LE BON DIABLE.
The Devil repainted--Satan a divine agent--St. Orain's
heresy--Primitive universalism--Father Sinistrari--Salvation of
demons--Mediæval sects--Aquinas--His prayer for Satan--Popular
antipathies--The Devil's gratitude--Devil defending
innocence--Devil against idle lords--The wicked ale-wife--Pious
offenders punished--Anachronistic Devils--Devils turn to
poems--Devil's good advice--Devil sticks to his word--His love
of justice--Charlemagne and the Serpent--Merlin--His prison of
Air--Mephistopheles in Heaven.
The phrase which heads this chapter is a favourite one in France. It
may have had a euphemistic origin, for the giants dreaded by primitive
Europeans were too formidable to be lightly spoken of. But within
most of the period concerning which we have definite knowledge such
phrases would more generally have expressed the half-contemptuous pity
with which these huge beings with weak intellects were regarded. The
Devil imported with Christianity was made over, as we have seen,
into the image of the Dummeteufel, or stupid good-natured giant, and
he is represented in many legends which show him giving his gifts and
services for payments of which he is constantly cheated. Le Bon Diable
in France is somewhat of this character, and is often taken as the
sign of tradesmen who wish to represent themselves as lavishing their
goods recklessly for inadequate compensation. But the large accession
of demons and devils from the East through Jewish and Moslem channels,
of a character far from stupid, gave a new sense to that phrase and
corresponding ones. There is no doubt that a very distinct reaction
in favour of the Devil arose in Europe, and one expressive of very
interesting facts and forces. The pleasant names given him by the
masses would alone indicate this,--Monsieur De Scelestat, Lord Voland,
Blümlin (floweret), Federspiel (gay-plumed), Maitre Bernard, Maitre
Parsin (Parisian).
The Devil is not so black as he's painted. This proverb concerning the
long-outlawed Evil One has a respectable antiquity, and the feeling
underlying it has by no means been limited to the vulgar. Even the
devout George Herbert wrote--
We paint the Devil black, yet he
Hath some good in him all agree.
Robert Burns naively appeals to Old Nick's better nature--
But fare ye weel, auld Nickie-ben!
O wad ye tak a thought an' men'!
Ye aiblins might--I dinna ken--
Still ha'e a stake;
I'm wae to think upon yon den,
E'en for your sake!
It is hard to destroy the natural sentiments of the human
heart. However much they may be overlaid by the transient exigencies
of a creed, their indestructible nature is pretty certain to reveal
itself. The most orthodox supporters of divine cruelty in their
own theology will cry out against it in another. The saint who is
quite satisfied that the everlasting torture of Satan or Judas is
justice, will look upon the doom of Prometheus as a sign of heathen
heartlessness; and the burning of one widow for a few moments on
her husband's pyre will stimulate merciful missionary ardour among
millions of christians whose creed passes the same poor victim to
endless torture, and half the human race with her.
It is doubtful whether the general theological conception of the
functions of Satan is consistent with the belief that he is in a state
of suffering. As an agent of divine punishment he is a part of the
divine government; and it is even probable that had it not been for
the necessity of keeping up his office, theology itself would have
found some means of releasing him and his subordinates from hell,
and ultimately of restoring them to heaven and virtue. [195]
It is a legend of the island Iona that when St. Columba attempted to
build a church there, the Devil--i.e., the same Druid magicians who
tried to prevent his landing there by tempests--threw down the stones
as often as they were piled up. An oracle declared that the church
could arise only after some holy man had been buried alive at the spot,
and the saint's friend Orain offered himself for the purpose. After
Orain had been buried, and the wall was rising securely, St. Columba
was seized with a strong desire to look upon the face of his poor
friend once more. The wall was pulled down, the body dug up; but
instead of Orain being found dead, he sat up and told the assembled
christians around him that he had been to the other world, and
discovered that they were in error about various things,--especially
about Hell, which really did not exist at all. Outraged by this heresy
the christians immediately covered up Orain again in good earnest.
