CHAPTER X.

** Get thee behmd me, Satan * (Jesus to Peter).— Jfa//. xri. 33.
" Such a deal of skimble-skamble stuff As puts me from my faith. I tell you what^ He held me, last night, at least nine hours In reckoning up the several devils' names." — Kit$g Henry IV.^ Part L, Act &
^'La force terrible et juste qui tue etemellement les avortons a M nomm^ par les ^gyptient Typhon, par les H la Cabale n'c&t pas un ange maudit et foudroy^ ; c'est I'ange qui ^daire et qui rlgimirt en tombanL** — KupHAS Lsvi : Dognu et Rituel,
** Bad as he is, the Devil may be abus'd, lie falsely chargM. and causelessly accused. When Men, unwilling to be blam'd alone, Shift off those Crimes 00 Him which are their Own,** — De/oe, xjaiS.
SPIVERAI- years ago, a distinguished writer and persecuted kabalist suggested a creed for the Protestant and Roman Catholic bodies, which may be thus formulated :
ProtevangeliuM,
** I believe in the Devil, the Father Almighty of Evil, the Destroyer of all things, Per-
turbator of Heaven and Earth ; And in Anti-Christ, his only Son, our Persecutor, Who was conceived of the Evil Spirit ; Bom of a sacrilegious, foolish Virgin ; Was glorifie And ascended to the throne of Almighty God,
From which he crowds Him aside, and from which he insults the living and the dead ; 1 believe in the Spirit of Evil ; The Synagogue of Satan ; The coalition of the wicked ; The perdition of the body ; And the Death and Hell everlasting. Amtn.^*
Does this offend ? Does it seem extravagant, cruel, blasphemous ? Listen. In the city of New York, on the ninth day of April, 1877 — that is to say, in the last quarter of what is proudly styled the century of dis- covery and the age of illumination — the following scandalous ideas were broached. We quote from the report in the Sun of the following morning :
" The Baptist preachers met yesterday in the Mariners* Chapel, in
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Oliver Street. Several foreign missionaries were present. The Rev. John VV. Sarles, of Brooklyn, read an essay, in which he maintained the proposition that all adult heathen ^ dying without the knowledge of the Gospel, are damned eternally. Otherwise, the reverend essayist argued, the Gospel is a curse instead of a blessing, the men who crucified Christ served him right, and the whole structure of revealed religion tumbles to the ground.
" Brother Stoddard, a missionary from India, indorsed the views of the Brooklyn pastor. The Hindus were great sinners. One day, after he had preached in the market place, a Brahman got up and said : * We Hindus beat the world in lying, but this man beats us. How can he say that God loves us ? Look at the poisonous serpents, tigers, lions, and all kinds of dangerous animals around us. If God loves us, why doesn't He take them away ? '
" The Rev. Mr. Pixley, of Hamilton, N. Y., heartily subscribed to the doctrine of Brother Sarles' s essay, and asked for $5,000 to fit out young men for the ministry."
And these men — we will not say teach the doctrine of Jesus, for that would be to insult his memory, but — dj^ paid to teach his doctrine ! Can we wonder that intelligent persons prefer annihilation to a faith encum- bered by such a monstrous doctrine ? We doubt whether any respectable Brahman would have confessed to the vice of lying — an art cultivated only in those portions of British India where the most Christians are found.*
♦ So firmly established seems to have been the reputation of the Brahmans and Buddhists for the lii^^hest morality, and that since time immemorial, that we find Colonel Henry Yule, in his admirable edition of *' Marco Polo," giving the following testimony: '* The high virtues ascril>ed to the Brahman and Indian merchants were, perhaps, in part, matter of tradition . . . but the eulogy is so constant among mediojval travellers that it must haTf had a solid foundation. In fact, it would not be difficult to trace a chain of similar testimony from ancient limes down to our own. Arrian says no Indian was ever accused of falsehood. Hwen T*sang ascribes to the people of India eminent uprightness, honesty, and disinterestedness. Friar Jordanus {circa 1330) says the people of Lesser India (Sindh and Western India) were true in s|)eech and eminent in justice ; and we may also refer to the high character given to the Hindus by Abul Fazl. VtMX. after \^o years of European tradc^ indeed^ we find 9 sad deterioration, . . . Yet Pallas, in the last century, noticing the Bamyan colony at Astrakhan, says its mem- bers were notable for an upright dealing that made them greatly preferable to Armeoi> ans. And that wise and admirable public servant, the late Sir William Sleeman, in our own time, has said that he knew no class of men in the world more strictly honor- able than the mercantile classes of India.** *
The sad examples of the rapid demoralization of savage American Indians, as soon as they are made to live in a close proximity with Christian officials and missionaries, are familiar in our modern days.
