In our next paper we shall discuss what was the effect of this arrangement on the happiness and character of women.

Cato and Marcia marry again voluntarily | tained in it. And there is one picture of and legally. Marriage existed so long as him, that, namely, which is to be found in both parties were fully agreed; and the Cadmon's poems, in which he differs in only obstacle to a dissolution of the mar- no important respect from the Devil as riage was the necessity of carrying it out conceived in the Bible. The somewhat in a strictly legal manner, and the duty of shadowy outlines of his character are, no consulting near relatives. doubt, filled up and dramatized, but the conception is dignified and tragic, and perfectly free from that grotesque or comic element which is seldom wanting in the Devil of the Middle Ages. A chief point of interest in Cædmon's poem, which, whether originally written in England or on the Continent, is one of the greatest ornaments of early English literature, is the striking resemblances which it presents to the corresponding portion of "Paradise Lost," coincidences which can hardly be merely accidental, especially as Cadmon was first edited in Milton's day

JAMES DONALDSON.

From The National Review. THE CHARACTER OF THE DEVIL IN THE MIDDLE AGES.

Anglo-Saxon was too slight to enable him to take advantage of its publication, he might at least have become acquainted with it at second hand. Some of these points of likeness will be noticed as they occur.

IT must have occurred to many, in reading those stories of the Devil which were current in the Middle Ages, that the char-(1655); and even if his own knowledge of acter there ascribed to him is widely different from that which we find in the Bible. He has lost all his dignity; he is no longer the great enemy of God, but the petty persecutor of men. Even his vices have become dwarfed; while in one virtue, fidelity to the letter of his contracts, he almost sets an example to his victims. It is the object of this paper to sketch and illustrate this new conception of his character, and, as far as may be, to trace the causes of its degradation.

The starting point, if only for the sake of contrast, must be the Devil of the Bible; the angel who fell through pride, who tempted man to his ruin, who received power over Job's body, to try if by any means he might lead him to curse God in his misery, who led on Ahab to his destruction, who did his utmost to defeat the purpose of Christ by tempting him and leading Judas to betray him, who lost his prey when (according to the old interpretation of 1 Peter iii. 19) "He who harwed Helle" delivered thence the fathers of the Old Testament, who is finally to fight with St. Michael and the angels, to be conquered and bound in Hell forever. This is the Devil with whom we have to contrast the Devil of the Middle Ages, but it is not a mere contrast. The character of the one is founded on the character of the other, for the theologians of the Middle Ages, however much they may have been disqualified for understanding the Bible by the tendency of the times to materialism and anthropomorphism, were inferior to no Scotch Covenanter in their knowledge of the text, or in their power of extracting from it information of doctrine which was not con

Of the ten ranks of angels, then, whom God created above all, to whom He trusted that they would do His will, since He had given them mind and wrought them with His hand,* one had He made so strong, so mighty in the thought of his mind, He gave him so much rule that he was highest next to Him in Heaven's kingdom; so white had He made him, so winsome was his form in Heaven that came to him from the Lord of Hosts, he was like the bright stars. He was to work the glory of the Lord, and thank Him for the gift that He assigned him in the light. Dear was he to our Lord. But he began boastful words, and would not serve God; he thought how, through his own might, he might make him a stronger higher throne in Heaven. West and north he began to work, fortresses he built. 'Why should I trouble myself?' said he; there is no need at all for me to have a lord, so many wonders may I work with my hands.

If thou beest he; but, O, how fallen, how changed
From him who, in the happy realms of light,
Clothed with transcendent brightness, didst outshine
Myriads, though bright!

† Cf.

(Paradise Lost, book i., 1. 84.)

Then he spake in word, thirsty for strife,

That he, in the north part of Heaven's kingdom,

Would have a home and throne,

Angeli mali.
Goddys myth we forsake,
And for more wurthy we the take;
The to wurchip honowre we make,
And ffalle down at thi fete.

Deus.

