Part 2, p. 673 ff., and Drake, Tecumseh, 2.

f Reproduced from ihe Fourteenth Annual Report of the Biireau of Ethnol- ogy. P- 670.
270 THE HISTORY OF THE DEVIL.
magic will inevitably prevail so long as the dualistic world-conception dominates the minds of the people, and in that period of civilisation supernatural deeds are ex- pected as the indispensable credentials of all religious prophets. It is the age of miracles and witchcraft.
Now we know that wherever contra-natural things are believed, there the strangest events w^l be experienced bj' those who are under the suggestion of the belief ; and then at once a competition will originate between those who represent the established religion and others who perform, or pretend to perform, similar deeds. The for- mer are prophets and saints, and they work miracles; the latter are wizards and witches, and their art is called witchcraft.
Miracles and witchcraft possess this in common that both are supposed to supersede the laws of nature, but there is this difference that the miracle is believed to be the supernatural power of one's own religion, while witchcraft is the miracle of heretics. Miracle is anything contra-natural that is legitimate ; and witchcraft is the same thing, but illegitimate ; the former is supposed to be done with the help of God, the latter with the help of Satan ; the former is boasted of as the highest glory of the Church, the latter is denounced as the greatest abom- ination possible.
It is natural that wizards and witches are always rep- resented as obnoxious, and it is said that their art is prac- tised to injure the welfare of mankind. Nevertheless, some very mean deeds are counted as miracles,* while
* There are miracles attributed in the Christian Apocrypha even to Jesus him- self, which would be criminal.
or
s
a o Z
272 THE HISTORY OF THE DEVIL.
good deeds if only performed by believers in other gods are branded as witchcraft. Moreover, all priests are unanimous in condemning the application of charms and spells, except those of their own religion, even though they be used for the best and purest ends. A faith-cure by heretics, and even a successful operation through the unusual skill of a surgeon, would be set down as deeds of darkness by those who believe in a religion of miracles,"^ but official processions with prayers and sprinkling of holy water are still employed, as could be observed dur- ing a late small-pox epidemic in French Canada.
The belief in magic is a natural phase in the evolu- tion of mankind, producing the medicine-man who dis- pels diseases by charms, the prophet who by an appeal to his Deity (be it the sun-god of the American Indians, or the Baal of the Phoenicians, or El or Yahveh of the Is- raelites) undertakes to make rain, and the medium who vaticinates or foretells fortunes and calls the dead from Spirit-Land..
The rain-priests play a most important part in the life of all the American Indians. The snake-dance among the Pueblo Indians of Mexico is a prayer for rain.f Fre- quently the sun is invoked for rain. Dreams, visions, and ecstasies are regarded as the best means of divine revelation, and the medicine-bag possesses magic pow- ers. The devotional spirit is not less intense among the
*In 1521, a surgeon of Hamburg was executed for witchcraft because he had saved the life of a babe which the midwife had given up as lost. (See Soldan, //exenprocesse, p. 326 )
f See. e. g., Fourtcentli Anuiial Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, 1892- 1893, p. 561.
274
THE HISTORY OF THE DEVIL.
pagans of the prairie than it was among the ancient Is- raelites and the early Christians.'''
All attempt to practise magic, and a religion that promises success in life and proposes to accomplish the salvation of man by miracles, be it the miracles of their founders or the continued miracles of Church institutions, such as sacraments, pilgrimages, sprinkling of holy water,
mass-reading, or other rites supposed to pos- sess other than a pure- ly symbolical signifi- cance, is a religion of magic. In brief, a reli- gion of magic is based on a belief in the con- tra-natural, and as soon as a religion of magic becomes an established institution, it ^nll de- velop the notion of witchcraft by a dis- crimination between its HenricusCorneliusagrippaab nettesheim. own miracles and those
(Reproduced from the original edition of his Qf other people who are works)
unbelievers. How similar the notions of legitimate and illegiti- mate miracles are, may be learned from the writings of
♦Notice, for instance, the deeply religious spirit of the ghost dance taught the North American Indian by the prophet Wovoka. The devotion of Wovoka's fol- lowers is well illustrated in the accompanying illustrations of some characteristic attitudes in the ghost dance. Cf. Ainiiuil K,f Ethnolofry, 1892-1893.
THE devil's prime. 275
Agrippa of Netteslieim (1486-1535) , one of the greatest sages and philosophers of the age of the Reformation, who proclaimed that the perfection of philosophy could be attained by magic, which in distinction to black magic* he called "natural" or "celestial" magic, and which, he assumed, leads to a perfect union with God. His book, De Occulta Philosophia^ written in 1510 but published only in 1531, exhibits his belief in the possibility of creating hatred and love b}^ spells, of discovering thieves, confounding armies, making thunderstorms and rain, all of which he expects to accomplish by magic through a mystical union with God. It is difficult for us to under- stand how a man of his caliber could believe in the efficacy of spells and mystic keys ; but grant the reality of magic, and such aberrations become legitimate experiments. Witches have been frequently accused of the very same feats, only they were said to have performed them through the assistance of the Devil. In spite of the resemblance which Agrippa unconsciously had discovered between witchcraft and miracles, he remained unmolested, for his views were at the time commonly accepted. Nor would he ever have excited the hostility of the Papal party had he not lectured with fervor, at the University of Dole, Burgundy (1509) , on Reuchlin's book, De Verbo Miri- fico, and had he not, in 1519, when syndic at Metz, ven- tured to save the life of a witch that had fallen into the hands of the Inquisitor Nicolas Savini.f
What a strange mixture of occultism with exact ob-
*The idea and name o£ black magic originated from a corruption o£ the word necromancy into nigromancy.
