Part 39 (1/2)
In Stockholm I saw the so-called Devil's Bible, the biggest book in the world, in the Royal Library. It is literally as they describe it, 'gigas librorum': no single man can lift it from the floor. It was part of the booty carried off by the Swedes after the surrender of Prague, A.D. 1648. It contains three hundred parchment leaves, each one made of an a.s.s's hide, the cover being of oak planks, 1 1/2 inches thick. It contains the Old and New Testaments; Josephi Flavii Antiquitates Judaicae; Isidori Episcopi L. XX. de diversis materiis; Confessio peccatorum; and some other works. The last-named production is written on black and dark brown ground with red and yellow letters. Here and there sentences are marked 'haec sunt suspecta,' 'superst.i.tiosa,'
'prohibita.' One MS., which is headed, 'Experimentum de furto et febribus', is a treatise in Monkish Latin on the exorcism of ghosts and evil spirits, charms against thieves and sickness, and various prescriptions in 'White Magic.' The age of the book is considerably over three hundred years. The autograph of a German emperor is in it: 'Ferdinandus Imperator Romanorum, A.D. 1577.' The volume is known in Sweden as Fan's Bibel (Devil's Bible). The legend says, that a monk, suspected of black arts, who had been condemned to death, begged for life, and his judge mockingly told him that he would be pardoned only if he should produce next morning all the books here found and in this vast size. The monk invoked the Devil's a.s.sistance, and the ponderous volume was written in a single night. This Devil must have been one who prided himself more on his literary powers than his personal appearance; for the face and form said to be his portrait, frontispiece of the volume, represent a most hideous ape, green and hairy, with horrible curled tusks. It is, no doubt, the ape Anerhahn of the Wagner legends; Burns's 'towzie tyke, black, grim, and large.' [152]
I noticed particularly in this old work the recurrence of deep red letters and sentences similar to the ink which Fust used at the close of his earliest printed volumes to give his name, with the place and date of printing. Now Red is sacred in one direction as symbolising the blood of Christ, but it is also the colour of Judas, who betrayed that blood. Hence, while red letters might denote sacred days and sentences in priestly calendars, they might be supposed mimicry of such sanct.i.ties by 'G.o.d's Ape' if occurring in secular works or books of magic. It is said that these red letters were especially noted in Paris as indications of the diabolical origin of the works so easily produced by Fust; and, though it is uncertain whether he suffered imprisonment, the red lines with his name appear to have been regarded as his signature in blood.
For a long time every successive discovery of science, every invention of material benefit to man, was believed by priest-ridden peoples to have been secured by compact with the devil. The fate of the artist Prometheus, fettered by jealous Jove, was repeated in each who aspired to bring light to man, and some men of genius--such as Cornelius Agrippa, and Paracelsus--appear to have been frightened away from legitimate scientific research by the first connection of their names with sorcery. They had before them the example of the greatest scientific man of the Middle Ages, Roger Bacon, and knew how easily, in the priestly whisper, the chemist's crucible grew to a wizard's cauldron. The time may come when Oxford University will have learned enough to build a true memorial of the grandest man who ever wrote and taught within its walls. It would show Roger Bacon--rectifier of the Julian Calendar, a.n.a.lyst of lenses, inventor of spectacles and achromatic lenses, probable constructor of the first telescope, demonstrator of the chemical action of air in combustion, inventor of the mode of purifying saltpetre and crystallising it into gunpowder, antic.i.p.ator of the philosophical method with which his namesake is credited--looking on a pile of his books for whose researches he had paid two thousand French livres, to say nothing of a life's labour, only to see them condemned by his University, their circulation prohibited; and his sad gaze might be from the prison to which the Council of Franciscans at Paris sentenced him whom Oxford gladly delivered into their hands. He was condemned, says their historian Wadding, 'propter novitates quasdam suspectas.' The suspected novelties were crucibles, retorts, and lenses that made the stars look larger. So was it with the Oxford six hundred years ago. Undeniably some progress had been made even in the last generation, for Sh.e.l.ley was only forbidden to study chemistry, and expelled for his metaphysics. But now that it is claimed that Oxford is no longer partaker with them that stoned investigators and thinkers from Bacon to Sh.e.l.ley, it would be in order to build for its own great martyr of science a memorial, that superst.i.tion may look on one whom it has pierced.
Referring to Luther's inkstand thrown at the Devil, Dr. Zerffii, in his lecture on the Devil, says, 'He (the devil) hates nothing so much as writing or printer's ink.' But the truth of this remark depends upon which of two devils be considered. It would hardly apply to the Serpent who recommended the fruit of knowledge, or to the University man in Lucas van Leyden's picture (Fig. 6). But if we suppose the Devil of Luther's Bible (Fig. 17) to be the one at which the inkstand was thrown, the criticism is correct. The two pictures mentioned may be instructively compared. Luther's Devil is the reply of the University to the Church. These are the two devils--the priest and the scholar--who glared at each other in the early sixteenth century. 'The Devil smelled the roast,' says Luther, 'that if the languages revived, his kingdom would get a hole which he could not easily stop again.' And it must be admitted that some of the monkish execrations of the time, indeed of many times since, have an undertone of Jahvistic jealousy. 'These Knowers will become as one of us.' It must also be admitted that the clerical instinct told true: the University man held in him that sceptical devil who is always the destroyer of the priest's paradise. These two devils which struggled with each other through the sixteenth century still wage their war in the arena of Protestantism. Many a Lutheran now living may remember to have smiled when Hofmann's experiments in discovering carbonic acid gas gained him repute for raising again Mephosto; but perhaps they did not recognise Luther's devil when, at the annual a.s.sembly 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 fas.h.i.+onable 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 Fonque.
