no compassion on these witches; I would burn them allwhile, as he also tells us, 7000 victims are said to have been burnt at Treves, 600 by a single bishop of Bumberg, 800 in one year in the diocese of Wurzburg, 1000 in the province of Como, 400 at Toulouse in a single execution, 500 in three months at Geneva, 48 at Constance, 80 at the little town of Yalery in Savoy, 70 in Sweden; and a single judge, named Remy, boasted that he himself had been the means of putting to death in sixteen years 800 witches.—Natal Sermons, XX.—XXII.
Theodore Parker.
The ecclesiastical idea of God involves the Devil.
In the ecclesiastical conception of God there is a deep background of evil. Now and then the mysterious cloud is miraculously lifted, and lets men see the mountain summits of anger, vengeance, jealousy and hate, and imagine the whole chain of malignity, Andes and Himalayas of wrath, hid underneath the veil. Out of this dark mass of evil in himself he created the devil—absolutely evil—and hell, both to last for ever, each a finality. The devil is also a child of God, but not acknowledged, an outlying member of the divine family, the Ishmael of the universe, his hand against God, and God’s against him. But after this mass of evil is subtracted and embodied in the devil, it is plain that evil still preponderates in the theological conception of God: for he does not bring the human race to a close, but still goes on creating new children of wrath, bowed down with the “sin” of “Adam’s fall,” before their birth doomed to eternal wretchedness. He might pardon, but he will not; stop creation, but he keeps the world going on, spawning whole shoals of people wherewith to fatten hell! He might at least annihilate the damned; bnt even that were too merciful for his vindictive wrath; they must writhe in their agony for ever!
Yet, though evil so far preponderates in the ecclesiastical idea of God, as shewn in his conduct, some humane mercy is also ascribed to him, with corresponding acta. He wishes to save a few brands from the burning of the world, to give some other men glimpses of a prospect of escape from ruin. So he prepares a “scheme of redemption” for a few—exceptions to the ruin of the rest.
The Devil a marplot.
God cannot accomplish his purposes; the devil, his perpetual enemy, routs him in every great battle, and at last will fill an immense hell with the damned. God does not know how his own contrivance will work until set a-going, and then its wheels do not run in human history as in the Divine head. Thus “the fall of Adam” is as much a surprise to God as to man; only the serpent understood it beforehand. While God loves some, he hates more. Voluntarily he created the devil, who is now a being absolutely evil. The devil is not merely a mistake and failure, but an intended marplot of the universe, a premeditated contradiction. This fly in the ointment of the apothecary does no good in heaven, earth or hell, and is devised and intended for no good, helping neither any benevolent purpose of God, nor the development of man.
No trace of the Devil to be found anyichere.
The devil, a personal being, totally and absolutely evil, with immense power which he uses to thwart God and ruin men, you find not on the face of the earth to-day, no footsteps of him in “the Old Eed Sandstone,” not a track of his step amid all the “Vestiges of the Xatural History of Creation;” no detective police could ever find the faintest scent of this creature. Ask the minister, “How do you know there is such a devil?” and he answers, “It is a doctrine of the divine and miraculous revelation.” Ask again, “How do you know the revelation is divine and miraculous, from God?” and if he be an honest man and understand his profession, he will say, “I do not know; I only find it convenient to assume it.” Works; Trubner’s edition.
George Combe.
Physical and mental science puts Satan to flight.
In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, divines and the people at large, both in England and Scotland, were in full possession of the Scriptures. The Reformation was completed and printing was in active operation; yet in those countries clergymen sat as judges, and condemned old women to the flames as witches. Now what was the cause of this barbarity? At that time there was neither physical nor mental science; the phenomena of nature were believed to be under the influence of magicians, of evil spirits, of the devil; and those unhappy victims of ignorance, cruelty and superstition, were believed to be in league with these powers of darkness. It was the dawn of physical philosophy which opened up the creation to the human intellect, and revealed it as the vast domain of God; whereas before that dawn, ignorant divines, with the Bible in their hands, had mistaken it for the realm of the devil. It was science that delivered the clergy and their flocks from the practice of atrocious cruelties, from which the unaided Bible had not sufficed to protect them. It is no disparagement to the Bible to say this, because it was never intended to supersede the study of God’s will as revealed in the records of creation; and in falling into superstition, the clergy and people were suffering the penalty of having omitted to discharge that duty to God and to themselves.—Moral Philosophy, p. 423. 1840.