\ De Vanitate Scientiarum, Chap. 96; Epist. libr.. II., pp. 38-40, quoted by Soldan, Hexenprocesse, p. 325.
276
THE HISTORY OF THE DEVIL.
servation, based upon anatomical measurements, is con- tained in the chapter on " The Proportions of the Human Body." Ivlatheniatics, natural science, and mysticism are all combined in Agrippa's Occulta Philosophia^ and the learned author is unable to discriminate between facts and fancy.*
Agrippa's celestial magic is not different from black magic ; for both kinds of magic consist in the hope of contra-natural accomplishments. When after years of varied disappointments Agrippa discovered that there
* The accompanying illustrations are reproduced from the original edition o£ Occulta Philosophia. Chap. XXVII.
THE DEVIL'.S prime.
m
was no magic, be it black or white, he came to the con- clusion that there was no science. As the agnostic who, after having wrongly formulated the problems of philoso- phy, and finding his mind hopelessly entangled in confu- sion, pronounces the dreary doctrine of the impossibility of knowledge, so Agrippa of Nettesheim began to despair
not only of magic, but also of science; and he wrote, in 1526, his "Proposition about the Incertitude and Vanity of the Sciences and Arts ; and about the excellence of the word of God." *
* De lyicertitudine ft I'atiitate Scienliarum et Arti'um, atque Excellentia Verbi Dei Declamatio. Published in 1530.
278
THE HISTORY OF THE DEVIL.
All in all, we find that a religion of magic involves a belief in witchcraft. Where sacraments are employed as exorcisms, every attempt at exercising extraordinary powers is regarded not as impossible but as a lack of loy- alty. Hence heresy and witchcraft are always declared to be closely allied, for witchcraft is nothing but the per- formance of miracles without the licence of an established Church, which claims to have a monopoly in supernat- uralism.
Exorcising by the Cross* (Bas-relief on a water vessel of the seventh century found near Pisama.)
The belief in and the prosecution of witchcraft are the necessary result of a firmly established religion of magic. All the religions of ijiagic ai'e naturally intol- erant. As soon as one of them triumphs over its rivals, as soon as it is worked t)nt into a systematic creed and organised in an institution such as the Church, it will.
* Pa c hind I De Christianoriun bahifi's, pp. 136 ff. and i-n fl. The Rev. Samuel Cheetham says in Smith-Cheetham Dictionary of Christiajt Antiquities, p. 652 : "The contortions of the person on the ground seem to show that it was an exorcism of one possessed. Now, if the vessel was a font for holding the baptismal water, it would seem more appropriate to represent upon it the ordinary pre-bap- tismal exorcism. It seems therefore more probable that it was intended for the Atrium of a church, where it mif,'ht be used to contain holy water."
THE devil's prime. 279
like all combinations or trusts, with all means at its com- mand, insure and perpetuate its supremacy. Considering that the mediaeval Church was practically a religion of magic, witch prosecution was the inevitable result of the Pope's ascendancy, and it continued in Protestant coun- tries as an heirloom of the Dark Ages so long as the be- lief in magic was retained.
Exorcism.
The belief in Satan as held by many Christians to- day is harmless and tame in comparison with the old conception, which was taken seriously. Satan, it is true, was regarded as the foe of mankind, but there was no doubt about his power, and the idea prevailed that his services could easily be procured by those ready to sur- render to him their souls.
As soon as the Church became possessed of power, it was at once bent on the suppression of magic and witch- craft. Constantine began the policy of threatening the severest punishment on all kinds of black art, allowing its application onl3^ for curing diseases and pi'eventing hail and rain storms during the harvest. And Constan- tine's successors did not fail to preserve the tradition.
A prohibition to fish implies that there is good fish- ing, which tempts many to try. In the same wa}', the policy of the Christian authorities was tantamount to an ofl&cial recognition of witchcraft as a mighty and power- ful weapon that could be wielded by the initiated both for good and for evil ; and thus it could not fail to strengthen the Devil's credit, as well as to develop most
280 THE HISTORY OF THE DEVIL.
exuberantly a peculiar mediaeval demonology. Belief in witchcraft rapidly became so common that almost all countries were in possession of laws against magicians, sootbsayers, and witches. One remarkable exception only is found in the law-code of the Lombards, which contains the declaration that witches cannot perform any such feats as devouring people alive, and therefore the burning of a w^oman on the pretext of her being a witch is prohibited.
There is a remarkable Latin book of ' ' Dialogues on the Life and Miracles of the Italian Fathers,"* which characterises the superstitious spirit that prevailed among both the laity and the clergy. It is replete with all kinds of ridiculous tales which are taken in good earnest. We are told, for instance, that Gregory the Great, when con- secrating an Arian church for Roman Catholic worship, successfully exorcised the Devil with the help of sacred relics ; Satan flew before him in the shape of a huge pig and vacated the place completely the following night with great noise.
