WAR ON EARTH.
The Abode of Devils--Ketef--Disorder--Talmudic legends--The
restless Spirit--The Fall of Lucifer--Asteria, Hecate, Lilith--The
Dragon's triumph--A Gipsy legend--Cædmon's Poem of the Rebellious
Angels--Milton's version--The Puritans and Prince Rupert--Bel as
ally of the Dragon--A 'Mystery' in Marionettes--European Hells.
'Rejoice, ye heavens, and ye that dwell in them! Woe to the earth
and the sea! for the devil is come down to you, having great wrath,
because he knoweth that he hath but a short time.' This passage from
the Book of Revelations is the refrain of many and much earlier
scriptures. The Assyrian accounts of the war in heaven, given in
the preceding chapter, by no means generally support the story that
the archdragon was slain by Bel. Even the one that does describe the
chief dragon's death leaves her comrades alive, and the balance of
testimony is largely in favour of the theory which prevailed, that the
rebellious angels were merely cast out of heaven, and went to swell
the ranks of the dark and fearful abode which from the beginning had
been peopled by the enemies of the gods. The nature of this abode is
described in various passages of the Bible, and in many traditions.
'Out of the north an evil shall break forth upon all the inhabitants of
the land.' So said Jeremiah (i. 14), in pursuance of nearly universal
traditions as to the region of space in which demons and devils
had their abode. 'Hell is naked before him,' says Job (xxvi. 6),
'and destruction hath no covering. He stretcheth out the north over
the empty place.' According to the Hebrew mythology this habitation
of demons was a realm of perpetual cold and midnight, which Jehovah,
in creating the world, purposely left chaotic; so it was prepared
for the Devil and his angels at the foundation of the world.
Although this northern hell was a region of disorder, so far as the
people of Jehovah and the divine domain were concerned, they had
among themselves a strong military and aristocratic government. It
was disorder perfectly systematised. The anarchical atmosphere of
the region is reflected in the abnormal structures ascribed to the
many devils with whose traits Jewish and Arabic folklore is familiar,
and which are too numerous to be described here. Such a devil, for
instance, is Bedargon, 'hand-high,' with fifty heads and fifty-six
hearts, who cannot strike any one or be struck, instant death ensuing
to either party in such an attack. A more dangerous devil is Ketef,
identified as the 'terror from the chambers' alluded to by Jeremiah
(xxxii. 25), 'Bitter Pestilence.' His name is said to be from kataf,
'cut and split,' because he divides the course of the day; and those
who are interested to compare Hebrew and Hindu myths may find it
interesting to note the coincidences between Ketef and Ketu, the
cut-off tail of Ráhu, and source of pestilence. [59] Ketef reigns
neither in the dark or day, but between the two; his power over the
year is limited to the time between June 17 and July 9, during which
it was considered dangerous to flog children or let them go out after
four P.M. Ketef is calf-headed, and consists of hide, hair, and eyes;
he rolls like a cask; he has a terrible horn, but his chief terror
lies in an evil eye fixed in his heart which none can see without
instant death. The arch-fiend who reigns over the infernal host has
many Court Fools--probably meteors and comets--who lead men astray.
All these devils have their regulations in their own domain, but, as
we have said, their laws mean disorder in that part of the universe
which belongs to the family of Jehovah. In flying about the world
they are limited to places which are still chaotic or waste. They
haunt such congenial spots as rocks and ruins, and frequent desert,
wilderness, dark mountains, and the ruins of human habitations. They
can take possession of a wandering star.
There is a pretty Talmudic legend of a devil having once gone to sleep,
when some one, not seeing him of course, set down a cask of wine on
his ears. In leaping up the devil broke the cask, and being tried for
it, was condemned to repay the damage at a certain period. The period
having elapsed before the money was brought, the devil was asked the
cause of the delay. He replied that it was very difficult for devils
to obtain money, because men were careful to keep it locked or tied
up; and 'we have no power,' he said, 'to take from anything bound
or sealed up, nor can we take anything that is measured or counted;
we are permitted to take only what is free or common.'
According to one legend the devils were specially angered, because
Jehovah, when he created man, gave him dominion over things in the
sea (Gen. i. 28), that being a realm of unrest and tempest which they
claimed as belonging to themselves. They were denied control of the
life that is in the sea, though permitted a large degree of power
over its waters. Over the winds their rule was supreme, and it was
only by reducing certain demons to slavery that Solomon was able to
ride in a wind-chariot.
Out of these several realms of order and disorder in nature were
evolved the angels and the devils which were supposed to beset man. The
first man is said to have been like an angel. From the instant of
his creation there attended him two spirits, whom the rabbins found
shadowed out in the sentence, 'Jehovah-Elohim formed man of the dust
of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life;
and man became a living soul' (Gen. ii. 7). This 'breath of life'
was a holy spirit, and stood on Adam's right; the 'living soul' was a
restless spirit on his left, which continually moved up and down. When
Adam had sinned, this restless spirit became a diabolical spirit,
and it has ever acted as mediator between man and the realm of anarchy.
