“They undertake by scales of miles to tell
The bounds, dimensions, and extent of hell;
* * * * *
Where bloated souls in smoky durance hung
Like a Westphalia gammon or neat’s tongue,
To be redeemed with masses and a song.”
--OLDHAM: _Satires upon the Jesuits_.
“_York._--But you are more inhuman, more inexorable--
O, ten times more--than tigers of Hyrcania.”
--_King Henry VI._, Part Third, Act i., Scene iv.
“_War._--And hark ye, Sirs; because she is a maid
Spare for no faggots, let there be enough;
Place barrels of pitch upon the fatal stake.”
--_King Henry VI._, Part First, Act v., Scene iv.
In that famous work of Bodin, on sorcery,[86] a frightful story is
told about Catherine of Medicis. The author was a learned publicist,
who, during twenty years of his life, collected authentic documents
from the archives of nearly every important city of France, to make
up a complete work on sorcery, magic, and the power of various
“demons.” To use an expression of Eliphas Levi, his book offers a
most remarkable collection of “bloody and hideous facts; acts of
revolting superstition, arrests, and executions of stupid ferocity.”
“Burn every body!” the Inquisition seemed to say--God will easily
sort out His own! Poor fools, hysterical women, and idiots were
roasted alive, without mercy, for the crime of “magic.” But, “at the
same time, how many great culprits escaped this unjust and sanguinary
_justice_! This is what Bodin makes us fully appreciate.”
Catherine, the pious Christian--who has so well deserved in the eyes
of the Church of Christ for the atrocious and never-to-be-forgotten
massacre of St. Bartholomew--the Queen Catherine, kept in her
service an apostate Jacobin priest. Well versed in the “black art,”
so fully patronized by the Medici family, he had won the gratitude
and protection of his pious mistress, by his unparalleled skill in
killing people at a distance, by torturing with various incantations
their wax simulacra. The process has been described over and over
again, and we scarcely need repeat it.
Charles was lying sick of an incurable disease. The queen-mother who
had everything to lose in case of his death, resorted to necromancy,
and consulted the oracle of the “bleeding head.” This infernal
operation required the decapitation of a child who must be possessed
of great beauty and purity. He had been prepared in secret for his
first communion, by _the chaplain_ of the palace, who was apprised
of the plot, and at midnight of the appointed day, in the chamber
of the sick man, and in presence only of Catherine and a few of her
confederates, the “devil’s mass” was celebrated. Let us give the
rest of the story as we find it in one of Levi’s works: “At this
mass, celebrated before the image of the demon, having under his feet
a reversed cross, the sorcerer consecrated two wafers, one black
and one white. The white was given to the child, whom they brought
clothed as for baptism, and who was murdered upon the very steps of
the altar, immediately after his communion. His head, separated from
the trunk by a single blow, was placed, all palpitating, upon the
great black wafer which covered the bottom of the paten, then placed
upon a table where some mysterious lamps were burning. The exorcism
then began, and the demon was charged to pronounce an oracle, and
reply by the mouth of this head to a secret question that the king
dared not speak aloud, and that had been confided to no one. Then a
feeble voice, a strange voice, which had nothing of human character
about it, made itself audible in this poor little martyr’s head.” The
sorcery availed nothing; the king died, and--Catherine remained the
faithful daughter of Rome!
How strange, that des Mousseaux, who makes such free use of
Bodin’s materials to construct his formidable indictment against
Spiritualists and other sorcerers, should have overlooked this
interesting episode!
It is a well-attested fact that Pope Sylvester II. was publicly
accused by Cardinal Benno with being a sorcerer and an enchanter.
The brazen “oracular head” made by his Holiness was of the same kind
as the one fabricated by Albertus Magnus. The latter was smashed to
pieces by Thomas Aquinas, not because it was the work of or inhabited
by a “demon,” but because the spook who was fixed inside, by mesmeric
power, talked incessantly, and his verbiage prevented the eloquent
saint from working out his mathematical problems. These heads and
other talking statues, trophies of the magical skill of monks and
bishops, were fac-similes of the “animated” gods of the ancient
temples. The accusation against the Pope was proved at the time. It
was also demonstrated that he was constantly attended by “demons”
or spirits. In the preceding chapter we have mentioned Benedict
IX., John XX., and the VIth and VIIth Gregory, who were all known
as magicians. The latter Pope, moreover, was the famous Hildebrand,
who was said to have been so expert at “shaking lightning out of
his sleeve.” An expression which makes the venerable spiritualistic
writer, Mr. Howitt, think that “it was the origin of the celebrated
thunder of the Vatican.”
The magical achievements of the Bishop of Ratisbon and those of
the “angelic doctor,” Thomas Aquinas, are too well known to need
repetition; but we may explain farther how the “illusions” of the
former were produced. If the Catholic bishop was so clever in making
people believe on a bitter winter night that they were enjoying the
delights of a splendid summer day, and cause the icicles hanging from
the boughs of the trees in the garden to seem like so many tropical
fruits, the Hindu magicians also practice such biological powers unto
this very day, and claim the assistance of neither god nor devil.
Such “miracles” are all produced by the same human power that is
inherent in every man, if he only knew how to develop it.
About the time of the Reformation, the study of alchemy and magic
had become so prevalent among the clergy as to produce great
scandal. Cardinal Wolsey was openly accused before the court and the
privy-council of confederacy with a man named Wood, a sorcerer, who
said that “_My Lord Cardinale had suche a rynge that whatsomevere he
askyd of the Kynges grace that he hadd yt_;” adding that “_Master
Cromwell, when he ... was servaunt in my lord cardynales housse ...
rede many bokes and specyally the boke of Salamon ... and studied
mettells and what vertues they had after the canon of Salamon_.” This
case, with several others equally curious, is to be found among the
Cromwell papers in the Record Office of the Rolls House.
A priest named William Stapleton was arrested as a conjurer, during
the reign of Henry VIII., and an account of his adventures is still
preserved in the Rolls House records. The Sicilian priest whom
Benvenuto Cellini calls a necromancer, became famous through his
successful conjurations, and was never molested. The remarkable
adventure of Cellini with him in the Colosseum, where the priest
conjured up a whole host of devils, is well known to the reading
public. The subsequent meeting of Cellini with his mistress, as
predicted and brought about by the conjurer, at the precise time
fixed by him, is to be considered, as a matter of course, a “curious
coincidence.” In the latter part of the sixteenth century there
was hardly a parish to be found in which the priests did not study
magic and alchemy. The practice of exorcism to cast out devils “in
imitation of Christ,” who by the way never used exorcism at all,
led the clergy to devote themselves openly to “sacred” magic in
contradistinction to black art, of which latter crime were accused
all those who were neither priests nor monks.
The occult knowledge gleaned by the Roman Church from the once fat
fields of theurgy she sedulously guarded for her own use, and sent to
the stake only those practitioners who “poached” on her lands of the
_Scientia Scientiarum_, and those whose sins could not be concealed
by the friar’s frock. The proof of it lies in the records of history.
“In the course only of fifteen years, between 1580 to 1595, and only
in the single province of Lorraine, the President Remigius burned
900 witches,” says Thomas Wright, in his _Sorcery and Magic_. It was
during these days, prolific in ecclesiastical murder and unrivalled
for cruelty and ferocity, that Jean Bodin wrote.
While the orthodox clergy called forth whole legions of “demons”
through magical incantations, unmolested by the authorities, provided
they held fast to the established dogmas and taught no heresy, on the
other hand, acts of unparalleled atrocity were perpetrated on poor,
unfortunate fools. Gabriel Malagrida, an old man of eighty, was burnt
by these evangelical Jack Ketches in 1761. In the Amsterdam library
there is a copy of the report of his famous trial, translated from
the Lisbon edition. He was accused of sorcery and illicit intercourse
with the Devil, who had “disclosed to him _futurity_.” (?) The
prophecy imparted by the Arch-Enemy to the poor visionary Jesuit is
reported in the following terms: “The culprit hath confessed that the
demon, under the form of the blessed Virgin, having commanded him to
write the life of Antichrist (?), told him that he, Malagrida, was
a second John, but more clear than John the Evangelist; that there
were to be three Antichrists, and that the last should be born at
Milan, of a monk and a nun, in the year 1920; that he would marry
Proserpine, one of the infernal furies,” etc.
The prophecy is to be verified forty-three years hence. Even were
all the children born of monks and nuns really to become antichrists
if allowed to grow up to maturity, the fact would seem far less
deplorable than the discoveries made in so many convents when the
foundations have been removed for some reason. If the assertion of
Luther is to be disbelieved on account of his hatred for popery, then
we may name discoveries of the same character made quite recently in
Austrian and Russian Poland. Luther speaks of a fish-pond at Rome,
situated near a convent of nuns, which, having been cleared out by
order of Pope Gregory, disclosed, at the bottom, over six thousand
infant skulls; and of a nunnery at Neinburg, in Austria, whose
foundations, when searched, disclosed the same relics of celibacy and
chastity!