> The " Book of Ser Marco Polo, the Venetian,^' translated by Colonel Henry Yule, voL iL, p. 354
THE DEVIL IN ALL HIS ASPECTS. 475
But we challenge any honest man in the wide world to say whether he thinks the Brahman was far from the truth in saying of the missionary Stoddard, " this man beats us all " in lying. What else would he say, if the latter preached to them the doctrine of eternal damnation^ because, indeed, they had passed their lives without reading a Jewish book of which they never heard, or asked salvation of a Christ whose existence they never suspected ! But Baptist clergymen who need a few thousand dollars must devise terrifying sensations to fire the congregational heart.
We abstain, as a rule, from giving our own experience when we can call acceptable witnesses, and so, upon reading missionary Stoddard's outrageous remarks, we requested our acquaintance, Mr. William I^. D. O'Grady,* to give a fair opinion upon the missionaries. This gentleman's father and grandfather were British army officers, and he himself was born in India, and enjoyed life-long opportunities to learn what the gen- eral opinion among the English is of these religious propagandists. Fol- lowing is his communication in reply to our letter :
" You ask me for my opinion of the Christian mu>sionaries in India. In all the years I spent there, I never spoke to a single missionary. They wer^ not in society, anJ, from what I heard of their procee at it. Their iriftmnce on the natives is had. Their converts are worthless, and, as a rule, of the lowest class; ttor do they improve by conversion. No respectal)le family will employ Christian servants. They lie, they steal, they are unclean — and dirt is certainly not a Hindu vice ; they drink — and no decent native of any other belief ever touches intoxicating liquor ; they are outcasts from their own i>eople and utterly despic- able. Their new teachers set them a jwor example of consistency. While holding forth to the Pariah that God makes no distinction of persons, they boast intolerably over the stray Ikahmans, who, very much ** off color," occasionally, at long intervals, fall into the clutches of these hypocrites,
•* The missionaries get very small salaries, as publicly stated in the proceetlings of the societies that employ them, but, in some unaccountable way, manage to live its well as oHicials with ten times their income. When they come home to recover their he.dth, shattered, as they say, by their arduous labors — which they seem to be able to afford to do quite frequently, when supposed richer people cannot — they tell childish stories on platforms, exhibit idols as procured with infinite difHculty, which is quite al>surd, and give an account of their imaginary hardships which is perfectly harrowing but untrue from beginning to end. I lived some years in India myself, and nearly all my blood- relations have passed or will pass the best years of their lives there. I know hundreds of British officials, and I never heard from one of them a single word in favor of the missionaries. Natives of any position look on them with the supremest contempt, although suffering chronic exasperation from their arrogant aggressiveness ; and the British Government, which continues endowments to Pagodas, granted by the East
* At the present moment Mr. O'Grady is Elditor of the ** American BuiMer," of New York, and is well known for his interesting letters, "Indian Sketches — Life in the East," wliich he contributed under the pseudonym of Hadji Nicka Banker Khan^ to the Boston ''Commercial Bulletin."
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India Company, and which supports unsectarian education, gives them no countenance whatever. Protected from personal violence, they yelp and bark at natives and Euro- peans alike, after the fashion of ill-conditioned curs. Often recruited from the poorest specimens of theological fanaticism, they are regarded on all sides as mischievous. Their rabid, reckless, vulgar, and offensive propagandism caused the great Mutiny of 1S57. They are noisome humbugs.
«*Wm. L. D. OGrady. '* New York, June 12, 1877."
The new creed therefore, with which we opened this chapter, coarse as it may sound, embodies the very essence of the belief of the Church as inculcated by her missionaries. It is regarded as less impious, less infidel, to doubt the personal existence of the Holy Ghost, or the equal Godhead of Jesus, than to question the personality of the Devil. But a summary of Koheleth is well-nigh forgotten.* Who ever quotes the golden words of the prophet Micah,f or seems to care for the exposition of the Law, as given by Jesus himself ? J The " bull's eye " in the target of iVfodern Christianity is in the simple phrase to "fear the Devil."
The Catholic clergy and some of the lay champions of the Roman Church fight still more for the existence of Satan and his imps. If Des Mousseaux maintains the objective reality of spiritual phenomena with such an unrelenting ardor, it is because, in his opinion, the latter are the most direct evidence of the Devil at work. The Chevalier is more Catholic than the Pope ; and his logic and deductions from never-to-be and nou-established premises are unique, and prove once more that the creed offered by us is the one which expresses the Catholic belief most eloquently.