The Devil came more and more into prominence in the eighth and ninth centuries. Baptism was regarded as an expulsion of the evil spirit. The convert had, ac- cording to Dionysius, to exhale three times, and accord- ing to the Greek euchologion, also to spit at him upon the floor. The Sjmod of Leptinse in the year 743 added to the confession of faith an ' ' abrenunciation ' ' of the Devil.
A Low-German ftwnmla which renounces the three
* De Vila cl nihacidis fair, llalic. libri, IV See Roskoff, Ceschichle dcs Teufels, p. 292.
THE devil's prime. 281
foremost German deities with all their hosts* consists of questions and answers, which read as follows :
" Q. Forsakest thou the Devil?
" A. I forsake the Devil !
" Q. And all Devil guilds?
"A. And I forsake all Devil guilds.
" Q. And all Devil works?
"A. And I forsake all Devil works, and words, Thenar (Thor) and Wodan and Saxnot (Fro) and all the evil ones that are his companions."!
•Wj)«'n^w-6'3ec):<>jvj'acVio uUim^'5iobol:;elaa* 61&ullij5wbo^^uu9^a^n1■ j
■ftu^v ^hv-ui \nc|Mp ^oa^jTuno ec^^ttfto inciup-jerti-pno-j-elobit- • ju Vii.tlor»^ rurp- ^relobo l>4hulo r^ui C'^c^' I
k-^L. . ■^ . _ _ ,. — I,....., . .--iaj
Text of the Baptismal Abjuration Formula in Old Low-German. (Reproduced from O Henne am Rhyn )
The fact is that Christianity itself was regarded as a kind of magic which in distinction to the black magic or necromancy would have to be classed together with white
* Massmann, "Die deutschen Abscliworungs-, Glaubens-, Beicht- und Bet- formeln." Bibliographie der Geschichte der Nationallitt'ratiiv. Vol, VII. Ros- ko£f, GescJiichte des Teiifels, p. 292 ; Otto Henne am Rhyn, Kulturgeschichte des deutschen Volkes.
\ The original, which is Old Low-German, reads as follows ;
Q. " Forsachistu diabolae?" A. " Ec forsacho diabolae ! " — Q. "End allum diabol gelde ? " A. "End ec forsacho allum diabol gelde." — Q. "End allum dia- boles uuercum ? " A. " End ec forsacho allum diaboles uuercum, end uuordum, Thunaer, ende Uuoden, ende Saxnote, ende allem dem unholdum the hira genotas sint."
282 THE HISTORY OF THE DEVIL.
magic. The sacraments were supposed to be miraculous methods of performing supernatural feats quite analogous to exorcisms, and tlie church itself was, in the minds of the people, an institution of sacred sorcery.
Belief in Witchcraft.
With the belief in witchcraft a new period begins in the evolution of mankind. The Devil becomes greater and more respected than ever; indeed, this is the classi- cal period of his history and the prime of his life. Con- tracts were made with the Devil in which men surren- dered their souls for all kinds of services on. his part.
In the thirteenth century the Devil reached the acme of his influence, and it is only possible to give a meagre sketch of the Devil's activity during this period. Noth- ing extraordinary could happen without its being attrib- uted to him, and to the people of the Middle Ages many things, ordinary to us, were ver3? extraordinary.
Gervasius Tilberiensis composed a collection of stu- pid fables which he published in 1211 under the title Otia hnperialiay dedicating them to Emperor Otto IV. He repeats some spook stories of Apuleius as events that happened in France and England and invents new tales which surpass the old ones only in crudity. He accepts the medical explanation of nightmares as due to an over- heated imagination, but proves even then the presence of demoniacal influence, on the authority of St. Augustine.
In the Dialogus Miraculorum^'' by Caesarius von
* lilusirium miraculoymn el histoiiarttm me7iiorabi'/iitm libri XII, anle a/i-
nos fere CCCC a Cc£sario Hcisterbacensi, ordinis Ci'steytiicitsis Colon.
1599. A new edition was made by Josephus Strange, published by J. M. Heberle.
THE devil's prime.
283
Heisterbach (who died about 1245) , we find that not only thunder-storms, hail-storms, inundations, diseases, but
c
^gi.Xi'.t
Yf
5-
y
X ;
p-^CDucrficrc- tccDuuftone*
ooetnplcur
fitAttt iifujifto's fitos?crmco$ aut ca ttcminraJ)c(K-vfiu5 cftCcntjentnmik
m rccopmfiit at) t0 m faiiimm eft-
Specimen Page of an Illuminated Initial in Heisterbach's Diaiog-us
Mif'aculortim .* Illustrating the pious spirit of this most nefarious work. Reproduced from Joseph Strange's text edition, published by Heberle, Cologne, Bonn, and Brussels, iS6i.
also unexpected noises, the rnstling" of leaves, the howl- ing of the wind, were attributed to Old Nick. He appears
*The original is fol. 7.a column i of Codex rriiso [D) in the Royal Library at Dusseldorf.
284 THE HISTORY OF THE DEVIL.
as a bear, a monkey, a toad, a raven, a vulture, as a gen- tleman, a soldier, a hunter, a peasant, a dragon, and a negro.