The Lucyfere ffor thi mekyl pryde,
And alle tho that holdyn on thi syde,
I bydde the ffalle from hefne to helle,
In my blysse nevyr more to dwelle.

banished him. He has his "thegns" or
"comites," who owe all to him and are
ready to live and die with him even in
Hell. Such throughout the early history
of our nation was the closeness of this
artificial tie. He has been God's "vas-
sal;" now God has renounced his alle-
giance "defied" him, in the feudal
sense of the term. But when we look
deeper into the motives and passions
upon which the action turns, it is pride
here as in Milton, the "high disdain from
sense of injured merit," that led him first
to rebel; pride prevents him from owning
his fault, the first step to restitution; dis-
dain that "man wrought of earth" should
have his throne, and the wish to have
subjects to rule, even in Hell, as well as
the meaner passion of envy, make him
turn his attacks towards the earth. But
Satan himself, according to the common
mediæval notion, founded on Jude 5, 6,
lies bound in Hell; it is only through his
servants that he can carry out his plans.
There is here no element of comedy, no I
trace of the process which at last made
the Devil to the popular mind no less
ridiculous than he was repulsive and mali-
cious.

In contrast to this, let us turn to another version of the same story, which is to be found in the mystery play of the fifteenth century, acted every year on Corpus Christi day by the Franciscans of Coventry. It will be seen how the character of the Devil has been degraded in the interval. At the commencement of the play God appears, to whom the angels sing: "Tibi omnes Angeli, tibi cæli et universæ potestates, tibi Cherubyn et Seraphyn incessabili voce proclamant-Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus, Dominus Deus Sabaoth."

Then Lucifer begins:

To whos wurchipe synge ye this songe,
To wurchipe God or reverens me?
But ye me wurchip, ye do me wronge,
Ffor I am the wurthyest that ever may be.

The good angels answer that they wor ship God. Then Lucifer replies:

A worthyer lorde forsothe am I,

And worthyer than he evyr wyl I be;
In evydens that I am more wurthy,
I wyl go syttyn in Goddes se.
Above sunne and mone and starres on sky
I am now set as ye may se;
Now wurchyp me ffor most mythty,
An for your lord honowre now me
Syttyng in my sete.

If there is any doubt that the Devil, who, in this scene, goes and sits on God's throne, is meant for a comic character, there can be none when he leaves the stage with a coarse joke. In the temptation of Eve, he assigns "gret envy, wrethe, and wyckyd hate as his motives; there is nothing left of the pride of Lucifer. And in the scene called "The Council of the Jews," he appears distinctly as a comedian.

Demon.

am your Lord Lucifer that out of helle cam, Wherefore my name is clepyd Sere Satan, Prince of this werd, and great duke of helle, Whiche aperyth among you a matere to spelle.

Lo thus bounteous a lord than now am I,
To reward so synners, as my kind is,
Whoso wole folwe my lore and serve me dayly,
Of sorwe and peyne anow he xal nevyr mys.

Then he describes the gifts which he makes to his servants, "off fyne cordewan a goodly peyre of long pekyd schon," and other fineries to make them vain. "With syde lokkys (says he) I schrewe thin here (hair) to thi colere hanging downe, to harborwe queke bestes that tekele men onyth (at night)." The whole passage is a satire on the dress of the times, and is undoubtedly meant to be comic. He takes his leave thus:

Remembre, oure servauntes, whoys sowlys ben mortalle,

Ffor I must remeffe for more materys to provyde;

I am with you at all times when to councel ye me call,

But for a short tyme myself I devoyde."