** If magic and spiritualism," he says, " were both but chimeras, we would have to bid an eternal farewell to all the rebellious angels, now troubling the world ; for thus, we would have no more demons down here, . . . And i/ we lost our demons^ we would 1.0SIL our Saviour likewise. For, from whom did that Saviour come to save us ? And then, there would be no more Redeemer ; for from whom or what could that Re- deemer redeem us ? Hence, there would be no more Christianity .' /" §
Oh, Holy Father of Evil ; Sainted Satan 1 We pray thee do not aban- don such pious Christians as the Chevalier des Mousseaux and some Baptist clergymen I I
* Ecdesiastes xii. 13 ; see Tayler Lewises
'* The great conclusion here ; Fear God and His commandments keep, for this is all of man.**
t See Micah vl, 6-8, ** Noyes's Translation "
X Matthew xvii. 37-40.
§ *' Les Hauts Ph&nomenes de la Magie/' p. 12, preface.
A PERSONAL DEVIL INVOLVES POLYTHEISM. 477
For our part, we would rather remember the wise words of J. C. Col- quhoun,* who says that *' those persons who, in modern times, adopt the doctrine of the Devil in its strictly literal and personal application, do not appear to be aware that they are in reality polytheists, heathens, idol- aters."
Seeking supremacy in everything over the ancient creeds, the Chris- tians claim the discovery of the Devil officially recognized by the Church. Jesus was the first to use the word ** legion " when speaking of them ; and it is on this ground that M. des \fousseaux thus defends his position in one of his demonological works. ** I^ater," he says, " when the syna- gogue expired^ depositing its inheritance in the hands of Christ, were born into the world and shone^ the Fathers of the Church, who have been accused by certain persons of a rare and precious ignorance, of having borrowed their ideas as to the spirits of darkness from the theurgists."
Three deliberate, palpable, and easily-refuted errors — not to use a harsher word — occur in these few lines. In the first place, the synagogue, far from having expired^ is flourishing at the present day in nearly every town of Europe, America, and Asia ; and of all churches in Christian cities, it is the most firmly established, as well as the best behaved. Further — while no one will deny that many Christian Fathers were born into the world (always, of course, excepting the twelve fictitious Bishops of Rome, who were never born at all), every person who will take the trouble to read the works of the Platonists of the old Academy, who were theurgists before lamblichus, will recognize therein the origin of Christian Demonology as well as the Angelology, the allegorical meaning of which was completely distorted by the Fathers. Then it could hardly be admitted that the said Fathers ever shone, except, perhaps, in the refiilgence of their extreme ignorance. The Reverend Dr. Shuckford, who passed the better part of his life trying to reconcile their contradic- tions and absurdities, was finally driven to abandon the whole thing in despair. The ignorance of the champions of Plato must indeed appear rare and precious by comparison with the fathomless profundity of 'Au- gustine, " the giant of learning and erudition," who scouted the spher- icity of the earth, for, if true, it would prevent the antipodes from seeing tlie Lord Christ when he descended from heaven at the second ad- vent ; or, of Lactantius, who rejects with pious horror Pliny's identical theory, on the remarkable ground that it would make the trees at the other side of the earth grow and' the men walk with their heads down- ward ; or, again, of Cosmas-Indicopleustes, whose orthodox system of geograpliy is embalmed in his ** Christian topography ; " or, finally, of
* '* History of Magic, Witchcraft, and Animal Magnetism."
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Bede, who assured the world that the heaven " is tempered with glacial waters, lest it should be set on fire " * — a benign dispensation of Provi- dence, most likely to prevent the radiance of their learning from setting the sky ablaze !
Be this as it may, these resplendent Fathers certainly did borrow their notions of the " spirits of darkness '* from the Jewish kabalists and Pagan theurgists, with the difference, however, that they disfigured and outdid in absurdity all that the wildest fancy of the Hindu, Greek, and Roman rabble had ever created. There is not a dev in the Persian Pan- dainionion half so preposterous, as a conception, as des Mousseaux*s Incu- bus revamped from Augustine. Typhon, symbolized as an ass^ appears a philosopher in comparison with the devil caught by the Normandy |>eas- ant in a key-hole ; and it is certainly not Ahriman or the Hindu Vritra who would run away in rage and dismay, when addressed as St, Saian^ by a native I.uther.