It has been mentioned that in the Assyrian legends of the Revolt in
Heaven we find no adequate intimation of the motive by which the rebels
were actuated. It is said they interrupted the heavenly song, that they
brought on an eclipse, that they afflicted human beings with disease;
but why they did all this is not stated. The motive of the serpent
in tempting Eve is not stated in Genesis. The theory which Cædmon
and Milton have made so familiar, that the dragons aspired to rival
Jehovah, and usurp the throne of Heaven, must, however, have been
already popular in the time of Isaiah. In his rhapsody concerning
the fall of Babylon, he takes his rhetoric from the story of Bel
and the Dragon, and turns a legend, as familiar to every Babylonian
as that of St. George and the Dragon now is to Englishmen, into an
illustration of their own doom. The invective is directed against
the King of Babylon, consequently the sex of the devil is changed;
but the most remarkable change is in the ascription to Lucifer of a
clear purpose to rival the Most High, and seize the throne of heaven.
'Hell from beneath is moved for thee to meet thee at thy coming,
it stirreth up the (spirits of) the dead, even all the chief ones
(great goats) of the earth: it hath raised up from their thrones all
the kings of the nations (demon-begotten aliens). All these shall
say unto thee, Art thou also become weak as we? Art thou become like
unto us? Thy splendour is brought down to the underworld, and the
noise of thy viols: the worm is spread under thee, and the worms
cover thee. How art thou fallen, O Lucifer (Daystar), son of the
morning! how art thou cut down to the ground which didst weaken the
nations! For thou hast said in thy heart, I will ascend into (the
upper) heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars (archangels)
of God: I will sit (reign) also upon the mount of the congregation
(the assembly of the enemies of God) in the sides of the north. I will
ascend above the heights of the clouds (the thunder-throne of Jehovah);
I will be like the Most High. Yet shalt thou be brought down to hell,
to the sides of the pit.' [60]
In this passage we mark the arena of the combat shifted from heaven
to earth. It is not the throne of heaven but that of the world at
which the fiends now aim. Nay, there is confession in every line of
the prophecy that the enemy of Jehovah has usurped his throne. Hell
has prevailed, and Lucifer is the Prince of this World. The celestial
success has not been maintained on earth. This would be the obvious
fact to a humiliated, oppressed, heavily-taxed people, who believed
themselves the one family on earth sprung from Jehovah, and their
masters the offspring of demons. This situation gave to the vague
traditions of a single combat between Bel and the Dragon, about an
eclipse or a riot, the significance which it retained ever afterward of
a mighty conflict on earth between the realms of Light and Darkness,
between which the Elohim had set a boundary-line (Gen. i. 4) in
the beginning.
A similar situation returned when the Jews were under the sway of
Rome, and then all that had ever been said of Babylon was repeated
against Rome under the name of Edom. It recurred in the case of those
Jews who acknowledged Jesus as their Messiah: in the pomp and glory
of the Cæsars they beheld the triumph of the Powers of Darkness,
and the burthen of Isaiah against Lucifer was raised again in that
of the Apocalypse against the seven-headed Dragon. It is notable how
these writers left out of sight the myth of Eden so far as it did
not belong to their race. Isaiah does not say anything even of the
serpent. The Apocalypse says nothing of the two wonderful trees, and
the serpent appears only as a Dragon from whom the woman is escaping,
by whom she is not at all tempted. The shape of the Devil, and the
Combat with him, have always been determined by dangers and evils
that are actual, not such as are archæological.
A gipsy near Edinburgh gave me his version of the combat between God
and Satan as follows. 'When God created the universe and all things
in it, Satan tried to create a rival universe. He managed to match
everything pretty well except man. There he failed; and God to punish
his pride cast him down to the earth and bound him with a chain. But
this chain was so long that Satan was able to move over the whole
face of the earth!' There had got into this wanderer's head some bit
of the Babylonian story, and it was mingled with Gnostic traditions
about Ildabaoth; but there was also a quaint suggestion in Satan's
long chain of the migration of this mythical combat not only round
the world, but through the ages.
The early followers of Christ came before the glories of Paganism
with the legend that the lowly should inherit the earth. And though
they speedily surrendered to the rulers of the world in Rome, and made
themselves into a christian aristocracy, when they came into Northern
Europe the christians were again brought to confront with an humble
system the religion of thrones and warriors. St. Gatien celebrating
mass in a cavern beside the Loire, meant as much weakness in presence
of Paganism as the Huguenots felt twelve centuries later hiding in
the like caverns from St. Gatien's priestly successors.
