CHAPTER IV.

THE ABGOTT.

The ex-god--Deities demonised by conquest--Theological animosity
--Illustration from the Avesta--Devil-worship an arrested Deism--
Sheik Adi--Why demons were painted ugly--Survivals of their beauty.


The phenomena of the transformation of deities into demons meet the
student of Demonology at every step. We shall have to consider many
examples of a kind similar to those which have been mentioned in the
preceding chapter; but it is necessary to present at this stage of our
inquiry a sufficient number of examples to establish the fact that in
every country forces have been at work to degrade the primitive gods
into types of evil, as preliminary to a consideration of the nature
of those forces.

We find the history of the phenomena suggested in the German word for
idol, Abgott--ex-god. Then we have 'pagan,' villager, and 'heathen,' of
the heath, denoting those who stood by their old gods after others had
transferred their faith to the new. These words bring us to consider
the influence upon religious conceptions of the struggles which have
occurred between races and nations, and consequently between their
religions. It must be borne in mind that by the time any tribes had
gathered to the consistency of a nation, one of the strongest forces of
its coherence would be its priesthood. So soon as it became a general
belief that there were in the universe good and evil Powers, there
must arise a popular demand for the means of obtaining their favour;
and this demand has never failed to obtain a supply of priesthoods
claiming to bind or influence the præternatural beings. These
priesthoods represent the strongest motives and fears of a people,
and they were gradually intrenched in great institutions involving
powerful interests. Every invasion or collision or mingling of races
thus brought their respective religions into contact and rivalry;
and as no priesthood has been known to consent peaceably to its own
downfall and the degradation of its own deities, we need not wonder
that there have been perpetual wars for religious ascendency. It
is not unusual to hear sects among ourselves accusing each other
of idolatry. In earlier times the rule was for each religion to
denounce its opponent's gods as devils. Gregory the Great wrote
to his missionary in Britain, the Abbot Mellitus, second Bishop of
Canterbury, that 'whereas the people were accustomed to sacrifice
many oxen in honour of demons, let them celebrate a religious and
solemn festival, and not slay the animals to the devil (diabolo),
but to be eaten by themselves to the glory of God.' Thus the devotion
of meats to those deities of our ancestors which the Pope pronounces
demons, which took place chiefly at Yule-tide, has survived in our
more comfortable Christmas banquets. This was the fate of all the
deities which Christianity undertook to suppress. But it had been the
habit of religions for many ages before. They never denied the actual
existence of the deities they were engaged in suppressing. That would
have been too great an outrage upon popular beliefs, and might have
caused a reaction; and, besides, each new religion had an interest
of its own in preserving the basis of belief in these invisible
beings. Disbelief in the very existence of the old gods might be
followed by a sceptical spirit that might endanger the new. So the
propagandists maintained the existence of native gods, but called
them devils. Sometimes wars or intercourse between tribes led to their
fusion; the battle between opposing religions was drawn, in which case
there would be a compromise by which several deities of different
origin might continue together in the same race and receive equal
homage. The differing degrees of importance ascribed to the separate
persons of the Hindu triad in various localities of India, suggest
it as quite probable that Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva signalled in their
union the political unity of certain districts in that country. [15]
The blending of the names of Confucius and Buddha, in many Chinese
and Japanese temples, may show us an analogous process now going on,
and, indeed, the various ethnical ideas combined in the christian
Trinity render the fact stated one of easy interpretation. But the
religious difficulty was sometimes not susceptible of compromise. The
most powerful priesthood carried the day, and they used every ingenuity
to degrade the gods of their opponents. Agathodemons were turned into
kakodemons. The serpent, worshipped in many lands, might be adopted
as the support of sleeping Vishnu in India, might be associated with
the rainbow ('the heavenly serpent') in Persia, but elsewhere was
cursed as the very genius of evil.

The operation of this force in the degradation of deities, is
particularly revealed in the Sacred Books of Persia. In that country
the great religions of the East would appear to have contended
against each other with especial fury, and their struggles were
probably instrumental in causing one or more of the early migrations
into Western Europe. The great celestial war between Ormuzd and
Ahriman--Light and Darkness--corresponded with a violent theological
conflict, one result of which is that the word deva, meaning 'deity'
to Brahmans, means 'devil' to Parsees. The following extract from
the Zend-Avesta will serve as an example of the spirit in which the
war was waged:--

'All your devas are only manifold children of the Evil Mind--and the
great one who worships the Saoma of lies and deceits; besides the
treacherous acts for which you are notorious throughout the seven
regions of the earth.

'You have invented all the evil which men speak and do, which is
indeed pleasant to the Devas, but is devoid of all goodness, and
therefore perishes before the insight of the truth of the wise.

'Thus you defraud men of their good minds and of their immortality
by your evil minds--as well through those of the Devas as that of the
Evil Spirit--through evil deeds and evil words, whereby the power of
liars grows.' [16]

That is to say--Ours is the true god: your god is a devil.