The Devil is the patron genius of theological Christianity. So " holy and reverend is his name " in modern conception, that it may not, ex- cept occasionally from the pulpit, be uttered in ears polite. In like manner, anciently, it was not lawful to speak the sacred names or re- peat the jargon of the Mysteries, except in the sacred cloister. \Vc hardly know the names of the Samothracian gods, but cannot tell pre- cisely the number of the Kabeiri. The Egyptians considered it blasphe- mous to utter the title of the gods of their secret rites. Even now, the Brahman only pronounces the syllable Om in silent thought, and the Rabbi, the Ineffable Name, nw*. Hence, we who exercise no such veneration, have been led into the blunders of miscalling the names of HisiRis and Yava by the mispronunciations, Osiris and Jehovah. A similar glamour bids fair, it will be perceived, to gather round the desig- nation of the dark personage of whom we are treating ; and in the fam- iliar handling, we shall be very likely to shock the peculiar sensibilities of many who will consider a free mentioning of the Devil's names as blasphemy — the sin of sins, that " hath never forgiveness." \
Several years ago an acquaintance of the author wrote a newspaper article to demonstrate that the diabolos or Satan of the New Testament denoted the personification of an abstract idea, and not a personal being. He was answered by a clergyman, who concluded the reply with the deprecatory expression, **I fear that he has denied his Saviour." In his rejoinder he pleaded, " Oh, no I we Only denied the Devil." But the
* See Draper^s ** Conflict between Religion and Science.*'
\ Gos]->el according to Mark, iii. 29 : '* He that shall blaspheme against the Holy Ghost, hath never forg;iveness, but is in danger of eternal damnation'* (a/uif>n7/iaros, error).
" NO DEVIL, NO CHRIST 1 " 479
clergyman failed to perceive the difference. In his conception of the matter, the denying of the personal objective existence of the Devil was itself " the sin against the Holy Ghost."
This necessary Evil, dignified by the epithet of '* Father of Lies," was, according to the clergy, the founder of all the world-religions of ancient time, and of the heresies, or rather heterodoxies, of later periods, as well as the DcHs ex Machina of modem Spiritualism. In the exceptions which we take to this notion, we protest that we do not attack true religion or sincere piety. We are only carrying on a controversy with human dog- mas. Perhaps in doing this we resemble Don Quixote, because these things are only windmills. Nevertheless, let it be remembered that they have been the occasion and pretext for the slaughtering of more than fifty millions of human beings since the words were proclaimed : " Love your
KNEMIKS." *
It is a late day for us to expect the Christian clergy to undo and amend their work. They have too much at stake. If the Christian Church should abandon or even modify the dogma of an anthropomorphic devil, it would be like pulling the bottom card from under a castle of cards. The structure would fall. The clergymen to whom we have alluded perceived that upon the relinquishing of Satan as a personal devil, the dogma of Jesus Christ as the second deity in their trinity must go over in the same catastrophe. Incredible, or even horrifying, as it may seem, the Roman Church bases its doctrine of the godhood of Christ entirely upon the satanism of the fallen archangel. We have the testimony of Father Ventura, who proclaims the vital imi)ortance of this dogma to the Catholics.
The Reverend Father Ventura, the illustrious ex-general of the Thea- tins, certifies that the Chevalier des Mousseaux, by his treatise, Maurs et Pratiques des Dbnons^ has deserved well of mankind, and still more of the most Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. With this voucher, the noble Chevalier, it will be perceived, " speaks as one having authority." He asserts explicitly, that to the DeT.nl and his angels we are absolutely indebted for our Saviour ; and that but for them we would have no Redeemer^ no Christianity,
Many zealous and earnest souls have revolted at the monstrous dogma of John Calvin, the |)opekin of Geneva, that sin is the necessary cause of the greatest good. It was bolstered up, nevertheless, by logic like that of des Mousseaux, and illustrated by the same dogmas. The execution of Jesus, the god-man, on the cross, was the most prodigious crime in the universe, yet it was necessary that mankind — those predestinated to ever-
* Gospel according to Matthew, v. 44.
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lasting life — might be saved. D'Aubign^ cites the quotation by Martin Luther from the canon, and makes him exclaim, in ecstatic rapture : ** O beata culpa^ qui talem meruisti redemptorem / " O blessed sin, which didst merit such a Redeemer. We now perceive that the dogma which had appeared so monstrous is, after all, the doctrine of Pope, Calvin, and Luther alike — that the three are one.
Mahomet and his disciples, who held Jesus in great respect as a prophet, remarks Eliphas Levi, used to utter, when speaking of Christians, the following remarkable words : " Jesus of Nazareth was verily a true prophet of Allah and a grand man ; but lo I his disciples all went insane one day, and made a god of him."
