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THE
HISTORY OF THE DEVIL
AND THE
IDEA OF EVIL
FROM THE EARLIEST TIMES TO THE PRESENT DAY
BY
DR. PAUL CARUS
' Ich kaiin mich iiicht heredc7i lassen, Mac/it mir den Teiifi/ iiur iiicJil klein ; Ein Kerl den alle Menschen hassen, Der muss was sein ! "
— GOETHE
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CONTENTS.
PAGK
Good and Evil as Religious Ideas i
Devil Worship 6
Ancient Egypt 15
Accad and the Early Semites 29
Persian Dualism 50
Israel 65
Brahmanism and Hinduism 74
Buddhism 104
The Dawn of a New Era 137
Early Christianity 157
The Idea of Salvation in Greece and Italy 193
T.ie Demonology of Northern Europe 241
The Devil's Prime 262
The Inquisition 306
The Age of the Reformation 338
The Abolition of Witch-Prosecution 370
In Verse and Fable 407
The Philosophical Problem of Good and Evil. . . . . . 439
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
PAGE
Frontispiece.
Demonolatrous Ceremonies of the Old Inhabitants of Haiti.
After Picart ii
Human Sacrifices Among the Greeks. After an ancient cameo
in Berlin 12
A Hind Substituted for Iphigenia. After a Pompeian fresco 13
Apapi (Apophis) and Atmu. After Rawlinson 16
Forms of Taourt. After Rawlinson 16
Beth. After Brugsch 16
The Soul Visiting the Mummy. From the Ani Papyrus . 16
Set Teaching the King the Art of War. After Erman ... 18 The Weighing of the Heart in the Hall of Truth. After
Lepsius's reproduction of the Turin papyrus .... 21 The Abode of Bliss. After Lepsius's reproduction of the
Turin papyrus 25
Xisuthrus (the Babj'lonian Noah) in the Ark. After an an- cient Bab3lonian cylinder. Reproduced from Smith . 32 Wall Decorations of the Royal Palace at Nineveh in Their
Present State. After Place, reproduced from Lenormant 33 Sacred Tree and Serpent. From an ancient Babylonian cyl- inder. After Smith 35
The Tree of Life. Decorations on the embroidery of a royal
mantle. British Museum 36
Merodach Delivering the Moon-God from the Evil Spirits.
From a Babylonian cylinder. Smith 37
The Chaldean Trinity Blessing the Tree of Life. British
Museum 40
VI THE HISTORY OF THE DEVIL.
PAGE
The Goddess Anna. Bas-relief in the British Museum . . 40
Fight Between Bel-Merodach and Tiamat. British Museum 41
Evil Demons. British Museum 43
Demon of the Southwest Wind. Statue in the Louvre. After
Lenormant 44
Nirgalli. British Museum. After Lenormant 45
An Ancient Assyrian Bronze Tablet Representing the World in the Clutches of an Evil Demon. Collection of M. de
Clercq. After Lenormant 46
An Assyrian Cameo 59
A Persian Cameo 59
Assyrian Cylinder 59
Sculptures on a Royal Tomb. Lenormant 60
Bas-Relief of Persepolis. Lenormant 61
The King Slaying a Unicorn. Bas-relief of Persepolis . . 63 Saul and the Witch of Endor. After Schnorr von Carolsfeld 68 Assyrian Goat Demons. Carvings on a boulder. After Le- normant 6g
The Brahman Triniurti. After Coleman 75
Brahma. Fragment of a car. Mus6e Guimet 76
Brahma and Suraswati. Reproduced from Hermann Goll . 77 Vishnu, Lakshmi, and Brahma. After a native illustration,
reproduced from Hermann Goll 78
The Matsya Avatar or Fish Incarnation. From Picart . . 79 The Kurm Avatar or Tortoise Incarnation From Picart . . 79 The Varaha Avatar or Wild Boar Incarnation. From Picart 79 The Narasinha Avatar or Man-Lion Incarnation. From Picart 79 Lakshmi, the Goddess of Beauty. Musi^e Guimet ... 80 Vishnu Narasinha. Fragment of a car. Musee Guimet . . 81 Hanuman, the Monkey King, Building the Bridge Over the Strait Between India and Lanka. Reproduced from Her- mann Goll 82
The Vamana Avatar or Dwarf Incarnation 83
The Parashura Avatar, or Battle-Ax Incarnation .... 83
The Rama Chandra Avatar 83
The Krishna Avatar 83
LIvST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. Vll
PAGE
The Monkey King Sugriva Fighting. Reproduced from Cole- man 84
Vishnu and Shri-Lakshmi as Rama Chandra and Sita After
Their Happy Reunion. Reproduced from Coleman . 85 Hanuman Reciting His Adventures to Rama Chandra and
Sita. Reproduced from Coleman 86
Krishna Nursed by Devaki. Reproduced from Moore's Hindu
Pantheon 87
Krishna. Bronze statue, Mus^e Guimet 88
Krishna, the Favorite of the Country Lasses of Gokula. Re- produced from Coleman 89
Krishna's Adventures. Reproduced from Coleman ... 90 The Battle Between the Kurus and Pandus on the Field of
Kurukshetra. Reproduced from Wilkins gi
Jagannath with His Two Companions. After Schlagintweit 92
Shiva with Parvati. Mus^e Guimet ■ . . 93
Shiva-Trimurti, Mus^e Guimet 93
Shiva Dancing Surrounded by a Halo of Flames. Bronze
Statue, Mus^e Guimet 94
The Buddha Avatar or Vishnu's Incarnation as the Enlight- ened Teacher of Mankind. Reproduced from Picart 95 The Kalki Avatar or the White-Horse Incarnation. From
Picart 95
Shiva Worship. From Picart 95
Shiva and Parvati. From Goll 96
Kali. After an Indian picture. From Schlagintweit ... 97
Durga. Indian sculpture. From Schlagintweit .... 98
mKha' sGroma, the Tibetan Kali. Musee Guimet . . , . 99
Kali-Durga in the Hindu Pantheon. From Wilkins . . 100
Hari Hara. From Wilkins loi
Ganesa. From Wilkins 102
Agni. From Hermann Goll 102
Kama. From WoUheim da Fonceka 102
Shiva Slaying a Demon. From Wilkins 102
The Demon of Lightning. A Japanese temple statue . . 106
The Demon of Thunder. A Japanese temple statue . . . 107
Vlll THE HISTORY OF THE DEVIL.
PAGE
Mara's Army. Gandhara sculptures. Museum of Lahore.
From Griinwedel no
Buddha, Tempted by Mara's Daughters. Gandhara sculp- tures. Reproduced from Griinwedel 114
An Indian Wheel of Life. From L. E. Waddell's picture iig
A Tibetan Wheel of Life. From Bastian 121
A Japanese Wheel of Life. From Bastian 123
Meifu, the Dark Tribunal. From Karma 128
Kongo, the Sheriff. From a Japanese art print .... 130
Emma, the Judge. From a Japanese art print 130
The Devil as a Monk. Japanese wood carving, Musee Guimet 131 Oni-no-Nembutzu. After a wood carving in the author's pos- session 132
Hono-Kuruma, the Cart of Hell. After an old Japanese
painting 133
Tibetan Devil's Altar. From Waddell 134
Buddha Extending His Help to a Sufferer in Hell. From
Karma 136
The Christian Trinity, God Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.
Reproduced from Muther 139
Asmodi, an Evil Spirit, Cast Out by Prayer. After Schnorr
von Carolsfeld 141
Heaven and Hell. After H. F., an unknown Old-German
master 144
The Holy Trinity in the Vatican. After Pietro Berrettini 146 The Buddhist Trinity, the Buddha, the Dharma, the Sangha.
Mus^e Guimet 147
The Trinity and Mary. After Lubke 148
The Christian Trinity. From Bastian 149
The Trinity of Salerno. Sketched by the artist of the Gartcn-
laube 150
Jacob Bohme 151
Vignette of Jacob Bohme's Book on the Threefold Life of
Man 152
The Three Principles. Frontispiece of Jacob Bohme's book 153
Jesus Casting Out Devils. After Schnorr von Carolsfeld . 158
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. ix
PAGE
The Fiend, Sowing Tares Among the Wheat. From a Ger- man Picture-Bible 158
Dives Enjoying Life, and Lazarus Suffering. From a Ger- man Picture-Bible 160
Dives Tormented in Hell. From a German Picture-Bible 160
Cast Into Outer Darkness Where There Shall be Weeping
and Gnashing of Teeth. From a German Picture-Bible 161
The Day of the Lord. After Michelangelo 162
The Last Judgment. A fresco in the Campo Santo, Pisa 164
The Christian World-Dispensation According to St. John the
Divine. After Schnorr von Carolsfeld i6g
The Four Riders of the Apocalypse. Wall-painting on the
Campo Santo, Berlin 170
The Woman of Abominations. By Albrecht Diirer . . . 172 Christ's Descent Into Hell. By Sasha Schneider . . . . 176 Christian Representation of the Last Judgment. From K/as-
sischer Sktilpturenschatz 1 80
Christian Representation 01 Hell. From Klassischer Skulp-
turcnschatz 181
The Typical Conception of Hell. German woodcut of the
age of the Reformation 185
Weighing the Evil and the Good of the Soul. From the ca- thedral in Autun, France 188
The Doom of the Damned. After Luca Signorelli . . . i8g The Trinity Ideal of Mediaeval Christianity. Reproduced
from Muther igo
Hades. From Mon. I/ist 194
Human Sacrifices at the Funeral Pyre of Patroclus. From
Michaelis, Handbuch der Kuiistgescliiclitf 195
Christ's Death on the Cross and its Prototypes. Biblia Paii-
perum. Woodcut of the fifteenth century ig6
Tuchulcha, the Demon of Infernal Tortures According to the Belief of the Etruscans. Part of a wall-picture of a tomb
in Corneto 197
Charun, the Etruscan Demon of Death, Waiting for a Victim
From an Etruscan vase 197
X THE HISTORY OF THE DEVIL.
PAGE
Oknos and the Daughters of Danaos in Hades. Frieze of a
Roman wall decoration igy
Ixion on the Fiery Wheel ig8
Gigantomachy ; the Giants Storming Heaven. \'atican Mu- seum 1 99
Zeus Conquering T)'phceus. Baumeister 199
Gigantomachy; the Giants Storming Heaven. Greek frieze 200
War in Heaven. By Albrecht Diirer 201
Chimaera of Arezzo. Now at Florence 202
Theseus and Pirithous. Baumeister 203
Perseus with the Head of the Decapitated Medusa. Bau- meister 204
Perseus and Andromeda. Baumeister 205
Sicilian Coin with Medusa Head 206
The Gorgoneion on the Shield of Phidias's Athene . . . 206 Gorgoneion, Ancient Face of the Gorgon Medusa. Glypto-
thek, Munich 207
Medusa Rondanini. Glyptothek, Munich 207
Bellerophon Slaying the Chimaera. British 'Museum . . . 208
The Lion-Killing Hero of Khorsabad 209
Prometheus Tied b\' Zeus to the Stake (or Cross) and Ex- posed to the Eagle ; Rescued by Hercules. Vase now
at Berlin, Baumeister 210
The Myth of Prometheus on a Sarcophagus 212
The Temptations of Christ. Mosaic in the cathedral of
Monreale, Sicily .... 213
Christian Gem 218
Mithras Monument of Ostburken 220
Mithraic Symbols. From C. W. King 220
Mithras the Saviour. Borghesi monument, the Louvre . . 221
JEon of Zrvan Akarana. From Layard 225
Abraxas Gem 227
Agathodaemon. From C. W. King 227
lao Gem 227
Serapis 228
Serapis Gem 229
LIST OF ILHTSTRATIOXS. XI
PAGE
Hermes, Saviour of Souls 230
Staff of Hermes 230
Hermes as Jupiter 230
A Ship Symbolising the Church 233
A Christian Gem with Serpent 233
A Gnostic Gem 233
Christian Symbols of the Catacombs 234
Aramaean Warriors, Wearing the Cross as an Amulet for
Protection in Battle. After Wilkinson 235
St. Anthony Fighting the Devil with the Cross. After Sal-
vator Rosa 236
St. George, the Princess and the Dragon 236
Archangel Michael Copquering Satan. By Raphael. In the
Louvre 238
Archangel Michael Holding the Scales for Weighing Souls.
After Lorenzo Sabbatiuri 238
Hel, the Goddess of the Nether World. By Johannes Gehrts. 242
Ragnarok, or Doomsday of the Teutons. Bj- Johannes Gehrts. 244
Dante's Ice Hell. By Gustave Dor6 248
St. Dunstan and the Devil. From Scheible 255
The Legend of St. Cuthbert. From the /ngcilJsi'y Legends . 257
The Legend of St. Medard. From the Ingoldshv Legends . . 258
The Devil's Bridge Over the Reuss 260
Modern Snake Charmers. Reproduced from Brehm . . . 262 Moses and Aaron Performing the Snake Miracle Before Pha- raoh. After Schnorr von Carolsfeld 263
The Egyptian Snake Naja Haje Made Motionless by a Pres- sure on the Neck. From Verworn after photographs . 264 A Successful Rain-Maker Slaying His Rivals. After Schnorr
von Carolsfeld 267
Tenskwatawa, the Shawano Prophet in 1808. Reproduced from the Fourteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of
Ethnology 268
Tenskwatawa, the Shawano Prophet in 1831. Reproduced from the Fourteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of
Ethnology 269
XU THE HISTORY OF THE DEVIL.
PAGE
The Ecstasy of the Ghost Dance of the North American In- dians 271
The Blessing. A Ceremony in the Ghost Dance of the North
American Indians 273
Henricus Cornelius Agrippa ab Nettesheim. Reproduced
from the original edition of his works 274
Illustrations from the Original Edition of Ociulta Philoso-
phia 276, 277
Exorcising by the Cross. Bas-relief on a water vessel found
near Pisama 278
Text of the Baptismal Abjuration Formula in Old Low-Ger- man. From O. Henne am Rhyn 281
Specimen Page of an Illuminated Initial in Heisterbach's Dialogus Miraculorum. Original in Roj'al Library at
Diisseldorf 283
Witches Conjuring a Hail-Storm 285
The Devil of Conceit as Seen by a Clergyman on the Dress
of a Fashionable Lady 285
The Main Actors in Mediaeval Mysteries. From Dr. Gustav
Konnecke 288
Witches. From Horndorff 290
The Witches' Sabbath. After Picart 291
Virgulta Divina. From an old MS. by George Conrad Horst 294
A Seal of Petrus de Albano for Conjuring Good Spirits . . 295
The Twelve Houses of a Horoscope. From Gerhard . . 295
The Sign of the First Hour of Sunday 296
The Divine Name Arranged for Conjuration ' 296
Knight and Devil 297
The Bishop of Lodi Preaching at the Trial of John Huss.
From Castelar 301
Savonarola 302
Savonarola Praying in His Cell. From Castelar .... 303
Burning of Savonarola. After Don Ricardo Balaca . . . 304 Pope Urban V. Proclaiming the Bull In Civna Domini, 1362,
Condemning Heretics 311
The Banner of the Spanish Inquisition. From Picart . 312
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. Xlll
PACE
The Banner of the Incjuisition of (}oa. I'rom Picart . 312
The Chamber of tlie Inquisition. From Picart 313
Various Manners of CrossExamining the Defendants. From
Picart 314
A Man and a Woman Convicted of Heresy. From Picart . 315
Heretics Condemned to be Burned. From Picart . . . 316 A Man and a Woman Condemned to be Burned. From
Picart 317
The Inquisition in Session on the Market Square at Madrid.
From Picart 318
Procession of the Inquisition of Goa. From Picart . . 319
The Last Sermon Preached to the Condemned. From Picart 319
The Heretics' Death on the Fagots. From Picart ... 320
The Water Ordeal 327
The Torture-Room at Nuremberg. After C. Ran. Repro- duced from B. E. Konig 329
Agnes Bernauer Drowned as a Witch at the Request of Ernest,
Duke of Bavaria. Reproduced from B. E. Konig . 335 Satanic Temptations and the Ladder of Life. From Heradis
von Lansperg's Hortus Deliciarum 339
Calvinism Tearing Down the Roman Empire 340
The Kingdom of Satan or the Seven-Headed Beast of the
Revelation 341
Temptation. A Protestant Conception of Evil. German
woodcut of the time of Luther 344
The Race for Fortune. After Henneberg's oil painting . 345
The Devil of Unchastity. From a German woodcut 346 The Devil of Niggardliness Making the Miser Hard-Hearted.
By Hans Holbein 347
The Latest Fad in Clothes Pilloried. From Sigismund Feyer-
abend's Theatruin Diaholoridin 347
Scenes from M. Jacob Ruff's Religious Drama 348
Macbeth Consulting the Witches 349
The Natural State of Man 354
The Holy Ghost Illumines the Heart 354
The Holy Ghost in Possession 355
XIV THE HISTORY OF THE DEVIL.
PAGE
The Passion of Christ in the Heart 355
The Holy Trinity Resides in the Heart . . 356
New Temptations 356
Satan's Return with Seven Other Spirits More Wicked than
Himself 357
The Impious Man Is Doomed When He Dies .... 357
A Heart Fortified in Christ 358
The Pious Man is Saved at Death 358
Poster of the Sixteenth Century 361
Facsimile of the Contract Which Urban Grandier is Reported
to have Made with the Devil 364
Apparitions of the Cross. From Griinbeck 371
Friedrich von Spee. After a picture in the Marzellen-Gym-
nasium at Cologne 376
Illustrations from the Dnitenzeitung, 1627 378
Balthasar Bekker. From a portrait on the title-page of Die
bezaii/'crtc JVelt 380
Bekker's Autograph. From his original handwriting . . . 381 Christian Thomasius. From a copper engraving by M. Berni-
groth 382
Signature of Christian Thomasius 383
Schottel's Wheel of Hell 385
The Christian Hell 3S8
Schwenter's Hen E.xperiment. Reproduced by Father Atha-
nasius Kircher 391
Pater Gassner. Etching by Daniel Chodowiecki .... 392 Demons on the Tomb of Dagobert. Church of St. Denys,
near Paris 412
Covetousness. Library of St. Genevieve, Paris 413
Faust Signing the Contract with the Devil in Blood. By
Franz Simm 414
The Legend of Theophilus. From Monk Conrad's illu- mined MS 416
Mephistopheles Making His Appearance in Faust's Study.
After Schnorr von Carolsfeld 419
LIST OK ILLUSTRATIONS. XV
PAGE
Faust Beholding the Emblem of the Macrocosm. After P.
Rembrandt 419
Faust Riding on a Barrel out of Auerbach's Cellar. Fresco. 420 The Sense-Illusions of the Riotous Students and Faust's Es- cape. After P. Cornelius 420
Faust Enjoying Himself in Auerbach's Cellar. P'resco 421 Mephistopheles Having Faust Buried by the Devils. After
Retzsch 421
Studying Black Magic. Widnian's Jumst 426
Conjuring the Devil. Widman's Faust 426
Some Pleasantries of Black Magic. Widman's /■',iiis/ . . . 426
Miracles and Conjurations. Widman's FausI 426
Last Hours and Death. Widman's Fans/ 427
Wagner Conjuring the Devil Auerhan 428
Auerhan's Services 42S
Wagner's Jokes ... - 428
Last Hours and Death 428
The Devil in the Puppet Play .... 429
Witches Celebrating Walpurgis Night. By Franz Simm . 431 Der Teuffel lest Keyn Lantzknecht mehr inn die Helle faren.
Hans Sachs 432
Hell According to Dionysius Klein's Tragico-Conicedia. Re- produced from Bastian's Die Denkschopfmig 433
The Devil in Modern Satirical Journals 436
Hell Up To Date. By permission from A. Young's Hell Up
To Date 437
Egyptian Devil. Post-classic age 440
Mahamaya, the Slayer of Mahisha. From Moor's Hindu Pan-
tlicon 440
The Christian View of the Chained Ruler of Hell. Didron . 441
Persian Devil. Didron 442
Turkish Devil. From a Turkish MS 442
Satan Accusing Job. Fresco in the Campo Santo at Pisa . 443 Satan in His Ugliness. From a MS. in the National Library,
Paris 444
XVI THE HISTORY OF THE DEVIL.
PAGE
Satan in His Ugliness. From an Anglo-Saxon MS. in the
British Museum 444
The Trinity Fighting Behemoth and Leviathan. 'After Didron 445 A Trinit}^ of the Tenth Century. From Miiller and Mathe's
Archjeology 445
Milton's Satan. After Dor^ 451
Lucifer Before the Fall. From the Hortus Deliciarum . . 462
The Fallen Lucifer. After Dord 463
The Feeling of Dependence. After Sasha Schneider . . . 470 Time as a Trinity of Past, Present, and Future. French
miniature 472
The Divine Trinity. From a MS. in the Bibhotheque de
Sainte Genevieve 472
Italian Trinity. Didron 473
Satanic Trinity. Didron 473
The Trinity. From a window in the Church of Notre Dame,
at Chalons, France 474
The Trinity of Evil. From a French MS. in the Bibliotheque
Royale at Paris 474
The Three-Headed Serapis. From Bartoli's Lucerna Vetcium
Sepulchrates 475
Aziel, the Guardian of Hidden Treasures. From Francisci's
Proteus infernalis 475
God Supporting the World. Fresco in the Campo Santo of
Pisa 476
Hercules with Cerberus. From a vase found in Alta mura . 477 St. Anthony Assaulted by Devils. After Schoengauer's copper
engraving, 1420-1499 479
The Good Lord and the Devil. By Franz Simm .... 480
The Devil in the Campo Santo (Pisa) 485
Seal of Satan. Didron 486
GOOD AND EVIL AvS RELIGIOUvS IDEAS.
T
HIS WORLD OF OURS is a world of opposites. There is light and shade, there is heat and cold, there is good and evil, there is God and the Devil.
The dualistic conception of nature has been a neces- sary phase in the evolution of human thought. We find the same views of good and evil spirits prevailing among all the peoples of the earth at the very beginning of that stage of their development which, in the phraseology of T3'lor, is commonly called Animism. But the principle of unity dominates the development of thought. Man tries to unify his conceptions in a consistent and harmo- nious Monism. Accordingly, while the belief in good spirits tended towards the formation of the doctrine of Monotheism, the belief in evil spirits led naturally to the acceptance of a single supreme evil deity, conceived as embodying all that is bad, destructive, and immoral.
Monotheism and Monodiabolism, both originating simultaneously in the monistic tendencies of man's men- tal evolution, together constitute a Dualism which to many is still the most acceptable world-conception. Neverthe- less, it is not the final goal of human philosophy. As
2 THE HISTORY OF THE DEVIL.
soon as the thinkers of mankind become aware of the Dualism implied in this interpretation of the world, the tendency is again manifested towards a higher concep- tion, which is a purely monistic view.
Will IMonism eliminate the idea of the Devil in order to make God the One and All? Or will it abolish both God and the Devil, to leave room only for a world of matter in motion? Will the future of mankind be, as M. Guyau prophesies, a period in which religion will dis- appear and give way to irreligion?
Those who do not appreciate the mission of Dualism in the evolution of human thought, and only know its doctrines to be untenable, naturally expect that the future of mankind will be irreligious, and there are freethinkers who declare that Atheism will supersede all the different conceptions of God. But this is not probable. The mo- nistic tendencies of the age will not destroy, but purify and elevate religion. The Animism of the savage is a necessary stage of man's mental evolution : it appears as an error to the higher-developed man of a half-civilised period ; but the error contains a truth which naturally develops into a more perfect conception of the surround- ing world. Similarly, the religious ideas of the present time are symbols. Taken in their literal meaning, they are untenable, but understood in their sj-mbolical nature they are seeds from which a purer conception of the truth will grow. The tendencies of philosophic thought pre- vailing to-day lead to a positive conception of the world, which replaces symbols by statements of fact and brings with it not a denial of religious allegories but a deeper and more correct conception.
