Demonology and Devil-lore

by Moncure Daniel Conway

The two chapters just referred to anticipate much that should be considered at this point of our inquiry. It is only necessary here to supplement them with a brief statement, and to some extent a recapitulation, of the processes by which degraded deities are preserved to continue through a structural development and fulfil a necessary part in every theological scheme which includes the conception of an eternal difference between good and evil.

Every personification when it first appears expresses a higher and larger view. When deities representing the physical needs of mankind have failed, as they necessarily must, to meet those needs, atheism follows, though it cannot for a long time find philosophical expression. It is an atheism ad hoc, so to say, and works by degrading particular gods instead of by constructing antitheistic theories. Successive dynasties of deities arise and flourish in this way, each representing a less arbitrary relation to nature,—peril lying in that direction,—and a higher moral and spiritual ideal, this being the stronghold of deities. It is obvious that it is far easier to maintain the theory that prayers are heard and answered by a deity if those prayers are limited to spiritual requests, than when they are petitions for outward benefits. By giving over the cruel and remorseless forces of nature to the Devil,—i.e., to this or that personification of them who, as gods, had been appealed to in vain to soften such forces,—the more spiritual god that follows gains in security as well as beauty what he surrenders of empire and omnipotence. This law, illustrated in our chapter on Fate, operates with tremendous effect upon the conditions under which the old combat is spiritualised.

An eloquent preacher has said:—‘Hawthorne’s fine fancy of the youth who ascribed heroic qualities to the stone face on the brow of a cliff, thus converting the rocky profile into a man, and, by dint of meditating on it with admiring awe, actually transferred to himself the moral elements he worshipped, has been made fact a thousand times, is made fact every day, by earnest spirits who by faithful longing turn their visions into verities, and obtain live answers to their petitions to shadows.’[1]

However imaginary may be the benedictions so derived by the worshipper from his image, they are most real as they redound to the glory and power of the image. The crudest personification, gathering up the sanctities of generations, associated with the holiest hopes, the best emotions, the profoundest aspirations of human nature, may be at length so identified with these sentiments that they all seem absolutely dependent upon the image they invest. Every criticism of such a personification then seems like a blow aimed at the moral laws. If educated men are still found in Christendom discussing whether morality can survive the overthrow of such personifications, and whether life were worth living without them, we may readily understand how in times when the social, ethical, and psychological sciences did not exist at all, all that human beings valued seemed destined to stand or fall with the Person supposed to be their only keystone.

But no Personage, however highly throned, can arrest the sun and moon, or the mind and life of humanity. With every advance in physical or social conditions moral elements must be influenced; every new combination involves a recast of experiences, and presently of convictions. Henceforth the deified image can only remain as a tyrant over the heart and brain which have created it,—

Creatura a un tempo

E tiranno de l’uom, da cui soltanto

Ebbe nomi ed aspetti e regno e altari.[2]

This personification, thus ‘at once man’s creature and his tyrant,’ is objectively a name. But as it has been invested with all that has been most sacred, it is inevitable that any name raised against it shall be equally associated with all that has been considered basest. This also must be personified, for the same reason that the good is personified; and as names are chiefly hereditary, it pretty generally happens that the title of some fallen and discredited deity is advanced to receive the new anathema. But what else does he receive? The new ideas; the growing ideals and the fresh enthusiasms are associated with some fantastic shape with anathematised name evoked from the past, and thus a portentous situation is reached. The worshippers of the new image will not accept the bad name and its base associations; they even grow strong enough to claim the name and altars of the existing order, and give battle for the same. Then occurs the demoralisation, literally speaking, of the older theology. The personification reduced to struggle for its existence can no longer lay emphasis upon the moral principles it had embodied, these being equally possessed by their opponents; nay, its partisans manage to associate with their holy Name so much bigotry and cruelty that the innovators are at length willing to resign it. The personal loyalty, which is found to continue after loyalty to principles has ceased, proceeds to degrade the virtues once reverenced when they are found connected with a rival name. ‘He casteth out devils through Beelzebub’ is a very ancient cry. It was heard again when Tertullian said, ‘Satan is God’s ape.’ St. Augustine recognises the similarity between the observances of Christians and pagans as proving the subtle imitativeness of the Devil; the phenomena referred to are considered elsewhere, but, in the present connection, it may be remarked that this readiness to regard the same sacrament as supremely holy or supremely diabolical as it is celebrated in honour of one name or another, accords closely with the reverence or detestation of things more important than sacraments, as they are, or are not, consecrated by what each theology deems official sanction. When sects talk of ‘mere morality’ we may recognise in the phrase the last faint war-cry of a god from whom the spiritual ideal has passed away, and whose name even can survive only through alliance with the new claimant of his altars. While the new gods were being called devils the old ones were becoming such.