LUTHERANS AND SCIENCE.

287

cognise Luther's devil when, at the annual assembly of Lutheran Pastors in Berlin (Sept. 1877), he reappeared as the Rev. Professor Grau, and said, 'Not a few listen. to those striving to combine Christ with Belial, to reconcile redeeming truth with modern science and culture.' But though they who take the name of Luther in vain may thus join hands with the Devil, at whom the Reformer threw his inkstand, the combat will still go on, and the University Belial do the brave work of Bel till beneath his feet lies the dragon of Darkness whether disguised as Pope or Protestant.

If the Church wishes to know precisely how far the roughness pardonable in the past survives unpardonably in itself, let its clergy peruse carefully the following translation by Mr. Leland of a poem by Heine; and realise that the Devil portrayed in it is, by grace of its own prelates, at present the most admired personage in every Court and fashionable drawing-room in Christendom.

I called the Devil, and he came :
In blank amaze his form I scan.
He is not ugly, is not lame,

But a refined, accomplished man,—
One in the very prime of life,

At home in every cabinet strife,

Who, as diplomatist, can tell

Church and State news extremely well.

He is somewhat pale—and no wonder either,
Since he studies Sanskrit and Hegel together.
His favourite poet is still Fonqué.

Of criticism he makes no mention,

Since all such matters unworthy attention
He leaves to his grandmother, Hecaté.

He praised my legal efforts, and said

That he also when younger some law had read,
Remarking that friendship like mine would be
An acquisition, and bowed to me,-
Then asked if we had not met before,

At the Spanish Minister's soiree?
And, as I scanned his face once more,
I found I had known him for many a day.

и

( 288 )

CHAPTER XXIV.

WITCHCRAFT.

Minor gods-Saint and Satyr-Tutelaries-Spells-Early Christianity and the poor-Its doctrine as to pagan deities-Mediæval Devils - Devils on the stage-An Abbot's revelations — The fairer deities-Oriental dreams and spirits-Calls for Nemesis-Lilith and her children-Neoplatonicism-Astrology and AlchemyDevil's College-Shem-hammphorásch-Apollonius of TyanaFaustus-Black Art Schools-Compacts with the Devil-Bloodcovenant-Spirit-seances in old times-The Fairfax delusionOrigin of its devil-Witch, goat, and cat-Confessions of Witches -Witchcraft in New England-Witch trials-Salem demonology -Testing witches—Witch trials in Sweden-Witch Sabbath— Mythological elements-Carriers-Scotch Witches-The cauldron -Vervain-Rue-Invocation of Hecaté-Factors of Witch persecution Three centuries of massacre-Würzburg horrors—Last victims-Modern Spiritualism.

ST. CYPRIAN saw the devil in a flower.1 That little vision may report more than many more famous ones the consistency with which the first christians had developed the doctrine that nature is the incarnation of the Evil Spirit. It reports to us the sense of many sounds and sights which were heard and seen by ears and eyes trained for such and no other, all showing that the genii of nature and beauty were vanishing from the earth. Over the Ægean sea were heard lamentations and the voice, 'Great Pan is dead!'

1 S. Cyp. ap. Muratori, Script. it. i. 295, 545. The Magicians used to call their mirrors after the name of this flower-devil-Fiorone. M. Maury, 'La Magie,' 435 n.

Augustus consults the oracle of Apollo and receives reply

Me puer Hebræus, Divos Deus ipse gubernans,
Cedere sede jubet, tristremque redire sub orcum;
Aris ergo dehinc tacitis abscedito nostris.

But while the rage of these Fathers towards all the great gods and goddesses, who in their grand temples represented the pride of life,' was remorseless, they were comparatively indifferent to the belief or disbelief of the lower classes in their small tutelary divinities. They appear almost to have encouraged belief in these, perhaps appreciating the advantages of the popular custom of giving generous offerings to such personal and domestic patrons. At a very early period there seems to have arisen an idea of converting these more plebeian spirits into guardian angels with christian names. Thus Jerome relates in his Life of the first Hermit Paul, that when St. Anthony was on his way to visit that holy man, he encountered a Centaur who pointed out the way; and next a human-like dwarf with horns, hooked fingers, and feet like those of a goat. St. Anthony believing this to be an apparition of the Devil, made the sign of the Cross; but the little man, nowise troubled by this, respectfully approached the monk, and having been asked who he was, answered: 'I am a mortal, and one of those inhabitants of the Desert whom the Gentiles in their error worship under the names of Fauns, Satyrs, and Incubi: I am delegated by my people to ask of thee to pray for us to our common God, who we know has descended for the salvation of the world, and whose praises resound in all the earth.' At this glorification of Christ St. Anthony was transported with joy, and turning towards Alexandria he cried, 'Woe to thee, adulterous city, which adorest animals as gods!'

Perhaps the evolution of these desert demons into good christians would have gone on more rapidly and completely if the primitive theologians had known as much of their history as comparative mythology has disclosed to the modern world. St. Anthony was, however, fairly on the track of them when he turned towards Alexandria. Egypt appears to have been the especial centre from which were distributed through the world the fetish guardians of provinces, towns, households and individuals. Their Serapes reappear in the Teraphim of Laban, and many of the forms they used reappear in the Penates, Lares, and genii of Latin countries. All these in their several countries were originally related to its ancient religion or mythology, but before the christian era they were very much the same in Egypt, Greece, and Italy. They were shaped in many different, but usually natural forms, such as serpents, dogs, boys, and old men, though often some intimation was given of their demonic character. They were so multiplied that even plants and animals had their guardians. The anthropomorphic genii called the Patrii, who were supposed to preside over provinces, were generally represented bearing weapons with which they defended the regions of which they were patrons. These were the Averrunci or Apotropai.

There are many interesting branches of this subject which cannot be entered into here, and others have already been considered in the foregoing parts of this work. It is sufficient for my present purpose to remark, that, in the course of time, all the households of the world had traditional guardians; these were generally represented in some shape on amulets and talismans, on which were commonly inscribed the verbal charms by which the patron could be summoned. In the process of further time the amulets— especially such as were reproduced by tribes migrating

from the vicinity of good engravers-might be marked only with the verbal charms; these again were, in the end, frequently represented only by some word or name. This was the 'spell.' Imagination fails in the effort to conceive how many strata of extinct deities had bequeathed to the ancient Egyptians those mystical names whose exact utterance they believed would constrain each god so named to appear and bind him to serve the invoker's purpose whether good or evil. This idea continued among the Jews and shaped the commandment, 'Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.'

It was in these diminutive forms that great systems survived among the common people. Amid natural convulsions ancient formations of faith were broken into fragments; in the ebb and flow of time these fragments were smoothed, as it were, into these talismanic pebbles. Yet each of these conveyed all the virtue which had been derived from the great and costly ceremonial system from which it originally crumbled; the virtue of soothing the mind and calming the nerves of sufferers with the feeling that, though they might have been assailed by hostile powers, they had friendly powers too who were active in their behalf-Vindicators, to recall Job's phrase—who at last would stand by them to the end. In the further ebb and flow of generations the mass of such charms are further pulverised into sand or into mud; but not all of them amid the mud will be found many surviving specimens, and such mud of accumulated superstitions is always susceptible of being remoulded after such lingering models, should occasion demand.

Erasmus, in his 'Adages,' suggests that it was from these genii of the Gentiles' that the christians derived their

1 This whole subject is treated, and with ample references, in M. Maury's 'Magie,' p. 41, seq.