Caesarius's book has become famous, and rightly so, not on account of any peculiar merit of its author but because it is a true picture of the average conception of the times.*
The book is written mainly for the instruction of young monks. The initials of the original editions are emblazoned with pious pictures, and the tendency of all stories is that there is no surer salvation than in the brotherhood of the Cistercian monks, the order to which the author belongs. He declares that "there is no safer road than the order of the Cistercians ; nor do fewer peo- ple go down to the lower regions than the members of that religion. "t Cassarius makes the Lord appear as a sovereign who regards it as his duty to protect his faithful servants and takes an interest in concealing their crimes. He works a special miracle, lest the slander of a clergyman become public (Book I., p. 23). The Devil having caused a man to sin against the sixth command- ment, is unable to accuse and punish the sinner, or make his guilt known, because the latter escapes all evil effects through the confessional (Book III., p. 4). The Devil once went to a confessor and confessed. Having enumer- ated his sins, the confessor declared that a thousand years would not have sufficed to commit them all, and the Devil
* For a brief summary see Wolfgang Menzel, Deutsche Lileraliirgesclih/ile, pp. 310-312. See also Roskoff, Geschichle des Tcitfels, pp. 317-326.
f " Non est via securior quam ordo Cisterniencis neque inter omne genus ho- minum pauciones descendunt ad inferos quam personae illius religionis." I., Chap. 33-
THE devil's prime.
285
answered that indeed he was much older than a thousand years, for he was one of the demons who fell with Lucifer. The priest considered his sins unpardonable, and asked him whether he wanted to do penance. "Yes," he said, " if the penance is not too heav}' for me." "Well," re- plied the confessor, "bow down thrice a day, saying: 'God, my Lord and Creator, I have sinned against thee;
Witches Conjuring a Hail-Storm. (After an old German print.)
The Devil of Conceit as Seen by a
Clergyman on the Dress of a
Fashionable Lady.
forgive me.'" "No," said the Devil, "that would be too humiliating for me" (III., 26, and IV., 5) .
Arrogance and self-conceit are the main-springs of Satan's character. A curious parallel to Peregrinus is the story of a woman who, for the sake of clearing her soul of sin, burns herself to death (Book VI., p. 35). Imps are seen plaj'ing with cupids upon the train of a
286 THE HISTORY OF THE DEVIL.
gentlewoman (Book V., p. 7) . A man gambles with the Devil and loses his soul (V., 34) .
The theory of incubi and succubi is presented in all its indecency on the authority of St. Thomas Aquinas, who in his commentary on Job (Chap. 40) interprets Be- hemoth (a large animal, probably- the elephant) as the Devil, and derives from the mention of the animal's sex- ual strength (verse 16) the theory that evil demons can have intercourse with human beings. Satan is supposed to serve first as a succubus (or female devil) to men, and then as an incubus (or male devil) to women ; and St. Thomas declares that children begotten in this way ought to be regarded as the children of the men whom Satan served as succubus. They would, however, be more cun- ning than normal children on account of the demoniacal influence to which they were exposed in their pre-natal condition. Matthasus Paris mentions that within six months one such incubus-baby developed all its teeth and attained the size of a boy of seven years, while his mother became consumptive and died.
The superstitions of the belief in the personal inter- ference of the Devil with human affairs passed away, but they left us an extensive and interesting literature which for all time to come will remain a rich mine for the an- thropologist, the antiquarian, the historian, the psychol- ogist, the poet, and the philosopher. There are innumer- able miracles and tales of St. IMarj', the mother of Jesus, but few of them are endurable, while the general tone of the narration is unworthy of any woman, — let alone the highest woman -ideal of Christianity. A dog has been baptised by rascals, and he turns mad (X., 145) . In the
THE devil's prime. 287
hour of death, pious people see the heavens open, while infidels are tortured by black men, ravens and vultures (XI.) ; and for the edification of the faithful the damned are thrown into the crater of a volcano (XII.).
The Abbot Richalmus, who wrote about 1270 a book of revelations about the intrigues and persecutions of de- mons, recognises the Devil's hand in every little incon- venience he might happen to experience. It is devils that make him feel qualmish when he has eaten too much; they make him fall asleep over his breviary. When he exposes his hand, they make it feel chill}'; when he hides it under his cloak, they tickle and bite it like fleas. "Once, he says, "when we were gathering stones for building a wall, I heard a devil exclaim, 'What tiresome work ! ' He only did it to tempt us and make us rebellious." There is no noise but some devil speaks out of it. "While I pull my sleeve," he says, "a rust- ling is heard, and devils speak through this sound. When I scratch myself, the scratching is their voice. . . . Lowly people are mostly seduced by anger and sadness, but the rich and powerful by arrogance and pride."*
Another favorite conception of Christianity origin- ated in the Roman idea of looking upon religion as a legal affair. It must have been a lawyer who made that happy hit of presenting the case of Satan versus mankind or versus Christ juridically, in the form of a regular law- suit, in which, of course, Satan in the end is worsted. The booklet, which bears the title Processus Sathance^ became so popular that it was repeatedly edited by vari- ous authors and is still extant in various redactions, one
*Roskoff, pp. 535-545-
288
THE HISTORY OF THE DEVIL.