“_Ecclesia non novit Sanguinem!_” meekly repeated the scarlet-robed
cardinals. And to avoid the spilling of blood which horrified them,
they instituted the Holy Inquisition. If, as the occultists maintain,
and science half confirms, our most trifling acts and thoughts are
indelibly impressed upon the eternal mirror of the astral ether,
there must be somewhere, in the boundless realm of the unseen
universe, the imprint of a curious picture. It is that of a gorgeous
standard waving in the heavenly breeze at the foot of the great
“white throne” of the Almighty. On its crimson damask face a cross,
symbol of “the Son of God who died for mankind,” with an _olive_
branch on one side, and a sword, stained to the hilt with human
gore, on the other. A legend selected from the _Psalms_ emblazoned
in golden letters, reading thus: “_Exurge, Domine, et judica causam
meam._” For such appears the standard of the Inquisition, on a
photograph in our possession, from an original procured at the
Escurial of Madrid.
Under this Christian standard, in the brief space of fourteen years,
Tomas de Torquemada, the confessor of Queen Isabella, burned over
ten thousand persons, and sentenced to the torture eighty thousand
more. Orobio, the well-known writer, who was detained so long in
prison, and who hardly escaped the flames of the Inquisition,
immortalized this institution in his works when once at liberty in
Holland. He found no better argument against the Holy Church than to
embrace the Judaic faith and submit even to circumcision. “In the
cathedral of Saragossa,” says a writer on the Inquisition, “is the
tomb of a famous inquisitor. Six pillars surround the tomb; _to each
is chained a Moor_, as preparatory to being burned.” On this St.
Foix ingenuously observes: “If ever the Jack Ketch of any country
should be rich enough to have a splendid tomb, this might serve as
an excellent model!” To make it complete, however, the builders of
the tomb ought not to have omitted a bas-relief of the famous horse
which was burnt for sorcery and witchcraft. Granger tells the story,
describing it as having occurred in his time. The poor animal “had
been taught to tell the spots upon cards, and the hour of the day by
the watch. Horse and owner were both indicted by the sacred office
for dealing with the Devil, and both were burned, with a great
ceremony of _auto-da-fé_, at Lisbon, in 1601, as wizards!”
This immortal institution of Christianity did not remain without
its Dante to sing its praise. “Macedo, a Portuguese Jesuit,” says
the author of _Demonologia_, “has discovered the origin of the
Inquisition, in the terrestrial Paradise, and presumes to allege that
God was the first who began the functions of an inquisitor over Cain
and the workmen of Babel!”
Nowhere, during the middle ages, were the arts of magic and sorcery
more practiced by the clergy than in Spain and Portugal. The Moors
were profoundly versed in the occult sciences, and at Toledo,
Seville, and Salamanca, were, once upon a time, the great schools
of magic. The kabalists of the latter town were skilled in all the
abstruse sciences; they knew the virtues of precious stones and
other minerals, and had extracted from alchemy its most profound
secrets.
The authentic documents pertaining to the great trial of the
Marechale d’Ancre, during the regency of Marie de Medicis, disclose
that the unfortunate woman perished through the fault of the
priests with whom, like a true Italian, she surrounded herself.
She was accused by the people of Paris of sorcery, because it had
been asserted that she had used, after the ceremony of exorcism,
newly-killed white cocks. Believing herself constantly bewitched,
and being in very delicate health, the Marechale had the ceremony of
exorcism publicly applied to herself in the Church of the Augustins;
as to the birds, she used them as an application to the forehead on
account of dreadful pains in the head, and had been advised to do so
by Montalto, the Jew physician of the queen, and the Italian priests.
In the sixteenth century, the Curé de Barjota, of the diocese of
Callahora, Spain, became the world’s wonder for his magical powers.
His most extraordinary feat consisted, it was said, in transporting
himself to any distant country, witnessing political and other
events, and then returning home to predict them in his own country.
He had a familiar demon, who served him faithfully for long years,
says the _Chronicle_, but the curé turned ungrateful and cheated him.
Having been apprised by his demon of a conspiracy against the Pope’s
life, in consequence of an intrigue of the latter with a fair lady,
the curé transported himself to Rome (in his double, of course) and
thus saved his Holiness’ life. After which he repented, confessed his
sins to the gallant Pope, and _got absolution_. “On his return he was
delivered, as a matter of form, into the custody of the inquisitors
of Logroño, but was acquitted and restored to his liberty very soon.”
Friar Pietro, a Dominican monk of the fourteenth century--the
magician who presented the famous Dr. Eugenio Torralva, a physician
attached to the house of the admiral of Castile, with a _demon_ named
Zequiel--won his fame through the subsequent trial of Torralva. The
procedure and circumstances attendant upon the extraordinary trial
are described in the original papers preserved in the Archives of
the Inquisition. The Cardinal of Volterra, and the Cardinal of Santa
Cruz, both saw and communicated with Zequiel, who proved, during the
whole of Torralva’s life, to be a pure, kind, elemental spirit, doing
many beneficent actions, and remaining faithful to the physician to
the last hour of his life. Even the Inquisition acquitted Torralva,
on that account; and, although an immortality of fame was insured
to him by the satire of Cervantes, neither Torralva nor the monk
Pietro are fictitious heroes, but historical personages, recorded in
ecclesiastical documents of Rome and Cuença, in which town the trial
of the physician took place, January the 29th 1530.
The book of Dr. W. G. Soldan, of Stuttgart, has become as famous in
Germany, as Bodin’s book on _Demonomania_ in France. It is the most
complete German treatise on witchcraft of the sixteenth century. One
interested to learn the secret machinery underlying these thousands
of legal murders, perpetrated by a clergy who pretended to believe
in the Devil, and succeeded in making others believe in him, will
find it divulged in the above-mentioned work.[87] The true origin of
the daily accusations and death-sentences for sorcery are cleverly
traced to personal and political enmities, and, above all, to the
hatred of the Catholics toward the Protestants. The crafty work of
the Jesuits is seen at every page of the bloody tragedies; and it
is in Bamberg and Würzburg, where these worthy sons of Loyola were
most powerful at that time, that the cases of witchcraft were most
numerous. On the next page we give a curious list of some victims,
many of whom were children between the ages of seven and eight
years, and Protestants. “Of the multitudes of persons who perished
at the stake in Germany during the first half of the seventeenth
century for sorcery, the crime of many was their attachment to the
religion of Luther,” says T. Wright, “... and the petty princes
were not unwilling to seize upon any pretense to fill their coffers
... the persons most persecuted being those whose property was a
matter of consideration.... At Bamberg, as well as at Würzburg, the
bishop was a sovereign prince in his dominions. The Prince-Bishop,
John George II., who ruled Bamberg ... after several unsuccessful
attempts to root out Lutheranism, distinguished his reign by a
series of sanguinary witch-trials, which disgrace the annals of that
city.... We may form some notion of the proceedings of his worthy
agent,[88] from the statement of the most authentic historians, that
between 1625 and 1630, not less than 900 trials took place in the
two courts of Bamberg and Zeil; and a pamphlet published at Bamberg
by authority, in 1659, states the number of persons whom Bishop John
George had caused to be burned for sorcery, to have been 600.”[89]
Regretting that space should prevent our giving one of the most
curious lists in the world of burned witches, we will nevertheless
make a few extracts from the original record as printed in Hauber’s
_Bibliotheca Magica_. One glance at this horrible catalogue of
murders in Christ’s name, is sufficient to discover that out of
162 persons burned, more than one-half of them are designated as
_strangers_ (_i.e._, Protestants) in this hospitable town; and of
the other half we find _thirty-four children_, the oldest of whom
was fourteen, the youngest _an infant_ child of Dr. Schütz. To make
the catalogue shorter we will present of each of the twenty-nine
_burnings_, but the most remarkable.[90]
IN THE FIRST BURNING, FOUR PERSONS.
Old Ancker’s widow.
The wife of Liebler.
The wife of Gutbrodt.
The wife of Höcker.
IN THE SECOND BURNING, FOUR PERSONS.
Two strange women (names unknown).
The old wife of Beutler.
IN THE THIRD BURNING, FIVE PERSONS.
Tungersleber, a minstrel.
Four wives of citizens.
IN THE FOURTH BURNING, FIVE PERSONS.
A strange man.
IN THE FIFTH BURNING, NINE PERSONS.
Lutz, an eminent shop-keeper.
The wife of Baunach, a senator.
IN THE SIXTH BURNING, SIX PERSONS.
The fat tailor’s wife.
A strange man.
A strange woman.
IN THE SEVENTH BURNING, SEVEN PERSONS.
A strange girl of twelve years old.
A strange man, a strange woman.