GOOD AND KVIL AS RELIGIOUS IDEAS. 3
A State of irreligion in which mankind would adopt and publicly teach a doctrine of Atheism is an impossibil- ity. Atheism is a neo^ation, and negations cannot stand, for they have sense only as confronted with the positive issues which they reject. Yet our present anthropomor- phic view of God, briefly called Anthropotheism, which as a rule conceives him as an infinitely big individual being, will have to 3'ield to a higher view in which we shall understand that the idea of a personal God is a mere simile. God is much more than a person. When we speak of God as a person, we ought to be conscious of the fact that we use an allegory which, if it were taken literally, can only belittle him. The God of the future will not be personal, but superpersonal.
But how shall we reach this knowledge of the super- personal God? Our answer is, with the help of science. Let us pursue in religion the same path that science trav- els, and the narrowness of sectarianism will develop into a broad cosmical religion which shall be as wide and truly catholic as is science itself.
Symbols are not lies ; symbols contain truth. Alle- gories and parables are not falsehoods ; they convey in- formation : moreover, they can be understood by those who are not as yet prepared to receive the plain truth. Thus, when in the progress of science religious symbols are recognised and known in their symbolical nature, this knowledge will not destroy religion but will purify it and will cleanse it from mj^thology.
We define God as ' ' that authoritative presence in the All, which enforces a definite moral conduct." God is that something which constitutes the harmony of the
4 THE HISTORY OF THE DEVIL.
laws of nature ; God is the intrinsic necessity of matlie- matics and logic ; God above all is what experience teaches us to be the inalienable features of righteousness, justice, morality. This presence is both immanent and transcendent : it is immanent as the constituent charac- teristic of the law that pervades the universe ; it is tran- scendent, for it is the condition of any possible cosmic order ; and in this sense it is supercosmic and super- natural.*
We do not say that God is impersonal, for the word " impersonal " implies the absence of those features which constitute personality ; it implies vagueness, indefinite- ness, and lack of character. God, however, as he manifests himself in the order of the universe is verj- definite. He is not vague but possesses quite marked qualities. He is such as he is and not different. His being is universal, but not indeterminable. His nature does not consist of indifferent generalities, but exhibits a distinct suchness. Indeed; all suchness in the world, in phj^sical nature as well as in the domain of spirit, depends upon God as here defined, and what is the personality of man but the incar- nation of that cosmic logic which we call reason? God, although not an individual being, is the prototype of per- sonalit}^ ; although not a person, thinking thoughts as we do, deliberating, weighing arguments, and coming to a de- cision, he is yet that which conditions personality ; he possesses all those qualities which, when reflected in ani- mated creatures, adds unto their souls the nobility of
*See the authors Idea of Cod; Soul of Mnn, pp. 338 et seq.; Fundamental Problems, p. 152 el passim; Primer of Philosophy, p. 170 et passim; The Monist, Vol. III., pp. 357 et seq.; Homilies of Science, pp. 79-120.
GOOD AND EVIL AS RELIGIOUS IDEAS. 5
God's image, called personality. Therefore we say, God is not impersonal, but superpersonal.
While the idea of God has received much attention from philosophers and progressive theologians, its coun- terpart, the dark figure of the Evil One, has been much neglected. And yet the Devil is, after all, a very inter- esting personality, grotesque, romantic, humorous, pa- thetic, nay, even grand and tragic. And if we have to declare that the idea of God is a symbol signif3ang an actual presence in the world of facts, should we not ex- pect that the idea of the Devil also represents a reality?
It is almost impossible to exhaust the subject, for it would take volumes to write an approximately complete history of demonology. Accordingly, we must confine ourselves to merely outlining some of the most salient features of the development of the belief in the Devil and the nature of the idea of evil.
DEVIL WORSHIP.
FROM A SURVEYAL of the accounts gleaned from Waitz, Lubbock, and Tylor, on the primitive state of religion, the conviction impresses itself upon the stu- dent of demonology that Devil-worship naturally precedes the worship of a benign and morally good Deity. There are at least many instances in which we can observe a transition from the lower stage of Devil-worship to the higher stage of God-worship, and there seems to be no exception to the rule that fear is always the first incentive to religious worship. This is the reason why the dark figure of the Devil, that is to say, of a powerful evil deity, looms up as the most important personage in the remot- est past of almost every faith. Demonolatry, or Devil- worship, is the first stage in the evolution of religion, for we fear the bad, not the good.
Mr. Herbert Spencer bases religion on the Unknown, declaring that the savage worships those powers which he does not understand. In order to give to religion a foun- dation which even the scientist does not dare to touch, he asserts the existence of an absolute Unknowable, and rec- ommends it as the basis of the religion of the future. But
DEVIL WORSHIP. 7
facts do not agree Mith Mr. Spencer's proposition. A German proverb says :
"Was ich nicht weiss Macht mich nicht heiss."
Or, as is sometimes said in English : "What the eyes don't see The heart doesn't grieve for."
What is absolutely unknowable does not concern us, and the savage does not worship the thunder because he does not know what it is, but because he knows enough about the lightning that may strike his hut to be in awe of it. He worships the thunder because he dreads it ; he is afraid of it on account of its known and obvious dan- gers which he is unable to control.
Let us hear the men who have carefully collected and sifted the facts. Waitz, in speaking in his Anthropologie (Vol. III., pp. 182, 330, 335, 345) of the Indians, who were not as yet semi-Christianised, states that the Florida tribes are said to have solemnly worshipped the Bad Spirit, Toia, who plagued them with visions, and to have had small regard for the Good Spirit, who troubled him- self little about mankind. And Martins makes this char- acteristic remark of the rude tribes of Brazil :
"All Indians have a lively conviction of the power of an evil principle over them ; in many there dawns also a glimpse of the good ; but they revere the one less than they fear the other. It might be thought that they hold the Good Being weaker in relation to the fate of man than the Evil."*
Capt. John Smith, the hero of the colonisation of Virginia, in 1607, describes the worship of Okee (a word
* Quoted from Tylor, Primitive Culture. II., p. 325.
8 THE HISTORY OF THE DEVIL.
which apparently means that which is above our con- trol) as follows:*
" There is yet in Virginia no place discouered to bee so Savage in which the savages haue not a religion, Deare, and Bow and Ar- rowes. All thinges that were able to do them hurt beyond their pre- vention they adore with their kinde of divine worship ; as the fire, water, lightning, thunder, our ordinance peeces, horses, &c. But their chiefe God they worship is the Diuell. Him they call Oke,'\ and serue him more of feare than loue. They say they haue con- ference with him and fashion themselues as neare to his shape as they can imagine. In their Temples they haue his image euill favouredly carued and then painted and adorned with chaines, cop- per, and beades, and couered with a skin in such manner as the deformity may well suit with such a God." (Original ed., p. 29.)
" In some part of the Country, they haue yearely a sacrifice of children. Such a one was at Quiyoughcohanock, some 10 miles from lames Towne, and thus performed.
"Fifteene of the properest young boyes, betweene 10 and 15 yeares of age, they painted white. Hauing brought them forth, the people spent the forenoone in dancing and singing about them with rattles.
"In the afternoone, they put those children to the roote of a tree. By them, all the men stood in a guard, every one hauing a Bastinado in his hand, made of reeds bound together. This \these\ made a lane betweene them all along, through which there were appointed 5 young men to fetch these children. So every one of the fiue went through the guard, to fetch a child, each after other by turnes : the guard fearelessly beating them with their Bastina- does, and they patiently enduring and receauing all ; defending the children with their naked bodies from the vnmercifull blowes they pay them soimdly, though the children escape. All this while,
* "A map of Virginia. With a description of the covntrey, etc., written by Captaine Smith, etc. Oxford. Printed by Joseph Barnes. 1612."
fin the little dictionary of the language of the savages of Virginia which is printed in the same pamphlet, Captain Smith translates "Oke" simply by "gods."
DEVIL WORSHIP. y
the women weepe and .crie out very passionately ; prouiding mats, skinnes, mosse, and drie wood, as things fitting their childrens funerals.
"After the children were thus passed the guard, the guard tore down the tree, branches and boughs, with such violence, that they rent the body and made wreathes for their heads, or bedecked their haire with the leaues. What else was done with the children was not seene ; but they were all cast on a heape in a valley, as dead '■ where they made a great feast for al the company.
"The Werouiancc [chief] being demanded the meaning of this sacrifice, answered that the children were not all dead, but [only] that the 0/;e or Dive// did sucke the blood from their left breast [of those], who chanced to be his by lot, till they were dead. But the rest were kept in the wildernesse by the yong men till nine moneths were expired, during which time they must not conuerse with any: and of these, were made their Priests and Coniurers.
"This sacrifice they held to bee so necessarie, that if they should omit it, their Oke or Divel and all their other Quiri>iig!u-o- sttg/us (which are their other Gods) would let them haue no Deare, Turkies, Corne, nor fish : and yet besides, hee would make great slaughter amongst them.
"To divert them from this blind idolatrie, many vsed their best indeauours, chiefly with the lVero7tiances of Quiyoug/ico/tanoc/i ; whose devotion, apprehension, and good disposition much exceeded any in those Countries : who though we could not as yet preuaile withall to forsake his false Gods, yet this he did beleeue, that our God as much exceeded theirs, as our Gunnes did their Bowes and Arrows ; and many times did send to the President, at lames towne, men with presents, intreating them to pray to his God for raine, for his Gods would not send him any.
"And in this lamentable ignorance doe these poore soules sac- rifice themselues to the Diuell, not knowing their Creator." (Orig- inal ed., pp. 32, 33, 34.)*
* See The Works of Capt. John Smith of Willoughby etc. Edited by Edward Arber. Birmingham, 1884, pp. 74 ff.
10 THE HISTORY OF THE DEVIL.
Similar practices prevailed among almost all tlie In- dian tribes who inhabited the islands and the two conti- nents of America a few centuries ago. M. Bernhard Picart's illustration'^, drawn according to the report of Peter Marty r,t an eye-witness, proves that the tribes of Hispaniola, now commonly called Haiti, paid homage to the Supreme Being under the name of Jocanna, and their practices show that they were devil-worshippers of the worst kind. Even the most civilised Americans, the Mex- icans, had not as yet outgrown this stage of religious be- lief. It is true that the idea of a white God of Love and Peace was not quite foreign to them, but the fear of the horrible Huitzilopochtli still prompted them to stain the altars of his temples with the blood of human victims.
Human sacrifices are frequently mentioned in the Bible. Thus the King of Moab, when pressed hard by the children of Israel, "took his eldest son that should have reigned in his stead and offered him for a burnt- offering upon the wall" (2 Kings, iv. 27) . He succeeded by this terrible expedient in saving the city, for the bib- lical report continues: "And there was great indignation against Israel ; and they [the Israelites] departed from him and returned to their own land."
The prophets were constantly preaching against the pagan practice of those Israelites who, in imitation of the religion of their neighbors, sought to " sacrifice their sons and daughters to devils," or let them " pass through the fire of IMoloch to devour them ' ' ; but so near to the reli-
* The Religions Cenmonies and Customs of the Several Nations of the JCnowxt World. Ill,, p. 129,
f See his work, De rebus oteanicis et novo orbe.
DEVIL WORSHIP.
11
Demonolatrous Ceremonies of the Old Inhabitants of Haiti. (After Picart.)
12
THE HISTORY OF THE DEVIL.
gioiis conception of the savage was even the purer faith of Israel that Jephtha still believed that God required of him "to offer his daughter up as a burnt offering." (Judges, xi. 29-40) .
The most civilised nations on earth still preserve in their ancient legends traces of having at an early period
of their religious develop- ment immolated human beings in propitiation of angry deities. When the glory of Athens was at its climax, Euripides dra- matically represented the tragic fate of Polyxena who was sacrificed on the tomb of Achilles in order to pacify the dead hero's spirit and thereby ensure the safe return of the Greek army.
Progress in civilisa- tion led to a modification but not to a direct aboli- tion of human sacrifices. We find among more advanced savages, and even at the dawn of a higher civilisation, a practice whereby the victim, be it a child, a virgin, or a youth is offered up without slaughtering, and has a chance either to escape by good luck or to be rescued by some daring deed. Traces of this conception are found in the tales of Perseus and Andromeda, of Palnatoke the marks- man, who, like William Tell, shot an apple from his
Human Sacrifice Among the Greeks. [Polyxena dies by the hand of Neopto- lemus on the tomb of Achilles, — Afttr an ancient cavieo in Berlin.^
DEVIL WORSHIP.
13
child's head, of Susano, in Japanese folk-lore, who slew the eight-headed serpent that annually devoured one of the daughters of a poor peasant, and similar ancient le- gends. At the same time human victims were supplanted by animals, as is indicated by various religious legends. Thus a hind was substituted for Iphigenia and a ram for Isaac.
Human sacrifices are one of the principal characteristic traits of Devil-worship, but not the only one. There are in addition other devilish practices which are based on the idea that the Deity takes de- light in witnessing tor- tures, and the height of abomination is reached
in cannibalism, which, [Agamemnon, her father, veils his head.
while Diomedes and Odysseus deliver the vir-
aS anthropology teaches gin over to Kalchas, the priest Artemis ap-
, 1 , pears in the clouds and a nymph brings the
us, IS not due to scar- {;. , ,., r, ^ / ,i
' hind. — After a Fompeian Jresco.\
city of food, but can
always be traced back to some religious superstition, especially to the notion that he who partakes of the heart or brain of his adversary acquires the courage, strength, and other virtues of the slain man.
The last remnants of the idea that the Vv rath of the Deity must be appeased by blood, and that we acquire spir- itual powers by eating the flesh and drinking the blood of the victim still linger with us to-day in the mediaeval
A Hind Substituted for Iphigenia.
14 THE HISTORY OF THE DEVIL.
interpretations of certain church dogmas, and will only disappear before the searching light of a fearless and con- sistent religious reformation. We must remember, how- ever, that certain superstitions, at early stages of the reli- gious development of mankind, are as unavoidable as the -various errors which science and philosophy pass through in their natural evohition.
Religion always begins with fear, and the religion of savages may directly be defined as "the fear of evil and the various efforts made to escape evil." Though the fear of evil in the religions of civilised nations plays no longer so prominent a part, we yet learn through historical in- vestigations that at an early stage of their development almost all worship was paid to the powers of evil, who were regarded with special awe and reverence.
Actual Devil-worship continues until the positive power of good is recognised and man finds out b}' experi- ence that the good, although its progress may be ever so slow, is always victorious in the end. It is natural that the power that makes for righteousness is by and by rec- ognised as the supreme ruler of all powers, and then the power of evil ceases to be an object of awe ; it is no longer worshipped and not even propitiated, but struggled against, and the confidence prevails of a final victory of justice, right, and truth.
ANCIENT EGYPT.
SET, OR SETH, whom the Greeks called Typhon, the nefarious demon of death and evil in Egyptian /inythology, is characterised as " a strong god (a-pahuti) , whose anger is to be feared." The inscriptions call him rMe =pbwerful one of Thebes," and " Ruler of the South." He is conceived as the sun that kills with the arrows of heat ; he is the slayer, and iron is called the bones of Typhon. The hunted animals are consecrated to him ; and his symbols are the griffin (akhekh) , the hippopotamus, the crocodile, the swine, the tortoise, and, above all, the serpent apapi (in Greek "apophis"), who was thought to await the dying man in the domain of the god Atmu (also called Tmu or Turn) , who represents the sun below the western horizon.
Set's pictures are easily recognised by his long, erect, and square-tipped ears and his proboscis-like snout, which are said to indicate the head of a fabulous animal called Oryx. The consort and feminine counterpart of Set is called Taour or Taourt. The Greeks called her Theouris. She appears commonly as a hippopotamus in erect pos- ture, her back covered with the skin and tail of a crocodile.
16
THE HISTORY OF THE DEVIL.
Apapi (Apophis) and Atmu. (After Rawlinson.)
Forms of Taocrt. (After Rawlinson.)
Set. ( After Brugsch.)
ga.ijri m
The Soul Visiting the Mummy. See page 2.). (From the Ani Papyrus.)
ANCIENT EGYPT. 17
Set is often contrasted with Osiris. Set was the deity of the desert, of drought and feverish thirst, and of the sterile ocean; Osiris represents moisture, the Nile, the fertilising powers and life. Plutarch sa3's :
"The moon (^representing Osiris) is, with his fertilising and fecundative hght, favorable to the produce of animals and growth of plants ; the sun, however ( representing Typhon), is determined, with its unmitigated fire, to overheat and parch animals ; it ren- ders by its blaze a great part of the earth uninhabitable and con- quers frequently even the moon iviz., Osiris )."
As an enemy to life. Set is identified with all destruc- tion. He is the waning of the moon, the decrease of the waters of the Nile, and the setting of the sun. Thus he was called the left or black eye of the decreasing sun, governing the 3'ear from the summer solstice to the win- ter solstice, which is contrasted with the right or bright eye of Hor, the increasing sun, which symbolises the growth of life and the spread of light from the winter sol- stice to the summer solstice.
Set was not always nor to all Egyptians alike a Sa- tanic deity. He was officially worshipped in an unim- portant province west of the Nile, but this was the natu- ral starting-point of the road to the northern oasis. The inhabitants, who were mostly guides to desert caravans, had good reasons to remain on friendlj' terms with Set, the Lord of the desert.
Further, we know that a great temple was devoted to Set, as the god of war, in Tanis, near the swamps be- tween the eastern branches of the Delta, an important town of the frontier, and during the time of invasion the probable seat of the foreign dominion of the Hyksos and
IS
THE HISTORY OF THE DEVIL.
the Hyttites, who identified their own god Sutech with the Egyptian Set. But even among the Hyksos, Set was revered as the awful God of irresistible power, of brute force, of war, and of destruction.
There is an old wall-picture of Karnak, belonging to the era of the eighteenth dynast}-, in which the god Set appears as an instructor of King Thothmes III. in the science of archery.'^
Seth Teaching the King the Art of War. (After Erman.)
Sety I., the second king of the nineteenth d3'nast3', the shepherd kings, derives his name from the god Set — a sign of the high honor in which he was held among the shepherd kings ; and indeed we are informed that thc}^ regarded Set, or Sutech, as the only true God, the sole deity, who alone was worthy of receiving divine honors.
If the time of the shepherd kings is to be identified with the settlement of Jacob's sons in Egypt, and if the
*See Lepsius, Deiiii/ui/er, Vol. V., p. 36. The pcture is reproduced in outline by Adolf Erman in his Life in Ancient Egypt, Engl, trans., p. 282.
ANCIENT EGYPT. 19
monotlieism of the Hyksos is the root of Moses's religion, what food for thought lies in the fact that the same awe of a fearful power that confronts us in life, changes among the Eg3'ptians into the demonology of Set, and among the Israelites into the cult of Yahveh !
In spite of the ten-or which he inspired, Set was originally not mereh' an evil demon but one of the great deities, who, as such, was feared and propitiated.
Says Heinrich Brugsch (Religion und Myllinlogie dcr alien Acgypter^ p. 706) :
"The Book of the Dead of the ancient Egyptians and the numerous inscriptions of the recently opened pyramids are, indeed, nothing but talismans against the imagined Seth and his associates. Such is also, I am sorry to say, the greater part of the ancient lit- erature that has come down to us."
When a man dies, he passes the western horizon and descends through Atmu's abode into Amenti, the Nether World. The salvation of his personality depends, accord- ing to Egyptian belief, upon the preservation of his "double," or his "other self," which, remaining in the tomb, resides in the mummy or in an}- statue of his body.
The double, just as if it were alive, is supposed to be in need of food and drink, which is provided for by in- cantations. Magic formulas satisfy the hunger and thirst of the double in the tomb, and frustrate, through invoca- tions of the good deities, all the evil intentions of Set and his host. We read in an inscription of Edfu (Brugsch, Religion und Myihologie der alien Aegjp/er, p. 707) :
20 THE HISTORY OF THE DEVIL.
Hail Ra, thou art radiant in thy radiance, While there is darkness in the eyes of Apophis 1 Hail Ra, good is thy goodness. While Apophis is bad in its badness !"
The dread of hunger, thirst, and other ills, or even of destruction which their double might suffer in the tomb, was a perpetual source of fearful anticipations to every pious Egyptian. The anxiety to escape the tor- tures of their future state led to the embalming of the dead and to the building of the pyramids. Yet, in spite of all superstitions and the ridiculous pomp bestowed upon the burial of the body we find passages in the in- scriptions which give evidence that in the opinion of many thoughtful people the best and indeed the sole means of protection against the typhonic influences after death was a life of righteousness. This is forcibly ex- pressed in the illustration of Chapter CXXV. of the Book of the Dead, which is here reproduced according to Lep- sius's edition of the Turin papyrus. (Republished by Putnam, Book oj the Dead).
The picture of the Hall of Truth as preserved in the Turin papyrus shows Osiris with the atef-crown on his head and the crook and whip in his hands. Above the beast of Amenti we see the two genii Shai and Ranen, which represent Misery and Happiness. The four funeral genii, called Amset, Hapi, Tuamutef, and Kebhsnauf, hover over an altar richly laden with offerings. The frieze shows twelve groups of uraeus snakes, flames and feathers of truth ; on both sides scales are poised by a baboon who is the sacred animal of Thoth, and in the middle Atmu stretches out his hands over the right and
ANCIENT EGYPT.
21
K-Q S
3
3 T3 O
11 THE HISTORY OF THE DEVIL.
left eye, symbolising sunset and sunrise, death and resur- rection.
Ma,* tlie goddess of truth and "the directress of the gods," decorated with an erect feather which is her em- blem, ushers the departed one into the Hall of Truth. Kneeling, the departed one invokes the forty-two asses- sors b\' name and disclaims ha\ing committed any one of the forty-two sins of the Egyptian moral code. Omitting the names of the assessors, we quote here an extract of the confession. The departed one says :
"I did not do evil. — I did not commit violence. — I did not torment any heart. — I did not steal. I did not cause any one to be treacherously killed. — I did not lessen the offerings. — I did not do any harm. — I did not utter a lie. — I did not make any one weep. — I did not commit acts of self-pollution. — I did not fornicate. — I did not trespass. — I did not commit any perfidy. — I did no damage to cultivated land. — I was no accuser. — I was never angry without sufficient reason. — I did not turn a deaf ear to the words of truth. I did not commit witchcraft. — I did not blaspheme. — I did not cause a slave to be maltreated by his master. — I did not despise God in my heart."
Then the departed one places his heart on the bal- ance of truth, where it is weighed by the hawk-headed Hor and the jackal-headed Anubis, "the director of the w-eight," the Aveight being shaped in the figure of the goddess of truth. Thoth, the ibis-headed scribe of the gods, reads Hor's report to Osiris, and if it announces that the weight of the heart is ecjual to truth, Thoth or- ders it to be placed back into the breast of the departed
*Also called MaS't, or " ilie Ivvo truths," i. e., of the upper and of the nether world.
ANCIENT EGYPT. li
one, wliicli act indicates his return to life. If the departed one escapes all the dangers that await him in his descent to Amenti, and if the weight of his heart is not found wanting, he is allowed to enter into "the boat of the sun," in which he is conducted to the Elysian fields of the blessed.
Should the evil deeds of the departed one outweigh his good deeds, he was sentenced to be devoured by Anie- mit (i. e., the devourer) , which is also called "the beast of Amenti," or was sent back to the upper world in the shape of a pig.