Max Mflller kindly adds : "It was a mistake of the early Fathers to treat the heathen gods as demons or evil spirits, and we must take care not to commit the same error with regard to the Hindu gods." *
But we have Satan presented to us as the prop and mainstay of sacerdotism — an Atlas, holding the Christian heaven and cosmos upon his shoulders. If he falls, then, in their conception, all is lost, and chaos must come again.
This dogma of the Devil and redemption seems to be based upon two passages in the New Testament: ** For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the Devil." f ** And there was war in heaven ; Michael and his angels fought against the Dragon ; and the Dragon fought, and his angels, and prevailed not ; neither was their place found any more in heaven. And the great Dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world." I-.et us, then, explore the ancient Theogonies, in order to ascertain what was meant by these remarkable expressions.
The first inquiry is whether the term Devil^ as here used, actually represents the malignant Deity of the Christians, or an antagonistic, blind force — the dark side of nature. By the latter we are not to understand the manifestation of any evil principle that- is malum in se, but only the shadow of the I-ight, so to say. The theories of the kabalists treat of it as a force which is antagonistic, but at the same time essential to the vitality, evolving, and vigor of the good principle. Plants would perish in their first stage of existence, if they were kept exposed to a constant sun- light ; the night alternating with the day is essential to their healthy growth and development. Goodness, likewise, would speedily cease to be such, were it not alternated by its opposite. In human nature, evil denotes the antagonism of matter to the spiritual, and each is accordingly purified thereby. In the cosmos, the equilibrium must be preserved ; the
m
'Comparative Mythology," April, 1856. f ist Epistle of John, iii. &
THE TEMPTING SERPENT OF EDEN. 48 1
operation of the two contraries produce harmony, like the centrii>etal and centrifugal forces, and are necessary to each other. If one is arrested, the action of the other will immediately become destructive.
This i>ersonification, denominated Satan , is to be contemplated from three different planes : the Old Testament^ the Christian Fathers, and the ancient Gentile altitude. He is supposed to have been represented by the Serpent in the Garden of Eden ; nevertheless, the epithet of Satan is nowhere in the Hebrew sacred writings applied to that or any other variety of ophidian. The Brazen Serpent of Moses was worshipped by the Israelites as a god;* being the symbol of Esmun-Asklepius the Phcenician lao. Indeed, the character of Satan himself is introduced in the 1st book of Chronicles in the act of instigating King David to number the Israelitish people, an act elsewhere declared specifically to have been moved by Jehovah himself. \ The inference is unavoidable that the two, Satan and Jehovah, were regarded as identical.
Another mention of Satan is found in \ki^ prophecies of Zechariah, This book was written at a period subsequent to the Jewish colonization of Palestine, and hence, the Asideans may fairly be supposed to have brought the personification thither from the East. It is well known that this body of sectaries were deeply imbued with the Mazdean notions ; and that they represented Ahriman or Anra-manyas by the god-names of Syria. Set or Sat-an, the god of the Hittites and Hyk-sos, and Beel- Zebub the oracle-god, afterward the Grecian Apollo. The prophet began his labors in Judea in the second year of Darius Hystaspes, the restorer of the Mazdean worship. He thus describes the encounter with Satan : ** He showed me Joshua the high-priest standing before the angel of the I^ord, and Satan standing at his right hand to be his adversary. And the Lord said unto Satan : * The Lord rebuke thee, O Satan ; even the Lord that hath chosen Jerusalem rebuke thee : is not this a brand plucked out of the fire ? * " J
* 2 Kings, xviii. 4. It is probable that the fiery ser|>ent8 or Seraphim mentioned in the twenty-first chapter of the hook of Numbers were the same as the Levites, or Ophite tribe. Compare Exodus xxxii. 26-29 with Numljers xxi. 5-9. The names Ileva, nvi* ^'^* or Hivite, i^ni ^md Levi in J, all signify a serpent ; and it is a curious fact that the liivites, or serpent-tribe of Palestine, like the Levites or Ophites of Israel, were ministers to the temples. The Gibeonites, whom Joshia assigned to the service of the sanctuary, were Hivites.
f i Chronicles, xxi. i : ^* And Satan stood up against Israel and moved David to number Israel.' 2d Samuel, xxiv. i : " And again the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and he moved David against them to say : * Go, number Israel and Judah.'*'
X Zechariah iii. i, 2. A pun or play on words is noticeable; " adversary " is as- sociated with *' Satan,*' as if from noci ^^ oppose.