A strange bailiff (Schultheiss).
Three strange women.
IN THE EIGHTH BURNING, SEVEN PERSONS.
Baunach, a senator, the fattest citizen in Würzburg.
A strange man.
Two strange women.
IN THE NINTH BURNING, FIVE PERSONS.
A strange man.
A mother and daughter.
IN THE TENTH BURNING, THREE PERSONS.
Steinacher, a very rich man.
A strange man, a strange woman.
IN THE ELEVENTH BURNING, FOUR PERSONS.
Two women and two men.
IN THE TWELFTH BURNING, TWO PERSONS.
Two strange women.
IN THE THIRTEENTH BURNING, FOUR PERSONS.
A little girl nine or ten years old.
A younger girl, her little sister.
IN THE FOURTEENTH BURNING, TWO PERSONS.
The mother of the two little girls before mentioned.
A girl twenty-four years old.
IN THE FIFTEENTH BURNING, TWO PERSONS.
A boy twelve years of age, in the first school.
A woman.
IN THE SIXTEENTH BURNING, SIX PERSONS.
A boy of ten years of age.
IN THE SEVENTEENTH BURNING, FOUR PERSONS.
A boy eleven years old.
A mother and daughter.
IN THE EIGHTEENTH BURNING, SIX PERSONS.
Two boys, twelve years old.
The daughter of Dr. Junge.
A girl of fifteen years of age.
A strange woman.
IN THE NINETEENTH BURNING, SIX PERSONS.
A boy of ten years of age.
Another boy, twelve years old.
IN THE TWENTIETH BURNING, SIX PERSONS.
Göbel’s child, the most beautiful girl in Würzburg.
Two boys, each twelve years old.
Stepper’s little daughter.
IN THE TWENTY-FIRST BURNING, SIX PERSONS.
A boy fourteen years old.
The little son of Senator Stolzenberger.
Two alumni.
IN THE TWENTY-SECOND BURNING, SIX PERSONS.
Stürman, a rich cooper.
A strange boy.
IN THE TWENTY-THIRD BURNING, NINE PERSONS.
David Croten’s boy, nine years old.
The two sons of the prince’s cook, one fourteen, the other ten
years old.
IN THE TWENTY-FOURTH BURNING, SEVEN PERSONS.
Two boys in the hospital.
A rich cooper.
IN THE TWENTY-FIFTH BURNING, SIX PERSONS.
A strange boy.
IN THE TWENTY-SIXTH BURNING, SEVEN PERSONS.
Weydenbush, a senator.
The little daughter of Valkenberger.
The little son of the town council bailiff.
IN THE TWENTY-SEVENTH BURNING, SEVEN PERSONS.
A strange boy.
A strange woman.
Another boy.
IN THE TWENTY-EIGHTH BURNING, SIX PERSONS.
The infant daughter of Dr. Schütz.
A blind girl.
IN THE TWENTY-NINTH BURNING, SEVEN PERSONS.
The fat noble lady (Edelfrau).
A doctor of divinity.
_Item._
⎧ “Strange” men and women, _i.e._,
⎪ _Protestants_, 28
⎪ Citizens, apparently all WEALTHY people, 100
_Summary_: ⎨ Boys, girls, and little children, 34
⎪ ---
⎩ In nineteen months, 162 persons.
“There were,” says Wright, “little girls of from seven to ten years
of age among the witches, and _seven and twenty_ of them were
convicted and burnt,” at some of the other _brände_, or burnings.
“The numbers brought to trial in these terrible proceedings were so
great, and they were treated with so little consideration, that it
was usual not even to take the trouble of setting down their names,
but they were cited as the accused No. 1, No. 2, No. 3, and so
on.[91] The Jesuits took their confessions in private.”
What room is there in a theology which exacts such holocausts
as these to appease the bloody appetites of its priests for the
following gentle words:
“Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not; for
of such is the kingdom of Heaven.” “Even so it is not the will of
your Father ... that one of these little ones should perish.” “But
whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it
_were better for him that a millstone were hanged_ about his neck and
that he were drowned in the depths of the sea.”
We sincerely hope that the above words have proved no vain threat to
these child-burners.
Did this butchery in the name of their Moloch-god prevent these
treasure-hunters from resorting to the black art themselves? Not in
the least; for in no class were such consulters of “familiar” spirits
more numerous than among the clergy during the fifteenth, sixteenth,
and seventeenth centuries. True, there were some Catholic priests
among the victims, but though these were generally accused of having
“been led into practices too dreadful to be described,” it was not
so. In the twenty-nine burnings above catalogued we find the names of
_twelve vicars_, _four_ canons, and two doctors of divinity _burnt
alive_. But we have only to turn to such works as were published at
the time to assure ourselves that each popish priest executed was
accused of “damnable heresy,” _i.e._, a tendency to reformation--a
crime more heinous far than sorcery.
We refer those who would learn how the Catholic clergy united
duty with pleasure in the matter of exorcisms, revenge, and
treasure-hunting, to volume II., chapter i., of W. Howitt’s _History
of the Supernatural_. “In the book called _Pneumatologia Occulta et
Vera_, all the forms of adjuration and conjuration were laid down,”
says this veteran writer. He then proceeds to give a long description
of the favorite _modus operandi_. The _Dogme et Rituel de la Haute
Magie_ of the late Eliphas Levi, treated with so much abuse and
contempt by des Mousseaux, tells nothing of the weird ceremonies
and practices but what was practiced legally and with the tacit if
not open consent of the Church, by the priests of the middle ages.
The exorcist-priest entered a circle at midnight; he was clad in
a new surplice, and had a consecrated band hanging from the neck,
covered with sacred characters. He wore on the head a tall pointed
cap, on the front of which was written in Hebrew the holy word,
Tetragrammaton--the ineffable name. It was written with a new pen
dipped in the blood of a white dove. What the exorcists most yearned
after, was to release miserable spirits _which haunt spots where
hidden treasures lie_. The exorcist sprinkles the circle with the
blood of a black lamb and a white pigeon. The priest had to adjure
the evil spirits of hell--Acheront, Magoth, Asmodei, Beelzebub,
Belial, and all the damned souls, in the mighty names of Jehovah,
Adonay, Elohah, and Sabaioth, which latter was the God of Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob, who dwelt in the Urim and Thummim. When the damned
souls flung in the face of the exorcist that he was a sinner, and
could not get the treasure from them, the priest-sorcerer had to
reply that “all his sins were washed out in the blood of Christ,[92]
and he bid them depart as cursed ghosts and damned flies.” When the
exorcist dislodged them at last, the poor soul was “comforted in the
name of the Saviour, and _consigned to the care of good angels_,”
who were less powerful, we must think, than the exorcising Catholic
worthies, “and the rescued treasure, of course, was secured for the
Church.”
“Certain days,” adds Howitt, “are laid down in the calendar of the
Church as most favorable for the practice of exorcism; and, if the
devils are difficult to drive, a fume of sulphur, assafœtida, bear’s
gall, and rue is recommended, which, it was presumed, would outstench
even devils.”
This is the Church, and this the priesthood, which, in the nineteenth
century, pays 5,000 priests to teach the people of the United States
the infidelity of science and the infallibility of the Bishop of Rome!
We have already noticed the confession of an eminent prelate that the
elimination of Satan from theology would be fatal to the perpetuity
of the Church. But this is only partially true. The Prince of Sin
would be gone, but sin itself would survive. If the Devil were
annihilated, the _Articles of Faith_ and the _Bible_ would remain.
In short there would still be a pretended divine revelation, and the
necessity for self-assumed inspired interpreters. We must, therefore,
consider the authenticity of the _Bible_ itself. We must study its
pages, and see if they, indeed, contain the commands of the Deity,
or but a compendium of ancient traditions and hoary myths. We must
try to interpret them for ourselves--if possible. As to its pretended
interpreters, the only possible assimilation we can find for them in
the _Bible_ is to compare them with the man described by the wise
King Solomon in his _Proverbs_, with the perpetrator of these “six
things ... yea _seven_ ... which doth the Lord hate,” and which are
an abomination unto Him, to wit: “A _proud_ look, a _lying_ tongue,
and hands that shed _innocent blood_; an heart _that deviseth wicked
imaginations_, feet that be swift in running to mischief; a _false
witness_ that speaketh lies, and _he that soweth discord among
brethren_” (_Proverbs_ vi. 16, 17, 18, 19).
Of which of these accusations are the long line of men who have left
the imprint of their feet in the Vatican guiltless?