While the double stag's in the tomb, the soiil, repre- sented as a bird with a human head, soars to hea\-en where it becomes one with all the great gods. The liberated soul exclaims (Erman, /'/;., p. 343 et secj.) :
"I am the god Atum, I who was alone,
"I am the god Ra at his first appearing,
"I am the great god who created himself, and created his name 'Lord of the gods, who has not his equal.'
"I was yesterday, and I know the to-morrow. Ttie battlefield of the gods Avas made when I spoke.
"I come into my home, I come into m}' native city.
"I commune daily with my father Atum.
"My impurities are driven out, and the sin that was in me is conquered.
"Ye gods above, reach out j'our hands, I am like }ou, I have become one of you.
"I commune daily with m}- father Atum."
Having become one with the gods, the departed sov:l suffers the same' fate as Osiris. Like him, it is slain b}- Set, and like Osiris, it is reborn in Hor who revenges the death of his father. At the same time the soul is sup-
24 THE HISTORY OF THE DEVIL.
posed frequently to visit the double of the departed man in the tomb, as depicted in the tomb of the scribe Ani.
The Abode of Bliss (in Egj^ptian Sechnit aanru, also written aakhi), as depicted in the Turin papyrus of the Book of the Dead, shows us the departed one with his family, and Thoth, the scribe of the gods, behind them, in the act of sacrificing to three gods, the latter being de- corated with the feather of truth. He then crosses the water. On the other side, he offers a perfuming pan to his soul which appears in the shape of a man-headed bird. There are also the three mummy-form gods of the hori- zon, with an altar of offerings before the hawk, symbolis- ing Ra, "the master of heaven." In the middle part of the picture the departed one ploughs, sows, reaps, threshes, stores up the harvest, and celebrates a thanks- giving with offerings to the Nile. The lower part shows two barks, one for Ra Harmakhis, the other one for Une- fru ; and the three islands : the first is inhabited by Ra, the second is called the regenerating place of the gods, the third is the residence of Shu, Tefnut, and Seb.
A very instructive illustration of Egyptian belief is afforded us in the well-preserved tomb of Rekhmara, the prefect of Thebes under Thothmes III. of the eighteenth dynasty, the inscriptions of which have been translated into French b}' Ph. Virey and were published in 1889 by the Mission Archcologique Fraiifaise.
The visitor to the tomb enters through a door on the eastern end ; when proceeding westward, we see Rekh- mara on the left wall pass from life to death. Here he attends to the affairs of the government, there he receives in the name of Pharaoh the homage of foreign princes ;
ANCIENT EGYPT.
25
3
m
26 THE HISTORY OF THE DEVIL.
further on he organises the work of building magazines at Thebes. He superintends the artists engaged at the Temple of Ammon and is then buried in pomp. At last he assumes the appearance of the Osiris of the West and receives sacrifices in his capacity as a god. We are now confronted with a blind door through which Rekhmara- Osiris descends into the West and returns to life toward the East as the Osiris of the East. Through funeral sac- rifices and incantations his double is again invested with the use of the various senses ; he is honored at a festival and graciously received by Pharaoh ; in a word, he acts as he did in life. When we return to the entrance where we started, Rekhmara receives the offerings of his family and inspects the progress of the works to which he attended in life.
In the tomb of Rekhmara, Set receives offerings like other great gods. The departed one is called the inher- itor of ^et (Suti) , and is purified by both Hor and Set. As an impersonation of Osiris, the departed one is ap- proached and slain by Set, who then is vanquished in the shape of sacrificial animals which are slaughtered. But when the departed one is restored to the use of his senses and mental powers, Set again plays an important part, and appears throughout as one of the four points of the compass, which are " Hor, Set, Tlioth, and Seb." *
According to the original legend. Set represented the death of the sun, and as a personality' he is described as the murderer of Osiris, who was finally reconciled with Hor. He remained, however, a powerful god, and had important functions to perform for the souls of the dead.
* Le Tombeaii dc Rakl.inara, b) Ph. Virey. Paiis; Le Roux. 1SS9.
ANCIKNT EGYPT. 21
Above all, he must bind and conquer tbe serpent Apophis (Apap), as we read in the Jhwk of the Dead (108, 4 and 5) :
" They use Set to circumvent it [the serpent]; they use him to throw an iron chain around its neck, to make it vomit all that it has swallowed."
In the measure that the allegorical meaning of the Osiris legend is obliterated, and that Osiris is conceived as a real person who as the representative of moral good- ness, succumbs in his struggle with evil and dies, but is resurrected in his son Hor, Set is more and more de- prived of his divinity and begins to be regarded as an evil demon.
The reign of Men-Kau-Ra, the builder of the third pyramid of Gizeh (according to Brugsch, 3633 B. C, and according to Mariette, 4100 B. C), must have changed the character of the old Egyptian religion. " The prayer to Osiris on his coffin lid," says Rawlinson (Vol. II., p. 67) , " marks a new religious development in the annals of Egypt. The absorption of the justified soul in Osiris, the cardinal doctrine of the Ritual of the Dead, makes its appearance here for the first time."
According to the older canon Set is always men- tioned among the great deities, but later on he is no longer recognised as a god, and his name is replaced by that of some other god. The Egyptians of the twenty- second dynasty went so far as to erase Set's name from many of the older inscriptions and even to change the names of former kings that were compounds of Set, such as Set-nekht and others. The crocodile-headed Ceb (also called Seb or Keb) and similar deities, in so far as their
28 THK HISTORY OF THE DEVIL.
nature was suggestive of Set, suffered a similar degrada- tion; and this, we must assume, was the natural conse- quence of an increased confidence in the final victory of the influence of the gods of goodness and virtue.
Plutarch, speaking of his own days, says {On Is:s and Osiris, Chapter XXX.) that:
"The power of Typhon, although dimmed and crushed, is still in its last agonies and convulsions. The Egj'ptians occasionally humiliate and insult him at certain festivals. They nevertheless propitiate and soothe him by means of certain sacrifices."
Set, the great and strong god of prehistoric times, was converted into Satan with the rise of the worship of Osiris. Set was strong enough to slay Osiris, as night overcomes the light of the sun ; but the sun is born again in the child-god Hor, who conquers Set and forces him to make the old serpent of death surrender its spoil. As the sun sets to rise again, so man dies to be reborn. The evil power is full of awe, but a righteous cause cannot be crushed, and, in spite of death, life is immortal.
ACCAD AND THE EARLY SEMITES.
ABOUT THE YEAR 3000 B. C, long before the rise of the Semitic nations, among whom the Baby- lonians, Assyrians, Israelites, and later the Arabians, were most prominent, there lived in Mesopotamia a na- tion of great power and importance, which is known by the name of Accad. And, strange to sa}^ the Accadians were not a white, but a dark race. They are spoken of as ' ' blackheads " or " blackfaces ' ' ; yet we need not for that reason assume that they were actually as black as the Ethiopians, for the bilingual tablets found in the mounds of Babylonia speak also of them as Adaniaiic"^' or red-skins, which makes it probable that they were reddish- dark or brown. How much the Semites owe to the Ac- cadians, whose dominion ceased about 1500 B. C, and whose language began to die out under the reign of the Assyrian king Sargon (722-705) , we may infer from the fact that many religious institutions, legends, and cus- toms among the Semites were of Accadian origin.
*A popular etymology connected this word Adnmn/ti -viiXh Adamu or Adniu, " man," which later, as Rawlinson pointed out, reappears in the Bible as the name of the first man. See The Chaldean Account of Genesis, by George Smith, p. 83.
30 THE HISTORY OF THE DEVIL.
Thus we know for certain that in their mode of de- termining the time they already possessed the institution of a week of seven days, and that the Sabbath was their holy day of rest. The literal meaning of the original Ac- cadian word is explained as " a da}' on which work is un- lawful," and the Assj^rian translation Sabattu signifies "a day of rest for the heart." Further, the legends of creation, of the tree of life, and of the deluge, mentioned in Genesis and also in Assyrian records, were well known to the Accadians, and from the conventional form of the tree of life, which in the most ancient pictures bears fir- cones, we may infer that the idea is an old tradition which the Accadians brought with them from their former and colder home in the fir-covered mountains of Media. In addition we have reminiscences of Accadian traditions in many Hebrew names, which proves beyond the shadow of a doubt the long-lasting influence of the ancient civili- sation of Accad. The rivers of paradise, mentioned in Genesis, are Babylonian names. Thus, the Euphrates, or Purat, is the curving water ; Tigris is Tiggur^ the cur- rent ; Hid-Dekhel, " the river with the high bank," is an- other name for the Tigris, which in inscriptions is called Idikla or Idiktia; Gihon has been identified by some As- syriologists with Arakhtii (Araxes) , and by Sir H. Raw- linson with Jukha; and King Sargon calls Elam "the country of the four rivers."
The names of the rivers of Eden indicate that the people with whom the legend of paradise originated must have lived on the banks of the Euphrates and Tigris. Under these circumstances we are surprised to find that the cultivated portion of the desert lands west of the
ACCAD AND THE EARLY SEMITES. 31
Euphrates was called Edhnia* a name that sounds very much like Eden.
About the time of Alexander the Great, a Babylon- ian priest by the name of Berosus wrote an interesting book on the history and religion of Babylon. It is now lost, but as various Greek authors, Alexander Polyhistor, Apollodorus, Abydenus, Damascius,t and Eusebius have largely quoted from his reports, we know quite a good deal about the information he gave to the world concern- ing his country.
All this was very interesting, but there was no evi- dence of the reliability of Berosus's records. The Baby- lonian legends might have been derived from the Old Tes- tament. However, since the successful excavations of the Assyrian stone-libraries we have the most positive evi- dences as to the source and the great age of these tradi- tions. A great part of them have come down to us from the old Accadians.
We know that the Babylonians posses.sed several legends which have been received into the Old Testa- ment, the most striking ones being the legend of the del- uge, of the tower of Babel, of the destruction of corrupt cities by a rain of fire (reminding us of Sodom and Go- morrah) , of the babyhood adventures of King Sargon I. (reminding us of Moses) , and of the creation of the world. The name of Babel, which is in Assyrian bab-ilani^ or bab- ihi^ i. e. the Gate of God, is a Semitic translation of the Accadian Ka-dingirra-kii with the same meaning ; liter-
* Sir Henry Rawlinson believes that Gan Eden or the Garden of Eden is Gan- Duniyas (also called Gan-Duni), meaning ■■ enclosure," which is a name of Baby- lonia in Assyrian inscriptions.
f See Co':y's Ancidnl Fragments, pp. 51-56.
32
THE HISTORY OF THE DEVIL.
ally: " Gate + of God + the place." The etymology of the name Babel from balbel^ "to confound," which is suggested both in the Assyrian account of the story and in Genesis, is one of those popular etymologic errors which are frequently found in ancient authors.
In the legend of the destruction of the cities there occur several names which indicate an Accadian source.
The legend of the deluge*
■";\|:i , "i^m-^'i
XlSUTHRUS (THE BABYLONIAN NoaH) IN THE Ark, Saved through the assistance of the gods from the deluge. [After an ancient Baby- lonian cylinder. Reproduced from Smith- Sayce. Cli. A. of G., p. 300 ]
agrees in all important de- tails with the analogous story in Genesis. It is the eleventh part of a larger epic celebrating Izdubar,t a sun-h^ro and an Assyr- ian Hercules, who goes through the twelve signs of the Zodiac, the elev- enth being Aquarius, cor- responding to the eleventh month of the Accadians, called "the rainy. "J
Who has not 3^et seen, even in our most modern cathedrals, pictures and statues of the four Evangelists adorned with the four representative beings of the animal creation? Matthew is accompanied by an angel or a
* See George Smith, TJie Chaldean Account of Getusis, edited by Prof. A. H. Sayce, p. 304, and also Dr. Paul Haupt's habilitation lecture Dtr keilinschriftliche Sintjhithbericht, Leipzig, 1S81.
f This is the commonly adopted form of the name ; although the proper tran- scription is Gilgamesh. He is also called " Gistubar." The literal meaning of the word is " mass of fire." See Lenormant's Histoire Ancicnyie de V Orient, V., p. igg.
J Some of the pictures of the Zodiac are strikingly like those which modern charts employ ; for instance the centaur and the scorpion, which can be seen on an Assyrian bas-relief in the British Museum reproduced in Lenormant's Histoire An- ctenne de I' Orient, V., p. 180.
ACCAD AND THE EARLY SEMITES.
33
winged man, Mark h^y a lion, Luke by a steer, and St. John by an eagle. The creatures represent the cherubim of the Old Testament, who by the early Chris- tians were conceived as the guardians and heavenly pro- totypes of the Gospel-writers. But these symbols are not original with the Jews ; they are of a more venerable
Wall Decoration of the Royal Palace at Nineveh in their Present State. (After Place, reproduced from Lenormant.)
age than even the Old Testament ; for we find them on the walls of the ancient royal palaces of Nineveh, and there can be no doubt about it that the Jewish conception of the cherubim is the heirloom of a most hoary antiq- uity.
About Sargon I., king of Agade, who, according to a tablet of King Nabonidus, lived 3754 B. C. and built
34 THE HISTORY OF THE DEVIL.
a temple to Sanias, Mr. E. A. Wallis Budge saj's in his Babylotiian Life and History^ p. 40 :
"A curious legend is extant respecting this king, to the effect that he was born in a city on the banks of the Euplirates, tliat his mother conceived him in secret and brought him forth in a humble place ; that she placed him in an ark of rushes and closed it with pitch ; that she cast him upon the river in the water-tight ark ; that the river carried him along ; that he was rescued b^- a man called Akki, who brought him up to his own trade ; and that from this position the goddess Istar made him king."
As to the Assja'io-Babylonian origin of these legends there can be no doubt. The best authorities agree —
"that Chaldea was the original home of these stories and that tht Jews received them originally from the Babylonians." (Smith Sayce, Tlie Cka/dean Account of Genesis, p. 312.)
The numerous illustrations that have been found or. early Assyrian and Babylonian seals prove —
"that the legends were well known and formed part of the litera- ture of the country before the second millennium B. C. " (//'., p. 331-')
It is probable that all the old Chaldean legends ex- isted in several versions. Of the creation story we pos- sess two accounts which vary considerably ; but one of them, which is narrated on seven tablets, is of special in- terest to us, not only on account of its being the main source of the first chapter of the Old Testament, but also because we possess in it one of the oldest documents in which the existence of the Evil One is mentioned. He is called in Assyrian Tiamtu^ i. e., the deep, and is repre- sented as the serpent that beats the sea, the serpent of the
ACCAD ANU THK KARLV SKMITF.S. 35
night, the serpent of darkness, the wicked serpent, and the mighty and strong serpent.
The derivation of the biblical account of Creation from Assyrian sources can as little be doubted as that of other legends, not only because of its agreement in several important features, and in many unimportant ones, but also because sometimes the very words used in Genesis are the same as in the Assyrian inscriptions. We find in both records such coincidences as the creation of woman from the rib of man and the sending out of birds from the ark to ascertain whether the waters had subsided. First the birds returned at once, then they re- turned, according to the cuneiform tablet-inscriptions of the Assyrians, with their feet covered with mud; at last they returned no more. Further, the Hebrew Jlfchtni/d/i, confusion, chaos, is the Assja'ian Munniiii^ while the He- brew tchoiUi the deep, and tohfi^ desolate, correspond to the Assyrian Tiaiu/n (= Ti'aii/al) .
Our excavators have not as yet found a report of the fall of man and of the serpent that seduced Adam and
Eve to taste the fruit of
r~
\'\
T^
the tree of life. There is, however, a great prob- ability that some similar legend existed, as we are in possession of pictures which represent two per-
Sacred Tree and Serpent. From an ancient Babylonian cylinder SOUS Seated Uuder a tree After Smith. — Sayce (L. c, p. 88.) j , i
■^ ' ^ and a serpent near by.
The tree of life is an idea which must have been very popular among the Assj-rians and Babylonians, for
36
THE HISTORY OF THK DEVIL.
their artists do not tire of depicting it in every form. It may date back to that remote period when the fruits of
The Tree of Life
Decorations on the embroidery of a royal mantle.
(British Museum. Layard, Moiiiimetits, ist series, pi. 6. Lenormant, /. /. V., p. io8).
trees constituted an important part of the food 133- which human life was sustained.'''
* It is noteworthy \\\a.\ fngiis, the beechtree, and 0'i;6r, the oak, which are both etymologically identical with the English word /'fe{-/i and the German Bii "eating" or "the tree with eatable fruit." The word ncoin, which is not derived from oak, but is connected with acre, the field, means "harvest or fruit"; it has no connexion with the German Eic/iel (acorn), but it is the same as the German Ecker, which is the name of the beechtree fruit.
ACCAD AND THE EARLY SEMITES.
n
Tiamat is the original watery chaos from which heaven and earth were g-enerated. Babylonian philoso- phers see in it the mother of the world and the source of all things, while in mythology it appears as the repre- sentative of disorder and the mother of the monsters of the deep.
After a long struggle Tiamat was conquered, as we read in the fourth tablet of the creation-story, by the vSun- god, Belus or Bel-Merodach. The struggle, however, is not finished, for the demon of evil is living still and Bel
Merodach Delivering the Moon-God from the Evil Spirits. (From a Babylonian cylinder. From Smith's Chaldean Account of Genesis.)
has to fight the seven wicked storm-demons who darken the moon. He kills dragons and evil spirits, and the re- appearance of divine intelligence in rational creatures is symbolised in the m3'th that Bel commanded one of the gods to cut off his, i. e. Bel's head, in order to mix the blood with the earth for the procreation of animals which should be able to endure the light.
We here reproduce a brief statement of the Babylon- ian story of the creation, in which Tiamat plays an im- portant part. Professor Sayce says {Records of the Past, New Series, Vol. I., pp. 128-131) :
38 THE HISTORY OF THE DE\1L.
"A good deal of the poem consists of the words put into the mouth of the god Merodach, derived possibly from older lays. The first tablet or book, however, expresses the cosmological doctrines of the author's own day. It opens before the beginning of time, the expression ' at that time ' answering to the expression ' in the beginning ' of Genesis. The heavens and earth had not yet been created, and since the name was supposed to be the same as the thing named, their names had not as yet been pronounced. A watery chaos alone existed, Mummu Tiamat, ' the chaos of the deep.' Out of the bosom of this chaos proceeded the gods as well as the created world. First came the primaeval divinities, Lakhmu and Lakhamu, words of unknown meaning, and then An-sar and Ki-sar, 'the upper' and 'lower firmament.' Last of all were born the three supreme gods of the Babylonian faith, Anu the sky-god, Bel or mil the lord of the ghost-world, and Ea the god of the river and sea.
"But before the younger gods could find a suitable habitation for themselves and their creation, it was necessary to destroy ' the dragon ' of chaos with all her monstrous offspring. The task was undertaken by the Babylonian sun-god Merodach, the son of Ea, An-sar promising him victory, and the other gods providing for him his arms. The second tablet was occupied with an account of the preparations made to ensure the victory of light over darkness, and order over anarchy.
"The third tablet described the success of the god of light over the allies of Tiamat. Light was introduced into the world, and it only remained to destroy Tiamat herself. The combat is described in the fourth tablet, which takes the form of a poem in honor of Merodach, and is probably an earlier poem incorporated into his text by the author of the epic. Tiamat was slain and her allies put in bondage, while the books of destiny which had hitherto been possessed by the older race of gods were now transferred to the younger deities of the new world. The visible heaven was formed out of the skin of Tiamat, and became the outward symbol of An-
ACCAD AND THE EARLY SEMITES. 39
sar and the habitation of Ann, Bel, and Ea, while the chaotic waters of the dragon became the law-bound sea ruled over by Ea.
"The heavens having been thus made, the fifth tablet tells us how they were furnished with mansions for tin- sun, and moon, and stars, and how the heavenly bodies were bound down by fixed laws that they might regulate the calendar and determine the year. The sixth tablet probably described the creation of the earth, as well as of vegetables, birds, and fish. In tlie seventh tablet the creation of animals and reptiles was narrated, and doubtless also that of mankind.
" It will be seen from this that in its main outlines the Assyr- ian epic of the creation bears a striking resemblance to the account of it given in the first chapter of Genesis. In each case the history of the creation is divided into seven successive acts; in each case the present world has been preceded by a watery chaos. In fact the self-same word is used of this chaos in both the Biblical and Assyrian accounts — /chihn, Tiaiiiat — the only difference being that in the Assyrian story ' the deep ' has become a mythological per- sonage, the mother of a chaotic brood. The order of the creation, moreover, agrees in the two accounts; first the light, then the cre- ation of the firmament of heaven, subsequently the appointment of the celestial bodies ' for signs and for seasons and for days and years,' and next, the creation of beasts and 'creeping things.' But the two accounts also differ in some important particulars. In the Assyrian epic the earth seems not to have been made until after the appointment of the heavenly bodies, instead of before it, as in Genesis, and the seventh day is a day of work instead of rest, while there is nothing corresponding to the statement of Genesis that 'the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.' But the most important difference consists in the interpolation of the strug- gle between Merodach and the powers of evil, as a consequence of which light was introduced into the universe, and the firmament of the heavens was formed.
"It has long since been noted that the conception of this struggle stands in curious parallelism to the verses of the Apoca-
40
THE HISTORY OK THE DEVIL.
lypse (Rev. xii, 7-9): '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 an)' more in heaven. And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world.' 'We are also reminded of the words of Isaiah, xxiv. 21, 22 : 'The Lord shall punish the host of the high ones that are on high, and the kings of the earth upon the earth. And they shall be gath- ered together, as prisoners are gathered in the pit, and shall be shut up in the prison.' "
The Babylonians worshipped man}' deities, but their favorite god was Bel, Avho is frequently identified with Merodach, on account of his struggle with Tianiat.
The Chaldean Trinity Blessing the The Goddess Anna.
Tree of Life (Bas-relief in the British Museum. Le-
(British Museum. Lenormant, V., p. 234.) normant, V., p. 259.)
Bel-Merodach is one of the great trinity of Ann, Ea, and Bel, which on an ancient cylinder is pictured as hovering above the tree of life before which two human forms, apparent!}' king and queen, are seen in an atti- tude of adoration.
The Babylonian trinity was thought to be male and
ACCAD AND THE EARLY SEMITES.
41
female, and it is noteworthy that the female representa- tive of the divine father Ann, the god-mother Anna, also called Istar, was worshipped under the symbol of a dove, which in a purer and nobler form reappears in Christian- ity as an emblem of most significant spirituality.
Bel-Merodach is the Christ of the Babylonians, for he is spoken of as the son of the god Ea, the personifica- tion of all knowledge and wisdom. Professor Budge says :
Fight Between Bel-Merodach and Tiamat. From an ancient Assyrian bas-relief, now in the British Museum.
"The omnipresent and omnipotent Marduk (Merodach) was the god 'who went before Ea' and was the healer and mediator for mankind. He revealed to mankind the knowledge of Ea ; in all incantations he is invoked as the god ' mighty to save' against evil and ill." — Babylonian Life and History, p. 127.
The struggle between Bell-Merodach and Tiamat was a favorite subject with Assyrian artists. In one of them,
42 THE HISTORY OF THE DEVIL.
which is now preserved in the British IMuseum, the Evil One is represented as a monster with claws and horns, with a tail and wings, and covered with scales.
Concerning the Evil One and hell, as conceived bj' the Babylonians, Mr. Budge says, pp. 139, 140:
"Their Hades was not so very far different from Sheol, or the 'pit' of the Bible, nor the Devil much to be distinguished from the Satan we read of."
