ANIMALISM.
Celsus on Satan--Ferocities of inward nature--The Devil
of Lust--Celibacy--Blue Beards--Shudendozi--A lady in
distress--Bahirawa--The Black Prince--Madana Yaksenyo--Fair
fascinators--Devil of Jealousy--Eve's jealousy--Noah's wife--How
Satan entered the Ark--Shipwrights' Dirge--The Second Fall--The
Drunken curse--Solomon's Fall--Cellar Devils--Gluttony--The
Vatican haunted--Avarice--Animalised Devils--Man-shaped Animals.
'The christians,' said Celsus, 'dream of some antagonist to God--a
devil, whom they call Satanas, who thwarted God when he wished to
benefit mankind. The Son of God suffered death from Satanas, but
they tell us we are to defy him, and to bear the worst he can do;
Satanas will come again and work miracles, and pretend to be God,
but we are not to believe him. The Greeks tell of a war among the
gods; army against army, one led by Saturn, and one by Ophincus; of
challenges and battles; the vanquished falling into the ocean, the
victors reigning in heaven. In the Mysteries we have the rebellion
of the Titans, and the fables of Typhon, and Horus, and Osiris. The
story of the Devil plotting against man is stranger than either of
these. The Son of God is injured by the Devil, and charges us to
fight against him at our peril. Why not punish the Devil instead of
threatening poor wretches whom he deceives?' [199]
The christians comprehended as little as their critic that story
they brought, stranger than all the legends of besieged deities, of a
Devil plotting against man. Yet a little historic perspective makes
the situation simple: the gods had taken refuge in man, therefore
the attack was transferred to man.
Priestly legends might describe the gods as victorious over the
Titans, the wild forces of nature, but the people, to their sorrow,
knew better; the priests, in dealing with the people, showed that
they also knew the victory to be on the other side. A careful writer
remarks:--'When these (Greek) divinities are in any case appealed to
with unusual seriousness, their nature-character reappears.... When
Poseidon hesitates to defer to the positive commands of Zeus
(Il. xix. 259), Iris reminds him that there are the Erinnyes to
be reckoned with (Il. xv. 204), and he gives in at once. [200] The
Erinnyes represent the steady supremacy of the laws and forces of
nature over all personifications of them. Under uniform experience
man had come to recognise his own moral autocracy in his world. He
looked for incarnations, and it was a hope born of an atheistic view
of external nature. This was the case not only with the evolution of
Greek religion, but in that of every religion.
When man's hope was thus turned to rest upon man, he found that
all the Titans had followed him. Ophincus (Ophion) had passed
through Ophiomorphus to be a Man of Sin; and this not in one, but
by corresponding forms in every line of religious development. The
ferocities of outward nature appeared with all their force in man, and
renewed their power with the fine armoury of his intelligence. He must
here contend with tempests of passion, stony selfishness, and the whole
animal creation nestling in heart and brain, prowling still, though on
two feet. The theory of evolution is hardly a century old as science,
but it is an ancient doctrine of Religion. The fables of Pilpay and
Æsop represent an early recognition of 'survivals.' Recurrence to
original types was recognised as a mystical phenomenon in legends of
the bandit turned wolf, and other transformations. One of the oldest
doctrines of Eschatology is represented in the accompanying picture
(Fig. 26), from Thebes, of two dog-headed apes ferrying over to Hades
a gluttonous soul that has been weighed before Osiris, and assigned
his appropriate form.
The devils of Lust are so innumerable that several volumes would be
required to enumerate the legends and superstitions connected with
them. But, fortunately for my reader and myself, these, more than
any other class of phantoms, are very slight modifications of the
same form. The innumerable phallic deities, the incubi and succubæ,
are monotonous as the waves of the ocean, which might fairly typify
the vast, restless, and stormy expanse of sexual nature to which
they belong.
In 'The Golden Legend' there is a pleasant tale of a gentleman
who, having fallen into poverty, went into solitude, and was there
approached by a chevalier in black, mounted on a fine horse. This
knight having inquired the reason of the other's sadness, promised
him that, if he would return home, he would find at a certain place
vast sums of gold; but this was on condition that he should bring his
beautiful wife to that solitary spot in exactly a year's time. The
gentleman, having lived in greater splendour than ever during the
year, asked his wife to ride out with him on the appointed day. She
was very pious, and having prayed to the Virgin, accompanied her
husband to the spot. There the gentleman in black met them, but only
to tremble. 'Perfidious man!' he cried, 'is it thus you repay my
benefits? I asked you to bring your wife, and you have brought me
the Mother of God, who will send me back to hell!' The Devil having
vanished, the gentleman fell on his knees before the Virgin. He
returned home to find his wife sleeping quietly.