“When the demons,” says Augustine, “_insinuate_ themselves in the
creatures, they begin by conforming themselves _to the will of every
one_.... In order to attract men, they begin by seducing them, by
simulating obedience.... _How could one know, had he not been taught
by the demons themselves_, what they like or what they hate; _the
name which attracts, or that which forces them into obedience_;
all this art, in short, of _magic_, the whole science of the
magicians?”[93]
To this impressive dissertation of the “saint,” we will add that
no magician has ever denied that he had learned the _art_ from
“spirits,” whether, being a medium, they acted independently on him,
or he had been initiated into the science of “evocation” by his
fathers who knew it before himself. But who was it then that taught
the exorcist? The priest who clothes himself with an authority not
only over the magician, but even over all these “spirits,” whom he
calls demons and _devils_ as soon as he finds them obeying any one
but himself? He must have learned somewhere from some one that power
which he pretends to possess. For, “... _how could one know had he
not been taught by the demons themselves ... the name which attracts,
or that which forces them into obedience?_” asks Augustine.
Useless to remark that we know the answer beforehand: “Revelation
... _divine_ gift ... the Son of God; nay, God Himself, through His
direct Spirit, who descended on the apostles as the Pentecostal fire,
and who is now alleged to overshadow every priest who sees fit to
exorcise for either glory or a gift. Are we then to believe that
the recent scandal of public exorcism, performed about the 14th of
October, 1876, by the senior priest of the Church of the Holy Spirit,
at Barcelona, Spain, was also done under the direct superintendence
of the Holy Ghost?[94] It will be urged that the “bishop was not
cognizant of this freak of the clergy;” but even if he were, how
could he have protested against a rite considered since the days of
the apostles, one of the most holy prerogatives of the Church of
Rome? So late as in 1852, only twenty-five years ago, these rites
received a public and solemn sanction from the Vatican, and a new
_Ritual of Exorcism_ was published in Rome, Paris, and other Catholic
capitals. Des Mousseaux, writing under the immediate patronage of
Father Ventura, the General of the Theatines of Rome, even favors
us with lengthy extracts from this famous ritual, and explains the
reason _why_ it was enforced again. It was in consequence of the
revival of Magic under the name of Modern Spiritualism. The bull of
Pope Innocent VIII. is exhumed, and translated for the benefit of
des Mousseaux’s readers. “We have heard,” exclaims the Sovereign
Pontiff, “that a great number of persons of both sexes have feared
not to enter into relations with the spirits of hell; and that, by
their practice of sorcery ... they strike with sterility the conjugal
bed, destroy the germs of humanity in the bosom of the mother, and
throw spells on them, and set a barrier to the multiplication of
animals ... etc., etc.;” then follow curses and anathemas against the
practice.
This belief of the Sovereign Pontiffs of an enlightened Christian
country is a direct inheritance by the most ignorant multitudes
from the southern Hindu rabble--the “heathen.” The diabolical arts
of certain kangalins (witches) and jadūgar (sorcerers) are firmly
believed in by these people. The following are among their most
dreaded powers: to inspire love and hatred at will; to send a devil
to take possession of a person and torture him; to expel him; to
cause sudden death or an incurable disease; to either strike cattle
with or protect them from epidemics; to compose philtres that will
either strike with sterility or provoke unbounded passions in men and
women, etc., etc. The sight alone of a man said to be such a sorcerer
excites in a Hindu profound terror.
And now we will quote in this connection the truthful remark of
a writer who passed years in India in the study of the origin of
such superstitions: “Vulgar magic in India, like a degenerated
infiltration, goes hand-in-hand with the most ennobling beliefs
of the sectarians of the _Pitris_. It was the _work of the lowest
clergy_, and designed to hold the populace in a perpetual state of
fear. It is thus that in all ages and under every latitude, side by
side with philosophical speculations of the highest character, one
always finds _the religion of the rabble_.”[95] In India it was the
work of the _lowest clergy_; in Rome, that of the _highest Pontiffs_.
But then, have they not as authority their greatest saint, Augustine,
who declares that “whoever believes not in the evil spirits, refuses
to believe in Holy Writ?”[96]
Therefore, in the second half of the nineteenth century, we find the
counsel for the Sacred Congregation of Rites (exorcism of demons
included), Father Ventura de Raulica, writing thus, in a letter
published by des Mousseaux, in 1865:
“We are in full magic! and under false names; the Spirit
of lies and impudicity goes on perpetrating his horrible
deprecations.... The most grievous feature in this is that
among the most serious persons they do not attach the
importance to the strange phenomena which they deserve,
these manifestations that we witness, and which become with
every day more weird, striking, as well as most fatal.
“I cannot sufficiently admire and praise, from this
standpoint, the zeal and courage displayed by you in your
work. The facts which you have collected are calculated to
throw light and conviction into the most skeptical minds;
and after reading this remarkable work, written with so
much learnedness and consciousness, blindness is no longer
possible.
“If anything could surprise us, it would be the
indifference with which these phenomena have been treated
by _false_ Science, endeavoring, as she has, to turn into
ridicule so grave a subject; the childish simplicity
exhibited by her in the desire to explain the facts by
absurd and contradictory hypotheses....[97]
[Signed] “_The Father Ventura de Raulica_, etc., etc.”
Thus encouraged by the greatest authorities of the Church of Rome,
ancient and modern, the Chevalier argues the necessity and the
efficacy of exorcism by the priests. He tries to demonstrate--_on
faith_, as usual-- that the power of the spirits of hell is closely
related to certain rites, words, and formal signs. “In the diabolical
Catholicism,” he says “as well as in the _divine_ Catholicism,
potential grace is _bound_ (_liée_) to certain signs.” While the
power of the Catholic priest proceeds from God, that of the Pagan
priest proceeds from the Devil. The Devil, he adds, “is forced to
submission” before the holy minister of God--“_he dares not_ LIE.”[98]
We beg the reader to note well the underlined sentence, as we mean
to test its truth impartially. We are prepared to adduce proofs,
undeniable and undenied even by the Popish Church--forced, as she
was, into the confession--proofs of hundreds of cases in relation
to the most solemn of her dogmas, wherein the “spirits” lied from
beginning to end. How about certain holy relics authenticated by
visions of the blessed Virgin, and a host of saints? We have at hand
a treatise by a pious Catholic, Jilbert de Nogen, on the relics of
saints. With honest despair he acknowledges the “great number of
false relics, as well as false legends,” and severely censures the
inventors of these lying miracles. “It was on the occasion _of one
of our Saviour’s teeth_,” writes the author of _Demonologia_, “that
de Nogen took up his pen on this subject, by which the monks of St.
Medard de Soissons pretended to work miracles; a pretension which he
asserted to be as chimerical as that of several persons who believed
they possessed the navel, and other parts less comely, of the body of
Christ.”[99]
“A monk of St. Antony,” says Stephens,[100] “having been at
Jerusalem, saw there several relics, among which was a bit of _the
finger of the Holy Ghost_, as sound and entire as it had ever been;
the snout of the seraph that appeared to St. Francis; one of the
nails of a cherub; one of the ribs of the _Verbum caro factum_ (the
Word made flesh); some rays of the star that appeared to the three
kings of the East; a phial of St. Michael’s sweat, that exuded when
he was fighting against the Devil, etc. ‘All which things,’ observes
the monkish treasurer of relics, ‘I have brought with me home very
devoutly.’”
And if the foregoing is set aside as the invention of a Protestant
enemy, may we not be allowed to refer the reader to the History
of England and authentic documents which state the existence of a
relic not less extraordinary than the best of the others? Henry III.
received from the Grand Master of the Templars a phial containing
a small portion of the sacred blood of Christ which he had shed
upon the cross. It was attested to be genuine by the seals of the
Patriarch of Jerusalem, and others. The procession bearing the
sacred phial from St. Paul’s to Westminster Abbey is described by the
historian: “Two monks received the phial, and deposited it in the
Abbey ... which made all England shine with glory, dedicating it to
God and St. Edward.”
The story of the Prince Radzivil is well known. It was the undeniable
deception of the monks and nuns surrounding him and his own confessor
which made the Polish nobleman become a Lutheran. He felt at first so
indignant at the “heresy” of the Reformation spreading in Lithuania,
that he travelled all the way to Rome to pay his homage of sympathy
and veneration to the Pope. The latter presented him with a precious
box of relics. On his return home, his confessor saw the Virgin, who
descended from her glorious abode for the sole purpose of blessing
these relics and authenticating them. The superior of the neighboring
convent and the mother-abbess of a nunnery both saw the same vision,
with a reënforcement of several saints and martyrs; they prophesied
and “felt the Holy Ghost” ascending from the box of relics and
overshadowing the prince. A demoniac provided for the purpose by the
clergy was exorcised in full ceremony, and upon being touched by the
box immediately recovered, and rendered thanks on the spot to the
Pope and the Holy Ghost. After the ceremony was over the guardian
of the treasury in which the relics were kept, threw himself at the
feet of the prince, and confessed that on their way back from Rome he
had lost the box of relics. Dreading the wrath of his master, he had
procured a similar box, “which he had filled with the small bones of
dogs and cats;” but seeing how the prince was deceived, he preferred
confessing his guilt to such blasphemous tricks. The prince said
nothing, but continued for some time testing--not the relics, but his
confessor and the vision-seers. Their mock raptures made him discover
so thoroughly the gross impositions of the monks and nuns that he
joined the Reformed Church.