"The Babylonian conception of hell is made known to us by a tablet which relates the descent of Istar thither in search of her lovely young husband, Tammuz. It has been stated that the same word for Hades, i. e. Sheol, as that used in the Hebrew Scrip- tures, has been found in Babylonian texts ; but this assertion has been made while the means for definitely proving it do not at pres- ent e.xist. The lady of the Babylonian Hades was called Nin-ki- gal, and the place itself had a river running through it, over which spirits had to cross. There was also ' a porter of the waters' (which reminds us of the Charon of the Greeks), and it had seven gates. The tablet mentioned above tells us that —
1. To the land of no return, to the afar off, to regions of corruption,
2. Istar, the daughter of the Moon-god, her attention firmly
3. fixed, the daughter of the Moon-god. her attention fixed
4. the house of corruption, the dwelling of the deity Irkalla (to go)
5. to the house whose entrance is without exit
6. to the road whose way is without return
7. to the house whose entrance is bereft of light
8. a place where much dust is their food, their meat mud, g. where light is never seen, where they dwell in darkness
10. ghosts (?) like birds whirl round and round the vaults u. over the doors and wainscoting there is thick dust.
"The outer gate of this "land of no return' was strongly guarded and bolted, for the porter, having refused to grant Istar admission, the goddess says —
ACCAD AND THE EARLY SEMITES.
43
' Open thy gate and let me enter in ; If thou openest not the gate, and I come not in, I force the gate, the bolt I shatter, I strike the threshold, and I cross the doors, I raise the dead, devourers of the living, (for) the dead exceed the living.'
"There is another name for Hades, the signs wliicli form it meaning ' the house of the land of the dead.' A gloss gives its pro- nunciation as Arali. Such, then, is the Babylonian hell. It is diffi- cult to say where they imagined their Hades to be, but it has been conjectured by some that they thought it to be in the west."
Besides Tiamat there were in Assyrian and Baby- lonian mythology innumerable demons whose names are known through the inscrip- tions and whose portraits are preserved on statues, bas-reliefs, and cylinders. The magic formulae which were employed to ward off their influence are alwa3's uttered seven times in the Sumero-Accadian language which was deemed more sacred on account of its age, for it had become un- intelligible for the common people and remained in use only for liturgic purposes. The Assyrians expected to frighten demons away by showing them their own shape and by exhorting them to destroy themselves mutually in an internecine com-
EviL Demons. (From a Chaldean stele in the British Museum. After Lenormant.)
44
THE HISTORY OF THE DEVIL.
bat. Lenormant briefly sets forth the demonology of the Assyrians Histoire aiicicinie dc P Orient, V., page 494.
"In tlie army of the Good as well as in the army of Evil, there obtains a hierarchical system of more or less powerful spirits according to their rank. The texts mention the ekim and the telal
or warrior ; the maskin or trapper ; the alal or destro3'er ; the labartu, the labassu, the ahharu, kind of ghosts, phantoms, and vampires. Frequently the tiias, the lamina, and the iituq are quoted ; and a distinc- tion is made between the good and the evil iiias, the good and the evil lamtna, the good and the evil utuq. There are also the alapi or winged bulls, the nirgalii or winged lions, and the innimierable kinds of heav- enly archangels. The gods Anna and Ea, called the spirit of heaven {zi an fia) and the spirit of the earth {zi ki a), as the gods of every sci- ence, are commonly invoked in in- cantations as alone able to protect Demon of the Southwest Wind.
(Statue in the Louvre. After Le- mankind against the attacks of the
Dormant ) evil spirits. The monuments of
Chaldca prove the existence of an extremely complex demonology the exact gradation of which is not yet sufficiently known."
Concerning the Devil of the disease - engendering southwest wind Lenormant sa^'s {ibid. V., p. 212) :
"The Louvre possesses the image of a horrible demon in up- right posture, with a dog's head, eagle's feet, lion's paws, and a scorpion's tail. Half of the head shows the skull fleshless. He has four spread wings. A ring at the top of the head served to
ACCAD AND THE EARLY SEMITES.
45
suspend the figtire. On the back of the statue is the inscription in sumero-accadian, indicating that it represents the demon of the southwest wind and that it should be placed at the door or the win- dow for the sake of warding off his injurious influence. Tin.' soutli-
NiRGALLI.
Lion-headed and eagle-claw-footed demons. (British Museum. After Lenor- mant, /. c , V-, p. 204.)
west wind in Chaldea comes from the deserts of Arabia, and its burning breath parches everything, producing the same ravages as the khamsin in Syria and the simoon in Africa."
The Nirgalli are described by the same scholar as follows {ibid, v., p. 215) :
46
THE HISTORY OF THE DE\"IL.
'At Kuyunjik, in tlie palace of Asurbanipal, we see in several corners a series of monsters with human bodies, lions' heads, and eagles' feet. They appear in groups of two, combating one an- other with daggers and clubs. They, too. are demons and express in the language of the sculptor the formula so frequently met with
W^
V \' V 1^ i^ I r
,11
%uJUL£^t,,
An Ancient Assyrian Bronze Tablet Representing the World in the
Clutches of an Evil Demon.
Collection of M. de Clercq. (After Lenormant),
in incantation : ' The evil demons should get out, they should mu- tually kill one another.' "
There is an ancient bronze tablet Avliicli shows the picture of the world in the clutches of the Devil. Lenor- mant, when speaking of the Chaldean conception of hell, alludes to this remarkable piece of antiquity and de- scribes it as follows :
"A bronze plate in tlie collection of M. De Clercq contains in a synoptic world-picture a representation of hell, and it is necessary
ACCAD AND THE EARLY SEMITES. 47
that we liere give a description of it. One side of the bronze plate is entirely occupied by a four-footed monster, with four wings, standing on eagle's claws. Raising himself on his hind feet, he looks as though he intended to jump over the plate against which he leans. His head reaches over the border as over the top of a wall. The face of the wild and roaring monster towers, on the other side of the plate, above a picture which is divided into four horizontal strips representing the heavens, the earth, and hell. In the top strip one sees the symbolic representations of the celestial bodies. Underneath appears a series of seven persons clad in long robes and having heads of a lion, a dog, a bear, a ram, a horse, an eagle, and a serpent. These are the celestial genii called ig/iigs. The third strip exhibits a funeral scene, which undoubtedly hap- pens on earth. Two personages dressed in the skin of a fish, after the fashion of the god Anu, are standing at the head and foot of a mummy. Further on there are two genii — one with a lion's head, the other with a jackal's head — who threaten one another with their daggers, and a man seems to flee from this scene of horror. The picture of the fourth strip is bathed in the floods of the ocean, which according to the traditional mythology of the Chaldeans reaches un- derneath the foundations of the earth. An ugly monster, half bes- tial, half human, with eagles' wings and claws, and a tail terminat- ing in a snake's head, stands on the shore of the ocean, on which a boat is floating. This is the boat of the deity Elippu, frequently' mentioned in the religious texts and probably the prototype of the boat of Charon in Greek mythology. In the boat is a horse which carries upon its back a gigantic lion-headed deity, holding in her hands two serpents ; and two little lions jump to her breast to suck her milk. In the corner there are fragments of all kinds, human limbs, vases, and the remainders of a feast.
" Thus this little bronze tablet contains the picture of the world such as the imagination of the Chaldeans represented it to be : the gods and the sidereal powers, angels and demons, ighigs and anun- naks, the earth and men, with supernatural beings who exercise a direct influence upon them : the dead protected by certain demons
48 THE HISTORY OF THE DEVIL.
and attacked by others according to the pliilosophical conception of good and evil, and the antagonism of the two principles which con- stitutes the basis of the Assyrio-Chaldean religion. Anu protects the dead in the same way as does the Egyptian Osins. There is the subterranean river reminding one of the Styx and Acheron of the Greeks as well as of the subterranean Nile of Amenti. " (P. 291.)
It goes without saying that the old biblical legends, far from losing their ^•alue by being proved to be much older, gain an additional value ; they are now more inter- esting to us than ever. Formerly the biblical account of the creation was thought to be the very beginning of the religious evolution of man, but now we know that it is merely a milestone on the road. It is neither the begin- ning nor the end. It is simply the summary of a long history of anxious inquiry and speculation, which would have remained forgotten had we not discovered the Assyr- ian tablets bearing witness to the aspirations that pre- ceded the composition of the Old Testament. But there is one thing which seems strange : the Chaldean belief in the immortality of the soul found no echo in the litera- ture of the Jews. Did they refuse to incorporate it into the Hebrew world-conception because they disbelieved it ; or did they merely ignore it because they were too real- istic and would not allow themselves to be earned away by illusions even of the loftiest kind?
The civilisation of Assyria and Babylon was more brilliant, more powerful, and more cosmopolitan than the civilisation of Israel. Nevertheless, there is this impor- tant difference between the religious legends and specula- tions of these two nations, that while the Assyrian tablets are polytheistic and mythological, the Hebrew text is
ACCAD AND THK EARLY SKMITKS. 49
monotlieistic. The mythological ornanients of the orig- inal story have been chastened and simplified. Without being blind to the poetic beauties of the original, which in its way is not less venerable than the later Hebrew version, we must say that the latter is a decided improve- ment. Its greater simplicity and freedom from fantastic details gives it a peculiar soberness and grandeur which is absolutely lacking in the Assyrian myth of the crea- tion.
While uneouivocally recognising the superiority^ of the Hebrew account, we must, however, mention in jus- tice to the Assyrian and Babylonian civilisation that mon- otheism was by no means an exclusively Jewish belief. There were monotheistic hymns of great strength and religious beauty, both in Egypt and in Babylon, long be- fore the existence of the people of Israel, and it is not impossible that what Sir Henry Rawlinson calls "the monotheistic party" of Babylon or their brethren in Egypt were the founders of Jevv'ish monotheism. It is certain that the philosophers of Egypt and Babylonia were not without influence upon the development of the Israelitic religion.
Egyptian and Babylonian monotheists apparently suffered the popular mythology as a symbolical expres- sion of religious truth, while in later periods the religious leaders of the Jews had no patience with idolators, and, becoming intolerant of polytheism, succeeded in blotting out from their sacred literature the popular superstitions of their times; some vestiges onl3' were left, which are now valuable hints indicating the nature of the text be- fore it was changed by the hands of later redactors.
PERSIAN DUALISM.
, T^HE TRANSITION from Devil-worship to God-
^ A worship marks the origin of civilisation ; and
among the nations of antiquity the Persians seem to have been the first who took this step with conscious de- liberation, for they most earnestly insisted upon the con- trast that obtains between good and evil, so much so that their religion is even to-day regarded as the most consist- ent form of dualism.
The founder of Persian dualism was Zarathustra, or, as the Greeks called him, "Zoroaster" — a name which in its literal translation means "golden splendor."
Zoroaster, the great prophet of Mazdaism (the belief in Mazda, the Omniscient One) , it is rightly assumed, was not so much the founder of a new era as the conclud- ing link in a long chain of aspiring prophets before him. The field was ripe for the harvest when he appeared, and others must have prepared the way for his movement.
Zoroaster is in all later writings represented as a demigod, a fact which suggested to Professor Darme- steter the idea that he was a mj'thical figure. Neverthe- less, and although we know little of Zoroaster's life, we
PERSIAN DUALISM. 51
have the documentary evidence in the " Gathas " that he was a real historical personality.
Prof. A. V. Williams Jackson in an essay "On the Date of Zoroaster '"" arrives at the conclusion that he lived between the latter half of the seventh and the mid- dle of the sixth centur3', and Dr. E. W. Westf points out that the calendar reform, in which the old Persian names of the months were supplanted by Zoroastrian names, was introduced in the year 505 B. C. This proves that the kings of the Achtemenian dynasty were Zoroastrians.J Professor Jackson says :
"The kingdom of Bactria was the scene of Zoroaster's zealous ministry, as I presume. Born, as I believe, in Atropatene, to the west of Media, this prophet witliout honor in his own country met with a congenial soil for the seeds of his teaching in eastern Iran His ringing voice of reform and of a nobler faith found an answer ing echo in the heart of the Bactrian king Vishtaspa, whose strong arm gave necessary support to the crusade that spread the new faith west and east throughout the land of Iran. Allusions to this crusade are not uncommon in Zoroastrian literature. Its advance must have been rapid. A fierce religious war, which in a way was fatal to Bactria, seems to have ensued with Turan. This was that same savage race in history at whose door the death of victorious Cyrus is laid. Although tradition tells us the sad story that the fire of the sacred altar was quenched in the blood of the priests when Turan stormed Balkh, this momentary defeat was but the gathering
* Journal of the American Oriental Sociely, Vol. XVII , p. 96 fin a letter to Professor Jackson alluded to on page 20 of his essay. \ The story that Croesus's life was saved through Zoroastrian influences upon the mind of Cyrus, as told by Nicolaus Damascenus who wrote in the first century B. C, is quite probable. We read (in fragm. 65, Muller, Fragm. Hist. Cr,, iii., 409) that religious scruples rose in addition to other considerations, and the words of Zoroaster ('/MpoaoTpov /.6)ia) were called to mind that the fire should not be de- filed. Therefore the Persians shouted that the life of Croesus should be spared. Compare Harlez, Avesta traduit, In trod , pp. xliv., Ixvii.
52 THE HISTORY OF THE DEVIL.
force of victory; triumph was at hand. The spiritual spark of re- generation lingered among the embers and was destined soon to burst into the flame of Persian power that swept over decaying Media and formed the beacon-torch that lighted up the land of Iran in early history."
The Gathas are hymns ; they are a product of the fifth and sixth centiiries before Christ, the authenticitj' of which is suflScietitl}- proved not only by the later Per- sian literature, the Pahlavi books, but also by Greek authors, especially by passages quoted in Plutarch and Diogenes Laertes from Theopompus, who wrote at the end of the fourth century before Christ. The Gathas profess to be written by Zoroaster who appears in them not as a demigod but as a struggling and suffering man, sometimes elated by the grandeur of his aspirations, firmly convinced of his prophetic mission, and then again dejected and full of doubt as to the final success of the movement to which he devoted all his energies. Saj'S Prof. L. H. Mill, the translator of the Gathas:
"Their doctrines and exhortations concern an actual religious movement taking place contemporaneously with their composition : and that movement was exceptionall)' pure and most earnest.
"That any forgery is present in the Gathas, any desire to palm off doctrines upon the sacred community in the name of the great prophet, as in the \'endidad and later Yasna, is quite out of the question. The Gathas are genuine in their mass."
There were two religious parties in the days of Zo- roaster: the worshippers of the daevas or nature-gods, 1 and the worshippers of Ahura, the Lord. Zoroaster ap- pears in the Gathas as a priest of the highest rank who became the leader of the Ahura party. Zoroaster not only degraded the old nature-gods, the daevas, into de-
PERSIAN DUALISM. 53
mons, but also regarded them as representatives of a fiend- ish power which he called Au^ro Alaznyush, or A In iiiiaii., which means "the evil spirit," and Dnij* i. e., false- hood.
The Scythians in the plains of Northern Asia, the most dangerous neighbors of Persia, worshipped their highest deity under the symbol of a serpent, and it was natui'al that the snake Afrasiab,t the god of the enemy, became identified with the archfiend Ahriman.
The Persians are often erroneously called fire wor- shippers, but it goes without saying that as the sun is not a god and cannot, according to Zoroaster, in and for itself receive divine honor or be worshipped, so the flame which is lit in praise of Ahura Mazda is a symbol only of him who is the light of the soul and the principle of all goodness.
Zoroaster taught that Ahriman was not created by Ahura, but that he was possessed of independent exist- ence. The evil spirit, to be sure, was not equal to the Lord in dignity, nor even in power; nevertheless, both were creative, and both were original in being themselves uncreated. They were the representatives of contradictory principles. And this doctrine constitutes the dualism of the Persian religion, which is most unmistakably ex- pressed in the words of the thirtieth Yasna.J
" Well known are the two primeval spirits correlated but inde- pendent ; one is the better and the other is the worse as to thought, as to word, as to deed, and between these two let the wise choose aright."
* Druj, fiend, is always feminine, while Ahriman is masculine. \ The Turanian form of Afrasiab, was probably Farrusarrabba. I Compare Sacred Books of the East, XXXI., p. 29.
54 THE HISTORY OF THE DEVIL.
Ahura Mazda, the Omniscient Lord, reveals himself through "the excellent, the pure and stirring word.'""' On the rock inscription of Elvend, which had been made by the order of king Darius, we read these lines t'-
"There is one God, omnipotent Ahura Mazda, It is He who has created the earth here ; It is He who has created the heaven there ; It is He who has created mortal man."
The noble spirit of Zoroaster's religion appears from the following formula, which was in common use among the Persians and served as an introduction to every litur- gic worship : X
" May Ahura be rejoiced ! May Angro be destroyed by those who do truly what is God's all-important will.
"I praise well-considered thoughts, well-spoken words, and well-done deeds. I embrace all good thoughts, good words, and good deeds ; I reject all evil thoughts, evil words, and evil deeds.
"I give sacrifice and prayer unto you, O Amesha-Spenta ! § even with the fulness of my thoughts, of my words, of my deeds, and of my heart : I give unto you even my own life.
**'The creative Word which was in the beginning" (Ahuna-Vairyo, Honover) reminds one not only of the Christian idea of the '/.uyoi; of i/f iv apx'j, but also of the Brahman t'tU/i (word, etymologically the same as the Latin z'ox), which is glorified in the fourth hymn of the Rig Veda, as "pervading heaven and earth, existing in all the worlds and extending to the heavens."
f Translated from Lenormant's French rendering, /. c, p. 388.
:tCf. Sacred Books of the East, Vol. XXIII., p. 22.
§The six AiiteshJi-Spenld (the undying and well-doing ones) are what Chris- tians might call archangels. Originally they had been seven, but the first and greatest among them, Ahura Mazda, came to overshadow the divinity of the other six. They remained powerful gods, but he was regarded as their father and cre- ator. We read in Vast, XIX., 16. that they have "one and the same thinking, one and the same speaking, one and the same doing, one and the same father and lord, who is Ahura Mazda."
At first the Amesha Spenti were mere personifications of virtues, but latf ' on they were entrusted with the government of the various domains of the universe.
PERSIAN DUALISM. 55
" I recite the ' Praise of Holiness,' the Ashem Vohu : *
" ' Holiness is the best of all good. Well is it for it, well is it
for that holiness which is perfection of holiness !
" ' I confess myself a worshipper of Mazda, a follower of Zara-
thustra, one who hates the daevas (devils) and obeys the laws of
Ahura.' "
Lenormant characterises the God of Zoroaster as fol- lows :
"Ahura Mazda has created as/ia, purity, or rather the cosmic order ; he has created both the moral and material world constitu- tion ; he has made the universe ; he has made the law ; he is, in a word, creator (datar), sovereign {ahura), omniscient {mazddo), the god of order {as/iavan). He corresponds exactly to Varuna, the highest god of Vedism.
" This spiritual conception of the Supreme Being is absolutely pure in the Avesta, and the expressions that Ormuzd has the sun for his eye, the heaven for his garment, the lightning for his sons, the waters for his spouses, are unequivocally allegorical. Creator of all things, Ormuzd is himself uncreated and eternal. He had no beginning and will have no end. He has accomplished his creation work by pronouncing 'the Word,' the ' Ahuna-Vairyo, Honover,' i. e., 'the Word that existed before everything else,' re- minding us of the eternal Word, the Divine Logos of the Gospel." Histoire A ncienne de P Orient, V., p. 388.
Haurvatdit and Amtretdt (health and immortality) had charge o£ waters and trees. Khshathrem ]'airim (perfect sovereignty), represented the flash of lightning. His emblem being molten brass, he was revered as the master of metals. Asha Valiila (excellent holiness), the moral world-order as symbolised by sacrifice and burnt-offering, ruled over the fire. Spenla Armaiti (divine piety) continued to be regarded as the goddess of the earth, which position, according to old traditions, she had held since the Indo-Iranian era ; and V'ohii Maiw (good thought) superin- tended the creation of animate life. (See Darmesteter, Ormuzd et Ahriinan, Paris ; 1877. pp. 55, 202-206. Comp. Encyclopicdia Britannica, s. v. "Zoroaster," and Sacred Books of the East, Vol. IV., p. LXXI, , et seq.) For an exposition of the modern Parseeism of India see Mr. Dosabhai Framji Karaka's ///.fA';j of the Parsis, London, 1SS4.
* Says Darmesteter ; "The 'Ashem Vohu' is one of the holiest and most fre- quently recited prayers,"
56 THE HISTORY OF THE DEVIL.
Concerning Ahriman, Lenormant says: "The creation came forth from the hands of Ormuzd, pure and perfect Hke himself. It was Ahriman who perverted it bj' his infamous influence, and labored continually to destroy and over- throw it, for he is the destroyer i^paurott niarka) as well as the spirit of evil. The struggle between these two principles, of good and of evil, constitutes the world's history. In Ahriman we find again the old wrathful serpent of the Indo-Iranian period, who is the per- sonification of evil and who in Vedism, under the name of Ahi, is regarded as an individual being. The myth of the serpent and the legends of the Avesta are mingled in Ahriman under the name of Aji Dahdka, who is said to have attacked Atar, Traetaona, and Yima, but is himself dethroned. It is the source of the Greek myth that Apollo slays the dragon Python. The Indo-Iranian reli- gion knows only the struggle that was carried on in the atmosphere between the fire-god and the serpent-demon Afrasiab. And it was, according to Professor Darmesteter, the doctrine of this struggle, which, when generalised and applied to all things in the world, finally led to the establishment of dualism."
Says James Darmesteter, the translator of the Zend- Avesta :
"There were two general ideas at the bottom of the Indo- Iranian religion ; first, that there is a law in nature, and secondly, that there' is a war in nature {Sacred Books of the East, IV., p. Ivii).
The law in nature proves the wisdom of Ahura, who is therefore called Mazda, the Wise. The war in nature is due to the intrusion of Ahriman into the creation of Ahura.
The fire sacrifice was accompanied by partaking of the haoma drink, a ceremony which reminds us on the one hand of the soma sacrifice of the Vedic age in India and on the other hand of the Lord's Supper of the Christians.
PERSIAN DUALISM. 57
We know tlirough the sacred scriptures of the Persians that little cakes (the draona) covered with small pieces of holy meat (the myazda) were consecrated in the name of a spiritual being, a god or angel, or of some great de- ceased personality, and then distributed among all the worshippers that were present. But more sacred still than the draona with the myazda is the haoma drink which was prepared from the white haoma plant, also called gaokerena. Says Professor Darmesteter: "It is by the drinking of gaokerena that men, on the day of the resurrection, will become immortal."
The way in which the Persian sacrament of drinking the gaokerena was still celebrated in the times of earl}^ Christianity, must have been very similar to the Chris- tian communion, for Justinus, when speaking of the Lord's Supper among the Christians, adds "that this very solemnity, too, the evil spirits have introduced in the mysteries of Mithra."
After death, according to the Zoroastrian doctrine, the soul must pass over ciuvato perciiish, that is, the "accountant's bridge," where its future fate is decided. This bridge stretches over the yawning abyss of hell, from the peak of Judgment to the divine Mount Alborz, and becomes, according to the most common statements of the doctrine, broad to the good, a pathway of nine javelins in breadth, while to the wicked it is like the edge of a razor. Evil doers fall into the power of Ahriman and are doomed to hell; the good ^nler gar 6 demana^ the life of bliss ; while those in whom good and evil are equal, remain in an intermediate state, the Hamcstakdns of the Pahlavi books, until the great judgment-day (called akd) .
