Elizabethan Demonology | Page 8

noting, that
during the dancing mania of 1418, not God, or Christ, or the Virgin
Mary, but St. Vitus, was prayed to by the populace to stop the epidemic
that was afterwards known by his name.[1] There was a temple to St.
Michael on Mount St. Angelo, and Augustine thought it necessary to
declare that angel-worshippers were heretics.[2] Even Protestantism,
though a much younger growth than Catholicism, shows a slight
tendency towards polytheism. The saints are, of course, quite out of the
question, and angels are as far as possible relegated from the citadel of
asserted belief into the vaguer regions of poetical sentimentality;
but--although again unadmitted by the orthodox of the sect--the popular
conception of Christ is, and, until the masses are more educated in
theological niceties than they are at present, necessarily must be, as of a
Supreme Being totally distinct from God the Father. This applies in a
less degree to the third Person in the Trinity; less, because His
individuality is less clear. George Eliot has, with her usual penetration,
noted this fact in "Silas Marner," where, in Mrs. Winthrop's simple
theological system, the Trinity is always referred to as "Them."

[Footnote 1: Hecker, Epidemics of the Middle Ages, p. 85.]
[Footnote 2: Bullinger, p. 348. Parker Society.]
17. The posthumous history of Francis of Assisi affords a striking
illustration of this strange tendency towards polytheism. This
extraordinary man received no little reverence and adulation during his
lifetime; but it was not until after his death that the process of
deification commenced. It was then discovered that the stigmata were
not the only points of resemblance between the departed saint and the
Divine Master he professed to follow; that his birth had been foretold
by the prophets; that, like Christ, he underwent transfiguration; and that
he had worked miracles during his life. The climax of the apotheosis
was reached in 1486, when a monk, preaching at Paris, seriously
maintained that St. Francis was in very truth a second Christ, the
second Son of God; and that after his death he descended into
purgatory, and liberated all the spirits confined there who had the good
fortune to be arrayed in the Franciscan garb.[1]
[Footnote 1: Maury, Histoire de la Magie, p. 354.]
18. (ii.) The second principle is that of the Manichaeists: the division of
spirits into hostile camps, good and evil. This is a much more common
belief than the orthodox are willing to allow. There is hardly any
religious system that does not recognize a first source of evil, as well as
a first source of good. But the spirit of evil occupies a position of
varying importance: in some systems he maintains himself as co-equal
of the spirit of good; in others he sinks to a lower stage, remaining very
powerful to do harm, but nevertheless under the control, in matters of
the highest importance, of the more beneficent Being. In each of these
cases, the first principle is found operating, ever augmenting the ranks;
monodiabolism being as impossible as monotheism; and hence the
importance of fully establishing that proposition.
19. (iii.) The last and most important of these principles is the tendency
of all theological systems to absorb into themselves the deities
extraneous to themselves, not as gods, but as inferior, or even evil,
spirits. The actual existence of the foreign deity is not for a moment
disputed, the presumption in favour of innumerable spiritual agencies
being far too strong to allow the possibility of such a doubt; but just as
the alien is looked upon as an inferior being, created chiefly for the use
and benefit of the chosen people--and what nation is not, if its opinion

of itself may be relied upon, a chosen people?--so the god the alien
worships is a spirit of inferior power and capacity, and can be
recognized solely as occupying a position subordinate to that of the
gods of the land.
This principle has such an important influence in the elaboration of the
belief in demons, that it is worth while to illustrate the generality of its
application.
20. In the Greek system of theology we find in the first place a number
of deities of varying importance and power, whose special functions are
defined with some distinctness; and then, below these, an innumerable
band of spirits, the souls of the departed--probably the relics of an
earlier pure ancestor-worship--who still interest themselves in the
inhabitants of this world. These [Greek: daimones] were certainly
accredited with supernatural power, and were not of necessity either
good or evil in their influence or action. It was to this second class that
foreign deities were assimilated. They found it impossible, however, to
retain even this humble position. The ceremonies of their worship, and
the language in which those ceremonies were performed, were