This is history. Bayle shows that when the Roman Church is no longer
able to deny that there have been false relics, she resorts to
sophistry, and replies that if false relics have wrought miracles
it is “because of the good intentions of the believers, who thus
obtained from God a reward of their good faith!” The same Bayle
shows, by numerous instances, that whenever it was proved that
several bodies of the same saint, or three heads of him, or three
arms (as in the case of Augustine) were said to exist in different
places, and that they could not well be all authentic, the cool and
invariable answer of the Church was that they were all genuine;
for “God had multiplied and miraculously reproduced them for the
greater glory of His Holy Church!” In other words they would have
the faithful believe that the body of a deceased saint may, through
divine miracle, acquire the physiological peculiarities of a
crawfish!
We fancy that it would be hard to demonstrate to satisfaction that
the visions of Catholic saints, are, in any one particular instance,
better or more trustworthy than the average visions and prophecies of
our modern “mediums.” The visions of Andrew Jackson Davis--however
our critics may sneer at them--are by long odds more philosophical
and more compatible with modern science than the Augustinian
speculations. Whenever the visions of Swedenborg, the greatest among
the modern seers, run astray from philosophy and scientific truth, it
is when they most run parallel with theology. Nor are these visions
any more useless to either science or humanity than those of the
great orthodox saints. In the life of St. Bernard it is narrated
that as he was once in church, upon a Christmas eve, he prayed that
the very hour in which Christ was born might be revealed to him; and
when the “true and correct hour came, he saw the divine babe appear
in his manger.” What a pity that the divine babe did not embrace
so favorable an opportunity to fix the correct day and year of his
death, and thereby reconcile the controversies of his putative
historians. The Tischendorfs, Lardners, and Colensos, as well as
many a Catholic divine, who have vainly squeezed the marrow out of
historical records and their own brains, in the useless search, would
at least have had something for which to thank the saint.
As it is, we are hopelessly left to infer that most of the beatific
and divine visions of the _Golden Legend_, and those to be found in
the more complete biographies of the most important “saints,” as well
as most of the visions of our own persecuted seers and seeresses,
were produced by ignorant and undeveloped “spirits” passionately
fond of personating great historical characters. We are quite ready
to agree with the Chevalier des Mousseaux, and other unrelenting
persecutors of magic and spiritualism in the name of the Church, that
modern spirits are often “lying spirits;” that they are ever on hand
to humor the respective hobbies of the persons who communicate with
them at “circles;” that they _deceive_ them and, therefore, are not
_always_ good “spirits.”
But, having conceded so much, we will now ask of any impartial
person: is it possible to believe at the same time that the _power_
given to the exorcist-priest, that supreme and _divine_ power of
which he boasts, has been given to him by God for the purpose of
deceiving people? That the prayer pronounced by him _in the name of
Christ_, and which, forcing the _demon_ into submission, makes him
reveal himself, is calculated at the same time to make the devil
confess _not the truth_, but that only which it is the _interest of
the church to which the exorcist belongs_, should _pass for truth_?
And this is what invariably happens. Compare, for instance, the
responses given by the demon to Luther, with those obtained from the
devils by St. Dominick. The one argues against the private mass,
and upbraids Luther with placing the Virgin Mary and saints before
Christ, and thus dishonoring the Son of God;[101] while the demons
exorcised by St. Dominick, upon seeing the Virgin whom the holy
father had also evoked to help him, roar out: “Oh! our enemy! oh!
our damner! ... why didst thou descend from heaven to torment us?
Why art thou so powerful an intercessor for sinners! Oh! _thou most
certain and secure way to heaven_ ... thou commandest us _and we are
forced to confess_ that nobody is damned who only perseveres in thy
holy worship, etc., etc.”[102] Luther’s “Saint Satan” assures him
that while believing in the transubstantiation of Christ’s body and
blood he had been worshipping merely bread and wine; and the _devils_
of all the Catholic saints promise _eternal damnation_ to whomsoever
disbelieves or even so much as doubts the dogma!
Before leaving the subject, let us give one or two more instances
from the _Chronicles of the Lives of the Saints_, selected from such
narratives as are fully accepted by the Church. We might fill volumes
with proofs of undeniable confederacy between the exorcisers and the
demons. Their very nature betrays them. Instead of being independent,
crafty entities, bent on the destruction of men’s souls and spirits,
the majority of them are simply the elementals of the kabalists;
creatures with no intellect of their own, but faithful mirrors of
the WILL which evokes, controls, and guides them. We will not waste
our time in drawing the reader’s attention to doubtful or obscure
thaumaturgists and exorcisers, but take as our standard one of the
greatest saints of Catholicism, and select a bouquet from that same
prolific conservatory of pious lies, _The Golden Legend_, of James de
Veragine.[103]
St. Dominick, the founder of the famous order of that name, is one of
the mightiest saints on the calendar. His order was the first that
received a solemn confirmation from the Pope,[104] and he is well
known in history as the associate and counsellor of the infamous
Simon de Montford, the papal general, whom he helped to butcher the
unfortunate Albigenses in and near Toulouse. The story goes that
this saint and the Church after him, claim that he received from the
Virgin, _in propriâ personâ_, a rosary, whose virtues produced such
stupendous miracles that they throw entirely into the shade those of
the apostles, and even of Jesus himself. A man, says the biographer,
an abandoned sinner, was bold enough to doubt the virtue of the
Dominican rosary; and for this unparalleled blasphemy was punished
on the spot by having 15,000 devils take possession of him. Seeing
the great suffering of the tortured demoniac, St. Dominick forgot the
insult and called the devils to account.
Following is the colloquy between the “blessed exorcist” and the
demons:
_Question._--How did you take possession of this man, and how many
are you?
_Answer of the Devils._--We came into him for having spoken
disrespectfully of the rosary. We are 15,000.
_Question._--Why did so many as 15,000 enter him?
_Answer._--Because there are fifteen decades in the rosary which he
derided, etc.
_Dominick._--Is not all true I have said of the virtues of the rosary?
_Devils._--Yes! Yes! (_they emit flames through the nostrils of the
demoniac_). Know all ye Christians that Dominick never said one word
concerning the rosary that is not most true; and know ye further,
that if you do not believe him, great calamities will befall you.
_Dominick._--Who is the man in the world the Devil hates the most?
_Devils._--(_In chorus._) Thou art the very man (_here follow verbose
compliments_).
_Dominick._--Of which state of Christians are there the most damned?
_Devils._--In hell we have merchants, pawnbrokers, fraudulent
bankers, grocers, Jews, apothecaries, etc., etc.
_Dominick._--Are there any priests or monks in hell?
_Devils._--There are a great number of priests, but _no monks_, with
the exception of such as have transgressed the rule of their order.
_Dominick._--Have you any Dominicans?
_Devils._--Alas! alas! we have not one yet, but we expect a great
number of them after their devotion is a little cooled.
We do not pretend to give the questions and answers literally, for
they occupy twenty-three pages; but the substance is here, as may
be seen by any one who cares to read the _Golden Legend_. The full
description of the hideous bellowings of the demons, their enforced
glorification of the saint, and so on, is too long for this chapter.
Suffice it to say that as we read the numerous questions offered by
Dominick and the answers of the demons, we become fully convinced
that they corroborate in every detail the unwarranted assertions and
support the interests of the Church. The narrative is suggestive.
The legend graphically describes the battle of the exorcist with the
legion from the bottomless pit. The sulphurous flames which burst
forth from the nose, mouth, eyes, and ears, of the demoniac; the
sudden appearance of over a hundred angels, clad in golden armor;
and, finally, the descent of the blessed Virgin herself, in person,
bearing a golden rod, with which she administers a sound thrashing
to the demoniac, to force the devils to confess that of herself
which we scarcely need repeat. The whole catalogue of theological
truths uttered by Dominick’s devils were embodied in so many articles
of faith by his Holiness, the present Pope, in 1870, at the last
Œcumenical Council.
From the foregoing it is easy to see that the only substantial
difference between infidel “mediums” and orthodox saints lies in the
relative usefulness of the _demons_, if demons we must call them.
While the Devil faithfully supports the Christian exorcist in his
_orthodox_ (?) views, the modern spook generally leaves his medium
in the lurch. For, by lying, he acts _against_ his or her interests
rather than otherwise, and thereby too often casts foul suspicion on
the genuineness of the mediumship. Were modern “spirits” _devils_,
they would evidently display a little more discrimination and cunning
than they do. They would act as the _demons_ of the saint which,
compelled by the ecclesiastical magician and by the power of “the
name ... which forces them into submission,” _lie in accordance with
the direct interest_ of the exorcist and his church. The moral of the
parallel we leave to the sagacity of the reader.