58 THE HISTORY OF THE DEVIL.
The most characteristic features of the Persian reli- gion after the lifetime of Zoroaster consist in the teach- ing that a great crisis is near at hand, which will lead to the renovation of the world called frasliokereti in the Avesta, and frashakart in Pahlavi. Saviours will come, born of the seed of Zoroaster, and in the end the great Saviour who will bring about the resurrection of the dead. He will be the " son of a virgin " and the "All-conquer- ing." His name shall be the Victorious [vcrctlirajaii) ^ Righteousness-incarnate {astvat-ereta) , and the Saviour {saos/ivafit) . Then the living shall become immortal, yet their bodies will be transfigured so that they will cast no shadows, and the dead shall rise, "within their lifeless bodies incorporate life shall be restored." (Fr. 4. 3.)* The Persian belief in the advent of a saviour who will make mankind immortal seems to reappear in an in- tenser form in the days of John the Baptist and Jesus of Nazareth, who preached that the kingdom of heaven is near at hand. St. Paul still believed that the second ad- vent of Christ would take place during his own life-time. The dead who sleep in the Lord will be resurrected, and the bodies of those that are still in the ilesh will be trans- figured and become immortal.
The influence of Zoroaster's religion upon Judaism and early Christianity cannot be doubted. Not onl}- does the original text of the book of Ezra directlj' declare that "Cyrus, the King, built the house of the Lord in Jerusalem, where thej^ worship him with the eternal fire"
*For a concise statement of the Persian religion, which in many respects fore- shadows the Christian doctrines of a Saviour and of the bodily resurrection of the dead, see Prof. A. V. Williams Jackson's excellent article, "The Ancient Persian Doctrine of a Future Life," published in the Biblical World, August, 1S96.
PERSIAN DUALISM.
59
{diet TTvpos e'vSsXsxovs), but there arc many Jewish ceremo- nies preserved to the present day, which bear a close resemblance to the ritual of ancient Mazdaism. In addi- tion there is a documentary evidence preserved in "The Arabic Gospel of the Infancy" (Chapter 7), that the Magi came from the East to Jerusalem according to a prophecy of Zoroaster.
The Persian world-conception, like the religion of the Jews, was too abstract to favor any artistic develop- ment.* Therefore we do not possess representations of
An Assyrian Cameo
A Persian Cameo
Assyrian Cylinder.
Lajard, Cn//c de Milhra, pi. xxx.. No. 7.
Lenormant, V,, p. 248.)
either good or evil spirits which are exclusively and pe- culiarly Persian. Even the picture of Ahura Mazda (as we find it on various bas-reliefs) is not based upon a con- ception that could be said to be regarded as original. The figure from which the bust of the god of light and goodness rises can be traced to Assyrian emblems, and may, for all we know, be of Accadian origin. There is, for instance, an Assyrian cylinder which represents a
*For Persian art see Marcell Dienlafoy's work L'art unliijue de la Perse, in vvhicli for the present purpose the title vignette and the illustrations on page 4 are of interest.
60
THE HISTORY OF THE DEVIL.
worshipper standing before tlie idol of a god. Behind him is the tree of life and a priest carrying in his left hand a rosary, while the deity hovers above them in a similar shape to the Ahura-Mazda pictures of the Persians.
Ahura Mazda is pictured as a winged disc without any head, in the st3'le of Chaldean sun-pictures, in a cameo representing him as worshipped by two sphinxes, between whom the sacred haoma plant is seen (see p. 59). In another cameo (see p. 59) he appears as a hu-
if lii 1
\ ■-.■>>.: viF--' mmk
Sculptures on a Royal Tomb. (Coste et Flandin, Perse Ancienne, at Persepolis, pi. 164. Lenormant, V. p. 23 )
man figure without wings, rising from a crescent that hovers above the sacrificial fire. Above him is a picture of the sun, and before him stands a priest or a king in an attitude of adoration.
There are some magnificent representations of Ahura- Mazda on ancient Persian monuments, which claim our special attention. There is a loftiness and majesty about
_^-— -v^^^ I'/^hTZ,,,, --^^.^
*« ' ' ' • •. 'I'i'f M ' '. I I ^ t '^ /'; I I I I ','.'.1 J,i.i.> I'll''^^'"^ _jnf1Itl^ '
':.
i.y jv '■J .j_ •■i--j-^-liz .^ t* -f - -y _■> o' t J 1j ^. 'Jir^.-a~^'^ ^j
(^
Bas-relief of Persepolis. (After Coste et Flandin, Perse Aiuhnne, pi. 156. From Lenormant, V., p. 485.)
62 THE HISTORY OF THE DEVIL.
his appearance, wliicli lifts bis picture above the Assyrian conception of deities. In his hands he holds either a ring or the short royal staff of rulers, appearing at the top like a lotus flower.
Prof. A. V. Williams Jackson explains the ring in the hands of Ahura Mazda as "the Circle of Sover- eignty,'"" and interprets the loop with streamers in which the figure floats as a variation of the same idea, for in some of the pictures it appears as a chaplet, or waist-garland with ribbons. t
It is not possible that the loop with streamers is originally a disc representing the disc of the sun after the fashion of Egyptian temple decorations. At any rate, there are a great number of Assyrian sculptures of the same type which are unequivocally representations of the sun. A CA'linder (published in Lajard's Ctilte de Mit/ira, plate XLIX., No. 2) illustrating the myth of god Isdubar's descent to Hasisatra, shows the two scor- pion-genii of the horizon watching the rise and the set- ting of the sun. Here the sun appears, like the figure from which Ahura Mazda rises, as a winged disc with feather-tail and streamers. In addition, we find the same picture in the deit}^ that protects the tree of life, which can only signifj^ the benign influence of the sun on plants (see p. 36) ; and the old Babylonian cylinder rep- resenting Merodach's fight with the evil spirit that dark-
*See his article on "The Circle of Sovereignty," m i\ie America?i Oriental Society's Proceedings, May, 1889.
f See K. O. Kiash, Ancient Persian Scnlptarcs; and also Rawlinson. J. R. A, S., X. p. 187. Kossowicz, Inscriptiones Palaco Persicae Achaemcniodorum, p 46 et seq.
PERSIAN DUALISM.
63
ens the moon (see p. ?)7) , shows the feathered dial in this same conventional shape covered with clouds.*
A representation of Ahriman has not yet been dis- covered among the Persian antiquities. There is, how- ever, a bas-relief in Persepolis which depicts the king in the act of slaying a unicorn. The monster is very simi- lar to the Assyrian Tiamat (see p. 41) , and we cannot doubt that the Persian sculp- tor imitated the style of his Assyrian predecessors.
We have little information concerning the origin of Zoro- aster's dualism, but we can nevertheless reconstruct it, at least in rough outlines. For there are witnesses left, even to-day, of the historical past of the old Persian religion. A sect called the Izedis are the fossil representatives of the Devil-worship that preceded the purer notions of the Zoroastrian worship prevailing in the Zend-Avesta. Fol- lowing the authority of a German traveller, Tylor says {Primitive Culture, Vol. II., p. 329) :
"The Izedis or Yezidis, the so-called Devil-worshippers, still remain a numerous though oppressed people in Mesopotamia and adjacent countries. Their adoration of the sun and horror of defil- ing fire accord with the idea of a Persian origin of their religion (Persian " /s
* There is no need of enumerating other cylinders and bas-reliefs of the same kind, as they are too frequently found in Assyrian archa;ology. See for instance the illustrations in Lenormant, /. /. V., pp. 177, 230, 247, 296, 299, etc.
The King Slaying a Unicorn. (Bas-relief of Persepolis.)
64 THE HISTORY OF THE DEVIL.
mixture of Christian and Moslem elements. This remarkable sect is distinguished by a special form of dualism. While recognising the existence of a Supreme Being, their peculiar reverence is given to Satan, chief of the angelic host, who now has the means of doing evil to mankind, and in his restoration will have the power of re- warding them. ' Will not Satan then reward the poor Izedis, who alone have never spoken ill of him, and have suffered so much for him?' Martyrdom for the rights of Satan ! exclaims the German traveller, to whom an old white-bearded Devil-worshipper thus set forth the hopes of his religion."
This peculiar creed of the Izedis is similar to the re- ligion of Devil-worshipping savages in so far as the recog- nition of the good powers is not entirely lacking, but it is, as it were, a merely negative element ; the positive im- portance of goodness is not yet recognised. It is probable that the Persians in prehistoric times were as much Devil- worshippers as are the Izedis. The daevas, the deities of the irresistible forces of nature, were pacified by sacri- fices. A recognition of the power of moral endeavor as represented in the personified virtues, the Amesha Spenta, was the product of a slow development. Thus in Persia the Devil-worship of the daevas yielded to the higher reli- gion of God-worship ; and this change marks a decided step in advance, resulting soon afterwards in the Per- sians' becoming one of the leading nations of the world.
ISRAEI..
Azazel, the God of the Desert.
THE PRIMITIVE STAGES of the Hebrew civili- sation are not sufficiently known to describe the changes and phases which the Israelitic idea of the God- head had to undergo before it reached the purity of the Yahveh conception. Yet the Israelites also must have had a demon not unlike the Egyptian Typhon, for the custom of sacrificing a goat to Azazel, the demon of the desert, suggests that the Israelites had just emerged from a dualism in which both principles were regarded as equal.
We read in Leviticus xvi. :
"And Aaron shall cast lots upon the two goats ; one for the Lord, and the other for Azazel. And Aaron shall bring the goat upon which the Lord's lot fell, and offer him for a sin-offering. But the goat on which the lot fell for Azazel, shall be presented alive before the Lord, to make atonement with him and to let him go to Azazel in the desert."
The name Azazel is derived from aziz., which means strength, and El^ God. The god of war at Edessa is called Asisos {"A^i^o;) , the strong one. Bal-aziz was the
66 THE HISTORY OF THE DEVIL.
strong god, and Rosh-aziz^ the head of the strong one, is the name of a promontory on the Phoenician coast. Aza- zeli accordingly, means the Strength of God.
The mention of Azazel must be regarded as a last remnant of a prior dualism. Azazel, the god of the des- ert, ceased to be the strong god, and became a mere shadow of his former power, for the scapegoat is no longer a sacrifice. Yahveh's goat alone is offered for a sin-offering, while the scapegoat carries out into the des- ert the curse of the people's sin, and thus the worship of Azazel changed into a mere recognition of his existence.
These sacrificial ceremonies, however, which, on ac- count of their being parts of religious performances, were only reluctantly discarded, are the lingering ves- tiges in Hebrew literature of an older dualism in which the power of evil received an equal share of worship with the power of good.
Siipcrstitio>is.
The Old Testament contains many noble ideas and great truths ; indeed it is a most remarkable collection of religious books, than which there is none more venerable in the literature of the world. Yet there are tares among the wheat, and many lamentable errors were, even by some of the leaders of the old Israelites, regarded as es- sential parts of their religion. The writers of the Bible not onl}' made God responsible for, and accessory to, the crimes which their own people committed, e. g., theft (Exodus xi.) , and murder and rape (Numbers xxxi. 17- 18) ; but they cherished also the same superstitions that were commonly in vogue among savages. Thus the
ISRAEL. 67
custom of buryin.ij people alive under foundation stones is mentioned as having been sanctioned l)y tlie God of Is- rael. When Jericho was destroyed at the special com- mand of God, all its inhabitants were slain, "both man and woman, young and old, and ox and sheep and ass," with the sole exception of Rahab, a disreputable woman who had betrayed the city into the hands of the enemies of her countrj'uien. And Joshua adjured the people, saying :
"Cursed be the man before the Lord, that riseth up and build- eth this city Jericho : he shall lay the foundation thereof in his first born and in his youngest son shall he set up the gates of it."
Jericho, however, was sure to be rebuilt sooner or later, for, being the key to Palestine, and commanding the entrance into the country from the desert routes, it was too important both for commercial and strategic pur- poses to be left in ruins ; and the man who undertook the work was still superstitious and savage enough to heed Joshua's curse: We read in the first Book of Kings, with reference to the reign of j\hab (Chap. xvi. 34) :
"In his days, Hiel the Bethelite built Jericho; he laid the foundation stones thereof in Abiram, his first born, and set up the gates thereof in his youngest son, Segub, according to the word of the Lord which he spake by Joshua, the son of Nun."
The terrible witch-prosecutions which in the Middle Ages harassed Christianity have their root in passages of the Old Testament.
The laws of Exodus (xxii. 18) provide capital pun- ishment for witchcraft, and the same command is re- peated in Leviticus, where we read:
68
THE HISTORY OF THE DEVIL.
" The soul that turneth after such as have familiar spirits, and after wizards, I will even set my face against that soul, and will cut him off from among his people" (Lev. xx. 6.)
"A man also or a woman that hath a familiar spirit, or that is a wizard, shall surely be put to death ; they shall stone them with stones : their blood shall be upon them." (Lev. xx. 27.)
In spite of the severity of the law against wizards and witches, the Israelites were always inclined to resort
Saul and the Witch of Endor. (After Schnorr von Carolsfeld.)
to their help. Saul, who had done his best to extermi- nate soothsayers (1 Sam. xxviii. 9), when in greatest anxiety, called on the witch of Endor.
It is evident from various passages that the Israelites believed in evil spirits dwelling in darkness and waste places. (See Lev. xvii. 7; Dent. xxx. 17; ib. xxxii.
I.SRAEL.
69
17; 2 Chron. xi. 15; Isaiah xiii. 21; ib. xxxiv. 14; Jcr. 1. 39; Psalms cvi. 37.) Their names are Sciiini (clii- meras or sroat-spirits) , Li lit It (llie iiisjjhtly one) , Shedini (demons) . The Sciriiii remind us of Assyrian i^ictiircs which represent evil spirits in the shape of goats. It is difficult to say whether these various demons of the He-
AssYRlAN Goat Demons, (Carvings on a boulder. After Lenormant.)
brews are to be regarded as the residuum of a lower reli- gious stage preceding the period of the monotheistic Yah- veh cult, or as witnesses to the existence of superstitions which certainly haunted the imagination of the uncul- tured not less in those da3'S than they do now in this age of advanced civilisation.
Apparently the rise of a purer religion was slow and
70 THE HISTORY OF THE DEVIL.
the habits of a savage age were long-lingering. The vestiges of devil-worship with several of its most bestial rites and even human sacrifices'* continued to exist even when a more radiant light began to shine in the world.
Satan.
When Azazel began to be neglected, Satan rose into existence. The belief in a God of Evil was replaced by the belief in an evil demon. And Satan, the tempter and originator of all evil, was naturally identified with the serpent that ' ' was more subtil than any beast of the field" (Genesis iii. 1).
Satan, the fiend, as a name in the sense of Devil, is rarely mentioned in the Old Testament. The word Satan, which means "enemy" is freely used, but,' as a proper name, signifying the Devil, appears onlj- five times. And it is noteworthy that the same event is, in two parallel passages, attributed, in the older one to Yahveh, and in the younger one, to Satan.
"We read in 2 Samuel xxiv. 1 :
"The anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and he moved David against them to say, Go, number Israel and Judah. "
The same fact is mentioned in 1 Chron. xxi. 1:
"Satan stood up against Israel and provoked David to num- ber Israel."
In all the older books of Hebrew literature, espe- cially in the Pentateuch, Satan is not mentioned at all. All acts of punishment, revenge, and temptation are per- formed by Yahveh himself, or by his angel at his direct
*See pp. IO-I2 of this book.
ISRAEL. 71
command. So the temptation of Abr;ili uii, the slaughter of the first-born in Egypt, the brimstone and fire rained upon Sodom and Gomorrah, the evil s])irit whicli came upon Saul, the pestilence to punish David — all these things are expressl3^ said to have come from God. Even the perverse spirit whicli made the Egyptians err (Is;iiali xix. 14) , the lying spirit which was in the mouths of the prophets of Ahab (1 Kings xxii. 23; see also 2 Chron. xviii. 20-22), ignorance and indifference (Isaiah xxix. 10) , are directly attributed to acts of God.
The prophet Zechariah speaks of Satan as an angel whose ofl&ce it is to accuse and to demand the punishment of the wicked. In the Book of Job, where the most poet- ical and grandest picture of the Evil One is found, Satan appears as a malicious servant of God, who enjoys per- forming the functions of a tempter, torturer, and avenger. He accuses unjustly, like a State's attorney who prose- cutes from a mere habit of prosecution, and delights in convicting even the innocent, while God's justice and goodness are not called in question.
It is noteworthy that Satan, in the canonical books of the Old Testament, is an adversary of man, but not of God; he is a subject of God and God's faithful servant.
The Jewish idea of Satan received some additional features from the attributes of the gods of surrounding nations. Nothing is more common in histor}^ than the change of the deities of hostile nations into demons of evil. In this way Beelzebub, the Phoenician god, became another name for Satan; and Hinnom (i. e. Gelmma) ^ the place where Moloch had been worshipped, in the valley of Tophet, became the Hebrew name for hell in
12 THE HISTORY OF THE DEVIL.
place of the word Sheo/, the world of the dead under ground. The idol of Moloch was made of brass, and its stomach was a furnace. According to the prophets (Is. Ivii. 5 ; Ez. xvi. 20 ; Jer. xix. 5) , children were placed in the monster's arms to be consumed by the heat of the idol. The cries of the victims were drowned by drums, from which ("toph," meaning drum) the place was called "Tophet." Even the king, Manasseh, long after David, made his son pass through the fire of Moloch (2 Kings xxi. ) .* Josiah endeavored to make an end of this ter- rible practice by defiling Tophet, in the valley of the children of Hinnom (2 Kings xxxiii 10) .
Thus the very name of this foreign deity naturally and justly became among the Israelites the symbol of abomination and fiendish superstition.
The historical connexion of Israel's religion with the mythologies of Assyria and Babylon, begins now to be better understood ; since we have learned to decipher the ancient cuneiform records. There are many most signifi- cant reminiscences of Bel Merodach's combat with Tiamat left in the Old Testament, and Hermann Gunkel aftei having given a literal translation of the several passages with explanatory comments says {^Schbpjung und Chaos, p. 88) :
"Nowhere in extant literature is the myth of Yahveh's combat with the dragon actually narrated. Judaism, the distinctive work of which was the collection of the canon, did not admit myths that
* There is no reason to doubt the Biblical reports concerning Moloch, for Diodorus (20, 14) describes the cult of the national god of Carthage, whom he iden- tifies with the Greek "Kronos," in the same way ; so that in consideration of the fact that Carthage is a Phoenician colony, we have good reasons to believe this Kronos to be the same deity as the Ammonite Moloch, who was satiated by the same horrible sacrifices.
ISRAEL.
73
savored of heathendom. Nevertheless, the fact that in all the pas- sages that speak of the dragon the myth is not portrayed but simply presupposed, proves that it was very well known and very popular with the people. The absence of the myth in the canon, — and this in the interest of the Christian reader need not be deplored, — is distinct and conclusive evidence that we possess in our Old Testa- ment a fragment only of the old re- ligious literature.
"The m\th was from the very beginning in Israel a hymn to Yah- veh. The Yahveh-hymn therefore is the favorite place for making reference to the dragon-myth, — of which we have a beautiful instance in Psalm Ixxxix. The poet that portrays Yahveh's oppression of hu- manity (Job xl. et seq. ; ix. 13; xvi. 13; also Psalm civ.) ; the prophet that terrorises the sinning people with pictures of Yahveh's omnipo- tence (Am. ix.); he that arouses the people languishing under a foreign dominion (Isaiah li. 9 et seq.) : all make direct reference to Yahveh's power even over the dragon."*
The Seven-Armed Candlestick
Showing the Monsters
OF THE Deep.
It is noteworthy that the seven-armed candlestick of the arch of Titus contains on its base figures of drag- ons, which we may jitstly as,sume to be Leviathan, Behe- moth, and Rahab, the mythological monsters of Israel.
*It maybe added that the references in the passages in question are abso- lutely unintelligible unless internreted by some such light as that given by Gunke!. To the reader without a commentary they are sealed utterances, for the mere translation in our Bible ofiers no help to their understanding.
BRAHMANISM AND HINDUISM.
INDIA, the primitive home of religion and philosophy, exhibits as strong a tendency for monism as the Per- sian nation has shown for dualism. But the ancient mo- nism of India is apt to lose itself in pantism, — a theor3' according to which the All alone (or rather the concep- tion of the absolute as the All) is possessed of reality, while all concrete existences are considered as a mere sham, an illusion, a dream.*
The polytheism of the popular Hinduismf is practi- cally a pantheism in which the various deities are re- garded as aspects of the One and All in which a dis- crimination between good and evil is entirely lost sight of. Thus the struggle between good and evil is contem- plated as a process of repeated God-incarnations made necessary, according to the idea of the Brahmans, bj- the appearance of tyranny and injustice, lack of rever- ence for the priests, encroachments of the warrior caste
* Pantism, the theory of the All (from ttHv, root IIANT), is different from Pan- theism, the theory which identifies the All (irav) with God (iStof).
f Sir Monier-Monier Williams distinguishes between Brahmanism, the old faith of the Indian Aryas, and Hinduism, the modern form of this same religion, as it developed after the expulsion of Buddhism from India.
BRAHMANISM AND HINDUISM.
75
on the supremacy of the Brahmans, or some other dis- order. While the enemies of the gods — giants, demons,
(1 ii.iiri\nj.iin^ij.iiAi.j.nr.nit:Y
a
u
9
Q
u
^W
e^
^
^Wruty/rf Mr,,Jl.,
The Brahman Trimurti. Underneath the marks of the sects of Vishnu (1-12), Siva (13-30), RamE((36), Durga (31-32), and the Trimurti (33-35). (After Coleman.)
and other monsters — are not radically bad, and cannot be regarded as devils in the sense of the Christian Satan,
76
THE HISTORY OF THE DEVIL.
the Brahman gods in their turn are by no means the rep- resentatives of pure goodness. Not only do they fre- quently assume shapes that to the taste of any Western nation would be exceedingly ugly and diabolical, but the same deities who in one aspect are beneficent powers of life, are in another respect demons of destruction.
Brahm, the highest god of Brahmanism, represents
the All, or the abstract idea of being. He is conceived as a trinity which is called Tri- murti, consisting of Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva.
Brahma, the first -origi- nated of all beings, the lord of all creatures, the father of all the universes, is the divine mind who is the beginning of all. He is called AJa., the not-born, because he has orig- inated, but Avas not begotten. Brahma originated from /at, i. e., undifferentiated be- ing, in which he existed from eternit3^ in an embryonic form. Brahma's consort, Saras- vati, also called Brahnii or Brahmini, is the goddess of poetry, learning, and music. Brahma is the creator of man. We are told in the Yajurveda that the god produced from himself the soul, which is accordingly a part of his own being, and clothed it with a body — a process which is reported in the re-
Brahma. (Fragment of a car. Musee Guimet
BRAHMANISM AND HINDUISM.
n
Brahma and Suraswati. (Reproduced from Hermann Goll.)
verse order in the Hebrew Genesis, where Elohini creates first the body and then breathes the life into llie body, which makes of man a living soixl.
Brahma is pictured with four heads and four hands, in which he holds a spoon, a sacrificial basin, a ro- sary, and the Vedas. One of the four hands is fre- quentl}' \ represented as empty. He sits on a lotu,'' which grows from Vishnu's navel, representing the spirit that broods over the waters.
Brahma keeps the first place in the speculations of philosophers, where he is identified with the life-breath of the world, the Atman or self that appears in man's soul, but he has not exercised a great influence on the people. The gods of the people must be less abstract, more concrete and more human. Thus it is natural that Vishnu, the second person of the trinity, the deity of avatars or incarnations, is, for all practical purposes, by far more important than Brahma.
Vishnu appears in the following ten incarnations : *
In the first incarnation, called the Mat.sya- Avatar, Vishnu assumes the form of a fish in order to recover the Vedas stolen by evil demons and hidden in the floods of a deluge that covered the whole earth. This incarna-
*Since it is our intention to be brief, we do not enter in this exposition of the ten avatars into any details that could be omitted and neglect to mention the vari- ants of the myths.