The resurrection of this primitive universalist of the seventh century,
and his burial again, may be regarded as typifying a dream of the
ultimate restoration of the universe to the divine sway which has
often given signs of life through christian history, though many times
buried. The germ of it is even in Paul's hope that at last 'God may be
all in all' (1 Cor. xv. 28). In Luke x. 17, also, it was related that
the seventy whom Jesus had sent out among the idol-worshipping Gentiles
'returned again with joy, saying, Lord, even the devils are subject
unto us through thy name.' These ideas are recalled in various legends,
such as that elsewhere related of the Satyr who came to St. Anthony to
ask his prayers for the salvation of his demonic tribe. On the strength
of Anthony's courteous treatment of that Satyr, the famous Consulteur
of the Inquisition, Father Sinistrari (seventeenth century), rested
much of his argument that demons were included in the atonement wrought
by Christ and might attain final beatitude. The Father affirmed that
this was implied in Christ's words, 'Other sheep I have which are not
of this flock: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice;
and there shall be one fold and one shepherd' [196] (John x. 16). That
these words were generally supposed to refer to the inclusion of the
Gentile world was not accepted by Sinistrari as impairing his argument,
but the contrary. He maintained with great ingenuity that the salvation
of the Gentiles logically includes the salvation of their inspiring
demons, and that there would not be one fold if these aerial beings,
whose existence all authorities attested, were excluded. He even
intimates, though more timidly, that their father, Satan himself,
as a participator in the sin of Adam and sharer of his curse, may
be included in the general provision of the deity for the entire and
absolute removal of the curse throughout nature.
Sinistrari's book was placed on the 'Index Expurgatorius' at Rome in
1709, 'donec corrigatur,' eight years after the author's death; it was
republished, 'correctus,' 1753. But the fact that such sentiments had
occupied many devout minds in the Church, and that they had reached
the dignity of a consistent and scholarly statement in theology, was
proved. The opinion grew out of deeper roots than New Testament phrases
or the Anthony fables. The Church had been for ages engaged in the vast
task of converting the Gentile world; in the course of that task it had
succeeded only by successive surrenders of the impossible principles
with which it had started. The Prince of this World had been baptized
afresh with every European throne ascended by the Church. Asmodeus
had triumphed in the sacramental inclusion of marriage; St. Francis
d'Assisi, preaching to the animals, represented innumerable pious
myths which had been impossible under the old belief in a universal
curse resting upon nature. The evolution of this tendency may be
traced through the entire history of the Church in such sects as the
Paulicians, Cathari, Bogomiles, and others, who, though they again
and again formulated anew the principle of an eternal Dualism, as
often revealed some further stage in the progressive advance of the
christianised mind towards a normal relation with nature. Thus the
Cathari maintained that only those beings who were created by the
evil principle would remain unrecovered; those who were created by
God, but seduced by the Adversary, would be saved after sufficient
expiation. The fallen angels, they believed, were passing through
earthly, in some cases animal, bodies to the true Church and to
heaven. Such views as these were not those of the learned, but of the
dissenting sects, and they prepared ignorant minds in many countries
for that revival of confidence in their banished deities which made
the cult of Witchcraft.
St. Thomas Aquinas, the 'Angelical Doctor,' in his famous work
'Summa Theologiæ,' maintains that in the Resurrection the bodies of
the redeemed will rise with all their senses and organs, including
those of sex, active and refined. The authentic affirmation of that
doctrine in the thirteenth century was of a significance far beyond
the comprehension of the Church. Aquinas confused the lines between
flesh and spirit, especially by admitting sex into heaven. The Devil
could not be far behind. The true interpretation of his doctrine is to
be found in the legend that Aquinas passed a night in prayer for the
salvation and restoration of the Devil. This legend is the subject
of a modern poem so fraught with the spirit of the mediæval heart,
pining in its dogmatic prison, that I cannot forbear quoting it here:--
All day Aquinas sat alone;
Compressed he sat and spoke no word,
As still as any man of stone,
In streets where never voice is heard;
With massive front and air antique
He sat, did neither move or speak,
For thought like his seemed words too weak.
The shadows brown about him lay;
From sunrise till the sun went out,
Had sat alone that man of grey,
That marble man, hard crampt by doubt;
Some kingly problem had he found,
Some new belief not wholly sound,
Some hope that overleapt all bound.
All day Aquinas sat alone,
No answer to his question came,
And now he rose with hollow groan,
And eyes that seemed half love, half flame.
On the bare floor he flung him down,
Pale marble face, half smile, half frown,
Brown shadow else, mid shadows brown.
'O God,' he said, 'it cannot be,
Thy Morning-star, with endless moan,
Should lift his fading orbs to thee,
And thou be happy on thy throne.
It were not kind, nay, Father, nay,
It were not just, O God, I say,
Pray for thy Lost One, Jesus, pray!
'How can thy kingdom ever come,
While the fair angels howl below?
All holy voices would be dumb,
All loving eyes would fill with woe,
To think the lordliest Peer of Heaven,
The starry leader of the Seven,
Would never, never, be forgiven.