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We ajiprehend that this passage which we have quoted is symbolical. There are two allusions in the New Testament that indicate that it was so regarded. The Catholic Epistle of Jude refers to it in this peculiar language : ** Yet Michael the archangel, when contending with the Devil, he disputed about the body of Moses, did not venture to utter to hira a reviling judgment (Kpiatv €V€V€yK€Lv p\€urif>rjfiias), but said, * The Lord re- buke thee.' *' * The archangel Michael is thus mentioned as identical with the mm Lord, or angel of the I^ord, of the preceding quotation, and thus is shown that the Hebrew Jehovah had a twofold character, the secret and that manifested as the angel of the Lord, or Michael the arch- angel. A comparison between these two passages renders it plain that " the body of Moses " over which they contended was Palestine, which as ** the land of the Hittites " f was the peculiar domain of Seth, their tutelar god. J Michael, as the champion of the Jehovah-worship, con- tended with the Devil or Adversary, but left judgment to his superior.
Belial is not entitled to the distinction of either god or devil. The term V5"»Va, Belial, is defined in the Hebrew lexicons to mean a destroy- ing, waste, uselessness ; or the phrase Vj'Va— »-« ais-Belial or I^lial- man signifies a wasteful, useless man. If Belial must be personified to please our religious friends, we would be obliged to make him perfectly distinct from Satan, and to consider him as a sort of spiritual " Diakkx" The demon ographers, however, who enumerate nine distinct orders oi/fai- monia, make him chief of the third class — a set of hobgoblins, mischievous and good-for-nothing.
Asmodeus is no Jewish spirit at all, his origin being purely Persian. Br^al, the author of Hercule et Cacus, shows that he is the Parsi Eshem- Dev, or Ai-shma-dev, the evil spirit of concupiscence, whom Max Miiller tells us '* is mentioned several times in the Avesta as one of the Devs,§ originally gods, who became evil spirits."
* Jude 9.
f In the ** Assyrian Tablets," Palestine is called "the land of the Hittites ;** and the Egyptian Papyri, declaring the same thing, also make Seth, the ** pillar-god,*' their tutelar deity.
X Sethy Suteh^ or Sat-an, was the god of the aboriginal nations of Syria. Plutarch makes him the same as Typhon. Hence he was god of Goshen and Palestine, the countries occupied by the Israelites.
§ ** Vendidad,*' fargard x,, 23: ** I combat the daeva -^shma, the very evil" ** The Ya9nas," x. 18, speaks likewise of itshma-Dseva, or Khasm : *• AH othe" sciences depend upon /Eshma, the cunning." ** Serv.," Ivi. 12 : "To smite the wicked Auramanyas (Ahriman, the evil power), to smite ^shma with the terrible weapon, to unite the Mazanian daavas, to smite all devas."
In the same fargard of the ** Vendidad" the Brahman divinities are involved m the same denunciation with iEshma-daeva : "I combat India, I combat Sauru, I com*
SAMAEL AND TYPHON ARE SATAN. 483
Saniael is Satan ; but Bryan and a good many other authorities show it to be the name of the " Simoun " — the wind of the desert,* and the Simoun is called Atabul-os or Diabolos.
Plutarch remarks that by Typhon was understood anything violent, unruly, and disorderly. The overflowing of the Nile was called by the Egj'ptians Typhon. Lower Egypt is very flat, and any mounds built along the river to prevent the frequent inundations, were called Typho- nian or Taphos ; hence, the origin of Typhon. Plutarch, who was a rigid, orthodox Greek, and never known to much compliment the Egyp- tians, testifies in his his and Osiris^ to the fact that, far from worshipping the Devil (of which Christians accused them), they despised more than they dreaded Typhon. In his symbol of the opposing, obstinate power of nature, they believed him to be a poor, struggling, half-dead divinity. Thus, even at that remote age, we see the ancients already too enlight" fned to beUcve in a personal devil. As Typhon was represented in one of his symbols under the figure of an ass at the festival of the sun's sac- rifices, the Egyi)tian priests exhorted the faithful worshippers not to carry gold ornaments upon their bodies for fear of giving food to the ass ! f
Three and a half centuries before Christ, Plato expressed his opinion of evil by saying that ** there is in matter a blind, refractory force, which resists the will of the Great Artificer." This blind force, under Christian influx, was made to see and become responsible ; it was transformed into Satan !