78
THE HISTORY OF THE DEVIL.
tion is of interest because we read in the Pistis Sophia (one of the most important gnostic books) that the books of leou, which were dictated by God to Enoch in para- dise, were preserved by Kalapatauroth from destruction in the deluge.'''
In order to enable the gods to procure the immortal- ity-giving drink, amrita, Vishnu appeared as an immense
&^
£^r^^^-^^f^^:^jr^z^^"l _r-:-^'^^g^-~-^=i
Vishnu, Lakshmi, and Brahma. [Vishnu reclines on a flower, supported by the serpent Ananta (a symbol of eternity), floating on the primeval waters of the undifferentiated world-substance.] After a native illustration, reproduced from Hermann Goll.
tortoise in the kurm-avatar, his second incarnation. He lifted on his back the world-pillar, the mountain Man- daras, and the world-serpent, Vasuki (or Anantas, i. e., infinite) , was wound about it like a rope. The gods seized the tail, the demons (daityas) the head, and they
*MS., p. 354, English translation from Schwarlze's latest translation by G. R. S. Meade, p. 354.
The Matsva Avatak ok Fish In- carnation.
The Kurm Avatar or ToRTOibE Incarnation.'
The Varaha Avatar or Wild Boar The Narasihha Avatar or Man-Lion Incarnation. Incarnation.
' All the Avatar pictures are from Picart.
80
THE HISTORY OF THE DEVIL.
began to churn the ocean, which produced Vishnu's gem, Kaustubha; Varunani, the goddess of the sea; the Apsa- ras, lovel}^ sprites, corresponding to the Greek nymphs ;
Indra's horse, with seven heads ; Kamadhenu, the cow of plent}' ; Airavata, Indra's elephant ; the tree of abund- ance ; Chandra, the god of the moon ; Sura, the goddess of wine; and, finally, Dhan- vantari, the Indian ^scula- pius, who is in possession of the water of life. The ser- pent began now to spit ve- nom, which blinded the de- mons, while the gods drank the Amrita.
A'arunani, when con- ceived as goddess of beauty, is called Lakshmi or Shri ; and it is noteworthy that like Aphrodite of the Greeks she originates from the froth of the ocean.
The third incarnation is the Varaha-avatar, in which Vishnu, in the shape of a wild boar, kills, with his tusks, the demon Hiranyaksha, who threatened to destroy the world.
Hiranyaksha's brother, Hiranya-Kasipu, had a son by the name of Prahlada, Avho was a pious devotee of
Lakshmi. the Goddess of Beauty. (Musee Guimet)
BRAHMANISM AND HINDUISM.
81
Vislinu. The unnatural fatlici" tried to kill his son, but the lattei" escai)ed all danger because he did not cease to pray to Vishnu. Wlicn Hiranya-Kasipu expressed a doubt of A'ishnu's omnipresence, mockingly declaring that he could not possibly be in a column to which he pointed, the wrathful god decided to punish the .scoffer. The column rent in twain, and Vishnu, proceeding fmm its interior in the shape of a monster half man half lion, tore Hiranya-Kasipu to pieces. This fourth incarna- tion is called the Narasiwha- avatar. Its moral is to im- press upon the people the sad fate of those who do not believe in Vishnu.
Pralada's grandson, Ba- lis, was a pious king, but on that very account dangerous to the gods, for he was just about to complete the hun- dredth grand sacrifice, by which he would have ac- quired sufficient power to de- throne Indra. Vishnu came to the assistance of the god of heaven and appeared before Balis as a dwarf in guise of a Brahman mendicant. Balis honored him with pres- ents and promised to fulfil his desire, whereupon the dwarf requested three paces of ground. This was gladly granted under a rigid oath that would be binding on gods and men. Then the dwarf assumed a huge shape and stepped with the first pace over the whole earth, with
ViMHNU NAKA>n)H\
(Fragment of a car. Musee Guimet.
82
THE HISTORY OF THE DEVIL.
the second over tlie atmosphere, with the third into the infinity of the heavens. This is the reason why Vishnu is called Tripadas, or Trivikramas, the three-paced god. Thus Balis was prevented completing the hundredth sac- rifice, and Indra was again safe on his throne. This dwarf incarnation is called the Vamana-avatar.
Hanuman, the Monkey King, Building the Bridge Over the Strait Between India and Lanka. (Reproduced from Hermann GoU.)
The sixth incarnation, called the Parashura avatar, is historical in its character, for it reflects the struggles between the warrior-caste and the Brahmans for suprem- acy. It is said that Jamadagni, a pious Brahman, had received from the gods the miraculous cow, Kamadugha (or Surabhi) , which provided him, his wife, Renuka, and their son, Rama, with every luxur}-. Karttavirya, a king of the warrior-caste, visits him, and seeing the
The Vamana Avatar or Dwarf Incarnation.
The Parashura Avatar or Battle-ax Incarnation.
The Rama Chandra Avatar. Vishnu and his incarnation in Rama Chandra, assisted by the Monkey King Hanuman, vanquish Ravana.
The Krishna Avatar. Vishnu is born as Krishna and mirac- ulously saved from the prosecutions of the tyrant of Mathura.
84
THE HISTORY OF THE DEVIL.
wealth of the Brahman, tries to take the cow from him, but the cow kills all who dare to approach her, and rises into heaven, whereupon Karttavirya in his wrath slaj-s the pious Jamadagni. Rama, the son of the murdered Brahman, invokes Vishnu's help for the punishment of the wicked king, and the god not only presents him with a bow and a battle-ax, which latter is called in Sanskrit paracuSf the Greek nt\inx^^ (hence the name of this ava- tar) , but also incarnates himself in Rama. Karttavirya is described as being in possession of a thousand arms,
wielding a thousand weapons, but Rama, endowed with the divine powers of Vishnu, con- quers him after a decisive struggle.
The Rama Chandra ava- tar has taken a firm hold on the Indian mind, and is de- scribed in the Ramaj'ana, an epic which is the Hindu Od- yssey, to the narrative of which the legend of Rama bears a great resemblance.
Rama Chandra lived with his wife Sita (frequently regarded as an incarnation of Lakshmi) and with his half- brother Lakshmana in the wilderness of the south, where he had withdrawn in order to obey his father, who had unjustly banished him and appointed Bharata, another son of his, as heir to the throne. The demon-king, Ra- vana, waged war against Rama, and carried off Sita while he and his brother were hunting. It is impossible to re- late here Rama's adventures in detail, how he fought
--A'AWW.-AVTO.-ffTxrrA
The Monkey King Sugriva FighT' ING. (Reproduced from Coleman.)
BRAHMANISM AND HINDUISM.
85
with giants and demons, how the monkey kings, Lugriva and Hanunian, became his allies, how Hanuman jumped
Vishnu and Shri-Lakshmi as Rama Chandra and Sita After Their Happy Reunion. (Reproduced from Coleman.)
over to Lanka, the island of Ceylon, to reconnoitre the enemy's country, how the monkej-s built a bridge over the strait by throwing stones into the water, how Rama
86
THE HISTORY OF THE DEVIL.
pursued Ravana to Lanka, and finally how he vanquished Ravana and recovered his faithful wife Sita.
Like the sixth avatar, the Rama Chandra avatar probabl}^ contains historical reminiscences. It also re- sembles both the Trojan War and the Gudrun Saga, the epics of Western nations that relate the story of an abducted wife. The mythical part of all these stories describes the wanderings of the sun god in search of his consort, the moon.
In his eighth incarnation, the Krishna avatar,
Vishnu has reached the ideal man-god of the Hindus. Kansa, called Kalankura (i. e., crane), the t^-rant of IMathura, receives the prophecy that the eighth son of his sis- ter, Devaki, will take his throne. He therefore de- cides to kill all the chil- dren of his sister. Her eighth son, Krishna, however, was an incarnation of Vishnu, who spoke at once after his birth, comforted his mother, and gave directions to his father, Vasudeva, how to save him. Vasudeva carried the infant, protected bj- the serpent king, over the river Jamuna, and exchanged him in Gokula for a girl which Yasuda had just borne to the cowherd Nanda. Kansa seized at once the girl bab}-, but before he could kill her she raised herself into the air, ex- plained to the wrathful king that Krishna had been saved, and disappeared in the form of lightning. Kansa now de-
Hanuman Reciting His Adventures to
Rama Chandra and Sita.
(Reproduced from Coleman )
BRAHMANISM AND HINDUISM.
87
cided to have all the babies in his empire killed, l)iit Krishna escaped again. A demon nurse was sent to poi- son him with her venomous milk, but he bit and killed her, while his stepfather decided to remove to a more dis- tant country in order to escape the continued hostilities of the king. Krishna slew the huge serpent, Kali-naga, overcame the giant Shishoo-polu, killed the monster bird that tried to peck out his eyes, and also a malignant wild ass. He also burnt the entrails of the alli- gator-shaped Peck- Assoort who had devoured him , and choked Aghi- Assoor, the dragon who at- tempted to swallow him. When Krishna had grown to 3-outh he became the favor- ite of the lasses of Gokula. When he pla3'ed the flute every one of the dancing girls believed that the swain whom she embraced was Krishna himself. He fell in love with the country girl Radha, the story of which is sung in the Jagadeva's poem, Gitagovinda. He protected the cow- herds against storm and fire, and finally marched against Kansa, killed him and took possession of his throne.
Krishna plays also a prominent part in the Mahab-
Krishna Nursed by Devaki. After an old and richly-colored Hindu paint- ing. (Reproduced from Moore's Hindu Pantheon, plate, 59.)
88
THE HISTORY OF THE DEVIL.
harata, the Iliad of the Hindus, which describes the war between the Kurus and the Pandus,* both descendants of Bharata and both grandchildren of Vj^asa. Dhritarashtra, the father of the Kurus, was king of Hastinapur, but be- ing blind, Bhishma, his uncle, reigned in his stead. After a test of the faculties of the young princes, in which
the Pandu Arjuna, the skilled bowman and the Hindu Tell, showed himself superior to all the others, the oldest Pandu- prince, Yudhishthira, was in- stalled as heir apparent. The Kurus, however, who man- aged to remain in power, tried to burn the Pandus, but they escaped and lived for some time in the disguise of men- dicant Brahmans. Having al- lied themselves, by marriage with Draupadi,"!' the daughter of Drupada, king of Panchala, with a powerful monarch, the Pandus reappeared at Hastina-
Krishna. As a shepherd lad playing the flute
[the flute is missing]. (Bronze statue, pv^r and iuduccd Dhritarashtra
Musee Guimet.) ■,■ •^
to divide the kingdom between his sons, the Kurus, and his nephews, the Pandus; but at a festival, held at Hastinapur, Yudhishthira, the chief
*The Pandus are also called Pandavas, and the Kurus Kamavas.
f That the five Pandus held Draupadi in common as their wife, proves the high antiquity of the story. Polyandry was apparently a practice not uncommon in an- cient times. It prevails still to-day among the less cultured hill tribes. But being at variance with the Aryan customs of the age in which the Mahabharata was versi-
BRAHMANISM AND HINDUISM.
89
of the Pandus, staked in a game of dice his kingdom, all his possessions, and Draupadi herself, and lost every- thing. The Knrns promised their cousins to return their share of the kingdom after thirteen years, if they would live twelve years with Draupadi in the forest and remain another year in exile; but when this period had elapsed the Kurus refused to give up the country or any part of
Krishna, the Favorite of the Country Lasses of Gokula. (Reproduced from Coleman.)
it, and thus the war became una^-oidable. Then Dur3'od- hana, the Kuru prince, and Arjuna, the main hero of the Pandus, called on Krishna for succor and assistance. Krishna decided not to take an active part in the fight himself, but left to Arjuna, whom he had seen first, the
fied, Vyasa (the Homer or " arranger" of the poem, and its supposed author) tries to explain it allegorically by declaring that Draupadi is Lakshmi, and the five Pandu brothers represent five different forms of one and the same Indra.
90
THE HISTORY OK THE DEVIL.
choice between his (Krishna'r) co":pan3- as a mere ad- viser or his (Krishna's) army of a hnndred million war-
Krishna's Adventures. (Reproduced from Coleman.)
riors. Arjuna chose Krishna himself, and left the hnn- dred million -warriors to his rivals, the Kurns. The two armies met on the field of Knrnkshetra, near Delhi.
BKAIIMAXISM AND HINDUISM.
91
During tlie battle, as we read in tlic Bhagavadgita, Krishna accompanies Arjuna as his charioteer and ex- plains to him the depth and breadth of the religious philosophy of the Hindus. The Pandus conquer the Kurus, and Yudhishthira becomes king of Hastinapur. After sundry additional adventures the Pandus die and go to heaven, where they find that rest and happiness which is unattainable on earth.
The Battle Between the Kurus and Pandus on the Field of Kurukshetra. (Reproduced from Wilkins.)
The Mahabharata, like the Wars of the Roses, shows neither party in a favorable light; but the epic is written from the standpoint of the Pandus, whose demeanor is al- ways extolled, while the Kurus are throughout charac- terised as extremely unworthy and mean.
Krishna is the Hindu Apollo, Orpheus, and Hercules in one person, and there is no god in the Hindu Pan- theon who is dearer to the Brahman heart than he. ]\Iany
92
THE HISTORY OF THE DE\IL.
of his adventures, such as his escape from the Hindu Herod, the massacre of babes, his transfiguration, etc., reappear in a modified form in Buddhist legends and bear some resemblance to the events told of Christ in the New Testament.
In his ninth incarnation Vishnu appears as Buddha, the enlightened one, to be a teacher of morals, of purity, charity, and compassionate love toward all beings. It is
Jagannath With His Two Companions. (After SchlagintweiL)
difficult to state the differences between the Buddha ava- tar of the Brahmans and the Buddha of the Buddhists. The latter, there can be no doubt, was a historical per- sonalit}^, by the name of Gautama, the son of Shuddho- dana of the warrior caste, Avhile the former is a mere ideal figure of ethical perfection. Burnouf * proposes to regard both as quite distinct, and he is right, but we need not for that reason deny that, on the one hand, the ideal of a
* IlisUtiri' dii Biiddhismv, I., 338.
BRAHMANISM AND HINDUISM.
93
Biiddlia avatar was a prominent factor in the formation of Buddhism, while on the other hand Gautama's teachings have, since the rise of Buddhism, powerfully affected and considerably modified the Buddha ideal of the Brahmans. Whatever may be the historical relation between the Hindu Buddha and the Buddha of the Buddhists, this
Shiva with Parvati.
On Nanda, the sacred bull (Mus^e
Guimet )
Shiva-Trimurti. Leaning on the linga, the symbol of the creative faculty. (Musee Guimet.)
much is sure : the Buddha has been received by the Brah- mans as one of the members of the Hindu Pantheon.
The Hindu deity that is nearest in spirit to the Buddha avatar is Jagannath, the god of love and mercj'.
The tenth avatar has not yet been completed. Vishnu is expected to appear on a winged white horse to reward the virtuous, convert the sinners, and destroy all evil.
94
THE HISTORY OK THE DEVIL.
The horse has one foot raised, and when it places its foot down, the time of the incarnation will find its fulfil- ment.
The third person of the Indian trinit}' is Siva, the Auspicious One, representing the end of the world and its regeneration. He is commonh' represented by the Imga as a symbol of the creative facult3' and hy the
all -devouring fire, the tongued flame of which is pictured in a triangle turning its point up- wards L.
Sir Monier Monier \\'illiams (in Bralnuan- isiu and Hinduisiu ^ p. 6S) says of this deity, which is ''more mj'stical and less human than the in- carnated Vishnu," that shina La.n^i.ng surkul.;,^l., ..■a Halo of his .symbol, the Huga, is
Flames. (Bronze Statue. Musee Guimet.) ,, . , . .. ^
never m the mmd of a Saiva (or Siva-worshipper) connected with indecent ideas, nor with sexual love." The linga, or, as the Romans called it, the phallus, the male organ of generation, be- comes at the first dawn of civilisation, almost among all the nations of the world, an object of great awe and rev- erence. As the sj-mbol of the creative principle it is re- garded as the most essential attribute of both the God- Creator himself and all those who hold authority in his name. The linga develops in the hand of the medicine man into a wand,*in the hand of the priest into a staff,
■Tc.. *
'■^^ii
^^.^~:nM:£Ll
The Buddha Avatar or Vishnu's In- carnation AS THE Enlightened Teacher of Mankind.
The Kai.ki Avatar or the White Horse Incarnation.
Siva Worship. (Reproduced from Picart.)
96
THE HISTORY OF THE DEVIL.
and in tte hand of the king into a sceptre. The yoni, or female organ, is regarded as the symbol of Siva's con- sort, Parvati, and is worshipped in connexion with the linga by the sect of the Sactis. Perforated rocks are con- sidered as emblems of the 3'oni, through which pilgrims pass for the purpose of being regenerated, a ceremony in which Hindus place great faith for its sin-expelling sig- nificance. (See Charles Coleman, The Mythology of the Hindus^ p. 175.)
Siva and Parvati. (Reproduced from Hermann Goll )
Siva's consort, Kali, is one of the greatest divinities of India. She is the goddess of a hundred names, repre- senting not only the power of nature, but also the ruth- less cruelty of nature's laws. She is called Parvati, the blessed mother, and Durga, which means "hard to go through," symbolising war and all kinds of danger. She is in the pantheon of modern Hinduism the central fig- ure ; and in spite of the universality of Brahma in philo-
BRAHMANISM AND HINDUISM. 97
sophical speculations, in spite of the omnipresence of Vishnu and his constant reincarnations as told in ancient
Kali After an Indian picture. (Reproduced from Schlagintweit.)
myths and legends, in spite of the omnipotence of Siva, and the high place given him in Hindu dogmatology, she
98
THE HISTORY OF THE DEVIL.
is the main recipient of Hindu Avorsiiip all over the coun- try. As Kali she is identified with time, the all-devourer, and is pictured as enjoying destruction, perdition, and
DURGA.
Indian sculpture. (Reproduced from Schlagintweit.)
murder in any form, trampling under foot even her own husband. There is scarcely a village without a temple devoted to her, and her images can be seen in thousands of forms. Her appearance is pleasant only as Pavarti ; in
BRAHMANISM AND HINDUISM.
99
all other shapes she is frightful, and it is difBcult to un- derstand the reverence Avhicli tlic pious Hindu cherishes
mKha' sGroma, the Tibetan Kali Bronze. (Musee Guimet.)
for this most diabolical deity, who among the Buddhists of Thibet is changed into a devilish demon under the name of niKha'sGroma.
100
THE HISTORY OF THE DEVIL.
The Pantheism which lies at the bottom of the whole Hindu mythology finds expression in the worship of HariHara, who is a combination of Vishnu and Siva. In
Kali-Durga in the Hindu PantheoN- (Reproduced from Wilkins.)
the Mahatmya, or collection of temple legends of the Hari- Hara, a town in the province of Mysore, Isvara says:'""
*The legends of the shrine of HariHara, translated from the Sanskrit by Rev. Thomas Foulkes.
BRAHMANISM AND HINDUISM.
101
"There are heretics among men who reject the Vedas and the Shastras, who live without purificatory cenmonies and estabHshed rules of conduct, and are filled with hatred of \'ishnu : so also there are heretical followers of Vishnu, who are similarly filled with hatred of Shiva. All these wicked men shall go to hell so long as this world endures. I will not receive worship from any man who makes a distinction between Vasudeva and my own divinity : I will divide every such man in two with my saw. For I have as- sumed the form of HariHara in order to destroy the teaching that
there is a difference between us ; and he wlio knows within him- self that HariHara is the god of gods, shall inherit the highest heaven."
HariHara is depicted as a combination of the two gods in one fignre, wliich is half male and half fe- male, for according to the Southern version of the legend Vishnu assumed the form of a beautiful woman who was embraced so fer- vently by Siva that both beca;me one.
There are in Hindu mythology innumerable other deities, among whom Indra, the thunder-god, is the greatest, as the hero among the gods of secondar3' rank, reminding us of the Thor of the Norsemen ; but Varuna, the Hindu Kronos, Agni the god of fire, have also at times been very prominent.
There are in addition gods of third degree, such as
HariHara. (Reproduced from Wilkins.)
102
THE HISTORY OF THE DEVIL.
Ganesa. (Reproduced from Wilkins.)
Agni. (Reproduced from Hermann. Goll.)
Kama.
(Reproduced from Wollheim da
Fonceka.)
Siva Slaying a Demon. (Reproduced from Wilkins.)
BRAPIMANISM AND HINDUISM. 103
Kama, the Hindu Amor, Ganesa, the elephant-headed god of wisdom,* and Karttikeya,t the leader of the good demons, on the peacock, both sons of Siva, and others. In addition, we have a great number of devas, sprites, and goblins. Some of them are good, as the Gandliar- vas, others at least not naturally ill-intentioned, as for instance the Apsaras (a kind of Hindu elves) , but most of them are dangerous and demoniacal. Such are the gen- eral mischief-makers, the Asuras, the Pretas, or ghosts, the Bhutas, or spook-spirits, the baby-killing Grahas, the Rakshasas, who are either giants or vampires, not to mention all the other demons of less power and impor- tance.
* Ganesa, which means the lord (tsa) of hosts (gaiia), is originally Siva him- self, and he was invoked under that name by writers of books to drive away evil demons. ;j^**Vt,j^
f Karttikeya is also called Subrahmanya and Skanda.
V
BUDDHISM.
BUDDHISM is a religious revolution against the evils tliat are dominant in Brahmanism. Gautama Shakyamuni, who claimed to be the Enlightened One, the Buddha, rejected bloody sacrifices, the authority of the Vedas, trust in rituals and the caste system, and taught a religion of moral endeavor which was to be ob- tained by enlightenment, or the bodhi. He recognised the existence of evil and sought salvation in the radical abolition of all selfishness through the extension of an all-comprehensive love toward all creatures.
The man3-sidedness of Buddhism is well illustrated in the Buddhistic conception of evil and of a final escape from evil, which is taught to the thinker in the shape of a philosophy, and to the uneducated masses in the garb of a poetical myth, affording the artist a good opportunity for representing deep thoughts in allegorical form.
Mara., tlic Evil One.
Evil is personified in Mara, the Buddhist Devil, who represents temptation, sin, and death. He is identified with Namuche, one of the wicked demons in Indian myth-
BUDDHISM. 105
ology with whom Indra strug.2:les. Namuche is the mis- chievous spirit who prevents rain and produces drought. The name Namuche means " not letting go the waters." However, Indra, the god of thunder-storms, forces him to surrender the fertilising liquids and restores the life- bringing element to the earth.
Mara is also called Papiyan* the Wicked One or the Evil One, the Murderer, the Tempter. In addition he is said to be Varsavarti,t meaning "he who fulfils desires." Varsavarti, indeed, is one of his favorite names. In his capacity as Varsavarti, Mara personifies the fulfilment of desire or the triple thirst, J viz., the thirst for existence, the thirst for pleasure, the thirst for power. He is the king of the Heaven of sensual delight.
There is a deep truth in this conception of Mai^a as Varsavarti. It means that the selfishness of man is Satan and the actual satisfaction of selfishness is Hell.
This reminds us of one of Leander's Marclien^ in which we are told that once a man died and awoke in the other world. There St. Peter appeared before him and asked him what he wanted. He then ordered breakfast, the daily papers, and all the comforts he was accustomed to in life, and this kind of life lasted for many centuries until he got sick of it and began to swear at St. Peter and to complain of how monotonous it was in Heaven, whereupon St. Peter informed him that he was in Hell,
* Pafiyaji means "more or very wicked" ; it is the comparative form of the Sanskrit, papin, wicked.
\ Varsavarti is Sanskrit. The Pali form is Vasavatti, derived from vasa, wish, desire. Childers explains the word as "bringing into subjection." Mara is also called Paranimmita Vasavatti, which means '"bringing into subjection that which is created by others."