11. Last Words
1. Explanatory.
In sustaining the character of representing the shady side of human nature, and consequently in asserting on my own behalf the sunny side, I may have appeared to some to attenuate sin and wickedness. This I by no means have meant to do. Whether I am a personal being or not, none the less are sin and wickedness abominable and ruinous. As I in my real, that is my human relations, decline and decay, those terrors become less formidable, and when the happy day of my extinction is come, they will have disappeared. Between this and then there is a long interval. Meanwhile the old conflict has to be waged. Darkness will withstand light, and light will strive to drive darkness away. In this battle every human being must take a part, and as he sides with the one or the other, so is he great or mean, noble or ignoble, a true man or a veritable beast. In publishing this Autobiography, I take my stand on the side of God, and accordingly against Satanism of all kinds and wherever found. In one sense I fight against myself. As the champion of the good qualities of the human race, and an asserter of God’s everlasting verities and laws, I assail moral lawlessness as moral lawlessness, and uphold virtue and religion as virtue and religion. My great aim is to explode the shams and shows which pass under those sacred names, in order that they may be superseded by their corresponding realities. Thus I undermine myself only to own, assert and honour God. But I cannot undermine myself without directing my blows against those in high station, as well as those in low station, who nominally take as their motto, as do, for instance, the disciples of Loyola, In majorem Dei gloriam (For the greater glory of God), while all they do is of a character as if they meant, In majorem sui gloriam—their own aggrandizement, or, which is pretty much the same thing, the aggrandizement of the pope or the priest. Whether pope, priest, prince or populace, it is all the same to me; hating evil, I proscribe it; loving good, I foster it. And now then I hope it will be clearly understood that I have described the innumerable evils which Satanism has produced, in order to set mankind free from those terrible harpies. Satanism once superseded, man stands in the immediate presence of his Maker. He has no cover, no pretext, no excuse for his misdeeds. “Mea culpa, mea culpa” (Mine is the blame, mine is the blame), he is compelled to feel, if not to say. No longer can he lay his wickedness to my account, no longer can he impute it to a taint of nature, or to the transgression of the founder of his family. Bearing the responsibility, he must bear the penalty also. “Change your mind, or endure your punishment.” This righteous law of the righteous Governor of the universe he in time finds no less unchangeable than righteous. Submission ensues, and the person the tenor of whose life was a continual breach of the Divine order, enters into harmony with it, and in becoming obedient, he becomes peaceful, and may ascend even into spiritual beatitude. The history of one man is the history of all men.
Can so grand a result be made grander by Satanism? What then does the popular Satan but confound the great issues of the moral universe? Not a problem connected therewith but he confuses and darkens. He is indeed the one great stumbling-block of earth, whilst he is also the thunder-cloud which overshadows and disturbs even heaven itself.
2. To the Real Priests.
I do not wish to part with you in anger. I have said plain things of you and to you. You have done the same by me. Perhaps, could we count and weigh offences, those for which I am answerable are neither greater in number nor more weighty. However, as I wish to shake hands before we part, I ask pardon if I have been over-severe. Doubtless we shall meet again—but in which world I will not presume to determine. But wherever it may be, I should not like that either of us should be full of enmity. However, to shew my goodwill, I take my leave of you with a word or two of advice.
Beyond a doubt, if my reign is over, yours is coming to an end. When I am gone, your case will be desperate. And going I really am. Do you not see that, whereas I used to be everywhere, now I am all but’nowhere? The literary men treat me with the intense scorn of utter silence. Even in novels I am of no service. Moral philosophy simply ignores me. Men of science smile when my name is mentioned. I am utterly banished from good society. Not even as an expletive is my name used—except, it may be, by thick-headed squires or frequenters of tap-rooms. Nay, all the higher religious literature is exempt from even an allusion to me. I am, however, turned to some account in certain pulpits; but their quality does but measure the thoroughness of my decay. Under these circumstances, I seriously advise you to “renounce the devil and all his works/’ not in word, but in deed. Depend upon it, if you cling to me much longer, you will not save me from the approaching billows, but inevitably you will be submerged yourselves. Farewell; I hear the soughing of the incoming ocean: save yourselves. Farewell!