of the best and oldest being by Bartolus, a lawyer who lived 1313-1355.=^=
The Devil played the role of a joker in the Passion plays, and his part became more and more prominent. In France the idea prevailed that the great mysteries should always have not less than four devils, a usage which is mentioned in Rabelais. Hence the proverb, ^^ Faire le diable a qiiatre.'^ In Mediaeval mysteries God the Father, God the Son, and Satan appear on the stage, and
GOD THE FATHER SATAN GOD THE SON
The Main Actors in Medi.ival Mysteries. f
the last one is practically the main actor in the whole drama. He was the intriguer who, after his successful revolution against the Lord, set up an empire of his own in Hell ; and without the Devil's intrigues the whole plot of man's fall and Christ's salvation would be impossible. J The works of Caesarius, of Heisterbach, Richalmus,
* Concerning the Processus Sathancc, see Dr. R. Stintzing, Gcschichtc der pofuliircH I.ittcratur dcs rom. can. Kechts in Dentschland, Leipsic, 1867. Ros- koff's book on the Devil contains on pages 349-355 extracts from Stintzing.
fFrom Bilderntlas zui- Gcschichtc dcr dcutsclicn NationaUitteratur, by Dr. Gustav Konnecke, Marburg, 1895, p. 93.
XFloegd's Gcschichtc dcs Grolcsk-Koniischcn. bearbeitet von Vr W. Ebe- ling. pp. 70-71, iig-120.
THE devil's prime. 289
Bartolus, and others are by no means the only ones that treat on devil-lore ; they are typical of a large class of similar literaiy productions.
While the Church in her struggles for supremacy, aspiring for worldly power, began to neglect her spirit- ual duties, people sought comfort in sects. The Mani- chees increased, Catharism spread rapidly and many new sects, such as the Albigenses, were founded. Almost all sectarians were moi-ally earnest and sincere, yet the gen- eral character of these sects was similar to the Manichees, an openly avowed dualism. The tendencies of the time were dualistic, and the Church also was under the in- fluence of dualistic views. Nevertheless, orthodox Chris- tianity, at least in her noblest expositors, such as Thomas Aquinas and other Christian philosophers, never lost sight of the monistic ideal, in spite of all its denionolo- gical errors. The denionology of the Middle Ages was at bottom a mythical excrescence, for the Devil's power was all the time regarded as a mere sham, as Blendwerk. He still served the higher purposes of the omnipotent God, who used him for his wise and well-calculated ends. Thus it was a natural consequence that the Devil appeared in spite of his smartness as the dupe of God ; his fate was always to be defeated and ridiculed. As such he figures in the mysteries, the Easter and Chinstmas plays, in which he acts one of the most important parts, that of in- triguer, harlequin, and fool.
Kindred Superstitions.
Belief in witchcraft was only the main result of the established authority of a religion of magic, involving the
290
THE HISTORY OF THE DEVIL.
belief in a personal Devil. There are other consequences which, though less important, are sometimes bad enough in themselves. We mention a few of them: (1) There were persons who actually tried to make contracts with the Devil. (2) People possessed of a lively imagination began to dream that they stood in all kinds of relations to the Evil One. There are cases in which imaginary Avitches surrendered themselves voluntarily to the Inqui- sition. (3) Soldiers entertained the hope of rendering themselves bullet-proof. (4) Many methods were devised
Witches. (From Horndorli Ih- ma^icis artihiis i
to predict the future. (5) There were plenty of fools who tried to become rich by magic ; and (6) worst of all, men who knew better than the self -constituted guardians of the right faith, were relentlessly persecuted even unto death .
The Devil was believed to hold court and to celebrate witches' sabbaths, on which occasions homage was paid him and the Christian sacraments were travestied with diabolical malice.
The most remarkable case of bestial demonolatry with all its incidental crimes, is recorded in the annals of
THE DEVIL S PRIME.
291
a B
292 THE HISTORY OF THE DEVIL.
France wliere Giles De Rais (also spelled Raiz and Retz) , one of the greatest dignitaries of the State, a descendant of the highest noble families of Brittany, and a marshal of France, v.-as charged with kidnapping about one hun- dred and fifty women and children, who, after being sub- jected to all kinds of outrages, were solemnly sacrificed to Satan/'' The facts seem impossible but the complete records of the case are still extant, according to which Rais was convicted and executed in 1440. The history of his life has apparently contributed to the formation of the legend of Bluebeard.
Among the persons who gave themselves up to the Inquisition we mention Katharine Jung of Amdorf , Hes- sia, who confessed to her own father that she was a witch. The poor man regarded it as his duty to denounce her, and after ten daj^s, on May, 11, 1631, the girl was exe- cuted.
Another case of comparatively recent date happened in Alvebrode, Hanover. An old spinster, daughter of the widow Stein grob , had a brother who suffered from attacks of asthma. Her mother was blind and lame, and her sis- ter had died of consumption. Some people in the village suggested that the attacks which came upon her brother were due to witchcraft, and at last the old spinster herself declared she was a witch and described her relations with the Devil in the minutest terms. She was convinced her- self that she had bewitched her mother and sister and could injure people by a mere glance. Anxious about the welfare of the villagers, she warned them to avoid her, and tried to drown herself during an attack of melancholy,
*See luicydo. Brit., Vol. XX., p. 258.