“Observe well,” exclaims des Mousseaux, “that there are _demons_
which sometimes will speak the truth.” “The exorcist,” he adds,
quoting the _Ritual_, “must command the demon to tell him whether he
is detained in the body of the demoniac through some magic art, or by
_signs_, or any objects which usually serve for this evil practice.
In case the exorcised person has swallowed the latter, he must vomit
them back; and if they are not in his body, the demon must indicate
the proper place where they are to be found; and having found them
they must be burned.”[105] Thus some demons reveal the existence of
the bewitchment, tell who is its author, and indicate the means to
destroy the _malefice_. But beware to ever resort, in such a case,
to magicians, sorcerers, or mediums. You must call to help you but
the minister of your Church! “The Church believes in magic, as you
well see,” he adds, “since she expresses it so formally. And those
who _disbelieve in magic_, can they still hope to share the faith of
their own Church? And who can teach them better? To whom did Christ
say: ‘Go ye therefore, and teach all nations ... and lo, I am with
you always, even to the end of the world?’”[106]
Are we to believe that he said this but to those who wear these
black or scarlet liveries of Rome? Must we then credit the story
that this power was given by Christ to Simon Stylites, the saint who
sanctified himself by perching on a pillar (_stylos_) sixty feet
high, for thirty-six years of his life, without ever descending
from it, in order that, among other miracles stated in the _Golden
Legend_, he might cure a _dragon_ of a sore eye? “Near Simon’s pillar
was the dwelling of a dragon, so very venomous that the stench was
spread for miles round his cave.” This ophidian-hermit met with an
accident; he got a thorn in his eye, and, becoming blind, crept to
the saint’s pillar, and pressed his eye against it for three days,
without touching any one. Then the blessed saint, from his aërial
seat, “_three feet in diameter_,” ordered earth and water to be
placed on the dragon’s eye, out of which suddenly emerged a thorn
(or stake), a cubit in length; when the people saw the “miracle”
they glorified the Creator. As to the grateful dragon, he arose and,
“having adored God for two hours, returned to his cave”[107]--a
half-converted ophidian, we must suppose.
And what are we to think of that other narrative, to disbelieve
in which is “_to risk one’s salvation_,” as we were informed by a
Pope’s missionary, of the Order of the Franciscans? When St. Francis
preached a sermon in the wilderness, the birds assembled from the
four cardinal points of the world. They warbled and applauded every
sentence; they sang a holy mass in chorus; finally they dispersed
to carry the glad tidings all over the universe. A grasshopper,
profiting by the absence of the Holy Virgin, who generally kept
company with the saint, remained perched on the head of the “blessed
one” for a whole week. Attacked by a ferocious wolf, the saint, who
had no other weapon but the sign of the cross which he made upon
himself, instead of running away from his rabid assailant, began
arguing with the beast. Having imparted to him the benefit to be
derived from the holy religion, St. Francis never ceased talking
until the wolf became as meek as a lamb, and even shed tears of
repentance over his past sins. Finally, he “stretched his paws in the
hands of the saint, followed him like a dog through all the towns
in which he preached, and became half a Christian!”[108] Wonders
of zoölogy! a horse turned sorcerer, a wolf and a dragon turned
Christians!
These two anecdotes, chosen at random from among hundreds, if
rivalled are not surpassed by the wildest romances of the Pagan
thaumaturgists, magicians, and spiritualists! And yet, when
Pythagoras is said to have subdued animals, even wild beasts, merely
through a powerful mesmeric influence, he is pronounced by one-half
of the Catholics a bare-faced impostor, and by the rest a sorcerer,
who worked magic in confederacy with the Devil! Neither the she-bear,
nor the eagle, nor yet the bull that Pythagoras is said to have
persuaded to give up eating beans, were alleged to have answered with
human voices; while St. Benedict’s “black raven,” whom he called
“brother,” argues with him, and croaks his answers like a born
casuist. When the saint offers him one-half of a poisoned loaf, the
raven grows indignant and reproaches him in Latin as though he had
just graduated at the Propaganda!
If it be objected that the _Golden Legend_ is now but half supported
by the Church; and that it is known to have been compiled by the
writer from a collection of the lives of the saints, for the most
part unauthenticated, we can show that, at least in one instance,
the biography is no legendary compilation, but the history of one
man, by another one who was his contemporary. Jortin and Gibbons
demonstrated years ago, that the early fathers used to select
narratives, wherewith to ornament the lives of their apocryphal
saints, from Ovid, Homer, Livy, and even from the unwritten popular
legends of Pagan nations. But such is not the case in the above
instances. St. Bernard lived in the twelfth century, and St. Dominick
was nearly contemporaneous with the author of the _Golden Legend_.
De Veragine died in 1298, and Dominick, whose exorcisms and life he
describes so minutely, instituted his order in the first quarter
of the thirteenth century. Moreover, de Veragine was Vicar-General
of the Dominicans himself, in the middle of the same century, and
therefore described the miracles wrought by his hero and patron but a
few years after they were alleged to have happened. He wrote them in
the same convent; and while narrating these wonders he had probably
fifty persons at hand who had been eye-witnesses to the saint’s mode
of living. What must we think, in such a case, of a biographer who
seriously describes the following: One day, as the blessed saint was
occupied in his study, the Devil began pestering him, in the shape of
a flea. He frisked and jumped about the pages of his book until the
harassed saint, unwilling as he was to act unkindly, even toward a
devil, felt compelled to punish him by fixing the troublesome devil
on the very sentence on which he stopped, by clasping the book. At
another time the same devil appeared under the shape of a monkey.
He grinned so horribly that Dominick, in order to get rid of him,
ordered the devil-monkey to take the candle and hold it for him
until he had done reading. The poor imp did so, and held it until it
was consumed to the very end of the wick; and, notwithstanding his
pitiful cries for mercy, the saint compelled him to hold it till his
fingers were burned to the bones!
Enough! The approbation with which this book was received by the
Church, and the peculiar sanctity attributed to it, is sufficient to
show the estimation in which veracity was held by its patrons. We
may add, in conclusion, that the finest quintessence of Boccaccio’s
_Decameron_ appears prudery itself by comparison with the filthy
realism of the _Golden Legend_.
We cannot regard with too much astonishment the pretensions of
the Catholic Church in seeking to convert Hindus and Buddhists to
Christianity. While the “heathen” keeps to the faith of his fathers,
he has at least the one redeeming quality--that of not having
apostatized for the mere pleasure of exchanging one set of idols
for another. There may be for him some novelty in his embracing
Protestantism; for in that he gains the advantage, at least, of
limiting his religious views to their simplest expression. But when
a Buddhist has been enticed into exchanging his Shoe Dagoon for the
Slipper of the Vatican, or the eight hairs from the head of Gautama
and Buddha’s tooth, which work miracles, for the locks of a Christian
saint, and a tooth of Jesus, which work far less clever miracles, he
has no cause to boast of his choice. In his address to the Literary
Society of Java, Sir T. S. Raffles is said to have narrated the
following characteristic anecdote: “On visiting the great temple
on the hills of Nangasaki, the English commissioner was received
with marked regard and respect by the venerable patriarch of the
northern provinces, a man eighty years of age, who entertained him
most sumptuously. On showing him round the courts of the temple, one
of the English officers present heedlessly exclaimed, in surprise,
‘Jesus Christus!’ The patriarch turning half round, with a placid
smile, bowed significantly, with the expression: ‘We know your Jasus
Christus! Well, don’t obtrude him upon us in our temples, and we
remain friends.’ And so, with a hearty shake of the hands, these two
opposites parted.”[109]
There is scarcely a report sent by the missionaries from India,
Thibet, and China, but laments the diabolical “obscenity” of the
heathen rites, their lamentable impudicity; all of which “are so
strongly suggestive of devil-worship,” as des Mousseaux tells us. We
can scarcely be assured that the morality of the Pagans would be in
the least improved were they allowed a free inquiry into the life
of say the psalmist-king, the author of those sweet _Psalms_ which
are so rapturously repeated by Christians. The difference between
David performing a phallic dance before the holy ark--emblem of the
female principle--and a Hindu Vishnavite bearing the same emblem on
his forehead, favors the former only in the eyes of those who have
studied neither the ancient faith nor their own. When a religion
which compelled David to cut off and deliver two hundred foreskins of
his enemies before he could become the king’s son-in-law (_1 Sam._
xviii.) is accepted as a standard by Christians, they would do well
not to cast into the teeth of heathen the impudicities of their
faiths. Remembering the suggestive parable of Jesus, they ought to
cast the beam out of their own eye before plucking at the mote in
their neighbor’s. The sexual element is as marked in Christianity
as in any one of the “heathen religions.” Certainly, nowhere in
the _Vedas_ can be found the coarseness and downright immodesty of
language, that Hebraists now discover throughout the Mosaic _Bible_.