'Pray for thy Lost One, Jesus, pray!
O Word that made thine angel speak!
Lord! let thy pitying tears have way;
Dear God! not man alone is weak.
What is created still must fall,
And fairest still we frailest call;
Will not Christ's blood avail for all?
'Pray for thy Lost One, Jesus, pray!
O Father! think upon thy child;
Turn from thy own bright world away,
And look upon that dungeon wild.
O God! O Jesus! see how dark
That den of woe! O Saviour! mark
How angels weep, how groan! Hark, hark!
'He will not, will not do it more,
Restore him to his throne again;
Oh, open wide that dismal door
Which presses on the souls in pain.
So men and angels all will say,
'Our God is good.' Oh, day by day,
Pray for thy Lost One, Jesus, pray!'
All night Aquinas knelt alone,
Alone with black and dreadful Night,
Until before his pleading moan
The darkness ebbed away in light.
Then rose the saint, and 'God,' said he,
'If darkness change to light with thee,
The Devil may yet an angel be.' [197]
While this might be the feeling of devout philosophers whose minds
were beginning to form a conception of a Cosmos in which the idea
of a perpetual empire of Evil could find no place, the humble and
oppressed masses, as we have seen in the chapter on Witchcraft,
were familiarising their minds with the powers and glories of a
Satan in antagonism to the deities and saints of the Church. It was
not a penitent devil supplicating for pardon whom they desired, but
the veritable Prince of the World, to whom as well as to themselves
their Christian oppressors were odious. They invested the Powers which
the priests pronounced infernal with those humanly just and genial
qualities that had been discarded by ecclesiastical ambition. The
legends which must be interpreted in this sense are very numerous,
and a few of the most characteristic must suffice us here. The habit of
attributing every mishap to the Devil was rebuked in many legends. One
of these related that when a party were driving over a rough road
the waggon broke down and one of the company exclaimed, 'This is a
bit of the Devil's work!' A gentleman present said, 'It is a bit of
corporation work. I don't believe in saddling the Devil with all the
bad roads and bad axles.' Some time after, when this second speaker was
riding over the same road alone, an old gentleman in black met him,
and having thanked him for his defence of the Devil, presented him
with a casket of splendid jewels. Very numerous are legends of the
Devil's apparition to assist poor architects and mechanics unable
to complete their contracts, even carving beautiful church pillars
and the like for them, and this sometimes without receiving any
recompense. The Devil's apparition in defence of accused innocence is
a well-known feature of European folklore. On one occasion a soldier,
having stopped at a certain inn, confided to the innkeeper some money
he had for safe-keeping, and when he was about to leave the innkeeper
denied having received the deposit. The soldier battered down the door,
and the neighbours of the innkeeper, a prominent man in the town,
put him in prison, where he lay in prospect of suffering death for an
attempted burglary. The poor soldier, being a stranger without means,
was unable to obtain counsel to defend him. When the parties appeared
before the magistrate, a smart young lawyer, with blue hat and white
feathers, unknown in the town, volunteered to defend the soldier,
and related the whole story with such effect that the innkeeper in his
excitement cried, 'Devil take me if I have the money!' Instantly the
smart lawyer spread his wings, and, seizing the innkeeper, disappeared
with him through the roof of the court-room. The innkeeper's wife,
struck with horror, restored the money. In an Altmark version of
this story the Devil visits the prisoner during the previous night
and asks for his soul as fee, but the soldier refuses, saying he had
rather die. Despite this the Devil intervened. It was an old-time
custom in Denmark for courts to sit with an open window, in order
that the Devil might more easily fly away with the perjurer.
Always a democrat, the Devil is said in many stories to have interfered
in favour of the peasant or serf against the noble. On one occasion he
relieved a certain district of all its arrogant and idle noblemen by
gathering them up in a sack and flying away with them; but unhappily,
as he was passing over the town of Friesack, his sack came in collision
with the church steeple, and through the hole so torn a large number
of noble lords fell into the town--which thence derived its name--and
there they remained to be patrons of the steeple and burthens on
the people.
The Devil was universally regarded as a Nemesis on all publicans and
ale-wives who adulterated the beer they dealt out to the people, or
gave short measures. At Reetz, in Altmark, the legend of an ale-wife
with whom he flew away is connected with a stone on which they are said
to have rested, and the villagers see thereon prints of the Devil's
hoof and the woman's feet. This was a favourite theme of old English
legends. The accompanying Figure (23), one of the misereres in Ludlow
parish church, Shropshire, represents the end of a wicked ale-wife. A
devil on one side reads the long list of her shortcomings, and on the
other side hell-mouth is receiving other sinners. A devil with bagpipe
welcomes her arrival. She carries with her only her fraudulent measure
and the fashionable head-dress paid for out of its wicked gains.