Were we to follow this finely-mounted gentleman in black, we should be
carried by no uncertain steps back to those sons of God who took unto
themselves wives of the daughters of men, as told in Genesis; and if
we followed the Virgin, we should, by less certain but yet probable
steps, discover her prototype in Eve before her fall, virginal as
she was meant to remain so far as man was concerned. In the chapters
relating to the Eden myth and its personages, I have fully given my
reasons for believing that the story of Eve, the natural childlessness
of Sarah, and the immaculate conception by Mary, denote, as sea-rocks
sometimes mark the former outline of a coast, a primitive theory
of celibacy in connection with that of a divine or Holy Family. It
need only be added here that this impossible ideal in its practical
development was effectual in restraining the sexual passions of
mankind. Although the reckless proclamation of the wild nature-gods
(Elohim), 'Be fruitful and multiply,' has been accepted by christian
bibliolators as the command of Jehovah, and philanthropists are even
punished for suggesting means of withstanding the effects of nuptial
licentiousness, yet they are farther from even the letter of the Bible
than those protestant celibates, the American Shakers, who discard
the sexual relation altogether. The theory of the Shakers that the
functions of sex 'belong to a state of nature, and are inconsistent
with a state of grace,' as one of their members in Ohio stated it to
me, coincides closely with the rabbinical theory that Adam and Eve,
by their sin, fell to the lowest of seven earthly spheres, and thus
came within the influence of the incubi and succubæ, by their union
with whom the world was filled with the demonic races, or Gentiles.
It is probable that the fencing-off of Eden, the founding of the
Abrahamic household and family, and the command against adultery, were
defined against that system of rape--or marriage by capture--which
prevailed among the 'sons of Elohim,' who saw the 'daughters of men
that they were fair,' and followed the law of their eyes. The older
rabbins were careful to preserve the distinction between the Bene
Elohim and the Ischim, and it ultimately amounted to that between
Jews and Gentiles.
The suspicion of a devil lurking behind female beauty thus begins. The
devils love beauty, and the beauties love admiration. These are perils
in the constitution of the family. But there are other legends which
report the frequency with which woman was an unwilling victim of the
lustful Anakim or other powerful lords. Throughout the world are
found legends of beautiful virgins sacrificed to powerful demons
or deities. These are sometimes so realistic as to suggest the
possibility that the fair captives of savage chieftains may indeed
have been sometimes victims of their Ogre's voracity as well as his
lust. At any rate, cruelty and lust are nearly related. The Blue
Beard myth opens out horrible possibilities.
One of the best-known legends in Japan is that concerning the
fiend Shudendozi, who derives his name from the two characteristics
of possessing the face of a child and being a heavy drinker. The
child-face is so emphasised in the stories that one may suspect either
that his fair victims were enticed to his stronghold by his air of
innocence, or else that there is some hint as to maternal longings
in the fable.
At the beginning of the eleventh century, when Ichijo II. was Emperor,
lived the hero Yorimitsa. In those days the people of Kiyoto were
troubled by an evil spirit which abode near the Rasho Gate. One night,
when merry with his companions, Ichijo said, 'Who dare go and defy
the demon of the Rasho Gate, and set up a token that he has been
there?' 'That dare I,' answered Tsuma, who, having donned his mail,
rode out in the bleak night to the Rasho Gate. Having written his
name on the gate, returning, his horse shivers with fear, and a
huge hand coming out of the gate seized the knight's helmet. He
struggled in vain. He then cuts off the demon's arm, and the demon
flies howling. Tsuma takes the demon's arm home, and locks it in a
box. One night the demon, having the shape of Tsuma's aunt, came and
said, 'I pray you show me the arm of the fiend.' 'I will show it to
no man, and yet to thee will I show it,' replied he. When the box
is opened a black cloud enshrouds the aunt, and the demon disappears
with the arm. Thereafter he is more troublesome than ever. The demon
carried off the fairest virgins of Kiyoto, ravished and ate them,
no beauty being left in the city. The Emperor commands Yorimitsa to
destroy him. The hero, with four trusty knights and a great captain,
went to the hidden places of the mountains. They fell in with an
old man, who invited them into his dwelling, and gave them wine to
drink; and when they were going he presented them with wine. This
old man was a mountain-god. As they proceeded they met a beautiful
lady washing blood from garments in a valley, weeping bitterly. In
reply to their inquiries she said the demon had carried her off
and kept her to wash his clothes, meaning when weary of her to
eat her. 'I pray your lordships to help me!' The six heroes bid
her lead them to the ogre's cave. One hundred devils mounted guard
before it. The woman first went in and told him they had come. The
ogre called them in, meaning to eat them. Then they saw Shudendozi,
a monster with the face of a little child. They offered him wine,
which flew to his head: he becomes merry and sleeps, and his head is
cut off. The head leaps up and tries to bite Yorimitsa, but he had
on two helmets. When all the devils are slain, he brings the head
of Shudendozi to the Emperor. In a similar story of the same country
the lustful ogre by no means possesses Shudendozi's winning visage,
as may be seen by the popular representation of him (Fig. 27), with
a knight's hand grasping his throat.