Of criticism he makes no mention, Since all such matters unworthy attention He leaves to his grandmother, Hecate.
He praised my legal efforts, and said That he also when younger some law had read, Remarking that friends.h.i.+p 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.
CHAPTER XXIV.
WITCHCRAFT.
Minor G.o.ds--Saint and Satyr--Tutelaries--Spells--Early Christianity and the poor--Its doctrine as to pagan deities--Mediaeval 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 Alchemy--Devil's College--Shem-hammphorasch--Apollonius of Tyana--Faustus--Black Art Schools--Compacts with the Devil--Blood-covenant--Spirit-seances in old times--The Fairfax delusion--Origin 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 Hecate--Factors of Witch persecution--Three centuries of ma.s.sacre--Wurzburg horrors--Last victims--Modern Spiritualism.
St. Cyprian saw the devil in a flower. [153] 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 vanis.h.i.+ng from the earth. Over the aegean sea were heard lamentations and the voice, 'Great Pan is dead!' Augustus consults the oracle of Apollo and receives reply--
Me puer Hebraeus, Divos Deus ipse gubernans, Cedere sede jubet, tristremque redire sub orc.u.m; Aris ergo dehinc tacitis abscedito nostris.
But while the rage of these Fathers towards all the great G.o.ds and G.o.ddesses, who in their grand temples represented 'the pride of life,'
was remorseless, they were comparatively indifferent to the belief or disbelief of the lower cla.s.ses 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 wors.h.i.+p 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 G.o.d, 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 G.o.ds!'
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 Apotropaei.
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 G.o.d so named to appear and bind him to serve the invoker's purpose whether good or evil. [154] This idea continued among the Jews and shaped the commandment, 'Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy G.o.d 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 a.s.sailed 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 ma.s.s 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 acc.u.mulated superst.i.tions 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 notion of each person being attended by two angels, a good and a bad. Probably he was but half right. The peoples to whom he refers did not generally believe that each man was attended by a bad spirit, a personal enemy. That was an honour reserved for individuals particularly formidable to the evil powers,--Adam, Jacob, Hercules, or Zoroaster. The one preternatural power attending each ordinary individual defended him from the general forces of evil. But it was Christianity which, in the gradual effort to subst.i.tute patron-saints and guardian-angels of its own for the pagan genii, turned the latter from friends to enemies, and their protecting into a.s.sailing weapons.
All the hereditary household G.o.ds of what is now called Christendom were diabolised. But in order that the ma.s.ses might turn from them and invoke christian guardians, the Penates, Lares, and genii had to be belittled on the one hand, and the superior power of the saints and angels demonstrated. When Christianity had gained the throne of political power, it was easy to show that the 'imps,' as the old guardians were now called, could no longer protect their invokers from christian punishment, or confer equal favours.
Christianity conquered Europe by the sword, but at first that sword was not wielded against the humble ma.s.ses. It was wielded against their proud oppressors. To the common people it brought glad tidings of a new order, in which, under the banner of a crucified working-man and his (alleged) peasant mother, all caste should disappear but that of piety and charity. Christ eating with publicans and sinners and healing the wayside cripples reappeared in St. Martin dividing his embroidered cloak with a beggar--type of a new aristocracy. They who wors.h.i.+pped the Crucified Peasant in the rock-cave of Tours which St. Martin had consecrated, or in little St. Martin's Church at Canterbury where Bertha was baptized, could not see the splendid cathedrals now visible from them, built of their bones and cemented with their blood. King Ethelbert surrendered the temple of his idol to the consecration of Augustine, and his baptized subjects had no difficulty in seeing the point of the ejected devil's talons on the wall which he a.s.sailed when the first ma.s.s was therein celebrated.
Glad tidings to the poor were these that the persecuted first missionaries brought to Gaul, Britain, and Germany. But they did not last. The christians and the pagan princes, like Herod and Pilate, joined hands to crucify the European peasant, and he was reduced to a worse serfdom than he had suffered before. Every humble home in Europe was trampled in the mire in the name of Christ. The poor man's wife and child, and all he possessed were victims of the workman of Jerusalem turned destroyer of his brethren. Michelet has well traced Witchcraft to the Despair of the Middle Ages. [155] The decay of the old religions, which Christianity had made too rapid for it to be complete, had left, as we have seen, all the trains laid for that terrible explosion; and now its own hand of cruelty brought the torch to ignite them. Let us, at risk of some iteration, consider some of these combustible elements.