The Devil has thus become the comic character of the mystery plays, and one cause of this is not far to seek. This play, for example, contains all the more striking points in the Bible history, reaching from the fall of the angels to the day of judgment, so that we are not surprised to learn that once, when Queen Margaret

radation.

came to see it, "domesday might not be | ately after he saw the appearances of all pleyde for lak of day." It is a tragedy, kinds of animals, and wild beasts, and or series of tragedies, and the spectators snakes, coming in to him. First he saw cannot be expected to witness a tragic the face of a lion, that threatened him with entertainment lasting the greater part of a its bloody teeth; also the likeness of a day without some relief in the shape of bull, and the visage of a bear, as when they comedy for their overwrought feelings. are enraged. So, also, he perceived the But the play was, like the Greek tragedy appearance of adders, and a hog's gruntor the Ammergau Passion-play, a religious ing, and the howling of wolves, and croakservice as well. For this reason, if for ing of ravens, and various whistling of no other, none of the remaining characters birds; that they might with their assumed could be turned into ridicule; the Devil, shapes turn away the mind of the holy therefore, alone was left to supply the man." So, too, long before, in the case comedy to fill the place of the nurse in of St. Antony, according to the life of the "Choephora," or the grave diggers in him attributed to St. Athanasius, the dev"Hamlet." There is also an obvious ils, "putting on the form of beasts and pleasure in insulting your enemy and mak- serpents, filled the whole place with aping him ridiculous. Still, he could not pearances of lions, bulls, wolves, asps, have become a comedian all at once; some serpents, and of leopards and bears. And preparation was required for this great each of these made the noise natural to change in his character. And we must it: the lions roared, desiring to kill him; now briefly consider the causes of his deg- the bull threatened him with bellowing and with horns; the serpent hissed; the First among these stands the tendency leopard, by his spotted back, showed the of the Middle Ages to wrest Scripture, various craft of him who sent him." He to convert symbols and metaphors into also appeared to St. Antony "in the shape facts. St. Peter compares the Devil in which Job saw him," for Behemoth was to a roaring lion; it was instantly sup- thought to be nothing else but the Devil. posed that he was in the habit of actually "His eyes were as it were lamps, out of assuming that shape. Christ said to his his mouth go burning torches. His hair disciples, "Behold I send you forth as is sprinkled with fire, from his nostrils sheep in the midst of wolves; "the Devil goeth forth smoke as of furnace of burnmust, therefore, appear in the likeness ing coals. His breath is as a live coal, of a wolf. The Devil tempted Eve in the flame rolls from his mouth. He esteemform of a serpent, and he is called, "that eth iron as straw, and brass as rotten old serpent, the Devil," in the Apoca- wood." The saint saw him, too, in a comlypse; he therefore torments the saints in posite shape, like a degraded centaur, a the likeness of snakes. "Deliver... man above and an ass below. A somemy darling from the power of the dog," what similar instance is where, in the life said David, and so in the legend the Devil of St. Martin of Tours, he enters into an frequently makes his appearance as a ox and kills a hired servant of the saint. black dog. And thus the same Bible He then bursts into the saint's cell with a which supplied Cadmon with so grand a bloody horn in his hand, saying, "Where, conception of the enemy of God and of Martin, is your power? I have just killed mankind, was made the authority for de- one of your men!" This belief in the grading him to the level of beasts, by the conversion of the Devil into beasts, or of simple process of taking isolated passages beasts into the Devil, while it accounts for apart from their context, and interpreting the many representations of him in meditheir words in a way never intended by æval art as an animal, or with some of the the writer. In all these cases "the in-members of an animal, was also the cause ward part or thing signified" is the cruelty or craft of the animal, but this to the mediæval theologian merely makes it a suitable form under which the Devil may visibly appear.

of the substitution of a certain amount of brute ferocity for intelligent wickedness in some of the legends about him. It also tends to degrade him and make him ridiculous. But far more important features in his character and history are to be traced to the influence of heathenism.