THE devil's prime. 293
but she was rescued aud imprisoned. The physician, a sensible and humane man, declared, judging from bodily symptoms, that she suffered from a disease which had con- fused her mind, but she could not be prevailed upon to submit to treatment. She insisted that she was as healthy as a fish and that the Devil could not be driven out by medicine. She said : " It is in vain to try to cure a witch. I deserve death and shall gladly die, but please do not burn me, have me dispatched with the sword. Every- thing will be well when I am dead." Thereupon the phy- sician resorted to a stratagem. He persuaded her that her neck was sword-proof, and succeeded in indiicing her to take medicine to make her neck soft again for decapi- tation. She was then treated according to the prescrip- tions of her physician, with bodil}^ exercise and regular diet and sleep until her mind improved, and she forgot all about witchcraft and her sword-proof neck.
Christian Elsenreiter, a student of Passau, palmed off upon credulous soldiers for making them bullet-proof a slip of paper upon which he wrote, "Devil help me, body and soul I give to thee ! ' ' The paper had to be swallowed, and Elsenreiter claimed that he who would die of it within twenty-four hours would go to hell, but he who survived would be bullet-proof all his life.
A Saxon Colonel had been hit twice during his mil- itary career by a bullet, but in each case a Mansf eld- Thaler had protected him. This incident gave rise to the notion that Mansfeld-Thalers make one bullet-proof, and there was no officer in the imperial army during the Turkish wars who did not carr3- at least one of them about
294
THE HISTORY OF THE DEVIL.
his person. The price of Mansfeld-Thalers at that time was fifteen times their face value.
Various kinds of magic wands and divining-rods which were supposed to indicate the place where treas-
VlRGULTA DiVINA,
(According to the Pnciimalologia occulta* This divining rod must be made of
copper or brass.)
urcs lay hidden, were made in great quantities. There are innumerable magic fornuilas and exorcisms, most of them invoking God or the Trinitjs or Jesus Christ, in
•Published from an old MS by Georg Conrad Ilorst in his /.auhcrbibliol/ie.k, I., pp. 92 ff. We abstain here from reproducing the incantations that must be used in order to be successful.
THE devil's prime.
295
Hebrew or Latin ; especially tlie words Yahveh (™~"') and Adonai (':"iN') play an important part and were believed to be very effective. Among the magic symbols which are met with in old documents, the triangle, the cross, the pentagram, and the signs of the planets are preferred ; but other figures, such as squares, hexagrams, circles, and fantastic combinations of irregular lines are also quite frequent. Conjurations were made according to various prescriptions ; a circle was drawn at midnight where two roads cross ; it was lit with wax candles made after spe-
160 Gbrakdi Crbmones
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A Seal of Petrus de Albano for Conjuring Good Spirits*
The Twelve Houses of a Horo-
■ SCOPE, f
cific recipes. The conjurer had to prepare himself by fasts and prayers, sometimes by partaking of the holy communion at church, and when at last he failed to find the treasure or to accomplish his purpose, whatever it may have been, he had reason to believe that he made some trifling mistake in his preparations.
The most fashionable method of predicting the
*Agrippa ab Nettesheim, De occ. fJiil., p. 459.
t After Gerhard's Geomanlic Astronomy. See Agripfa ah Xettesheim de occiiUa philosopJiia, liber III., chap. XI. " De divinis nominibus eorundemque potentia et virtute."
296
THE HISTORY OF THE DEVIL.
future was the casting of horoscopes, which still served astronomers in the seventeenth century as a means of making a living. Kepler, who enjoyed the confidence of the superstitious Emperor Rudolf II., felt the deep humil- iation of his position, but he bore it with good humor, as we know from himself. He writes :
"Astrology is indeed a foolish child, but, good gracious, where would her mother, the wise astronomy, be if she had not this fool- ish child ! Is not the world more foolish still so foolish, indeed, that the old sensible mother (i. e., astronomy) must be introduced
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The Sign of the First Hour of Sunday.*
The Divine Name Arranged for Conjuration, f
to the people . . . through her daughter's foolishness. . . . But when guesses are limited to yes and no, one has always about half the chances in one's favor. . . . Right guesses are remembered, failures forgotten, and so the astrologer remains in honor. "|
One reason wh}' there were alwa3's so many fools who in spite of their fear of eternal damnation tried to make contracts with the Prince of Darkness was the prev- alent idea illustrated in man}' old legends that it was
■"Devised by Petrus de Alb.ino for the " exploration " of the week. Kepro- duced from "Elementa Magica" in Dc occ. fhil., p. 465.
\ Agrippa ab I\'fttcs/ieun lin occulta fhilosophia, p. 560.
X Translated from Cams Sterne, Die tdlgcmeiue lVcltaiisc/iauu»,ir, p. 56.
THE DEVIL S PRIME.
191
quite possible to shirk one's obligations ; indeed God and all the saints were supposed to be always ready to assist people in cheating the Devil out of his own. As an in- stance that characterises this belief, quite common in the
Knight and Devil. (Old German Print.)
Middle Ages, we c[uote the legend of St. Gertrude, an Old-German poem of iinknown authorship.*
"■'Translated by E. F. L. Gauss from Deulschfr Licderhort, (Erk & Bohme) Vol. III. See also Das Klostcr, Stuttgart, 1S46, Vol. II., Parti., p. 176. The original MS. of the poem is preserved in the Heidelberg Library.
298 THE HISTORY OF THE DEVIL.
"A knight was stricken by poverty great, His goods he all had wasted, And gone from him was his whole estate; Such bitter want he'd tasted
That to take his life he intended.