The Zoroastrian conversion of deva (deus) into devil does not
alone represent the work of this odium theologicum. In the early
hymns of India the appellation asuras is given to the gods. Asura
means a spirit. But in the process of time asura, like dæmon, came
to have a sinister meaning: the gods were called suras, the demons
asuras, and these were said to contend together. But in Persia the
asuras--demonised in India--retained their divinity, and gave the name
ahura to the supreme deity, Ormuzd (Ahura-mazda). On the other hand,
as Mr. Muir supposes, Varenya, applied to evil spirits of darkness in
the Zendavesta, is cognate with Varuna (Heaven); and the Vedic Indra,
king of the gods--the Sun--is named in the Zoroastrian religion as
one of the chief councillors of that Prince of Darkness.

But in every country conquered by a new religion, there will always be
found some, as we have seen, who will hold on to the old deity under
all his changed fortunes. These will be called 'bigots,' but still they
will adhere to the ancient belief and practise the old rites. Sometimes
even after they have had to yield to the popular terminology, and call
the old god a devil, they will find some reason for continuing the
transmitted forms. It is probable that to this cause was originally
due the religions which have been developed into what is now termed
Devil-worship. The distinct and avowed worship of the evil Power in
preference to the good is a rather startling phenomenon when presented
baldly; as, for example, in a prayer of the Madagascans to Nyang,
author of evil, quoted by Dr. Réville:--'O Zamhor! to thee we offer no
prayers. The good god needs no asking. But we must pray to Nyang. Nyang
must be appeased. O Nyang, bad and strong spirit, let not the thunder
roar over our heads! Tell the sea to keep within its bounds! Spare,
O Nyang, the ripening fruit, and dry not up the blossoming rice! Let
not our women bring forth children on the accursed days. Thou reignest,
and this thou knowest, over the wicked; and great is their number,
O Nyang. Torment not, then, any longer the good folk!' [17]

This is natural, and suggestive of the criminal under sentence of
death, who, when asked if he was not afraid to meet his God, replied,
'Not in the least; it's that other party I'm afraid of.' Yet it
is hardly doubtful that the worship of Nyang began in an era when
he was by no means considered morally baser than Zamhor. How the
theory of Dualism, when attained, might produce the phenomenon
called Devil-worship, is illustrated in the case of the Yezedis, now
so notorious for that species of religion. Their theory is usually
supposed to be entirely represented by the expression uttered by one
of them, 'Will not Satan, then, reward the poor Izedis, who alone have
never spoken ill of him, and have suffered so much for him?' [18]
But these words are significant, no doubt, of the underlying fact:
they 'have never spoken ill of' the Satan they worship. The Mussulman
calls the Yezedi a Satan-worshipper only as the early Zoroastrian held
the worshipper of a deva to be the same. The chief object of worship
among the Yezedis is the figure of the bird Taous, a half-mythical
peacock. Professor King of Cambridge traces the Taous of this Assyrian
sect to the "sacred bird called a phoenix," whose picture, as seen
by Herodotus (ii. 73) in Egypt, is described by him as 'very like an
eagle in outline and in size, but with plumage partly gold-coloured,
partly crimson,' and which was said to return to Heliopolis every
five hundred years, there to burn itself on the altar of the Sun,
that another might rise from its ashes. [19] Now the name Yezedis
is simply Izeds, genii; and we are thus pointed to Arabia, where we
find the belief in genii is strongest, and also associated with the
mythical bird Rokh of its folklore. There we find Mohammed rebuking
the popular belief in a certain bird called Hamâh, which was said to
take form from the blood near the brain of a dead person and fly away,
to return, however, at the end of every hundred years to visit that
person's sepulchre. But this is by no means Devil-worship, nor can we
find any trace of that in the most sacred scripture of the Yezedis,
the 'Eulogy of Sheikh Adi.' This Sheikh inherited from his father,
Moosafir, the sanctity of an incarnation of the divine essence,
of which he (Adi) speaks as 'the All-merciful.'


By his light he hath lighted the lamp of the morning.
I am he that placed Adam in my Paradise.
I am he that made Nimrod a hot burning fire.
I am he that guided Ahmet mine elect,
I gifted him with my way and guidance.
Mine are all existences together,
They are my gift and under my direction.
I am he that possesseth all majesty,
And beneficence and charity are from my grace,
I am he that entereth the heart in my zeal;
And I shine through the power of my awfulness and majesty.
I am he to whom the lion of the desert came:
I rebuked him and he became like stone.
I am he to whom the serpent came,
And by my will I made him like dust.
I am he that shook the rock and made it tremble,
And sweet water flowed therefrom from every side. [20]


The reverence shown in these sacred sentences for Hebrew names and
traditions--as of Adam in Paradise, Marah, and the smitten rock--and
for Ahmet (Mohammed), appears to have had its only requital in the
odious designation of the worshippers of Taous as Devil-worshippers,
a label which the Yezedis perhaps accepted as the Wesleyans and
Friends accepted such names as 'Methodist' and 'Quaker.'