It would profit little were we to dwell much upon subjects which
have been disposed of in such a masterly way by an anonymous author
whose work electrified England and Germany last year;[110] while as
regards the particular topic under notice, we cannot do better than
recommend the scholarly writings of Dr. Inman. Albeit one-sided, and
in many instances unjust to the ancient heathen, Pagan, and Jewish
religions, the _facts_ treated in the _Ancient and Pagan Christian
Symbolism_, are unimpeachable. Neither can we agree with some English
critics who charge him with an intent to destroy Christianity. If
by _Christianity_ is meant the external religious forms of worship,
then he certainly seeks to destroy it, for in his eyes, as well as in
those of every truly religious man, who has studied ancient exoteric
faiths, and their symbology, Christianity is pure heathenism, and
Catholicism, with its fetish-worshipping, is far worse and more
pernicious than Hinduism in its most idolatrous aspect. But while
denouncing the exoteric forms and unmasking the symbols, it is not
the religion of Christ that the author attacks, but the artificial
system of theology. We will allow him to illustrate the position in
his own language, and quote from his preface:
“When vampires were discovered by the acumen of any observer,” he
says, “they were, we are told, ignominiously killed, by a stake being
driven through the body; but experience showed them to have such
tenacity of life that they rose, again and again, notwithstanding
renewed impalement, and were not ultimately laid to rest till wholly
burned. In like manner, the regenerated heathendom, which dominates
over the followers of Jesus of Nazareth, has risen again and again,
after being transfixed. Still cherished by the many, it is denounced
by the few. Amongst other accusers, I raise my voice against the
Paganism which exists so extensively in ecclesiastical Christianity,
and will do my utmost to expose the imposture.... In a vampire story
told in _Thalaba_, by Southey, the resuscitated being takes the form
of a dearly-beloved maiden, and the hero is obliged to kill her with
his own hand. He does so; but, whilst he strikes the form of the
loved one, he feels sure that he slays only a demon. In like manner,
when I endeavor to destroy the current heathenism, which has assumed
the garb of Christianity, _I do not attack real religion_.[111] Few
would accuse a workman of malignancy, who cleanses from filth the
surface of a noble statue. There may be some who are too nice to
touch a nasty subject, yet even they will rejoice when some one else
removes the dirt. Such a scavenger is wanted.”[112]
But is it merely Pagans and heathen that the Catholics persecute,
and about whom, like Augustine, they cry to the Deity, “Oh, my God!
_so do I wish Thy enemies to be slain?_” Oh, no! their aspirations
are more Mosaic and Cain-like than that. It is against their next of
kin in faith, against their schismatic brothers that they are now
intriguing within the walls which sheltered the murderous Borgias.
The _larvæ_ of the infanticidal, parricidal, and fratricidal Popes
have proved themselves fit counsellors for the Cains of Castelfidardo
and Mentana. It is now the turn of the Slavonian Christians, the
Oriental Schismatics--the Philistines of the Greek Church!
His Holiness the Pope, after exhausting, in a metaphor of
self-laudation, every point of assimilation between the great
biblical prophets and himself, has finally and truly compared himself
with the Patriarch Jacob “wrestling against his God.” He now crowns
the edifice of Catholic piety by openly sympathizing with the Turks!
The vicegerent of God inaugurates his infallibility by encouraging,
in a true Christian spirit, the acts of that Moslem David, the
modern Bashi Bazuk; and it seems as if nothing would more please his
Holiness than to be presented by the latter with several thousands of
the Bulgarian or Servian “foreskins.” True to her policy to be all
things to all men to promote her own interests, the Romish Church
is, at this writing (1876), benevolently viewing the Bulgarian and
Servian atrocities, and, probably, manœuvring with Turkey against
Russia. Better Islam, and the hitherto-hated Crescent over the
sepulchre of the Christian god, than the Greek Church established
at Constantinople and Jerusalem as the state religion. Like a
decrepit and toothless ex-tyrant in exile, the Vatican is eager for
any alliance that promises, if not a restoration of its own power,
at least the weakening of its rival. The axe its inquisitors once
swung, it now toys with in secret, feeling its edge, and waiting,
and hoping against hope. In her time, the Popish Church has lain with
strange bedfellows, but never before now sunk to the degradation of
giving her moral support to those who for over 1200 years spat in her
face, called her adherents “infidel dogs,” repudiated her teachings,
and denied godhood to her God!
The press of even Catholic France is fairly aroused at this
indignity, and openly accuses the Ultramontane portion of the
Catholic Church and the Vatican of siding, during the present Eastern
struggle, with the Mahometan against the Christian. “When the
Minister of Foreign Affairs in the French Legislature spoke some mild
words in favor of the Greek Christians, he was only applauded by the
liberal Catholics, and received coldly by the Ultramontane party,”
says the French correspondent of a New York paper.
“So pronounced was this, that M. Lemoinne, the well-known editor of
the great liberal Catholic journal, the _Débats_, was moved to say
that the Roman Church felt more sympathy for the Moslem than the
schismatic, just as they preferred an infidel to the Protestant.
‘There is at bottom,’ says this writer, ‘a great affinity between
the _Syllabus_ and the _Koran_, and between the two heads of the
faithful. The two systems are of the same nature, and are united on
the common ground of a one and unchangeable theory.’ In Italy, in
like manner, the King and Liberal Catholics are in warm sympathy with
the unfortunate Christians, while the Pope and Ultramontane faction
are believed to be inclining to the Mahometans.”
The civilized world may yet expect the apparition of the materialized
Virgin Mary within the walls of the Vatican. The so often-repeated
“miracle” of the Immaculate Visitor in the mediæval ages has recently
been enacted at Lourdes, and why not once more, as a _coup de grâce_
to all heretics, schismatics, and infidels? The miraculous wax taper
is yet seen at Arras, the chief city of Artois; and at every new
calamity threatening her beloved Church, the “Blessed Lady” appears
personally, and lights it with her own fair hands, in view of a whole
“biologized” congregation. This sort of “miracle,” says E. Worsley,
wrought by the Roman Catholic Church, “being most certain, and never
doubted of by any.”[113] Neither has the private correspondence with
which the most “Gracious Lady” honors her friends been doubted. There
are two precious missives from her in the archives of the Church. The
first purports to be a letter in answer to one addressed to her by
Ignatius. She confirms all things learned by her correspondent from
“her friend”--meaning the Apostle John. She bids him hold fast to
his vows, and adds as an inducement: “_I and John will come together
and pay you a visit._”[114]
Nothing was known of this unblushing fraud till the letters were
published at Paris, in 1495. By a curious accident it appeared
at a time when threatening inquiries began to be made as to the
genuineness of the fourth Synoptic. Who could doubt, after such
a confirmation from headquarters! But the climax of effrontery
was capped in 1534, when another letter was received from the
“Mediatrix,” which sounds more like the report of a lobby-agent to a
brother-politician. It was written in excellent Latin, and was found
in the Cathedral of Messina, together with the image to which it
alludes. Its contents run as follows:
“Mary Virgin, Mother of the Redeemer of the world, to the
Bishop, Clergy, and the other faithful of Messina, sendeth
health and benediction from _herself_ and son:[115]
“Whereas ye have been mindful of establishing the worship
of me; now this is to let you know that by so doing ye
have found great favor in my sight. I have a long time
reflected with pain upon your city, which is exposed to
much danger from its contiguity to the fire of Etna, and I
have often had words about it with my son, for he was vexed
with you because of your guilty neglect of my worship,
so that he would not care a pin about my intercession.
Now, however, that you have come to your senses, and have
happily begun to worship me, he has conferred upon me the
right to become your everlasting protectress; but, at the
same time, I warn you to mind what you are about, and give
me no cause of repenting of my kindness to you. The prayers
and festivals instituted in my honor please me tremendously
(_vehementer_), and if you faithfully persevere in these
things, and provided you oppose to the utmost of your
power, the heretics which now-a-days are spreading through
the world, by which both my worship and that of the other
saints, male and female, are so endangered, you shall enjoy
my perpetual protection.
“In sign of this compact, I send you down from Heaven the
image of myself, cast by celestial hands, and if ye hold
it in the honor to which it is entitled, it will be an
evidence to me of your obedience and your faith. Farewell.
Dated in Heaven, whilst sitting near the throne of my son,
in the month of December, of the 1534th year from his
incarnation.
“MARY VIRGIN.”
The reader should understand that this document is no anti-Catholic
forgery. The author from whom it is taken,[116] says that the
authenticity of the missive “is attested by the Bishop himself, his
Vicar-General, Secretary, and six Canons of the Cathedral Church of
Messina, all of whom have signed that attestation with their names,
and confirmed it upon oath.