3. My claim on the gratitude of the human race.
If I know myself, I have not, in preparing these Memoirs for the press, been actuated by any form of gross selfishness. I shall not then tarnish my repute with posterity by here at the last putting forward any claim to superior merit. But I do ask for gratitude. I have certainly aimed to render some service to mankind. I have witnessed the crushing load of evil under which they groaned of yore through the use that was made of me and my alleged appurtenances. I leave the world in a measure relieved. To that most desirable result this Autobiography will, I hope, conduce in some measure. If, then, I am not mistaken, I have conferred some good on the human race. Let it be acknowledged; not on my account, for I have no longer any vivid interest in anything done under the sun, but as a proof that at any rate the vice of ingratitude no longer infests the world. That extinct, a pregnant excuse for believing in my existence will exist no longer.
The service I have rendered (if any), I have no wish to exaggerate. The monstrosities occasioned through me by my abettors, denote and measure the amount of distress and woe men have in consequence endured. As is the malignity of the disease, so is the benefit of the cure. Every preceding page declares the two either implicitly or explicitly.
4. The Epic closes.
Yes! nothing less than the grand and awful conflict which has from the earliest ages proceeded on this globe between good and evil, conscience and ill-regulated desire, obedience and disobedience, regard to God’s eternal laws and disregard of them, have we, gentle Eeader, been surveying under the old and once recognized antithesis of God and Satan, from which the latter member has been eliminated, leaving God, and God alone, as the one Supreme Creator, Governor and Benefactor of the universe. Yet the ancient contrariety, changed in form, remains in substance, and must remain, until sin and death, man’s great and last enemies, are slain, when “God shall be all in all” (1 Cor. xv. 24, seq.). Meanwhile, alas for those that withstand the Divine will and power, whether by taking part with moral evil, or by giving support to theological falsity! Yet they too will finally be made concurrent elements in the universal harmony; even, if necessary, by the severest discipline; for the Almighty Eather cannot, and will not, be foiled in his purposes of love toward his children of the human race.
The Saviour comes! by ancient bards foretold:
Hear him, ye deaf! and all ye blind, behold!
He from thick films shall purge the visual ray,
And on the sightless eye-ball pour the day;
‘Tis he th’ obstructed paths of sound shall clear,
And bid new music charm th’ unfolding ear:
The dumb shall sing; the lame his crutch forego,
And leap exulting like the bounding roe.
No sigh, no murmur, the wide world shall hear,
From every face he wipes off every tear.
In adamantine chains shall Death be bound,
And hell’s grim tyrant feel th’ eternal wound.
As the good shepherd tends his fleecy care,
Seeks freshest pasture and the purest air,
Explores the lost, the wandering sheep directs,
By day o’ersees them, and by night protects;
The tender lambs he raises in his arms,
Feeds from his hand and in his bosom warms;
Thus shall mankind his guardian care engage,
The promised Father of the future age.
Pope.
My dissolution, to which I have repeatedly pointed, is actually portended in a Teutonic myth relating to myself. The legend runs to this effect. On a certain occasion I came upon a man who was making buttons. Struck by the singularity of the employment, I asked him, “What are you doing?” ”I am making eyes.” “Mine are nearly worn out; can you supply me with a new pair?” ”Come again this day month and you shall know.” I kept the appointment and repeated my question. “Yes, but you must first submit to be bound.” “A small price,” I replied, “for so great a good.” Thereupon I was bound. Then the operator, having me in his power, poured melted lead into my eye-balls. Tortured and enraged, I made a tremendous effort and tore myself loose. Rushing over a field, I met some peasants. “What is the matter?” they asked. “Who is that villain?” was my reply. “His name is Self.” “Would I had dashed out his brains before I underwent the operation!” “Then,” was the taunt, “you would have performed the wise operation of braining yourself. For to your own stupidity you owe your wounds.” Tradition makes me to have died of my agonies. Tradition, as often, is here incorrect. And yet it did not speak in vain, for it teaches that wickedness is self-destructive infatuation. And so, though I still linger on in life, I know that my days are numbered.