His identity with Typhon can scarcely be doubted upon reading the account \w Job of his appearance with the sons of God, before the Lord. He accuses Job of a readiness to curse the Lord to his face upon suf- ficient provocation. So Typhon, in the Egyptian Book of the Dead^ figures as the accuser. The resemblance extends even to the names, for one of Typhon's appellations was Seth^ or Seph ; as SAtan, in He- brew, means an adversary. In Arabic the word is Shdtana — to be ad- verse, to persecute, and Manetho says he had treacherously murdered Osiris and allied himself with the Shemites (the Israelites). This may possibly have originated the fable told by Plutarch, that, from the fight between Horus and Typhon, Typhon, overcome with fright at the mis-
bat the Dxva Naonliaiti.** The annotator explains them to be the Vedic gods, Indus, Gaurea. or Siva, and the two Aswins. There must be some mistake, however, for Siva, at tlie time the " Vedas'^ were completed, was an aboriginal or vHthiopian God, the Uala or Hcl of Western Asia. He was not an Aryan or Vedic deity. Perhaps Surya was the divinity intended.
* Jacob liryant : " Analysis of Ancient Mythology."
f Plutarch : ** de Iside,*^ xxx., xxzL
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chief he had caused, " fled seven days on an ass, and escaping, begat the boys lerosolumos and loudaios (Jerusalem and Judea)."
Referring to an invocation of Typhon-Seth, Professor Reuvens says that the Egyptians worshipped Typhon under the form of an ass ; and accord- ing to him Seth ** appears gradually among the Semites as the background of their religious consciousness." * The name of the ass in Coptic, ao, is a phonetic of Iao, and hence the animal became a pun-symbol. Thus Satan is a later creation, sprung from the overheated fancy of the Fathers of the Church. By some reverse of fortune, to which the gods are subjected in common with mortals, Typhon-Seth tumbled down from the eminence of the deified son of Adam Kadinon, to the degrading position of a subaltern spirit, a mythical demon — ass. Religious schisms are as little free from the frail pettiness and spiteful feelings of humanity as the partisan quarrels of laymen. We find a strong instance of the above in the case of the Zoroastrian reform, when Magianism separated from the old faith of the Brahmans. The bright Devas of the Veda became, under the religious reform of Zoroaster, da^vas, or evil spirits, of the Avesta, Even Indra, the luminous god, was thrust far back into the dark shadow f in order to show off, in a brighter light, Ahura-mazda, the Wise and Supreme Deity.
The strange veneration in which the Ophites held the serpent which represented Christos may become less per|)lexing if the students would but remember that at all ages the serpent was the symbol of divine wis- dom, which kills in order to resurrect, destroys but to rebuild the better. Moses is made a descendant of Levi, a serpent-tribe. Gautama-Buddha is of a serpent-lineage, through the Naga (serpent) race of kings who reigned in M agadha. Hermes, or the god Taaut (Thoth), in his snake- symbol is T^t ; and, according to the 0|)hite legends, Jesus or Christos is bom from a snake (divine wisdom, or Holy Ghost), 1. ^., he became a Son of God through his initiation into the ** Serpent Science." Vishnu, identical with the Egyptian Kneph, rests on the heavenly j^r«-headed serpent.
The red or fiery dragon of the ancient time was the military ensign of the Assyrians. Cyrus adopted it from them when Persia became dom- inant. The Romans and Byzantines next assumed it ; and so the '^ great red dragon," from being the symbol of Babylon and Nineveh, became that of Rome. J
The temptation, or probation, § of Jesus is, however, the most dramatic
♦ Wilkinson^s ** Ancient Egyptians," p. 434.
X Sec ** Vendidad," fargand x.
\ Salverte : ** Des Sciences Occultes," ap|>endix, note A,
§ The term vttpcurfios signifies a trial, or probation.
