CHAPTER VII
SCAPEGOAT AND SAINT
According to the tradition of the scapegoat, the evil or lower side of man can be transferred from him to an animal. In this process of removing disease or sin, the bad spirit is expelled from the human being and enters the form of some beast. In India the scape-animal may be a pig, buffalo, a goat or a black cock.
The Jews had the custom of bringing a goat to the door of the Tabernacle and the high priest laid the sins of the people upon the animal, sending it thereafter away with its burden into the wilderness.
In Thibet a human scapegoat, dressed in goat's skin, is kicked out of the community as soon as the people have confessed their sins, and wealthy Moors keep a wild boar in their stables as a vehicle for the evil spirits to enter into which might otherwise injure their horses.
The Kaffirs sometimes take a goat in the presence of a sick man and confess sins over him. Then a few drops of the patient's blood are allowed to fall on the animal's head and the sickness is thought to be transferred, the animal being turned loose over the veld. The medicine-men of the Baganda races perform a similar operation, taking hold of the animal and tying upon it some herbs they have passed over the patient's body. Then the animal is driven away to waste land, and the sick man is supposed to recover. The Baganda people transmit the sins of a dead man to a calf, the animal being led three times round the bier and the hand of the dead man being placed on its head, by which act the calf takes upon itself the evil done by the deceased. Then the scapegoat is driven on to waste land, where it cannot contaminate anybody.
Thus Christ, in the country of the Gadarenes, permitted devils to use swine as scapegoats when driving them out of two men possessed. The unclean spirits besought the favour of Him, and the whole herd of swine ran violently down a steep place into the sea, and perished in the waters.
St. Regulus, archbishop of Arles and Senlis, was once confronted by a man possessed of a devil. The devil besought him, saying, "If you cast me out suffer me to enter into the body of this ass," and the bishop said, "Go!" When the devil was about to enter into the ass, the animal, aware of his intention, made the sign of the cross on the ground with his fore-foot and the devil found it impossible to obtain his body and had to pass on, leaving the ass unmolested.
In another scapegoat story the devil leaves the possessed man in the form of two worms:
Jean de la Roque was a young nobleman of vicious habits. St. Francis of Paula hearing of the youth's evil ways sent a messenger to arrest him and had him locked up in a monastery. Roque was furious at this manner of tampering with his liberty and, vowing vengeance on those who detained him, beat on the door of his cell and uttered loud cries. At last, exhausted by passion, he lay down on the floor and slept. Then St. Francis entered the cell and, waking the young sinner, said to him coldly, "How now, friend, what thinkest thou? Pull from thine ear that which torments thee so." The young man, still half asleep, put his hand to his right ear and drew forth a hideous hairy worm of monstrous size. Then putting his hand to his left ear he drew forth another similar worm. Thus the devil by which he had been possessed came forth in the form of two worms, and the young man, returning to himself, threw himself at the saint's feet and prayed for pardon. He was formally admitted to the monastery and remained there as a monk until 1520.
Birds, too, have been employed to carry away any evil,—from leprosy to freckles.