The western Church in the beginning of the middle ages kept itself pure from this chaos of gloomy conceptions; it condemned them as devilish, but punished them on the whole with mildness and humanity, when they did not lead to social crimes. But when the Church itself was frozen into the rigidity of a hierarchical system, when strong hearts were driven into heresy by the worldly claims of the papacy, and the people became degraded under the nomination of begging monks, these superstitions gradually produced in the Church a narrow-minded system. Whatever was considered to be connected with the devil was put an end to by bloody persecution. After the thirteenth century, about the period when great masses of the people poured into the Sclave countries from the interior of Germany, fanatical monks disseminated the odious notion that the devil, as ruler of the witches, held intercourse with them at nightly meetings, and that there was a formal ritual for the worship of Satan, by accursed men and women, who had abjured the Christian faith; and for this a countless number of suspected persons, in France, in the first instance, were punished with torture and the stake, by delegated inquisitors. In Germany itself, these persecutions of the devil's associates first became prevalent after the funeral pile of Huss. The more vehement the opposition of reason to these persecutions, the more violent became the fury of the Church. After the fatal bull of Innocent VIII., from the year 1484, the burning of witches in masses began to a great extent in Germany, and continued, with some interruptions, till late in the eighteenth century. Whoever owned to being a witch was considered for ever doomed to hell, and the Church hardly made an effort to convert them.
According to popular belief, the connection of man with the devil was of three kinds. Either they renounced the worship of God for that of the devil, swearing allegiance to him, and doing him homage, like the witches and their associates; or they were possessed by him, a belief derived by the Germans from Holy Scripture; or men might conclude a compact with the devil binding both parties under mutual obligations. In the latter case men signed away their souls in a deed written with their own blood, and in return the devil was to grant to them the fulfilment of all their wishes upon earth, success, money, and invulnerability. Although the oldest example known is that of the Roman Theophilus--a tradition of the sixth century--and although the written compact originated at a time when the Roman forms of law had been introduced among the western nations, yet it appears that the source of this tradition concerning the devil was German. These transactions were based upon a deep feeling of mutual moral obligation, and on a foolhardy feeling, which liked to rest the decision of the whole of the future upon the deed of a moment. There is much similarity between the German who in gambling stakes his freedom on the throw of the dice, and he who vows his soul to the devil. These alliances were not looked upon by the old Church with mortal hatred; these wicked and foolhardy beings, like Theophilus himself, might be saved by the intercession of the saints, and the devil compelled to give up his rights. It is also peculiar to German traditions, that the devil endeavours to fulfil zealously and honestly his part of the compact, the deceiver is man.
Through these additions the popular mind invested the devil with new terrors, yet it strove at the same time to think of him in a more agreeable point of view. The race of giants of the ancient mythology had had two aspects for the people; they took pleasure in seeing something harmless, and indeed burlesque about them, besides the terrors of their demoniacal nature. On one hand, the deformity of their great bodies, their strength, and clumsy wit, and on the other, their supposed knowledge of magic and technical dexterity, had already been in heathen times an inexhaustible source of comic stories, by which the people poetically explained to themselves, among other things, all striking phenomena of nature. But besides the giants there was in the heathen times a numerous host, of smaller spirits in nature, who hovered around men. The hairy Schrate dwelt in the woods, the Nix sang on the banks of the brooks, a numerous race of dwarfs hammered in the mountains, elves and Idisien, the German fairies, played on the dew in the meadows, and the fighting maidens of Wuotan flew through the air in the form of swans or on magic horses. In house and courtyard, in barn, cow-house, and dairy, dwelt household spirits of various kinds, sprites sat under the hearth, hobgoblins glided in the form of tom-cats over the rafters, brown and gray mannikins, and sometimes white ladies surrounded the family, as guardian spirits of their domestic comfort and welfare. The repose of sleepers was disturbed by nightmares, the rye-mume sat in the ears of corn, and the little wood fairy on the felled timber, the will-o'-the-wisp in the marsh fluttered about restlessly, and endeavoured to entice men out of the right track. These lesser spirits maintained their place in Christendom, but became timid and averse to men. It may be observed in the old traditions, with what sorrow the new convert regarded the disturbance of his relations with his old friends; in some, the little sprites lamented that they also could not become blessed; in others, they are disturbed by the sound of a clock, and depart secretly out of the country. Many of their dark and malicious traits of character were also transferred to the devil, especially those of the giants. He became an architect like them, he was obliged to carry great masses of rock through the air, which he lost on his journey, or cast down in anger; he had to raise prodigious walls, and build bridges, castles, mills, and even churches. And in these works, he was almost always the person cheated, as were the giants in the olden traditions; being deprived of the reward for which he had worked. He had to guard treasures beneath the earth, in the form of a wolf or dog with fiery eyes, or to fly as a fiery dragon, and throw treasures down the chimney on to the hearth. He was obliged to appear in person at popular festivals, and act the part of the buffoon and much belaboured opponent of the heavenly powers, in a half ludicrous, half terrific dress. Among the Germans he had his disguises; the horns, the goats' or horses' foot, the halting gait, the tail, and the black colour. It is possible that the details of his costume may be taken from recollections of the ancient satyrs, but similar strange animal figures are to be found in the festive processions of German heathendom, and in the rising cities of the middle ages, the dress of the chimney sweeper was an inestimable help.
Such were the notions which prevailed about the devil in Germany for about a thousand years. They were influenced by all the great excitements and changes of the popular mind. In times of great religious zeal, they bore a wild misanthropic aspect; but in days when the people were engrossed with worldly pleasures, they assumed a more comic and harmless form.
