Part 3 (2/2)

Yet another piece of evidence is derived from the fact that _Nashon_, the chief of the tribe of Judah and one of the ancestry of the blessed Savior, signifies ”enchanter” Zechariah (bc 580) shows the great advancethat ”the teraphim have spoken vanity, and the diviners have seen a lie, and have told false dreams” (x 2)

Samuel, like other early priests, was ruler and weather doctor, Elijah was a corpse restorer and rain com-peller Elisha not only inherited his mantle, but also raised the dead and ical Jesus Christ was a great wonderworker ordiseases even by the touch of hisfroainst Jesus by the Jeas that he had stolen the sacred Word and by it wrought miracles We read in the Gospels that Jesus ”cast out spirits with his word” (Matt viii 16) Jesus promised that in his _name_ his disciples should cast out devils, and Peter declared that his name healed the lame (Acts iii 16) When the Jews asked, ”By what power, or by what name have we done this” (Acts iv 7), Peter answered, ”By the naiven him a name which is above every name: That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven and in earth and under the earth”

(Philip ii 9, 10)

Any careful reader of the Bible must have been struck with the frequency hich ”the name of the Lord” is mentioned, and the care not to profane that name ”Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain” is the second commandment, and Christians still speak of God ”in a bonds humbleness,” for no better reason than this old superstition In Leviticus xxiv 11 and 16, the word translated by us ”blasphemeth” was by the Jews rendered ”pronounces,” so that the son of the Israelitish wo the ineffable name of JHVH The Talmud say ”He who attempts to pronounce it shall have no part in the world to come”

Once a year only, on the day of Atoneh priest allowed to whisper the word, even as at the present day ”the word” is whispered in Masonic lodges The Hebrew Jehovah dates only froan to insert the vowel-points they had lost the true pronunciation of the sacred name To the letters J H V H they put the vowels of Edonai or Adonai, _lord_ or _master_, the name which in their prayers they substitute for Jahveh Moses wanted to know the na bush He was put off with the for lost his name has becoel, or ghost, he deel did not coel to say what is his nael of the Lord said unto hi it is _secret_” (Judges xiii 18) All this superstition can be traced to the belief that to know the names of persons was to acquire power over them

In process of ti certain of his functions The Gods of a displaced religion are regarded as devils and their worshi+p as sorcery Much of the persecution of witchcraft which went on in the ages when Christianity was do rites of Paganise races that are believed to have the greatest es the na men, equivalent to that of sorcerer, while Lapland witches had a European celebrity as practitioners of the black art Ages after the Finns had risen in the social scale, the Lapps retained e habit of life, and with it naturally their witchcraft, so that even the ifted Finns revered the occult powers of a people more barbarous than the the early Christians, sorcery was recognised as illegalstorms, etc, are mentioned, not in a sceptical spirit, but with reprobation In the changed relations of the state to the church under Constantine, the laws againstthe rites of the Greek and Rouries, once carried on under the highest public sanction, were put under the same ban with the low arts of the necromancer and the witch As Christianity extended its sway over Europe, the sa with considerable success to put down at once the old local religions, and the even older practices of witchcraft; conde Thor and Woden as demons, they punished their rites in cohbors and turned theal persecution of witches which went on through the Middle Ages under ecclesiastical sanction both Catholic and Protestant”

Encyclopedia Britannica, article ”Magic”

But the religion of Christendoical practices than that of Paganism In the early Christian Church a considerable section of its ulations concerning the saland Theabsolution and remission of sins is still claihout the course of Christianity, indeed, ious rites and consecrated objects

Viktor Rydberg, the Swedish author of an interesting work on _The Magic of the Middle Ages_, says (p 85): ”Every ni Dei_, conception billets, ic incense, salt and tapers which have been consecrated on Candlemas Day, palms consecrated on Palm Sunday, flowers besprinkled with holy water on Ascension Day, and ical apparatus of the Church”

Bells are consecrated to this day, because they were supposed to have aoff demons Their efficacy for this purpose is specifically asserted by St Thoreatest doctor of the Church, who lays it down that the changeableness of the weather is owing to the constant conflict between good and bad spirits

Baptisland who think harm will come to a child if it is not christened In Christian baptisical invocation of certain names, those of the ever-blessed Trinity The names of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, were used as spells to ward off deical efficacy, and is as n of the cross with holy water, or the unction with holy oil, as a preparation for death So i water should prevent deical liquid in contact with the child before it saw the light!

The doctrine of salvation through blood is nothing but a survival of the faith in ical efficacy of blood as a sacrifice, a ce spirits Blood baths for the cure of certain diseases were used in Egypt and fellow alludes to this superstition in his _Golden Legend_:

The only remedy that remains Is the blood that flows froive her life as the price of yours!

This is the strangest of all cures, And one I think, you will never try

The changing of the bread and wine of the Christian sacrament into the body and blood of God is evidently a piece of ical fore superstition are so many that they deserve to be treated in a separate article Meanwhile let it be noticed that priests lay much stress upon the Blessed Sacraical functions and the awe and reverence consequent upon belief therein

Forical spells or invocations

A prayer-book is a collection of spells for fine weather, rain, or other blessings The Catholic soldier takes care to be aruard off stray bullets, or, in the event of the worst co, to waft his soul into heaven The Protestant smiles at this superstition, but mutters a prayer for the self-same purpose In essence the procedure is the sayptian and Chaldean psalainst sorcery or the influence of evil spirits, just as the invocation taught to Christian children--

Matthew, Mark, Luke And John Bless The Bed That I Lie On

The belief in host belief does in Spiritis run, ious doctrines and practices founded upon it No ic can endure scientific scrutiny Ale in the doradually ousted, though it still affords a profitable area for charlantanry

Lucian has a story how Pancrates, wanting a servant, took a door-bar and pronounced over it ht him water, turned a spit, and did all the other tasks of a slave What is this, asks E water fro a water supply to London

Jesus walking on the water was nothing to crossing the Atlantic by steaic is that of science, which is a conquest of the human mind, and not a phantasy of superstition

TABOOS

Viscount Aious Belief_ points out that everywhere the religious instinct leads to the consecration of certain actions, places, and things If this instinct is analysed, it is found at botto from fear Certain places are to be dreaded as the abode of evil spirits; certain actions are calculated to propitiate theerous, and are therefore tabooed

From Polynesia was derived the word _taboo_ or _tapu_, and the first conception of its i at the bottoh this is not as yet by any nised