In a marionette performance which I witnessed at Tours, the accusations
brought against the tradesmen who cheated the people were such as to
make one wish that the services of some equally strict devil could
be secured by the authorities of all cities, to detect adulterators
and dealers in false weights and measures. The same retributive
agency, in the popular interest, was ascribed to the Devil in his
attitude towards misers. There being no law which could reach men
whose hoarded wealth brought no good to themselves or others, such
were deemed proper cases for the interposition of the Devil. There
is a significant contrast between the legends favoured by the Church
and those of popular origin. The former, made prominent in frescoes,
often show how, at the weighing of souls, the sinner is saved by a
saint or angel, or by some instance of service to the Church being
placed in the scale against the otherwise heavier record of evil
deeds. A characteristic legend is that which is the subject of the
frescoes in the portico of St. Lorenzo Church at Rome (thirteenth
century). St. Lawrence sees four devils passing his hermitage, and
learns from them that they are going for the soul of Henry II. In
the next scene, when the wicked Count is weighed, the scroll of his
evil deeds far outweighs that of his good actions, until the Saint
casts into the scale a chalice which the prince had once given to his
church. For that one act Henry's soul ascends to paradise amid the
mortification of the Devils. Though Charles Martel saved Europe from
Saracen sway, he once utilised episcopal revenues for relief of the
state; consequently a synod declares him damned, a saint sees him in
hell, a sulphurous dragon issues from his grave. On the other hand,
the popular idea of the fate of distinguished sinners may be found
hid under misereres, where kings sometimes appear in Hell, and in
the early picture-books which contained a half-christianised folklore.
It has been observed that the early nature-deities, reflecting the
evil and good of nature, in part through the progress of human
thought and ideality, and through new ethnical rivalries, were
degraded into demons. They then represented the pains, obstructions,
and fears in nature. We have seen that as these apparent external
evils were vanquished or better understood, the demons passed
to the inward nature, and represented a new series of pains,
obstructions, and fears. But these, too, were in part vanquished, or
better understood. Still more, they so changed their forms that the
ancient demons-turned-devils were no longer sufficiently expressive
to represent them. Thus we find that the Jews, mohammedans, and
christians did not find their several special antagonists impressively
represented by either Satan, Iblis, or Beelzebub. Each, therefore,
personified its foe in accordance with later experiences--an Opponent
called Armillus, Aldajjail, Antichrist (all meaning the same thing),
in whom all other devils were merged.
As to their spirit; but as to their forms they shrank in size and
importance, and did duty in small ways. We have seen how great dragons
were engaged in frightening boys who fished on Sundays, or oppressive
squires; how Satan presided over wine-casks, or was adapted to the
punishment of profanity; how hosts of once tremendous fiends turned
into the grotesque little forms which Callot, truly copying the popular
notions around him, painted as motley imps disturbing monks at their
prayers. Such diminutions of the devils correspond to a parallel
process among the gods and goddesses, by which they were changed to
'little people' or fairies. In both cases the transformation is an
expression of popular disbelief in their reality.
But revivals took place. The fact of evil is permanent; and whenever
the old chains of fear, after long rusting, finally break, there
follows an insurrection against the social and moral order which
alarms the learned and the pious. These see again the instigations
of evil powers, and it takes form in the imagination of a Dante,
a Luther, a Milton. But when these new portraits of the Devil are
painted, it is with so much contemporary colouring that they do not
answer to the traditional devils preserved in folklore. Dante's Worm
does not resemble the serpent of fable, nor does Milton's Satan
answer to the feathered clown of Miracle Plays. Thus, behind the
actual evils which beset any time, there stands an array of grand
diabolical names, detached from present perils, on which the popular
fancy may work without really involving any theory of Absolute Evil
at all. Were starry Lucifer to be restored to his heavenly sphere,
he would be one great brand plucked from the burning, but the burning
might still go on. Theology itself had filled the world with other
devils by diabolising all the gods and goddesses of rival religions,
and the compassionate heart was thus left free to select such forms or
fair names as preserved some remnant of ancient majesty around them,
or some ray from their once divine halo, and pray or hope for their
pardon and salvation. Fallen foes, no longer able to harm, can hardly
fail to awaken pity and clemency.