“Both the epistle and image were found upon the high altar, where
they had been placed by angels from heaven.”
A Church must have reached the last stages of degradation, when such
sacrilegious trickery as this could be resorted to by its clergy, and
accepted with or without question by the people.
No! far from the man who feels the workings of an immortal spirit
within him, be such a religion! There never was nor ever will be
a truly philosophical mind, whether of Pagan, heathen, Jew, or
Christian, but has followed the same path of thought. Gautama-Buddha
is mirrored in the precepts of Christ; Paul and Philo Judæus are
faithful echoes of Plato; and Ammonius Saccas and Plotinus won their
immortal fame by combining the teachings of all these grand masters
of true philosophy. “Prove all things; hold fast that which is good,”
ought to be the motto of all brothers on earth. Not so is it with
the interpreters of the _Bible_. The seed of the Reformation was
sown on the day that the second chapter of _The Catholic Epistle of
James_, jostled the eleventh chapter of the _Epistle to the Hebrews_
in the same _New Testament_. One who believes in Paul cannot believe
in James, Peter, and John. The Paulists, to remain Christians with
their apostle, must withstand Peter “to the face;” and if Peter
“was to be blamed” and _was wrong_, then he was not infallible.
How then can his successor (?) boast of his infallibility? Every
kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation; and every
house divided against itself must fall. A plurality of masters has
proved as fatal in religions as in politics. What Paul preached, was
preached by every other mystic philosopher. “Stand _fast therefore
in the liberty_ wherewith Christ hath made us free, and _be not
entangled again with the yoke of bondage_!” exclaims the honest
apostle-philosopher; and adds, as if prophetically inspired: “But if
ye bite and devour one another, take heed that ye be not consumed one
of another.”
That the Neo-platonists were not always despised or accused of
demonolatry is evidenced in the adoption by the Roman Church of their
very rites and theurgy. The identical evocations and incantations
of the Pagan and Jewish Kabalist, are now repeated by the Christian
exorcist, and the theurgy of Iamblichus was adopted word for word.
“Distinct as were the Platonists and Pauline Christians of the
earlier centuries,” writes Professor A. Wilder, “many of the more
distinguished teachers of the new faith were deeply tinctured with
the philosophical leaven. Synesius, the Bishop of Cyrene, was
the disciple of Hypatia. _St. Anthony reiterated the theurgy of
Iamblichus._ The _Logos_, or word of the _Gospel according to John_,
was a Gnostic personification. Clement of Alexandria, Origen, and
others of the fathers drank deeply from the fountains of philosophy.
The ascetic idea which carried away the Church was like that which
was practiced by Plotinus ... all through the middle ages there rose
up men who accepted the interior doctrines which were promulgated by
the renowned teacher of the Academy.”[117]
To substantiate our accusation that the Latin Church first despoiled
the kabalists and theurgists of their magical rites and ceremonies,
before hurling anathemas upon their devoted heads, we will now
translate for the reader fragments from the forms of _exorcism_
employed by kabalists and Christians. The identity in phraseology,
may, perhaps, disclose one of the reasons why the Romish Church has
always desired to keep the faithful in ignorance of the meaning of
her Latin prayers and ritual. Only those directly interested in
the deception have had the opportunity to compare the rituals of
the Church and the magicians. The best Latin scholars were, until
a comparatively recent date, either churchmen, or dependent upon
the Church. Common people could not read Latin, and even if they
could, the reading of the books on magic was prohibited, under
the penalty of anathema and excommunication. The cunning device
of the confessional made it almost impossible to consult, even
surreptitiously, what the priests call a _grimoire_ (a devil’s
scrawl), or _Ritual of Magic_. To make assurance doubly sure, the
Church began destroying or concealing everything of the kind she
could lay her hands upon.
The following are translated from the _Kabalistic Ritual_, and that
generally known as the _Roman Ritual_. The latter was promulgated in
1851 and 1852, under the sanction of Cardinal Engelbert, Archbishop
of Malines, and of the Archbishop of Paris. Speaking of it, the
demonologist des Mousseaux says: “It is the ritual of Paul V.,
revised by the most learned of modern Popes, by the contemporary of
Voltaire, Benedict XIV.”[118]
KABALISTIC. ROMAN CATHOLIC.
(Jewish and Pagan.)
_Exorcism of Salt._ _Exorcism of Salt._[119]
The Priest-Magician blesses The Priest blesses the
the Salt, and says: _Salt_ and says: “_Creature
“_Creature of Salt_,[120] in of Salt_, I exorcise thee in
thee may remain the the name of the living God
<sc>WISDOM</sc> (of God); ... _become the health of
and may it preserve from all the soul and of the body_!
corruption _our minds and_ Everywhere where thou art
_bodies_. Through Hochmael (חכמאל thrown _may the unclean
God of wisdom), and the spirit be put to flight_....
power of _Ruach_ Hochmael _Amen._”
(Spirit of the Holy Ghost)
may the Spirits of matter
(bad spirits) before it
recede.... _Amen._”
_Exorcism of Water Exorcism of Water._
(and Ashes)._
“Creature of the Water, I “Creature of the water, in
exorcise thee ... by _the the name of the Almighty
three names_ which are God, the Father, the Son,
Netsah, Hod, and Jerod and the Holy Ghost ... _be
(kabalistic trinity), in the exorcised_.... I adjure thee
beginning and in the end, by in the name of the Lamb ...
Alpha and Omega, which are (the magician says _bull_ or
in the Spirit Azoth (Holy ox--_per alas Tauri_) of the
Ghost, or the ‘_Universal Lamb that trod upon the
Soul_’), I exorcise and basilisk and the aspic, and
adjure thee.... Wandering who crushes under his foot
eagle, may the Lord command the lion and the dragon.”
thee by the _wings of the
bull and his flaming
sword_.” (The cherub placed
at the east gate of Eden.)
_Exorcism of an _Exorcism of the Devil._
Elemental Spirit._
“Serpent, in the name of the * * * * *
Tetragrammaton, the Lord; He “O Lord, let him who carries
commands thee, by the angel along with him the terror,
and the lion. flee, struck in his turn by
terror and defeated. O thou,
“Angel of darkness, obey, who art the Ancient Serpent
and run away with this holy ... tremble before the hand
(exorcised) water. Eagle in of him who, having triumphed
chains, obey this sign, and of the tortures of hell (?)
retreat before the breath. _devictis gemitibus and
Moving serpent, crawl at my inferni_, recalled the souls
feet, or be tortured by to light.... The more whilst
_this sacred fire_, thou decay, the more
evaporate before this holy terrible will be thy torture
incense. Let water return to ... by Him who reigns over
water (the elemental spirit the living and the dead ...
of water); let the fire and who will judge the
burn, and the air circulate; century by fire, _sæculum
let the earth return to per ignem_, etc. In the name
earth by the virtue of the of the Father, Son, and the
Pentagram, which is the Holy Ghost. _Amen._”[121]
Morning Star, and in the
name of the tetragrammaton
which is traced in the
centre of _the Cross of
Light_. _Amen._”
It is unnecessary to try the patience of the reader any longer,
although we might multiply examples. It must not be forgotten that we
have quoted from the latest revision of the _Ritual_, that of 1851-2.
If we were to go back to the former one we would find a far more
striking identity, not merely of phraseology but of ceremonial form.
For the purpose of comparison we have not even availed ourselves
of the ritual of ceremonial magic of the _Christian_ kabalists of
the middle ages, wherein the language modelled upon a belief in the
divinity of Christ is, with the exception of a stray expression here
and there, identical with the Catholic Ritual.[122] The latter,
however, makes one improvement, for the originality of which the
Church should be allowed all credit. Certainly nothing so fantastical
could be found in a ritual of magic. “Give place,” apostrophizing
the “Demon,” it says, “give place to Jesus Christ ... thou _filthy,
stinking, and ferocious beast_ ... dost thou rebel? Listen and
tremble, Satan; enemy of the faith, enemy of the human race,
introducer of death ... root of all evil, promoter of vice, soul
of envy, origin of avarice, cause of discord, prince of homicide,
whom God curses; author of incest and sacrilege, inventor of all
obscenity, _professor_ of the most detestable actions, _and Grand
Master of Heretics_ (_!!_) (_Doctor Hæreticorum!_) What! ... dost
thou still stand? Dost dare to resist, and thou knowest that Christ,
our Lord, is coming?... Give place to Jesus Christ, give place to
the Holy Ghost, which, by His blessed Apostle Peter, has flung thee
down before the public, in the person of Simon the Magician” (_te
manifeste stravit in Simone mago_).[123]
After such a shower of abuse, no devil having the slightest feeling
of self-respect could remain in such company; unless, indeed, he
should chance to be an Italian Liberal, or King Victor Emmanuel
himself; both of whom, thanks to Pius IX., have become anathema-proof.