"He rode to the forest dark and dim, But there, the Devil awaited The knight and said to him : 'Thou shalt be reinstated
If thou wilt assist me in secret.'
"'I'll give thee chests full of glittering gold In exchange for thy loving maiden. Then canst thou live well and free and bold, Until thon diest. Well laden
With joys shalt thou be while living.'
"And happy was the maiden fair.
The new wealth her heart delighted ; 'But say, my Lord,' she asked, 'from where Do the riches come?' Then affrighted Was the knight at her look and her query.
"'O, lady dear wilt thou ride with me Through a forest green and pleasant? The birds of the forest there play in glee. And the songs are now heard incessant Which gaily the birds are singing.'
"Together a green forest they reached ; And near the road was standing A little chapel, where men beseeched Mary, whose arms were expanding To all : our worthy mother, our lady.
"To the knight the maiden said: 'Let me Here stop in pious feeling
THE devil's prime. 299
In the chapel to pray an Ave Marie.' At the altar she was kneeling
With her arms acrosswise folded.
"She there fell asleep, forgetting her care, And Mary stepped forth from the altar And to the knight she came blooming fair, In her hand bearing rosary and psalter. And mounted, as if 'twere the maiden.
"They both reached soon, in the forest dense, The cross-road where the Devil was standing, His rage on seeing them was intense.
•Thou hast cheated me !' he was demanding, 'Thou treacherous liar, thou trickster !
" 'Thou hast promised to bring here thy lady fair, And thou bringest the Queen of Heaven! With her I cannot my conquests share. From her presence I must be driven Yea, driven from her forever.'
"Said Mary:
"'Thou evil spirit, away with thee, To thy fellows thou shalt be criven, The lady thou must leave with me ! My Son's kingdom she shall live in. Now and forever ! Amen.'"
What charms the idea of magic exercises upon a man's mind may be learned from the fact that even Goethe, one of the clearest-headed men of modern times, passed through a period of his life (as we know from his Wahrheit und Diclitung) in which he pondered upon the possibility of occultism. Reminiscences of this kind found classical expression in his ballad "The Treasure-
300 THE HISTORY OF THE DEVIL.
Digger," which on account of its practical beauty and sound moral lesson deserves to be translated and quoted.* The treasure-digger speaks :
"Sick at heart, poor in possession Dragged my da3's unto the latest, Poverty is of curses greatest, Riches are the highest good ! And to end my sore depression I went forth to dig for treasure, •Thine my soul be at thy pleasure!' I wrote down with my own blood.
" Circle within circle drawing, Wondrous flames I then collected Unto herbs and bones, selected. And conjured a spell of might, Then in manner overawing, As I'd learned, I dug for treasure On the spot 1 found by measure. Black and stormy was the night.
"And I saw a light's formation Brightening to a star's consistence, Coming from the farthest distance Just as struck the midnight hour. Vain was further preparation, And a beauteous youth, with glowing Splendor from a cup o'erflowing Spread a flash with searching power.
•'Yet his eyes my soul delighted ; 'Neath a wealth of flowers tender. With that cup of heavenly splendor Stepped 1k' in the magic ring;
•Translation by E F. L, Gauss, of Chicago, 111.
THE devil's prime.
301
'J B
302 THE HISTORY OF THE DEVIL.
Friendly me to drink invited, And I thouglit : this youth so purely Off' ring gifts of heaven, surely Cannot be the evil king.
" 'Courage drink, and life's pure pleasure/ Quoth he. 'Learn from this occasion, That by anxious conjuration No boon can this place afford. Dig no longer for vain treasure ! Work by day, and guests at leisure, Toilsome weeks and feastdays' pleasure, Be thy future magic word !' "*
The height of folly that the belief iu a religion of magic is capable of, was actually attained in the persecu- tion of men of science whose ^^iite doctrines came in conflict with
> tradition. Not only religious
""«\, I I 111, reformers, like Savonarola and
Huss, were condemned to be burned alive and to die a her- etic's death, but also thinkers like Giordano Bruno. Galileo at the age of seventy was im- prisoned and surrendered to Savonarola. ^j^^ Inquisition at the demand
of Pope Urban. Threatened with tortitre, he was forced to recant publicly the heresy of the motion of the earth. f
*This is most likely the poem of which Schiller writes to Goethe in a letter dated May 23, 1797 : "It is so exemplary, beautiful, and round and perfect, that I felt very forcibly, while reading it, how even a small whole, a simple idea, can give us the enjoyment of the highest, by perfect presentation."
■f The most thorough exposition of this sad chapter in the history of civilisation is found in President Andrew Dickson While's two volumed work .-/ llislory of the War/are of Science with 'J'/ieolo^ry in Christendom. New York. 1896.
THE devil's prime.
303
The religion of miracles had in the natural course of evolution become the religion of magic. The religion of
Savonarola Praying in His Cell. (From Castelar.)
magic had proved to be a belief in witchcraft, and the be- lief in witchcraft had brought forth the terrible fruit of
304
THE HISTORY OF THE DEVIL.
«
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THE devil's I'RIMK. 305
witcli-prosecution with all kindred superstitions, among whicli tlie hatred of science was not the least injurious to true relitjion and the highest interests of mankind.