With the picture of Dives and Lazarus presented elsewhere
(vol. i. p. 281) may be instructively compared the accompanying
scene of a rich man's death-bed (Fig. 24), taken from 'Ars Moriendi,'
one of the early block-books. This picture is very remarkable from
the suggestion it contains of an opposition between a devil on the
dying man's right and the hideous dragon on his left. While the
dragon holds up a scroll, bidding him think of his treasure (Yntende
thesauro), the Devil suggests provision for his friends (Provideas
amicis). This devil seems to be a representative of the rich man's
relatives who stand near, and appears to be supported by his ugly
superior, who points towards hell as the penalty of not making such
provision as is suggested. There would appear to be in this picture
a vague distinction between the mere bestial fiend who tempts, and
the ugly but good-natured devil who punishes, and whom rich sinners
cannot escape by bequests to churches.
One of the most notable signs of the appearance of 'the good Devil'
was the universal belief that he invariably stuck to his word. In
all European folklore there is no instance of his having broken a
promise. In this respect his reputation stands far higher than that
of the christians, seeing that it was a boast of the saints that,
following the example of their godhead, who outwitted Satan in the
bargain for man's redemption, they were continually cheating the
Devil by technical quibbles. There is a significant saying found
among Prussian and Danish peasants, that you may obtain a thing by
calling on Jesus, but if you would be sure of it you must call on
the Devil! The two parties were judged by their representatives.
One of the earliest legendary compacts with the Devil was that made
by St. Theophilus in the sixth century; when he became alarmed and
penitent, the Virgin Mary managed to trick Satan out of the fatal
bond. The 'Golden Legend' of Jacobus de Voragine tells why Satan was
under the necessity of demanding in every case a bond signed with
blood. 'The christians,' said Satan, 'are cheats; they make all sorts
of promises so long as they want me, and then leave me in the lurch,
and reconcile themselves with Christ so soon as, by my help, they
have got what they want.'
Even apart from the consideration of possessing the soul, the
ancient office of Satan as legal prosecutor of souls transmitted,
to the latest forms into which he was modified, this character for
justice. Many mediæval stories report his gratitude whenever he is
treated with justice, though some of these are disguised by connection
with other demonic forms. Such is the case with the following romance
concerning Charlemagne.
When Charlemagne dwelt at Zurich, in the house commonly called 'Zum
Loch,' he had a column erected to which a bell was attached by a
rope. Any one that demanded justice could ring this bell when the
king was at his meals. It happened one day that the bell sounded,
but when the servants went to look no one was there. It continued
ringing, so the Emperor commanded them to go again and find out the
cause. They now remarked that an enormous serpent approached the rope
and pulled it. Terrified, they brought the news to the Emperor, who
immediately rose in order to administer justice to beast as well as
man. After the reptile had respectfully inclined before the emperor,
it led him to the banks of the river and showed him, sitting upon
its nest and eggs, an enormous toad. Charlemagne having examined
the case decided thus:--The toad was condemned to be burnt and
justice shown to the serpent. The verdict was no sooner given than
it was accomplished. A few days after the snake returned to court,
bowed low to the King, crept upon the table, took the cover from a
gold goblet standing there, dropped into it a precious stone, bowed
again and crept away. On the spot where the serpent's nest had been,
Charlemagne built a church called 'Wasserkelch.' The stone he gave
to his much-loved spouse. This stone possessed the power of making
the owner especially loved by the Emperor, so that when absent from
his queen he mourned and longed for her. She, well aware that if
it came into other hands the Emperor would soon forget her, put it
under her tongue in the hour of death. The queen was buried with
the stone, but Charlemagne could not separate himself from the body,
so had it exhumed, and for eighteen years carried it about with him
wherever he went. In the meantime, a courtier who had heard of the
secret virtue of the stone, searched the corpse, and at last found
the stone hidden under the tongue, and took it away and concealed it
on his own person. Immediately the Emperor's love for his wife turned
to the courtier, whom he now scarcely permitted out of his sight. At
Cologne the courtier in a fit of anger threw the stone into a hot
spring, and since then no one has succeeded in finding it. The love
the Emperor had for the knight ceased, but he felt himself wonderfully
attracted to the place where the stone lay hidden. On this spot he
founded Aix-la-Chapelle, his subsequent favourite place of residence.