Mohammed has expiated the many deities he degraded to devils by being
himself turned to an idol (mawmet), a term of contempt all the more
popular for its resemblance to 'mummery.' Despite his denunciations
of idolatry, it is certain that this earlier religion represented
by the Yezedis has never been entirely suppressed even among his own
followers. In Dr. Leitner's interesting collection there is a lamp,
which he obtained from a mosque, made in the shape of a peacock,
and this is but one of many similar relics of primitive or alien
symbolism found among the Mussulman tribes.

The evolution of demons and devils out of deities was made real to
the popular imagination in every country where the new religion found
art existing, and by alliance with it was enabled to shape the ideas
of the people. The theoretical degradation of deities of previously
fair association could only be completed where they were presented to
the eye in repulsive forms. It will readily occur to every one that a
rationally conceived demon or devil would not be repulsive. If it were
a demon that man wished to represent, mere euphemism would prevent its
being rendered odious. The main characteristic of a demon--that which
distinguishes it from a devil--is, as we have seen, that it has a real
and human-like motive for whatever evil it causes. If it afflict or
consume man, it is not from mere malignancy, but because impelled by
the pangs of hunger, lust, or other suffering, like the famished wolf
or shark. And if sacrifices of food were offered to satisfy its need,
equally we might expect that no unnecessary insult would be offered in
the attempt to portray it. But if it were a devil--a being actuated
by simple malevolence--one of its essential functions, temptation,
would be destroyed by hideousness. For the work of seduction we might
expect a devil to wear the form of an angel of light, but by no means
to approach his intended victim in any horrible shape, such as would
repel every mortal. The great representations of evil, whether imagined
by the speculative or the religious sense, have never been, originally,
ugly. The gods might be described as falling swiftly like lightning
out of heaven, but in the popular imagination they retained for a long
time much of their splendour. The very ingenuity with which they were
afterwards invested with ugliness in religious art, attests that there
were certain popular sentiments about them which had to be distinctly
reversed. It was because they were thought beautiful that they must be
painted ugly; it was because they were--even among converts to the new
religion--still secretly believed to be kind and helpful, that there
was employed such elaboration of hideous designs to deform them. The
pictorial representations of demons and devils will come under a more
detailed examination hereafter: it is for the present sufficient to
point out that the traditional blackness or ugliness of demons and
devils, as now thought of, by no means militates against the fact
that they were once the popular deities. The contrast, for instance,
between the horrible physiognomy given to Satan in ordinary christian
art, and the theological representation of him as the Tempter, is
obvious. Had the design of Art been to represent the theological
theory, Satan would have been portrayed in a fascinating form. But
the design was not that; it was to arouse horror and antipathy for
the native deities to which the ignorant clung tenaciously. It was
to train children to think of the still secretly-worshipped idols
as frightful and bestial beings. It is important, therefore, that we
should guard against confusing the speculative or moral attempts of
mankind to personify pain and evil with the ugly and brutal demons and
devils of artificial superstition, oftenest pictured on church walls.
Sometimes they are set to support water-spouts, often the brackets
that hold their foes, the saints. It is a very ancient device. Our
figure 2 is from the handle of a chalice in possession of Sir James
Hooker, meant probably to hold the holy water of Ganges. These are
not genuine demons or devils, but carefully caricatured deities. Who
that looks upon the grinning bestial forms carved about the roof of any
old church--as those on Melrose Abbey and York Cathedral [21]--which,
there is reason to believe, represent the primitive deities driven from
the interior by potency of holy water, and chained to the uncongenial
service of supporting the roof-gutter--can see in these gargoyles
(Fr. gargouille, dragon), anything but carved imprecations? Was it
to such ugly beings, guardians of their streams, hills, and forests,
that our ancestors consecrated the holly and mistletoe, or with such
that they associated their flowers, fruits, and homes? They were
caricatures inspired by missionaries, made to repel and disgust, as
the images of saints beside them were carved in beauty to attract. If
the pagans had been the artists, the good looks would have been on
the other side. And indeed there was an art of which those pagans
were the unconscious possessors, through which the true characters of
the imaginary beings they adored have been transmitted to us. In the
fables of their folklore we find the Fairies that represent the spirit
of the gods and goddesses to which they are easily traceable. That
goddess who in christian times was pictured as a hag riding on a
broom-stick was Frigga, the Earth-mother, associated with the first
sacred affections clustering around the hearth; or Freya, whose very
name was consecrated in frau, woman and wife. The mantle of Bertha did
not cover more tenderness when it fell to the shoulders of Mary. The
German child's name for the pre-christian Madonna was Mother Rose:
distaff in hand, she watched over the industrious at their household
work: she hovered near the cottage, perhaps to find there some weeping
Cinderella and give her beauty for ashes.