The burthen of Isaiah is heard again, and with realistic intensity,
in the seventh century, and in the north, with our patriarchial
poet Cædmon.
The All-powerful had
Angel-tribes,
Through might of hand,
The holy Lord,
Ten established,
In whom he trusted well
That they his service
Would follow,
Work his will;
Therefore gave he them wit,
And shaped them with his hands,
The holy Lord.
He had placed them so happily,
One he had made so powerful,
So mighty in his mind's thought,
He let him sway over so much,
Highest after himself in heaven's kingdom.
He had made him so fair,
So beauteous was his form in heaven,
That came to him from the Lord of hosts,
He was like to the light stars.
It was his to work the praise of the Lord,
It was his to hold dear his joys in heaven,
And to thank his Lord
For the reward that he had bestowed on him in that light;
Then had he let him long possess it;
But he turned it for himself to a worse thing,
Began to raise war upon him,
Against the highest Ruler of heaven,
Who sitteth in the holy seat.
Dear was he to our Lord,
But it might not be hidden from him
That his angel began
To be presumptuous,
Raised himself against his Master,
Sought speech of hate,
Words of pride towards him,
Would not serve God,
Said that his body was
Light and beauteous,
Fair and bright of hue:
He might not find in his mind
That he would God
In subjection,
His Lord, serve:
Seemed to himself
That he a power and force
Had greater
Than the holy God
Could have
Of adherents.
Many words spake
The angel of presumption:
Thought, through his own power,
How he for himself a stronger
Seat might make,
Higher in heaven:
Said that him his mind impelled,
That he west and north
Would begin to work,
Would prepare structures:
Said it to him seemed doubtful
That he to God would
Be a vassal.
'Why shall I toil?' said he;
'To me it is no whit needful.
To have a superior;
I can with my hands as many
Wonders work;
I have great power
To form
A diviner throne,
A higher in heaven.
Why shall I for his favour serve,
Bend to him in such vassalage?
I may be a god as he
Stand by me strong associates,
Who will not fail me in the strife,
Heroes stern of mood,
They have chosen me for chief,
Renowned warriors!
With such may one devise counsel,
With such capture his adherents;
They are my zealous friends,
Faithful in their thoughts;
I may be their chieftain,
Sway in this realm:
Thus to me it seemeth not right
That I in aught
Need cringe
To God for any good;
I will no longer be his vassal.'
When the All-powerful it
All had heard,
That his angel devised
Great presumption
To raise up against his Master,
And spake proud words
Foolishly against his Lord,
Then must he expiate the deed,
Share the work of war,
And for his punishment must have
Of all deadly ills the greatest.
So doth every man
Who against his Lord
Deviseth to war,
With crime against the great Ruler.
Then was the Mighty angry;
The highest Ruler of heaven
Hurled him from the lofty seat;
Hate had he gained at his Lord,
His favour he had lost,
Incensed with him was the Good in his mind,
Therefore must he seek the gulf
Of hard hell-torment,
For that he had warred with heaven's Ruler,
He rejected him then from his favour,
And cast him into hell,
Into the deep parts,
Where he became a devil:
The fiend with all his comrades
Fell then from heaven above,
Through as long as three nights and days,
The angels from heaven into hell;
And them all the Lord transformed to devils,
Because they his deed and word
Would not revere;
Therefore them in a worse light,
Under the earth beneath,
Almighty God
Had placed triumphless
In the swart hell;
There they have at even,
Immeasurably long,
Each of all the fiends,
A renewal of fire;
Then cometh ere dawn
The eastern wind,
Frost bitter-cold,
Ever fire or dart;
Some hard torment
They must have,
It was wrought for them in punishment,
Their world was changed:
For their sinful course
He filled hell
With the apostates.
Whether this spirited description was written by Cædmon, and whether
it is of his century, are questions unimportant to the present
inquiry. The poem represents a mediæval notion which long prevailed,
and which characterised the Mysteries, that Satan and his comrades
were humiliated from the highest angelic rank to a hell already
prepared and peopled with devils, and were there, and by those devils,
severely punished. One of the illuminations of the Cædmon manuscript,
preserved in the Bodleian Library, shows Satan undergoing his torment
(Fig. 3). He is bound over something like a gridiron, and four devils
are torturing him, the largest using a scourge with six prongs. His
face manifests great suffering. His form is mainly human, but his
bushy tail and animal feet indicate that he has been transformed to
a devil similar to those who chastise him.
On Cædmon's foundation Milton built his gorgeous edifice. His
Satan is an ambitious and very English lord, in whom are reflected
the whole aristocracy of England in their hatred and contempt of
the holy Puritan Commonwealth, the Church of Christ as he deemed
it. The ages had brought round a similar situation to that which
confronted the Jews at Babylon, the early Christians of Rome, and
their missionaries among the proud pagan princes of the north. The
Church had long allied itself with the earlier Lucifers of the north,
and now represented the proud empire of a satanic aristocracy, and
the persecuted Nonconformists represented the authority of the King
of kings. In the English palace, and in the throne of Canterbury,
Milton saw his Beelzebub and his Satan.