It is not wonderful that the tradition should arise at Aix, founded
by the human hero of this romance, that the plan of its cathedral
was supplied by the Devil; but it is characteristic there should be
associated with this legend an example of how he who as a serpent
was awarded justice by Charlemagne was cheated by the priests of
Aix. The Devil gave the design on condition that he was to have the
first who entered the completed cathedral, and a wolf was goaded into
the structure in fulfilment of the contract!
In the ancient myth and romaunt of 'Merlin' may be found the mediæval
witness to the diabolised religion of Britain. The emasculated
saints of the South-east could not satisfy the vigorous race in the
North-west, and when its gods were outlawed as devils they brought
the chief of them back, as it were, had him duly baptized and set
about his old work in the form of Merlin! Here, side by side with the
ascetic Jesus, brought by Gatien and Augustin, was a Northern Christ,
son of an Arch-incubus, born of a Virgin, baptized in the shrunken
Jordan of a font, performing miracles, summoning dragons to his aid,
overcoming Death and Hell in his way, brought before his Pilate but
confounding him, throning and dethroning kings, and leading forth, on
the Day of Pentecost, an army whose knights are inspired by Guenever's
kisses in place of flaming tongues. How Merlin 'went about doing good,'
after the Northman's ideal of such work; how he saved the life of his
unwedded mother by proving that her child (himself) was begotten by
a devil without her knowledge; how, as a child, he exposed at once
the pretension of the magistrate to high birth and the laxity of his
lady and his parson; how he humiliated the priestly astrologers of
Vortigern, and prophesied the destruction of that usurper just as
it came to pass; how he served Uther during his seven years' reign,
and by enabling him to assume the shape of the Duke of Cornwall
and so enjoy the embraces of the Duchess Igerna, secured the birth
of Arthur and hope of the Sangréal; [198] how he defended Arthur's
legitimacy of birth and assisted him in causing illegitimate births;
and how at last he was bound by his own spells, wielded by Vivien,
in a prison of air where he now remains;--this was the great mediæval
gospel of a baptized christian Antichrist which superseded the imported
kingdom not of this world.
Merlin was the Good Devil, but baptism was a fatal Vivien-spell to
him. He still dwells in all the air which is breathed by Anglo-Saxon
men,--an ever-expanding prison! Whether the Briton is transplanted in
America, India, or Africa, he still carries with him the Sermon on the
Mount as inspired by his baptized Prince of the Air, and his gospel
of the day is, 'If thine enemy hunger, starve him; if he thirst, give
him fire; if he hate you, heap melted lead on his head!' Such remains
the soul of the greatest race, under the fatal spell of a creed that
its barbarism needs only baptism to be made holiness and virtue.
In the reign of George II., when Lord Bute and a Princess of easy
virtue were preying on England, and fanatical preachers were
directing their donkeys to heaven beside the conflagration of
John Bull's house, the eye of Hogarth at least (as is shown in our
Figure 25, from his 'Raree Show') was able to see what the baptized
Merlin had become in his realm of Air. The other worldly-Devil is
serpent-legged Hypocrisy. The Nineteenth Century has replaced Merlin
by Mephistopheles, the Devil who, despite a cloven foot, steps firmly
on earth, and means the power that wit and culture can bring against
the baptized giant Force. Him the gods fear not, even look upon with
satisfaction. In the 'Prologue in Heaven,' of Goethe's 'Faust,' the
Lord is even more gracious to Mephistopheles than the Jehovah of Job
was to Satan. 'The like of thee have never moved my hate,' he says--
Man's active nature, flagging, seeks too soon the level;
Unqualified repose he learns to crave;
Whence, willingly, the comrade him I gave,
Who works, excites, and must create, as Devil.
This is but a more modern expression of the rabbinical fable,
already noted, that when the first man was formed there were beside
him two Spirits,--one on the right that remained quiescent, another
on the left who ever moved restlessly up and down. When the first
sin was committed, he of the left was changed to a devil. But he
still meant the progressive, inquiring nature of man. 'The Spirit I,
that evermore denies,' says the Mephistopheles of Goethe. How shall
man learn truth if he know not the Spirit that denies? How shall
he advance if he know not the Spirit of discontent? This restless
spirit gains through his ignorance a cloven hoof,--a divided movement,
sometimes right, sometimes wrong. From his selfishness it acquires
a double tongue. But both hoof and serpent-tongue are beneath the
evolutional power of experience; they shall be humanised to the foot
that marches firmly on earth, and the tongue that speaks truth; and,
the baptismal spell broken, Merlin shall descend, bringing to man's
aid all his sharp-eyed dragons transformed to beautiful Arts.