THE TEMPTATIONS OF JOB AND JESUS. 485
occasion in which Satan appears. As if to prove the designation of Apollo, ^sculapius, and Bacchus, Dioholos^ or son of Zeus, he is also styled Dia- bolos, or accuser. The scene of the probation was the wilderness. In the desert about the Jordan and Dead Sea were the abodes of the ** sons of the prophets," and the Essenes.* These ascetics used to subject their neophytes to probations, analogous to the tortures of the Mithraic rites ; and the temptation of Jesus was evidently a scene of this character. Hence, in the Gospel according to Luke, it is stated that " the Diabolos, having completed the probation, left him for a specific time, a^pi Kotpav; and Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit into Galilee." But the 8iaj3oXos, or Devil, in this instance is evidently no malignant principle, but one exercising discipline. In this sense the terms Devil and Satan are repeatedly employed.f Thus, when Paul was liable to undue elation by reason of the abundance of revelations or epoptic disclosures, there was given him "a thorn in the flesh, an angel of Satanas," to check him. J
The story of Satan in the Book of Job is of a similar character. He is introduced among the " Sons of God," presenting themselves before the Lord, as in a Mystic initiation. Micaiah the prophet describes a similar scene, where he " saw the Lord sitting on His throne, and all the host of Heaven standing by Him," with whom He took counsel, which resulted in putting " a lying spirit into the mouth of the prophets of Ahab." § The I^ord counsels with Satan, and gives him carte blanche to test the fidelity of Job. He is stripped of his wealth and family, and smitten with a loathsotne disease. In his extremity, his wife doubts his integrity, and exhorts him to worship God, as he is about to die. His friends all beset him with accusations, and finally the Lord, the chief hiero- phant Himself, taxes him with the uttering of words in which there is no wisdom, and with contending with the Almighty. To this rebuke Job yielded, making this appeal : *' I will demand of thee, and thou shalt declare unto me : wherefore do I abhor myself and mourn in dust and ashes ? " Immediately he was vindicated ** The Lord said unto Eliphaz ... ye have not spoken of me the thing that is right, as my servant Job hath." His integrity had been asserted, and his prediction verified : '* I know that my Champion liveth, and that he will stand up for me at a later time on the earth ; and though after my skin my body itself be cor- roded away, yet even then without my flesh shall I see God." The pre-
* 2 Samuel, ii. $, 15 ; vi 1-4. Pliny.
f See I Corinthians, v. 5 ; 2 Corinthians, xl 14 ; i Timothy, L 20. \ 2d Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians, xii. In Numbers xxii. 22 the angel of the Lord is described as acting the part of a Satan to Balaam. § I Kings, xxii. 19-23.
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diction was accomplished : " I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear, but now niine eye seeth thee. . . . And the Lord turned the captivity of Job."
In all these scenes there is manifested no such malignant diabolism as is supposed to characterize "the adversary of souls."
It is an opinion of certain writers of merit and learning, that the Satan of the book of Job is a Jewish myth, containing the Mazdean doc- trine of the Evil Principle. Dr. Haug remarks that " the Zoroastrian religion exhibits a close affinity, or rather identity with the Mosaic rehg- ion and Christianity, such as the personality and attributes of the Devil, and the resurrection of the dead." * The war of the Apocalypse between Michael and the Dragon, can be traced with equal facility to one of the oldest myths of the Aryans. In the Avesta we read of war between Thraetaona and Azhi-Dahaka, the destroying serpent. Burnouf has en- deavored to show that the Vedic myth of Ahi, or the serpent, fighting against the gods, has been gradually euhemerized into ** the battle of a pious man against the power of evil." in the Mazdean religion, l^y these interpretations Satan would be made identical with Zohak or Azhi- Dahaka, who is a three-headed serpent, with one of the heads a human one.f
Beel-Zebub is generally distinguished from Satan. He seems, in the Apocryphal New Testament, to be regarded as the potentate of the underworld. The name is usually rendered " Baal of the Flies," which may be a designation of the Scarabaei or sacred beetles.J More correctly it shall be read, as it is always given in the (Jreek text of the Gospels^ Beelzebul, or lord of the household, as is indeed intimated in Matthe^i)
* Haug: "EssajTS on the Sacred Language, Writings, and Religion of the Par- sees."
f The ** Avesta " describes the serpent Dahaka, as of the region of Bauri or Baby- lonia. In the Median history are two kings of the name Deiokes or Dahaka, and Astyages or Az-dahaka. There were children of Zohak seated on various Eastern thrones, after Feridun. It is apparent, therefore, that by Zohak is meant the Assyrian dynasty, whose symbol was the purpureum signum draconis — the purple sign of the Dragon. From a very remote antiquity (Genesis xiv.) this dynasty ruled Asia, Arme- nia, Syria, Arabia, Babylonia, Media, Persia, Bactria, and Afghanistan. It was finally overthrown by Cyrus and Darius Hystaspes, after ** 1,000 years* " rule, Yima and Thraetaona, or Jemshid and Feridun, are doubtless personifications. Zohak prob- ably imposed the Assyrian or Magian worship of fire upon the Persians. Darius uas the vicegerent of Ahura- Mazda.
\ The name in the Gospels is /SccX^cjSovX, or Baal of the Dwelling. It is pretty certain that Apollo, the Delphian God, was not Hellenian originally, but Phoenician. He was the Paian or physician, as well as the god of oracles. It is no great stretch of imagination to identify him with Baal-Z^^tf/, the god of Ekron, or Acheron, doubtlea changed to Zebub, or flies, by the Jews in derision.
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