The belief in witchcraft ceased naturally with the ascendancy of science. The more Christianity became imbued with the scientific spirit of the eighteenth cen- tury, the rarer became the fagot, and the fires were at last extinguished forever. So long as Christianity was interpreted as a religion of magic, nothing could stop the terrible mania for burning witches, neither the fear of future punishments for the tortures inflicted upon many innocent victims, nor the pangs of conscience that were now and then felt by the judges, nor Christian charity and love. There was only one remedy, viz., a clear in- sight into the :iature of things revealing the impossibil- ity of witchcraft ; but that one remedy afforded an unfail- ing cure.
THE INQUISITION.
Heretics Outlawed.
THE saddest side of tlie Devil's history appears in the persecution of those who were supposed to be ad- herents of the Devil; namely, sectarians, heretics, and witches. The most ridiculous accusations were made and believed of the Manichees, the Montanists, the Novatian Puritans or Cathari (waS^po;') , the Albigenses, and other dissenters. They were said to worship the Devil by most obscene ceremonies, and their intercourse with him was described most minutely as indecent and outrageous. In times of a general belief in witchcraft and the Devil's power, nobody was safe against the accusation of being in the service of Satan. Thus the Stedingers, having effec- tually resisted the Bishop of Bremen when he tried to take their tithes from them by force of arms, were van- quished and cruelly slaughtered after having been de- nounced as Devil-worshippers. The order of the Temp- lars, the richest and most powerful and even the most orthodox order of Christianity, was accused of the mean- est and most bestial idolatry, simply because an avari- cious king of France was anxious to deprive them of their
THE INQUISITION. 307
wealth and valuable possessions ; and innumerable pri- vate citizens, poor people as a rule recklessly and rich people deliberately, were made in some way or other vic- tims of this most shameful superstition, sometimes to benefit ecclesiasticism, sometimes to serve the interests of the powerful, sometimes out of sheer ignorance, and sometimes even with the purest and sincerest intentions of doing the right thing for the best of mankind, and with the pious desire of obeying the word of the Lord, "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live" (Exodus xxii. 18) .
The witch-prosecution mania was a general and a common disease of the age. On the one hand, it cannot (as is often supposed) be attributed to the influence of the Church alone, and it would, on the other hand, be a grave mistake to absolve the ecclesiastical institutions of the fearful crimes of this superstition ; for the highest authorities of both Catholic and Protestant Christianity not only upheld the idea of witch-prosecution, but en- forced it in the execution of the law in all its most ter- rible consequences.
It was natural that heretics should always be regarded as belonging to the same category as witches and wizards, for they, too, were according to the logic of ecclesiastical reasoning " worshippers of Satan." Deuteronomy com- mands that prophets and dreamers of dreams, who by signs or wonders that come to pass would persuade Israel- ites to obey other gods, " shall be put to death" (xiii. 5- 11). We read:
"If thy brother, the son of thy mother, or thy son, or thy daughter, or the wife of thy bosom, or thy friend, which is as thine
308 THE HISTORY OF THE DEVIL.
own soul, entice thee secretly, saying. Let us go and serve other gods, which thou hast not known, thou, nor thy fathers ;
"Namely, of the gods of the people which are roundabout you, nigh unto thee, or far off from thee, from the one end of the earth even unto the other end of the earth ;
"Thou shalt not consent unto him, nor hearken unto him; neither shall thine eye pity him, neither shalt thou spare, neither shalt thou conceal him :
" But thou shalt surely kill him ; thine hand shall be first upon him to put him to death, and afterwards the hand of all the people.
"And thou shalt stone him with stones, that he die ; because he hath sought to thrust thee away from the Lord thy God, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage.
"And all Israel shall hear, and fear, and shall do no more any such wickedness as this is among you."
Relying on this passage, St. Jerome (340-420 A. D.) did not hesitate to advise the infliction of capital punishment upon heretics ; and Leo the Great (Pope, 440-461 A. D.) takes the same view.*
Priscillian, a bishop of Spain, a man of learning and pure morals, was the first heretic who was put to torture and together with some of his adherents decapitated at Treves in the year 385. The followers of Priscillian re- vered the memory of their teacher as that of a martyr, and formed a sect which continued to exist for a long time in spite of the excommunication of the Church. Pope Leo the Great justified and praised the condemnation of Priscillian.
Under Pope Alexander III., the title "Inquisitor," in the sense of judge in matters of faith, was used for the first time at the council of Tours (in 1163) . The synod
*See Epist. xv., ad Tiirribium
THE INQUISITION. 309
of Verona (in 1184) cursed all heretics, and ordered tlieui, in case they relapsed, to be handed over to the secular authorities for capital punishment. Pope Inno- cent III. (1198-1216) for the sake of crushing the Albi- genses gave power to papal emissaries to sue the heretics, and enjoined all bishops on penalty of deposition to assist in the discovery and prosecution of unbelievers. Follow- ing in the footsteps of Gregor3' VII., he vindicated the supremacy of the Church over the State ; he humiliated Philip Augustus of France, deposed Emperor Otto IV., compelled John of England to acknowledge the feudal sovereignty of the Pope and pay tribute. He instigated the fourth crusade (1202-1204) and exterminated the Al- bigenses. Under his papacy, at the suggestion of Cas- tilian Dominic and the Bishop of Toulouse, the new order of Dominicans was instituted, which was destined to be- come the working force of the Inquisition. Pope Gregory