\ Pali, tanha; Sanskrit, trishna.
106
THE HISTORY OF THE DEVIL.
for hell is where everybody has his own sweet will, and heaven is where everybody follows God's will alone. Similarly, according to the Buddhist conception, the heaven of sensual delight is hell, the habitation of the Evil One.
The Demon of Lightning. A Japanese temple statue.
In the Dhammapada, Mara is not so much a person as a personification. The allegorical nature of the Evil One is plainlj- felt in every passage in which Alara's name occurs. We read, for instance :
"He who lives looking for pleasures onl)', his senses uncon-
BUDDHISM.
107
trolled, immoderate in his food, idle and weak, him Mara will cer- tainly overthrow as the wind throws down a feeble tree."
Buddhism in its original and orthodox purity knows nothing of devils except Mara, representing the egotisti- cal pleasures, sensuality, sin, and death; but Buddhist
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The Demon of Thunder. A Japanese temple statue.
mythology from the ancient Jatakas down to the most modern folklore of China and Japan has peopled the uni- verse with evil spirits of all kinds, such as the demons of thunder and lightning, to personify the various ills of life and the dangers that lurk everywhere in nature.
108 THE HISTORY OF THE DEVIL.
While the evil consequences of sin are depicted in the tortures of Hell which are similar to the Christian belief, the final escape from evil is expressed in the belief that all good Buddhists will be reborn in the Western Paradise.
Mara^ the Enemy of Buddha.
In the life of Buddha, Mara plays an important part. He is that principle which forms an obstacle to the at- tainment of Buddhahood. Having told how, in the night of the great renunciation, the deity of the door swung the gate open to let the future Buddha out, the Jataka continues :
"At that moment Mara came there with the intention of stop- ping the Bodisat ; and standing in the air, he exclaimed, 'Depart not, O my lord ! in seven days from now the wheel of empire will appear, and will make you sovereign over the four continents and the two thousand adjacent isles. Stop, O my lord ! "
The prince refused to listen to IMara's wily insinua- tion.
When Buddha, in his search for enlightenment, had tried for seven years to find the right path in asceticism and self-mortification, his health began to give way and he was shrunken like a withered branch. At this mo- ment Mara drew near and suggested to him the thought of giving up his search for enlightenment. We read in the Padhana Sutta:*
"Came Namuche speaking words full of compassion: 'Thou art lean, ill-favored, death is in thy neighborhood. Living life, O thou Venerable One, is better ! Living, thou wilt be able to do good works. Difficult is the way of exertion, difficult to pass, diffi- cult to enter upon.'
* Sacred Books of the East, Vol. X.. second part, pp. 69-71
BUDDHISM. 109
"To Mara, thus speaking, Bhagavat said: 'O thou friend of the indolent, thou wicked one, for what purpose hast thou come here? Even the least good work is of no use to me, and what good works are required ought Mara to tell? I have faith and power; and understanding is found in me. While thus exerting myself, why do you ask me to live? While the flesh is wasting away the mind grows more tranquil, and my attention, understanding, and meditation becomes more steadfast. Living thus, my mind does not look for sensual pleasures. Behold a being's purity !
"Lust thy first army is called; discontent thy second; thy third is called hunger and thirst ; thy fourth desire ; thy fifth is called sloth and drowsiness; thy sixth cowardice; thy seventh doubt ; thy eighth hypocrisy and stupor, gain, fame, honor, and what celebrity is falsely obtained by him who exalts himself and despises others. This, O Namuche, is thine, the Black One's fighting army. None but a hero conquers it, and whoever conquers it obtains joy. Woe upon life in this world! Death in battle is better for me than that I should live defeated.
"Seeing on all sides an army arrayed and Mara on his elephant, I am going out to do battle that he may not drive me from my place. This army of thine, which the world of men and gods can- not conquer, I will crush with understanding, as one crushes an unbaked earthen pot with a stone.
"Having made my thoughts subject to me and my attention firm, I shall wander about from kingdom to kingdom training dis- ciples. They will be zealous and energetic, obedient to the discip- line of one free from lust, and they will go to the place where there is no mourning.
"And Mara said: 'For seven years I followed Bhagavat, step by step, but found no fault in the Perfectly Enlightened and Thoughtful One.'"
When Buddha went to the Bo-tree Mara, the Evil One, proposed to shake his resolution, either through the allurements of his daughters or bj^ force. "He sounded
Mara's Army. Gandhara sculptures. Museum of Lahore. (Reproduced from Griinwedel.)
BUDDHISM. Ill
the war crj' aud drew out for battle." The earth quaked, when Mara, mounted on his elephant, approached the Buddha. The gods, among them Sakka, the king of the gods, and Brahma, tried to stay Mara's army, but none of them was able to stand his ground, and each i!ed straight before him. Buddha said:
" ' Here is this multitude exerting all their strength and power against me alone. My mother and father are not here, nor a brother, nor any other relative. But I have these Ten Perfections, like old retainers long cherished at my board. It therefore be- hooves me to make the Ten Perfections my shield and my sword, and to strike a blow with them that shall destroy this strong array.' And he remained sitting and reflected on the Ten Perfections." — Buddhism in Translations. By H. C. Warren, pp. 77-78.
Mara caused a whirlwind to blow, but in vain ; he caused a rain-storm to come in order to drown the Bud- dha, but not a drop wetted his robes ; he caused a shower of rocks to come down, but the rocks changed into bou- quets; he caused a shower of weapons — swords, spears, and arrows — to rush against him, but they became celes- tial flowers ; he caused a shower of live coals to come down from the sky, but they, too, fell down harmless. In the same way hot ashes, a shower of sand, and a shower ©f mud were transmuted into celestial ointments. At last he caused a darkness, but the darkness dis- appeared before Buddha, as the night vanishes before the sun. Mara shouted: "Siddhattha, arise from the seat. It does not belong to you. It belongs to me." Buddha replied: ''Mara, you have not fulfilled the ten perfections. This seat does not belong to you, but to me, who have fulfilled the ten perfections." Mara denied
112 THE HISTORY OF THE DEVIL.
Buddha's assertion and called upon his array as wit- nesses, while Buddha declared: "I have no animate witnesses present;" but, stretching out his right hand towards the mighty earth, he said: "Will you bear me witness?" And the mighty earth thundered: "I bear you witness." And Mara's elephant fell upon its knees, and all the followers of Mara fled away in all directions. When the hosts of the gods saw the army of Mara flee, they cried out: "Mara is defeated! Prince Siddhattha has conquered ! Let us celebrate the victory ! ' '
When Buddha had attained enlightenment, Mara tempted him once more, saying:
"Pass away now, Lord, from existence! Let the Blessed One now die! Now is the time for the Blessed One to pass away!"
Buddha made reply as follows :
"I shall not die, O Evil One! until not only the brethren and sisters of the order, but also the lay-disciples of either sex shall have become true hearers, wise and well trained, ready and learned, versed in the Scriptures, fulfilling all the greater and the lesser duties, correct in life, walking according to the precepts, — until they, having thus themselves learned the doctrine, shall be able to tell others of it, preach it, make it known, establish it, open it, minutely explain it and make it clear, — until they, when others start vain doctrines, shall be able by the truth to vanquish and re- fute it, and so to spread the wonder-working truth abroad!
"I shall not die until this pure religion of mine shall have be- come successful, prosperous, wide-spread, and popular in all its full extent, until, in a word, it shall have been well proclaimed among men! "
When, shortly before Buddha's death, Mara repeated his words as quoted above, "Pass away now, Lord, from existence," Buddha answered:
BUDDHISM. 113
"Make thyself happy; the final extinction of the Tathagata shall take place before long."
Mara in Buddhist Art. In tlie various sculptures representing scenes of Buddha's life there is a figure holding in his hand a kind of double club or vajra — i. e., thunderbolt, as it is usually- called. Since the expression of this man with the thun- derbolt decidedly shows malevolence, the interpretation naturally suggested itself that he must be one of Bud- dha's disciples who was antagonistic to his teachings. The common explanation of this figure, accordingly, des- ignated him as Devadatta, the Buddhistic Judas Iscariot, who endeavored to found a sect of his own, and who ac- cording to Buddhistic legends is represented as an in- triguer bent on the murder of Buddha. The various representations of this figure, however, are not altogether those of a disciple who tries to outdo Buddha in stern- ness and severity of discipline, but frequently bear the character of a Greek faun, and resemble, rather, Silenus, the foster-father of Bacchus, representing all kinds of ex- cesses in carousing and other pleasures. Moreover, the same figure with the thunderbolt appears in representa- tions of Buddha's entering Nirvana, at a time when De- vadatta had been long dead. Alfred Griiuwedel, for these reasons, proposes to abandon the traditional interpreta- tion of the thunderbolt-bearer as Devadatta, and it ap- pears that he has found the right interpretation when he
says:*
"This figure which accompanies Buddha from the moment he leaves his father's house until he enters Nirvana, and who waylays * Buddhistische A'ttnst in Iridifn. Berlin : Speman, p. 87.
114
THE HISTORY OF THE DEVIL.
him in the hope of awakening in him a thought of lust or hatred or envy, who follows him like a shadow, can be no one but Mara Papiyan, the Wicked One, the demon of passion. The thunder- bolt in Mara's hand is nothing but the old attribute of all Indian gods. In his capacity as the god of pleasure, Mara is especially entitled to this attribute of the Hindu gods. As Vasavatti he reigns in the highest domain of the pleasure heaven, surrounded by dan- cing girls and musicians."
Buddha, Tempted by Mara's Daughters. Gandhara sculptures. (Reproduced from Griinwedel.)
It seeiiLS probable that the contra.st in which Alara or Varsavarti .stands to the Buddha began b^- and b}- to be misunderstood. For the thunderbolt-bearer Vajrapani is graduall}' changed into a regular attendant of Buddha, and the Vajra, or thunderbolt, is now interpreted as an attribute of Buddha himself. Thus it happened that among the northern Buddhists the Vajra became the in-
BUDDHISM. 115
dispensable attribute of tlie lamas. It is called Dorje in Tibet and Ojir in Mongolia.
Tlie attack of IMara upon Buddha under the bo-tree is a favorite subject of Buddhist artists, who gladly avail themselves of this opportunity to show their ingenuity in devising all kinds of beautiful and hideous shapes. Beau- tiful women represent the temptations of the daughters of Mara, and the hideous monsters describe the terrors of Mara's army.
In Buddhistic mythology Mara, the Evil One, is, in harmony with the spirit of Buddha's teachings, repre- sented as the Prince of the World. It is Mara who holds the wheel of life and death {Chavachakra^ i. e., wheel of becoming) in his hands, for all living beings reside in the domain of death. The hand of death is upon every one who is born. He is the ruler in the domains of the nidanas, the twelve links of the chain of causation, or de- pendent origination.
T/ie Tivclve Nidanas.
The twelve nidanas are a very old doctrine, which possibly goes back to Buddha himself, and may contain elements that are older. While the general meaning of the chain of causation is clearly indicated by the first and last links, which imply that ignorance, not-knowing, or infatuation is at the bottom of all evil, there are great difficulties in the interpretation of the details, and Vlx. Warren thinks that it is a combination of two chains of causation representing similar thoughts. He says:
116 THE HISTORY OF THE DEVIL.
"The Buddhist Sacred Books seem to claim Dependent Orig- ination as the peculiar discovery of the Buddha, and I suppose they would have us understand that he invented the whole formula from beginning to end. But it is to be observed that the formula repeats itself, that the human being is brought into existence twice — the first time under the name of consciousness, and name and form and by means of ignorance and karma, the second time in birth and by means of desire (with its four branches called attach- ments) and karma again, this time called existence.* Therefore, though Buddhaghosa is at great pains to explain this repetition as purposely intended for practical ends, yet one is much inclined to surmise that the full formula in its present shape is a piece of patchwork put together of two or more that were current in the Buddha's time and by him — perhaps expanded, perhaps contracted, but at any rate made into one. If the Buddha added to the form- ula of Dependent Origination, it would appear that the addition consisted in the first two propositions. For ignorance, of course, is the opposite of wisdom, and wisdom is the method for getting rid of ignorance." — Buddhism in Translations, p. 115.
Whatever may have been the original wording, the traditional formula of the causation of evil has been, without change, faithfully preserved in the triumphal progress of Buddhism from India to Japan. One of the oldest passages in which the twelve nidanas are enume- rated is found in the Questions of King Miliiida., p. 79, where we read :
"By reason of ignorance came the Confections,! by reason of the Confections consciousness, by reason of consciousness name- and-form, by reason of name-and-form the six organs of sense, by reason of them contact, by reason of contact sensation, by reason
♦The Visudhi Magga declares karraa-existence is equivalent to existence. I Confection is a bad translation of Sankhara. formation or deed-form. See '/he Dhayma. pp. 16-18.
BUDDHISM. 117
of sensation thirst, by reason of thirst craving, by reason of craving becoming, by reason of becoming birth, by reason of birth old age and death, grief, lamentation, sorrow, pain, and despair. Thus is it that the ultimate point in the past of all this time is not ap- parent."— Translated by T. W. Rhys Davids in Sacred Books of the East, Vol. XXXV.
The Samyutta Nikaya enumerates as tlie second nidana "karma," i. e., action. The passage reads:
" On ignorance depends karma ;
"On karma depends consciousness ;
"On consciousness depend name and form ;
"On name and form depend the six organs of sense;
" On the six organs of sense depends contact ;
"On contact depends sensation ;
•' On sensation depends desire ;
"On desire depends attachment;
"On attachment depends existence;
"On existence depends birth ;
"On birth depend old age and death, sorrow, lamentation, misery, grief, and despair. Thus does this entire aggregation of misery arise.
"But on the complete fading out and cessation of ignorance ceases karma ;
"On the cessation of karma ceases consciousness ;
"On the cessation of consciousness ceases name and form ;
"On the cessation of name and form cease the six organs of sense ;
"On the cessation of the six organs of sense ceases contact;
"On the cessation of contact ceases sensation ;
" On the cessation of sensation ceases desire ;
" On the cessation of desire ceases attachment ;
" On the cessation of attachment ceases existence ;
"On the cessation of existence ceases birth ;
" On the cessation of birth cease old age and death, sorrow.
118 THE HISTORY OF THE DEVIL.
lamentation, misery, grief, and despair. Thus does this entire aggregation of misery cease." — Buddhism in Translations, Warren, p. 1 66.
The Pali terms are: (l) avijja (ignorance), (2) sankhara (organised formation) or kaninia (Karma) , (3) vinnyaua (sentiencj^) , (4) naiiia-rupa (name and form, i. e., individuality), (5) salayataiia (the six fields, i. e., the five senses and mind) , (6) phasso (contact) , (7) ve- dana (sensation), (8) tanha (thirst), (9) 7tpadana (crav- ing), (10) bliava (growth), (11) y(7/z' (birth) , {Yl) jara- marana^ etc. (old age, death, sorrow, etc.).
It seems that we have three chains of causation combined into one. One chain explains that Karma, i. e., deed or activity, produces first vinnyaua (sentiency) , and then nama-riipa (name and form, or personality) ; the other begins with sensation, as known in the six senses or sa /ay a tana., which by contact {phasso) produces first consciousness {vedana) and then thirst {tanha). The third group, which may be the peculiarly Buddhistic addition to the two older formulas, is founded in the first, or first and second, and the four concluding links of the traditional chain, stating that ignorance {a:7)ja) pro- duces blindl}' in its random work organisations {sankha- ras) . These sankharas or elementary organisms are pos- sessed of craving {npadana) , which leads to conception {bhaz'a) and birth {jati) , thus producing old age, death, sorrow, and misery of any kind.
The Wheel of Life. Life in its eternal rotation is represented in Buddhist mythology as a wheel that is held in the clutches of the Evil One.
BUDDHISM.
119
Judging from a communication of Caroline A. Foley (in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society ^ 1894, p. 389) , the allegory of the world-wheel, the wheel of life,
An Indian Wheel of Life.
Preserved in the Cave Temples of Ajanta, Central India.
(Reproduced from L. E. Waddell's picture in the J. R. A. S.)
must be much older than is commonly thought, for it is mentioned already in the Dizyavadana, pp. 299-300. Caroline Foley says :
120 THE HISTORY OF THE DEVIL.
"There it is related how Buddha instructed Ananda to make a wheel {cakram karayiiavyani) for the purpose of illustrating what another disciple, Maudgalyayana, saw when he visited other spheres, which it seems he was in the habit of doing. The wheel was to have five spokes {pancagandakavi), between which were to be depicted the hells, animals, pretas, gods, and men. In the middle a dove, a serpent, and a hog, were to symbolise lust, hatred, and ignorance. All round the tire was to go the twelve-fold circle of causation (^pratityasamutpado) in the regular and in the inverse or- der. Beings were to be represented ' as being born in a super- natural way (aupapadiikah), as by the machinery of a waterwheel, falling from one state and being produced in another.' The wheel was made and placed in the 'grand entrance gateway' {dvara- kosh/ake), and a bhikshu appointed to interpret it."
Samsara, or the circuit of life, the eternal round of birth, death, and rebirth, as summarily expressed in the doctrine of the twelve nidanas or twelve-linked chain of causation, is painted around the tire of the wheel.
How carefully the Buddhistic conception of Mara, as the Prince of the world, holding in his clutches the wheel of life, has been preserved, we can learn from a comparison of an old fresco in the deserted caves of Ajanta, Central India,* with Tibetan and Japanese pic- tures of the same subject. t All of them show in the centre the three causes of selfhood, viz., hatred, spite, and sloth, symbolised in a serpent, a cock, and a pig. They are also called the three fires, or the three roots of evil, which are rag-a (passion) , doso (sin) , 7noho (infatuation) .
* Described by L. A. Waddell, M. B., M. R. A. 8., in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, April, 1894. Luxuriously reprpduced in colors on Plate 8, Vol. I., of The Paintings in the Rtiddhist Cave- Temples of Ajayita, by John GriflSths. London, Griggs, 1896.
f The Tibetan and Japanese pictures are explained by Professor Bastian in his Ethnologisches Bilderbiich .
BUDDHISM.
12]
The Hindu picture exhibits six divisions, — the realm of gods, the realm of men, the realm of nagas (or snakes) ,*
A Tibetan Wheel of Life. (Reproduced from Bastian.)
*We must remember that in some parts of India the serpent is the symbol of perfection and wisdom, — a belief which was adopted by the Ophites, a gnostic sect that revered the snake of the Garden of Eden as the instructor in the knowledge of good and evil and the originator of scit nee.
122 THE HISTORY OF THE DEVIL.
the realm of paradise, tlie realm of ghosts, and the realm of hell. The Tibetan picture shows the same domains, only less distinctly separated, while the Japanese picture shows only five divisions. In order to show the omni- presence of the Buddha as the principle that sustains all life, the Japanese picture shows a Buddha statue in the hub, while in the Hindu wheel every division contains a Buddha figure. This Buddha in the world is the Buddha of transiormsitions, JVz'rmana-J^aya, representing the ten- dency of life toward enlightenment. Outside of the wheel two other Buddha figures appear. At the right-hand corner there is Buddha, the teacher, in the attitude of expounding the good law of righteousness. It is the Dharvia-Kaya^ the Buddha embodied in the dharma, i.e. the law, religion, or truth. In the left-hand corner there is Buddha in the state of rest, represented as Sainbhoga- Kaya^ the Buddha who has entered into Nirvana and attained the highest bliss.
The twelve nidanas are an essential element in the Buddhist wheel of life, and are commonly represented by twelve little pictures either on the tire or surrounding the tire.
On the Japanese wheel, which exhibits the nidanas more clearly than the older wheels, the series begins at the bottom, rising to the left-hand side and turning down again on the right-hand side.
The first nidana (in Pali Avijja) , ignorance, is pic- tured as a passionate man of brutish appearance.
The second nidana (in Pali Sa///c/iara, Sanskrit Sa7)iskara) , which is commonly but badly translated in Bnglish by "confection," represents the ultimate con-
BUDDHISM.
123
stitutions of life or ])rimary forms of organisation, mean- ing a disposition of strnclnres tliat possess the tendency to repeat the function once performed. It is represented as a potter's wheel on which vessels arc manufactured. The word should not be confused with samsara, which is
A Japanese Wheel of Life. (Reproduced from Bastian.)
the whole wheel of life, or the eternal round of trans- migration.
The third nidana is vinnyana, or awareness, being the sentiency that originates bj- the repetition of function in the dispositions or organised structures previously formed. It is animal sense-perception, represented as a monkey .
124 THE HISTORY OF THE DEVIL.
The fourth nidana is "nama-rupa," i. e., name and form, which expression denotes what we call personality, the name of a person and his personal appearance. It is represented by a pilot steering a boat.
The fifth nidana is called the six fields or " shada- yatana," which are what we call the five senses and mind, or thinking, which is considered by Buddhists as a sixth sense. It is pictured as a human organism.
The sixth nidana is " phasso " or"sparsa," i.e., the contact of the six fields, with their objects, repre- sented as a lover's embrace.
Rising from a contact of the six fields with their ob- jects, the seventh nidana is produced as "vedana," i. e., sensation or sentiment, illustrated by a sighing lover. If the sixth nidana is enacted in the garden scene of Goethe's "Faust," the seventh is characterised by Mar- garet's song, "My peace is gone, ni}- heart is sore." (Scene xv.)
From sentiment, as the eighth nidana, "tanha," i. e., thirst or desire, rises. The picture exhibits the flirtation of two separated lovers.
The ninth nidana is "upadana," i. e., the clinging to existence. The picture shows us the lover following the footsteps of his love.
The tenth nidana is "bhava" (bridal embrace), or existence in its continuation, finding its artistic expres- sion in the union of the lovers, who, seated on the back of an elephant, are celebrating their marriage feast.
The eleventh nidana is birth, "jati," in the picture represented as a woman in her throes.
The remaining groups represent the twelfth nidana
BUDDHISM. 125
and Its various suffering's, which consist of old age, dis- ease, death, lamentation, complaints, punishments, and all kinds of tribulations.
The twelve pictures on the Hindu wheel are less distinct, but there is no question about their meaning be- ing exactly the same. Beginning at the top on the right- hand side, we find first an angry man, representing ig- norance, then a figure which might be a potter forming vessels of clay on the potter's wheel, representing the formation of dispositions or primary soul-forms. The third picture represents a monkey climbing a tree, sym- bolising animal perception or the individuality of organ- isms. The fourth picture shows a ship on a stream, rep- resenting the origin of mind under the allegory of a pilot. The fifth picture seems to be a house built upon five foundation stones, which we interpret as the five senses, the superstructure representing mind, the sixth sense. Then follows the sixth picture, a woman, kindling desire of contact. The seventh represents sentiment in the shape of two sighing lovers. The eighth picture repre- sents thirst or desire as two separated lovers. The ninth picture, reminding us of Adam and Eve in Paradise, is a man plucking flowers or fruits from a tree ; it illustrates the tasting of the apple of sexual love. The tenth pic- ture illustrates pregnancy, the eleventh birth, and the twelfth is the demon of death carrying away the white body of a dead man.
* *
Tbe wbeel of life as now frequently pictured in Bud- dhist temples of Japan can, in its wanderings from India through Tibet and China, be traced back to a remote an-
126 THE HISTORY OF THE DEVIL.
tiquity, for we know positively that this conception of the Evil One in his relation to the world, existed about two thousand years ago, in the days when Buddhism still flourished in India, but it is not improbable that it must be dated back to a time preceding Buddha. We may fairly assume that when Buddha lived, such or similar rep- resentations of the significance of evil in life existed and that he utilised the traditional picture for the purposes of spreading his own religion, adding thereto his own inter- pretation, and thus pouring new wine into old bottles. There is a possibility that the picture must be dated back to the age of demonolatry, when the idea prevailed that the good god need not be worshipped but only the evil god, because he alone is dangerous to mankind.