Then came Luther and the Reformation. Together with every one else in Germany, the devil also was brought into the great struggle of the century. The Roman Catholics looked upon him as the head of the whole body of heretics; while the Protestants took the popular view of him as a figure standing with a bellows behind the pope and cardinals, inflating them with attacks on the reformed doctrines. He was mixed up in all theological and political transactions; he sat on Tetzel's box of indulgences, visited Luther at the Wartburg, made intrigues between the Emperor and Pope, humbled the Protestants by the Smalkaldic war, and the Roman Catholic party by the apostacy of the Elector Maurice; and in all the concerns, small and great, of the people he appeared, and was busy everywhere.
This enlargement in his powers of action would probably have taken place at any period of zealous faith; but in the person and teaching of the great character who gave to the whole of the sixteenth century its impress and colour, there was something peculiar by which even the reverse of all that was holy was remoulded.
First of all, Luther was the son of a German peasant. In the recollections of his childhood, as revived by him amid the circle of his companions at Wittenberg, the devil wore a very old-fashioned, nay, heathenish, aspect; he brought devastating storms, while the angels brought the good winds, as once upon a time the gigantic eagles did from the furthest corners of the world by the stroke of their wings;[[66]] he sat as a water-god under the bridges, drawing maidens down into the water, whom he made his wives; he served in the cloister as household spirit; blew the fire as a goblin; as a dwarf laid his changelings in the cradles; as a nightmare deluded the sleepers into ascending the roof of the house, and bustled about the rooms as a hobgoblin. By this last species of activity he sometimes disturbed Luther. It is true that the ink-spot at the Wartburg is not sufficiently verified, but Luther could tell of a disagreeable noise which the devil had made there nightly with a sack of hazel nuts. In the monastery of Wittenberg also, where Luther was studying Rempter one night, the devil made such a noise, for so long a time in the crypt of the church underneath him, that he at last snatched up his book and went to bed. Afterwards he was provoked with himself for not having defied the Jackpudding.
Thus deeply was Luther imbued with the popular superstition. But to this kind of devilry he did not attach much importance; the bad spirits who employed themselves after this fashion, he very properly called poor devils. His opinion was that devils were countless. "They are not all," he says, "insignificant devils, but country devils and princes' devils, who for a long period, above five thousand years, have been busy, tempting men, and are thoroughly clever and cunning. We have great devils who are doctores theologiæ; then the Turks and papists have bad insignificant devils who are not theological but juridical." From them he thought came everything bad upon earth, as for instance illnesses; he had a strong suspicion that the dizziness he had long suffered from was not natural; also conflagrations:--"Wherever a fire breaks out a little devil sits behind blowing the flame;" likewise famine and war:--"If God did not send us the holy and dear angels as guards and arquebusiers, who encamp round us like a bulwark, it would soon be over with us." Expert as Luther was in describing his own characteristics, he was equally so with the devil; he declared that he was haughty, and could not bear to be treated contemptuously. Therefore he advised that he should be driven away by scorn, and jeering questions. He thought, also, that Satan was a melancholy spirit, and could not endure gay music.[[67]]
But it was not in vain that Luther had spiritualized the Church teaching; it was owing to him that the struggle for eternal salvation began in the souls of individuals, and that the destiny of man was made to depend on his own conscience and faith in God. Through this, Satan's sphere of activity was changed, and the strife of men with the evil spirit became more especially an inward one. It was not the outward appearance and clatter of the devil that was peculiarly terrible, but his whisperings to the souls of men. The preservatives against this danger were, constant inward repentance, frequent prayer, and an enduring and loving remembrance of God. Luther's temptations have already been mentioned; he spoke openly and honestly to his cotemporaries concerning them, and the race of men who listened with faith to his discourse were infected by him; inward temptations were commonly recognized by the Protestants, and on this point also he became the comforter and confidant of many.
The difference between the old and new Church was first shown in the conception of the free contract which man concluded with hell. In the old Church it had been made comparatively easy to believers to escape from the devil. By certain pious outward observances the Christian could in the worst case, even when deeply engaged with Satan, free himself from him in the last hour. Therefore, in the contracts made between men and the devil before the Reformation, the latter was almost always the person defrauded; this business-like and immoral method of reaching the kingdom of heaven excited the deepest indignation of Luther. He strongly proclaimed the doctrine of St. Augustine; that man being corrupt through original sin is a prey to the devil, and can only be put in the way of salvation by continual inward repentance, and that therefore unrepentant sinners cannot be saved from hell. The result of this was, that after the sixteenth century, those men who had concluded a compact with hell were generally supposed to be carried off by the devil. The sorrowful end of the traditional Dr. Faust is well known; he was not Satan's only prey. It was generally believed, and published in hundreds of tracts, that men of profligate character, reckless drunkards, gamblers, swearers, or enemies against whom a bitter hatred was entertained, were carried off into the nether regions. And the hand of the devil was thought to be distinctly perceptible in the twisted neck of the dying sinner. Luther himself had once to interfere in such a case. A young student at Wittenberg, an ill-disposed youth, had invoked the devil, and had offered himself up to him. Luther took the affair in hand with great earnestness and dignity; he first crushed the culprit by severe admonitions, then he knelt down with him in the church, laid his hands on him, prayed with fervour, and caused the youth finally to repeat after him a penitent confession; thus was the business settled. Even historical personages did not escape the melancholy fate of being possessed by the devil. The belief in this continued beyond the Thirty years' war.