5. Great Pan is dead!
Epithases, pupil of Cleombrotus, having, according to Plutarch, embarked with several others on board a vessel in order to sail to Italy, found himself in a dead calm near one of the islands of the iEgean Sea. While most of the passengers were indulging in wine after supper, a voice was suddenly heard from the island. It called out the name of the pilot, Thomas, so loud as to alarm every one in the ship. The pilot not having replied, the same voice, only in a louder and more penetrating tone, bade him on reaching a certain port announce these words: Great Pan is dead!
Amazement brought a number of persons around Thomas. What would he do? What ought to be done? A kind of spontaneous council resolved that if the wind was strong enough to carry the vessel beyond the island, the fact should be accounted a divine indication that the voice was no illusion. The wind sank more and more as the ship neared the island, and at last, passing on, gently glided into the intended port. No sooner was the anchor cast than Thomas shouted out,
Great Pan is dead!
The words echoed from the vessel to the shore, from the shore to the neighbouring range of hills; from the hills it ran through the vales. The vales sent it into the villages, and the villages united to transmit it to the capital, where it was taken up and reverberated by man, woman and child, all over the surface of the city, until the sounds gathered into one assemblage which proclaimed in tones of thunder the fearful word:
Great Pan is dead!
The proclamation was followed by wailings and groanings innumerable, until the air was filled with grief and woe, when of a sudden a dense and widely-spread cloud arose which shrouded the heavens above and made dark night universal.
This ancient legend betokens the intense attachment which the sons of men have felt for me. The product of their own infirmities, I have been the object of their love and even of their worship. Living in those, their deep and ineradicable affections, I have been able to disregard decay and defy dissolution. But the breezes of a new spirit are beginning to blow. The vessel in which I sail is carried past the sleepy island, and already she is standing out into the main of human intelligence and pure religion. The air is too aerial and elastic for my lungs. I fetch my breath with difficulty, and already am so much reduced in strength, that I can only murmur out the announcement,
Great Pan is dead!
Farewell, my children. You have become adult, and hence-forwards will do far better without me than you did while under my inspiration! Farewell! farewell!
Satan.
6. The Pith of the Volume.
“Sin’s sic an awfa’ thing! And I hae sinned sae often and sae lang, that maybe He’ll be forced efter a’ to sen’ me to the bottomless pit.”
“Hoot, hoot, Tam’as! dinna speyk sic awful things,” said Dow. “They’re dreadfu’ to hearken till. I’s warran’ He’s as kin’-hertil as yersel.”
“I said, he might be forced to sen’ me efter a’”
“What, Tam’as!” cried Cupples. “He cudna save ye! Wi’ the Son and the Speerit to help him? and a willin’ hert in you forbye? Fegs! ye hae a greater opinion o’ Sawtan nor I gied ye the discredit o’.”
“Ka, na; it’s nae Sawtan. It’smysel’. I wadna lay mair wyte upo’ Sawtan’s shouthers nor ‘s his ain. He has eneuch already, puir fallow!”
“Ye’ll be o’ auld Eobbie Burns’s opinion, that he ‘aiblins micht still hae a stake.’”
“Na, na; he has nane. Burns was nae prophet.”
“But jist suppose, Tam’as—gin the de’il was to repent.”
“Man!” exclaimed the stonemason, rising to. his full height with slow labour after the day’s toil, “it wad be cruel to gar Mm repent. It wad be ower sair upon him. Better kill him. The bitterness o’ sic repentance wad be ower terrible. It wad be mair nor he cud bide. It wad brak his hert a’thegither. Ha, na, he has nae chance.”
“Hoo ken ye that?” asked Cupples.
“There’s no sic word i’ the’Scripture.”
“Do ve think He maun tell us a’ thing?”
“We hae nae richt to think onything that He doesna tell’s.” ’
“Fm nae sae sure o’ that, Tam’as. Maybe, whiles, he does na tell’s a thing jist to gar ‘s think about it, and be ready for the time whan he will tell’s.”—George Macdonald.
THE END