That the same idea as expressed in the Buddhist wheel of life existed in the remotest antiquity of our ear- liest civilisations can be seen at a glance by looking at the picture of the Chaldean bronze tablet (on page 46 of this volume) , which represents the three worlds, the realm of the gods, the abode of men, and the domain of the dead, as being held in the clutches of a terrible mon- ster. The similarity of the tablet to the Buddhist wheel of life is too striking to be fortuitous.
Religious symbols, formulas, and rites are, as a rule, punctiliously preserved even after a radical change of the fundamental ideas that are embodied therein. Judging by analogy from the religious evolution of other nations, we must assume that the original form of worship among the Accadians was as much demonolatrous as it is at a certain stage of civilisation among all savage tribes, and this bronze plate appears to preserve the lingering fea-
BUDDHISM. 127
tures of a prehistoric world-conception. The simplest explanation that suggests itself is to regard the monster holding the world-picture as the deity of evil, who in the period when religion still consisted merely in the fear of evil, was worshipped as the actual prince of the world whose wrath was propitiated by bloody sacrifices.
If this view should prove to be correct, the Chaldean bronze plate of the monster holding in its claws the world would be the connecting link between the veiy dawn of religious notions with the foundation of Buddhism, where the worship of the evil deity has disappeared entirely. But the influence of this old mode of expression extends even into the sphere of the origin of Christianity, al- though here it fades from sight. In the New Testament the Buddhist term "the wheel of life " is used once more, but it is a mere echo of a remote past ; its original sig- nificance is no longer understood. Speaking of the great damage caused in the world by the tongue, St. James
says :
" ovroos rj yXdxsGa HaSiararai eV roi5 ^iXeaiv ?'//.icay i) oni- Xovaa oXov TO aai-ia- xai q)Xoyi8,ovaa rov rpoxov ryZ yeviaeooi, Kai (pXoyi^o/.tiyt^ vno rt'/S ysei'V)jS."
[Thus the tongue that defileth the whole body standeth among our limbs ; and it setteth on fire the wheel of becoming and is set on fire by hell.]
The version of King James translates the term Tpoxo= ysviaeoo? which in the Vulgate reads rosa nativitatis^ by " course of nature."
Nortlieni Bitddhism. The Buddhism of Tibet is not yet sufficiently ex- plored on account of the inaccessibility of the country,
128
THE HISTORY OF THE DEVIL.
but it is safe to say that its demonology is highly devel- oped and shows traces of strong Hindu influences. Prom-
■i/^^
Meifo, the Dark Tribunal. (Reproduced from a colored Japanese illustration in fTarma )
inent among the evil spirits is mKha'sGroma, the Tib- etan form of the Hindu Goddess Kali (see page 99) , who is represented as a frightful monster with a leonine head,
BUDDHISM. 129
surrounded by a halo of flames and ready to devoiir every- thing she sees.
In China Taoism, Confucianism, and Buddhism exist peacefully side by side, and there is scarcely a home in the country where the customary homage would not be paid to Lao-Tsze and Confucius as well as to Buddha. Indeed, there are numerous illustrations in which these three great masters are together represented as dominat- ing the moral life of China.
In Japan the conditions are similar, except that in the place of the popular Taoism we find Shintoism, which is the aboriginal nature-worship of the country, consist- ing at present in the observation of national festivals, in which form it has of late been declared to be the official state religion of the country.
The folklore of Chinese Taoism and Japanese Shin- toism was naturally embodied in the mythology of the Buddhists, and we find therefore in their temples innu- merable representations of hell with all their traditional belongings; Emma, the stern judge of Meifu, the dark tribunal ; Kongo, the sheriff, and all the terrible staff of bailiffs, torturers, and executioners, among whom the steer-headed Gozu and the horse-headed Mezu are never missing. By the side of the judge's desk stands the most perfect mirror imaginable, for it reflects the entire per- sonality of every being. Since man's personality, ac- cording to the Buddhistic soul-conception, is constituted by the deeds done during life, the glass makes apparent all the words, thoughts, and actions of the delinquent who is led before it ; whereupon he is dealt with according to his deserts. If good deeds prevail, he is rewarded by be-
130
THE HISTORY OF THE DEVIL.
Kongo, the Sheriff. Emma, the Judge.
Carved wood, Japanese. (Reproduced from a Japanese art print.'
BUDDHISM.
131
ing reincarnated in a higher state of existence, be it on earth, or in the Western Paradise, or in one of the heav- ens of the gods; or, if bad deeds prevail, he sinks into lower spheres, in which case he mnst go back to life in the shape of that creature which represents his peculiar character; or, if he has been very wicked, he is doomed to hell, whither he is carried in the ho noknniiua^ the fiery cart, the conveyance of the in- fernal regions. The sentence is pronounced in these words :
"Thy evil deeds are not the work of th)' mother, father, rela- tives, friends, advisers. Thou alone hast done them all ; thou alone must gather the fruit. " (Devad. S. )
Dragged to the place of torment, he is fastened to red hot irons, plunged into fiery lakes of blood, raked over burning coals, and "he dies not till the last residue of his guilt has been expiated."
But the Devil is not al- ways taken seriousl}', and it appears that the Chinese and Japanese exhibit all the hiumor they are capable of in their devil pictures and statues, among which the Oni-no-Nembutzu, the Devil as a monk, is perhaps the most grotesque figure.
In the later development of Northern Buddhism, all
The Devil as a Monk. (Japanese wood carving of the seven- teenth century. MuseeGuimet.)
132
THE HISTORY OF THE DEVIL.
Oni-no-Nembutzu.
The demon repeating Buddha's name, representing greed and hypocrisy. He goes about with a subscription list and a bowl, carried by his little assistant, to collect money. (After a wood carving in the author's possession.)
BUDDHISM.
133
the evils of this world, represented in various devil per- sonalities, are conceived as incarnations of Buddha him- self, who, by showing the evil consequences of sin, en- deavors to convert mankind to holiness and virtue.
We find in the Buddhist temples of China and Japan so-called Mandaras, which represent the world-conception of Buddhism in its cosmic entirety. The word Mandara means "a complete ensemble,' '' and it exhibits a system- aticall}^ arranged group of Buddha-incarnations. The
HoNO KuRUMA, THE Cart OF Hei.l. (After an old Japanese painting.)
statue of the highest Buddha who dwells in Nirvana al- ways stands in the centre. It is " Bodhi," enlighten- ment, or "Sambodhi," perfect enlightenment, that is to say, the Truth, eternal rightness, or rather. Verity, the objective reality that is represented in truth, which is the same forever and aye. He is personified under the name Amitabha, which means boundless light, being that some- thing the recognition of which constitutes Buddhahood. He is like God, the Father of the Christians, omnipres- ent and eternal, the light and life of the world, and the
134
THE HISTORY OF THE DEVIL.
Tibetan Devil's Altar. (From Waddell.)
BUDDHISM.
135
ultimate authority of moral conduct. Anotlier prominent Buddha incarnation is Maitreya, the Buddha to come, who is the Christian holy spirit. He is the comforter whose appearance was promised by Buddha shortly before part- ing from his disciples.
The catalogue of the IMusec Guimet of Paris, the best religious museum in the world, describes a Mandara, in which the highest Buddha in the centre of the group is surrounded by a number of his incarnations of various degrees and dignities. These are the Bodhisattvas, proph- ets and sages of the world, who have either taught man- kind or set them good examples by their virtuous lives. On the right we see a group of personified abstracts, — piety, charit3^ science, religion, the aspiration for pro- gress. On the left is a third class, consisting of the ugly figures of demons, whose appearance is destined to frighten people away from sensuality, egotism, and evil desires.
The devils of Buddhism, accordingly, are not the en- emies of Buddha, and not even his antagonists, but his ministers and co-workers. They partake of Buddha's na- ture, for they, too, are teachei's. They are the rods of punishment, representing the curse of sin, and as such have also been fitly conceived as incaimations of the Bodhi. In this interpretation, the Buddhist devils cease to be torturers and become instruments of education who contribute their share to the general system of working out the final salvation of man.
Christian salvation consists in an atonement of sin through the bloody sacrifice of a sinless redeemer ; Bud- dhist salvation is attained through enlightenment. Hence
136
THE HISTORY OF THE DEVIL.
Ciirist is the sufferer, tlie innocent man who dies to pay with his life the debt of others who are guilty. Buddha
Buddha Extending His Help to a Sufferer in Hell. The goodwill that a poor wretch had shown in his former life to a spider,, his only good deed, serves him in hell as a means of escape. (Reproduced from a colored Japanese illustration in A'arma )
is the teacher who by example and instruction shows peo- ple the path of salvation.
THE DAWN OF A NEW ERA.
Gnostic Societies and Congregations.
THE TRANSITION from the Old to the New Tes- tament is an age of nnrest. The Jews had become familiar with the civilisation of Assyria and Babylonia, and enjoj-ed friendly relations with the Persians. But the intercourse and general exchange of thought among the nations of Western Asia became more extended and grew livelier since Alexander the Great's time, for now Greek as well as Indian views mixed and produced a powerful fermentation in the religious beliefs of the peo- ple. We ma}' fairly assume that the doctrines of the Hindu reached Sj'ria in vague and frequently self-contra- dictory forms, but the}- were new and attractive, and apt to revolutionise the traditional ethics of the people. For- merly procreation of children was regarded as a duty and the acquisition of wealth as a blessing, now it became known that there were also people who sought salvation in absolute chastity and poverty. The highest morality of the monks of India was no longer the strength of maintaining oneself in the struggle for existence, but the surrender of all strife and a radical renunciation of self.
138 THE HISTORY OF THE DEVIL.
There are especially three ideas which dominated the whole movement aud acted as a leaven in the dough : the idea of the spirituality of the soul, the hope of the soul's escape from bodily existence, and the method of obtaining this liberation by wisdom (Goepia) or enlighten- ment (yrmffts) .
The realisation of the Gnostic ideal was called nX?/- pa>/.m or fulfilment, which was either expected by the soul's attainment of salvation after the fashion of the Buddhist Nirvana, or for the whole world through the ap- pearance of a savior — a messiah.
The spirit of the times showed itself in the foundation of various religious societies, which originated somewhat after the fashion of the modern theosophical movements. There were bands of students of the new problems in almost all larger cities, who investigated the doctrines of salvation and immortality, and in addition there were enthusiasts who tried to applj^ the new principles in prac- tical life. The former called themselves /uaBj^rai, learn- ers or disciples, the latter holy ones (aytoi) , or healers {OeparrsvTai, therapeutae) .'■'
With regard to the problem of evil, the most pecu- liar sect were the Gnostics of Syria whom the Church fathers called serpent-worshippers or Ophites, because on becoming acquainted with the Biblical books they re- garded Yahveh, the demiurge or author of this visible and material world, as an evil deity while the serpent
* Philo explains the name " therapeutae " also as " worshippers." The genuine- ness of Philo's book i9c i'i/a co7item( therapeutae has been doubted by P. E. Lucius, whose views, however, are thor- oughly refuted by Fred. C. Conybeare, Philo About the Contemflative Life (Cla- rendon Press, Oxford, 1S95)
THE DAWN OF A NEW ERA.
139
with liis promise of giving knowledge or gnosis to man, appeared to them as a messenger of the true and good God. This God of goodness, they declared, was unlike Yahvehfree of passions and full of love and mercy. He was, as Irenseus informs us, triune, being at once the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. The Father is the pro- totype of man, an idea which is carried out in the Cab- ala as the Adam Kadmon ; the Son is the eternal reason or comprehension {"Eyvour) , and the Spirit is the female principle of spiritual generation.
The Christian Trinity, God Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. (Old German School. Reproduced from Muther.)
Similar ideas concerning the triune Godhead and the salvation from evil are reported of other sects and espe- cially of Simon Magus who is mentioned in the Acts as having been baptised by St. Peter and condemned for his opinion that the Holy Ghost could be bought with money.
We know of sects in Judasa,the Nazarenes, the Sa- bians.* or Baptisers, the Essenes, and the Ebionites, which were born of the same seeking spirit of the age. But we must bear in mind that the members of these so-
*St. John the Baptist was a Sabian. The name is derived from »?? {/sa/>/ia) to baptise.
140 THE HISTORY OF THE DEVIL.
cieties belonged exclusively to the poorer class of society and formed a third party which was quite distinct from the orthodox Pharisees and the liberal Sadducees."^ The^- are to us of importance, however, because from their midst proceeded the man who was destined to become the standard bearer of a new faith and the representative in- carnation of the new religion — Jesus of Nazareth.
The Apocrypha of the Old Testament.
The literature of this period was no longer received into the canon of the Old Testament and is therefore in spite of many good qualities even to the present day re- garded as apocryphal.
*The word Essenes, or Essees (in Greek "Eaajivni and "Eaaalot, inLatin Esseni), is derived by Ewald from '^'-' preserver, guardian, a rabbinical term, because they called themselves "watchers, guardians, servants of God." Others derive the word from '"'V^ (to heal). Both derivations would remind one of the Therapeutae. The root ~?'~(to fly, to take refuge) seems to be quite probable, philologically considered, especially as the word is used in the sense in which the Buddhist takes refuge in the Dharma, illustrated in such phrases as ''"''" = ' '?" (to take refuge in God), Psalms ii. 12 ; v. 15 ; vii. 2 ; xxv 20 ; xxxi. 2 ; xxxvii. 40, etc. A fourth derivation is from '?? (to be pious, to be enthusiastic, to be zealous in love). Philo says they are called "Essenes" on account of their holiness (ira/xJ ri/v oaioripa) and uses the term baioi, i. e. , "the saints," or "the holy ones," as a synonym for Essenes. This hint, however, is of little avail, as it would suit almost any one of the various deri- vations.
The word Ebionites ^"''''?^ means the poor.
The early Christians seem to have been most closely allied with the Nazarenes. for as early as in the year 54 of our era (see Harnack's Chronologic, p. 237) St. Paul was accu.sed by the Jewish authorities of being a ringleader of the sect of the Nazarenes. (Acts, xxiv. 5)
The name 'Na^upaioi (sometimes ^aCapr/voi) has nothing to do with the name of the town of Nazareth {Na^apsS), which was presumably written with a a ( Tsadili) or sharp ts sound. The name Nazareth is nowhere mentioned in its original Ara- maic form, and occurs only in the New Testament whence it made its way into the patristic literature of later Christianity. Neither must the name Nazarene be con- founded with Nazarite "^ '-4 an abstainer, who as a visible sign of his vow let his hair grow, but both words may have been derived from the same root ~A^, the for- mer in the sense of "Separatist." The Niphel of the verb means "to separate oneself from others; to abstain, to vow, to devote oneself to."
THE DAWN OK A NEW ERA.
141
The new world-conception which emphasised the contrast between body and sonl developed a new moral ideal ; and the conception of evil underwent the same subtle changes as the conception of goodness. Since the lower classes began to make their influence felt, it is nat- ural that in the Apocryphal Books of the Old Testament
AsMODi, AN Evil Spirit, Cast Out by Prayer. (After Schnorr von Carolsfeld.)
the conception of Satan grew more mythological and at the same time more dualistic. He developed into an in- dependent demon of evil, and now, perhaps under the in- fluence of Persian views, the adversary of man became the adversary of God himself.
In the story of Tobit (150 B.C.) an evil spirit called Asmodi plays an important part. His name which in its
142 THE HISTORY OF THE DEVIL.
original form is Aeshma Daeva^ indicates a Persian ori- gin. He tries to prevent Sarah's marriage, because lie is in love with her himself. In the Talmud, Asmodi devel- ops into the demon of lust.
Very valuable books among the Apocrj-pha are the book of Daniel and the two books of Esdras ; but the no- blest thoughts are mixed with Judaistic chauvinism and bitter hatred of the Gentile nations.
Esdras anticipates the general eschatology as well as many smaller details of the Christian doctrines in a more definite shape than any other author of the period. He even proclaims (2 Esdras, vii. l^") the name of the Saviour whom the Lord calls " my son Jesus." '*
Esdras mentions two abysmal beings, Enoch and Leviathan, but they do not take an3- part in the produc- tion of evil. He might as well have omitted to mention them. In the name of God, an angel explains to him the origin of evil as follows in a simile which reminds us of both the Buddhist parable of the city of Nirvana and Christ's Sermon on the Mount :
" 'A city is builded, and set upon a broad field, and is full of all good things: The entrance thereof is narrow, and is set in a dangerous place to fall, like as if there were a fire on the right hand, and on the left a deep water : And one only path between them both, even between the fire and the water, so small that there could but one man go there at once. If this city now were given unto man for an inheritance, if he never shall pass the danger set before it, how shall he receive this inheritance?'
"And I said, ' It is so. Lord.'
"Then said he unto me, 'Even so also is Israel's portion.
*The passage is of course subject to the suspicion of being a later interpola- tion.
THE UAWN OF A NKW KRA. 143
Because for their sakes I made the world : and when Adam trans- gressed my statutes, then was decreed that now is done. Then were the entrances of this world made narrow, full of sorrow and travail ; they are but few and evil, full of peril and very painful. For the entrances of the elder world wen- wide and sure, and brought immortal fruit. If then they that live labor not to enter these strait and painful things, they can never receive those that are laid up for them.' " (2 Esdras, vii, 6-^4.)
A peculiarly intere.sting apocryphal work i.s ascribed to the patriarch Enoch.
The book of Enoch undertakes to explain in allegor- ical form God's plan of the world's history. The book is not yet Christian but shows man^- traces of doctrines pro- fessed by the sects which appeared at the beginning of the Christian era as competitors of Christianity.
While Enoch's demonology smacks of the religious m3'ths of the Gentiles, his ideas of salvation from evil be- tray Gnostic tendencies.
We read, for example, in Chapter 42:
"Wisdom came to live among men and found no dwelling- place. Then she returned home and took her seat among the an- gels."
We read of the Messiah, commonly designated "the son of a woman," sometimes "the son of man," and once "the son of God," that he existed from the begin- ning:
"Ere the sun and the signs [in the zodiac] were made, ere the stars of the heavens were created, his name was pronounced before the Lord of the spirits. Before the creation of the world he was chosen and hidden before Him [God], and before Him he will be from eternity to eternity."
144
THE HISTORY OF THE DEVIL.
Heaven and Hell.
(After H F , an unknown Old-German master.) Preserving the gnostic Trinity-ideal of God father, God mother, and God son.
THE DAWN OF A NEW ERA. 145
*'A11 the secrets of wisdom will flow from the thoughts of his mouth, for the Lord of the spirits has given wisdom unto him and has glorified him. In him liveth the spirit of wisdom, and the spirit of Him who giveth comprehension, and the spirit of the doc- trine and of the power, and the spirit of all those who are justified and are now sleeping. And He will judge all hidden things, and no one will speak trifling words before Him, for He is chosen be- fore the Lord of the spirits. He is powerful in all secrets of justi- fication, and injustice has no place before Him."
And God says of the sons of the earth :
" I and my son shall unite ourselves with them for ever and aye in the paths of righteousness for all their lives."
The spiritualistic views in the Book of Enoch, espe- cially the supernatural personality of the Messiah, are not peculiarly Christian, but Essenic or Gnostic, stand- ing even in contradiction to the idea that the Messiah would become flesh and live among men as a real man.
It is a pity that we do not possess the original, but only an Ethiopian version of the Book of Enoch, which has been translated into German by Dr. A. Dillmann, for it is of great interest to the historian. It breathes the spirit of a Judaistic Gnosticism, and it is probable that the original Book of Enoch was written in the year 110 B. C. by a Jew of the Pharisee party.*
The Book of IVt'sdont and tJie Gnostic Tn'ni/y Idea.
The Book of Wisdom, a product of Alexandrian Ju- daism, showing traces of both Greek and Eastern in- fluences, speaks of the Devil as having through envy introduced death into the world. We read:
* See Dillmann, Das Buck Henoch, p. xliv.
The Holv Trinity in the Vatican. (After Pietro Berrettini. Reproduced from // Valicaiio, plate xx.
THE DAWN OF A NEW ERA.
147
"God created man to be immortal, and made him to be an im- age of his own eternity; nevertheless, through envy of the Devil came death into the world, and they that do hold of his side do
find it."
The Wisdom literature shows many traces of Indian influence. The very word wisdom, or sophia, seems to
yi^wtWrj' ya^^l ^»^i|i^;v(»^M(y^y«^ v,wt:
«
The Buddhist Trinity, the Buddha, the Dharma, the Sangha. (Japanese wood carving; Musee Guimet.)
be a translation of the term bodhi. x\t the same time, the trinity idea begins to take root in the Jewish mind, the oldest form of it being moulded after the pattern of the family, which consists of father, mother, and child. The Wisdom books represent the relation of Sophia to God as his spouse and the Messiah as their son. Many Gnostics used the terms Sophia, Pneuma, and Logos as names for
148
THE HISTORY OF THE DEVIL.
the second person of the Deity, who represented the di- vine motherhood of the God-man. But during the first period of the development of the Christian Church, the ideal of a God-mother was abandoned, the Logos was identified with God the Son, who now became the second person of the Trinit}- ; and the name Pneuma or spirit
was alone retained for the third person. The Gnostic Trinit}^- conception, however, left its trace in the Christian apocrypha, for in ' ' the Gospel according to the He- brews" Christ spoke of the Holy Ghost as his mother.'*
The Trinit}' idea is of a very ancient origin. We encounter it in the religion of Babylon (see p. 40) , in Brahmanism (see
-V -^'UT'
The Trinity and Mary, (By Ambrogio Fossano, called Borgognone. For- merly in the S. Simpliciano at Milan, now at the -^ 1 ^^ and iu Bud- Brera. After Liibke. )
dhism. The Bud- dhists take refuge in the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha, called the three jewels, representing (l) Buddha the teacher, (2) the Buddhist religion or the good law, and (3) the Buddhist brotherhood or Church. The Trin- ity doctrine is not contained in the New Testament, all
* Ilicron. adv. J'clai'. III., 2.
THE DAWN OF A NEW ERA.
149
the passages which seem to involve it being spurious; but it fonns an integral part of almost all Gnostic sys- tems, where it either appears as three abstract principles, or as the family relation of Father, Mother, and Child, viewed as one.
The Trinity idea of God as a divine unity of Father, Mother, and Christ-child was retained among the Oriental Christians to the days of the rise of Moham- medanism . The Koran knows as yet nothing of the spiritualised Trinity conception of the Western Church, but represents the Christian Trinity as con- sisting of God, Christ, and Mary. And this Gnostic Trinity - conception is a natural ideal which in the further development of Christianity proved strong enough to influence the Roman Catholic Church in her devotion to Mar3', the
mother of Christ, whose P^^uced from Bastian's Ethnol. Bilder-
buck, plate xvii.)
personality was sometimes
superadded to the Trinity-, and sometimes even suffered
to replace the Holy Ghost.
The more abstract form of the Trinity, emphasising it as a triunity, found its artistic expression in pictures
The Christian Trinity. From the Icotiogi-afhie Chretienne. (Re-
150
THE HISTORY OF THE DEVIL.
of God as possessed of three faces. The most striking among these productions is an old oil painting which was discovered by a German artist at Salerno and published for the first time in Die Gartenlmibe (1882, No. 47).
The four eyes in
their meditative atti- tude make a weird impression on the spectator, the three elongated noses show a freedom from sen- suality, the brown hair and beard indi- cate strength, the broad forehead wis- dom.
A Modern Gnostic.
The Trinity of Salerno. JaCob Bohme's
Byzantine style of Lower Italy, probably of the phlloSOphy is, in this