Let us take an instance from the life of St. Guthlac, hermit of Crowland, written in the eighth century. "It happened one As before, we must go back to the Bible night, when the holy man Guthlac fell to as a starting-point for the identification of his prayers, that he heard the bellowing of the Devil with heathen deities. St. Paul cattle and various wild beasts. Immedi-had said that “the things which the hea

"Wild Huntsman," and the "Wild Huntsman" became identified with the Devil, as in the opera "Der Freischütz." But there were in the mythology which our Saxon fathers shared with the Norsemen certain other deities who in their history or character bore a far closer resemblance to the Devil of the Jewish and Christian religions, and many of their characteristics were accordingly transferred to him. Foremost amongst these is Loki, a god of a mischievous disposition, malignant towards the gods after his quarrel with them, and whose great crime was the mur

light of the gods, the best and purest deity of the northern religion. For this he was chained in Nastrond, or Hell, whence he will come in "the twilight of the gods," to do battle with them and their servants in Valhalla, together with his children, the wolf Fenrir and the Midgard serpent (or serpent of the earth). He will at last be slain by the son of Balder, and then there will be new heavens and a new earth, and Allfather will reign once more.

then sacrifice they sacrifice unto devils, and not to God," though he did not commit himself to the opinion that Zeus and Aphrodite, Nisroch, Moloch, or Vulcan, were actually names of particular devils. But this further step was soon taken. Just as the Jews converted Beelzebub, the Lord of Flies, into the prince of the Devils, so it was laid down by the Fathers that the gods of Greece and Rome were so many demons. The transition was, no doubt, helped by the somewhat ambiguous meaning of daiμwv, Sayμóvrov. In the Vulgate the 5th verse of the 96th Psalm runs thus: "Quoniam omnes dii gentium dæ-der of Balder by craft — Balder, the demonia: Dominus autem cœlos fecit." And so the Devil appeared to St. Martin in the character of Jupiter, Mercury, and Minerva. "Jupiter, Venus, and other demons," were invoked by infallible popes, such as John XII. and Boniface VIII., to give them success in gambling. But, after all, the chief gods of the old religion contributed but little to the medieval Devil, perhaps because they were too essentially human. It was otherwise when the scene of the contest between Christ and the false Then unsown the swath shall flourish, gods was transferred from the city to the All bale mend, and back come Baldr. country, the last stronghold of the old worship; when the "pagans," the people The whole story is to be found in Mr. Matof the villages, had to be converted, who, thew Arnold's "Balder Dead." It is hardly like the "heathen," the dwellers on the necessary to point out the numerous points heath, were the last to part with their old in this legend in which Loki corresponds ideas. Then the half-animal satyr or faun to the Devil; it has indeed been supposed was degraded still further, and, with a few that the legend itself has been colored and additional touches, such as the teeth of a shaped through the influence of Christianlion and the property of vomiting fire, heity, by those who thought the resemblance with horns, hoofs, long ears, and tail, sup- too strong to be otherwise accounted for. plied the Devil with his most usual legen- As the Devil betrays Christ to death by dary shape. But it was the religion of the means of Judas, so Loki does not himself north which had the greatest influence in kill Balder, or in his own person prevent forming his character. All the gods of his resurrection. Satan sends a serpent the Teutonic race were, of course, treated to tempt Eve, and, as we shall see, this as devils; such had long been the estab-serpent was often considered as his son; lished doctrine, and it is easier to persuade he is cast down into Hell, and will at the a convert that the god he had worshipped end of the world fight in the great final was all the time a devil, than that he never conflict with Christ and his saints. It is really had any existence at all. So the not, therefore, strange if Loki was practiheathen worship is called by St. Gregory cally identified with the Devil, as when in the Great the worship of devils, and the Iceland a smell like that of rancid butter, English convert at his baptism was asked supposed to mark the presence of an evil if he renounced the demons Woden and spirit, was called the smell of Loki. And Thonar (Thor or Thunder). As an in- many attributes have been transferred stance of the identification of the latter from Loki to the Devil, which hardly begod with the Devil, we find, according to long to the latter in his more orthodox Kemble, in a district of Surrey evidently form. First of all he has a mother, the devoted to the worship of Thor, not only devil's dam," of whom we have heard. Thursley and Thunderhill, but, close to And his genealogy is sometimes carried these, three mounds called the Devil's back still further, so that in north GerJumps, and a deep valley called the Devil's many he has a grandmother, Frick, and if Punchbowl. Then, too, Woden is the it rains while the sun shines, they say,

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