Th' infernal serpent; he it was, whose guile,
Stirred up with envy and revenge, deceived
The mother of mankind, what time his pride
Had cast him out from heav'n, with all his host
Of rebel angels, by whose aid aspiring
To set himself in glory above his peers
He trusted to have equall'd the Most High,
If he opposed; and with ambitious aim
Against the throne and monarchy of God
Raised impious war in heav'n, and battle proud,
With vain attempt. Him the almighty Power
Hurl'd headlong flaming from th' ethereal sky,
With hideous ruin and combustion, down
To bottomless perdition, there to dwell
In adamantine chains and penal fire,
Who durst defy th' Omnipotent to arms. [61]
This adaptation of the imagery of Isaiah concerning Lucifer has in
it all the thunder hurled by Cromwell against Charles. Even a Puritan
poet might not altogether repress admiration for the dash and daring
of a Prince Rupert, to which indeed even his prosaic co-religionists
paid the compliment of ascribing to it a diabolical source. [62] Not
amid conflicts that raged in ancient Syria broke forth such lines as--
Better to reign in hell, than serve in heav'n.
With rallied arms to try what may be yet
Regain'd in heav'n, or what more lost in hell.
The Bel whom Milton saw was Cromwell, and the Dragon that serpent
of English oppression which the Dictator is trampling on in a
well-known engraving of his time. In the history of the Reformation
the old legend did manifold duty again, as in the picture (Fig. 13)
by Luther's friend Lucas Cranach.
It would seem that in the course of time Bel and the Dragon became
sufficiently close allies for their worshippers to feed and defend
them both with equal devotion, and for Daniel to explode them both in
carrying on the fight of his deity against the gods of Babylon. This
story of Bel is apocryphal as to the canon, but highly significant as
to the history we are now considering. Although the Jews maintained
their struggle against 'principalities and powers' long after it had
been a forlorn hope, and never surrendered, nor made alliance with the
Dragon, the same cannot be said of those who appropriated their title
of 'the chosen of God,' counterfeited their covenant, and travestied
their traditions. The alliance of Christianity and the Dragon has
not been nominal, but fearfully real. In fulfilling their mission of
'inheriting the earth,' the 'meek' called around them and pressed into
their service agents and weapons more diabolical than any with which
the Oriental imagination had peopled the abode of devils in the north.
At a Fair in Tours (August 1878) I saw two exhibitions which were
impressive enough in the light they cast through history. One was
a shrunken and sufficiently grotesque production by puppets of the
Mediæval 'Mystery' of Hell. Nearly every old scheme and vision of
the underworld was represented in the scene. The three Judges sat
to hear each case. A devil rang a bell whenever any culprit appeared
at the gate. The accused was ushered in by a winged devil--Satan, the
Accuser--who, by the show-woman's lips, stated the charges against each
with an eager desire to make him or her out as wicked as possible. A
devil with pitchfork received the sentenced, and shoved them down into
a furnace. There was an array of brilliant dragons around, but they
appeared to have nothing to do beyond enjoying the spectacle. But this
exhibition which was styled 'Twenty minutes in Hell,' was poor and
faint beside the neighbouring exhibition of the real Hell, in which
Europe had been tortured for fifteen centuries. Some industrious
Germans had got together in one large room several hundreds of the
instruments of torture by which the nations of the West were persuaded
to embrace Christianity. Every limb, sinew, feature, bone, and nerve of
the human frame had suggested to christian inventiveness some ingenious
device by which it might be tortured. Wheels on which to break bones,
chairs of anguish, thumbscrews, the iron Virgin whose embrace pierced
through every vital part; the hunger-mask which renewed for Christ's
sake the exact torment of Tantalus; even the machine which bore the
very name of the enemy that was cast down--the Dragon's Head! By such
instrumentalities came those quasi-miraculous 'Triumphs of the Cross,'
of which so much has been said and sung! The most salient phenomenon
of christian history is the steady triumph of the Dragon. Misleader
and Deceiver to the last, he is quite willing to sprinkle his fork
and rack with holy water, to cross himself, to label his caldrons
'divine justice,' to write CHRIST upon his forehead; by so doing he
was able to spring his infernal engine on the best nations, and cow
the strongest hearts, till from their pallid lips were wrung the
'confessions of faith,' or the last cry of martyred truth. So was
he able to assault the pure heavens once more, to quench the stars
of human faith and hope, and generate a race of polite, learned,
and civilised hypocrites. But the ancient sunbeams are after him:
the mandate has again gone forth, 'Let there be light,' and the Light
that now breaks forth is not of that kind which respects the limit
of Darkness.