A Singhalese demon of like class is Bahirawa, who takes his name
from the hill of the same name, towering over Kandy, in which he
is supposed to reside. The legend runs that the astrologers told
a king whose queen was afflicted by successive miscarriages, that
she would never be delivered of a healthy child unless a virgin was
sacrificed annually on the top of this hill. This being done, several
children were borne to him. When his queen was advanced in years the
king discontinued this observance, and consequently many diseases
fell upon the royal family and the city, after which the annual
sacrifice was resumed, and continued until 1815, when the English
occupied Kandy. The method of the sacrifice was to bind a young girl
to a stake on the top of the hill with jungle-creepers. Beside her,
on an altar, were placed boiled rice and flowers; incantations were
uttered, and the girl left, to be generally found dead of fright in the
morning. An old woman, who in early years had undergone this ordeal,
survived, and her safety no doubt co-operated with English authority
to diminish the popular fear of Bahirawa, but still few natives would
be found courageous enough to ascend the hill at night.
One of the lustful demons of Ceylon is Calu Cumara, that is, the Black
Prince. He is supposed to have seven different apparitions,--prince
of fire, of flowers, of groves, of graves, of eye-ointments, of
the smooth body, and of sexuality. The Saga says he was a Buddhist
priest, who by exceeding asceticism and accumulated merits had gained
the power to fly, but passion for a beautiful woman caused him to
fall. By disappointment in the love for which he had parted with so
much his heart was broken, and he became a demon. In this condition
he is for ever tortured by the passion of lustful desire, the only
satisfaction of which he can obtain being to afflict young and fair
women with illness. He is a very dainty demon, and can be soothed if
great care is taken in the offerings made to him, which consist of
rice of finest quality, plantains, sugar-cane, oranges, cocoa-nuts,
and cakes. He is of dark-blue complexion and his raiment black.
In Singhalese demonolatry there are seven female demons of lust,
popularly called the Madana Yaksenyo. These sisters are--Cama (lust);
Cini (fire); Mohanee (ignorance); Rutti (pleasure); Cala (maturity);
Mal (flowers); Puspa (perfumes). They are the abettors of seduction,
and are invoked in the preparation of philtres. [201]
'It were well,' said Jason to Medea, 'that the female race should
not exist; then would there not have been any evil among men.' [202]
The same sentiment is in Milton--
Oh why did God,
Creator wise, that peopled highest heaven
With spirits masculine, create at last
This novelty on earth, this fair defect
Of nature, and not fill the world at once
With men, as angels, without feminine? [203]
Many traditions preceded this ungallant creed, some of which have
been referred to in our chapters on Lilith and Eve. Corresponding
to these are the stories related by Herodotus of the overthrow of
the kingdom of the Heraclidæ and freedom of the Greeks, through
the revenge of the Queen, 'the most beautiful of women,' upon her
husband Candaules for having contrived that Gyges should see her
naked. Candaules having been slain by Gyges at the instigation of the
Queen, and married her, the Fates decreed that their crime should be
punished on their fifth descendant. The overthrow was by Cyrus, and
it was associated with another woman, Mandane, daughter of the tyrant
Astyages, mother of Cyrus, who is thus, as the Madonna, to bruise
the head of the serpent who had crept into the Greek Paradise. [204]
The Greeks of Pontus also ascribed the origin of the Scythian race,
the scourge of all nations, to a serpent-woman, who, having stolen
away the mares which Herakles had captured from Gergon, refused to
restore them except on condition of having children by him. From the
union of Herakles with this 'half virgin, half viper,' sprang three
sons, of whom the youngest was Scythes.
Not only are feminine seductiveness and liability to seduction
represented in the legends of female demons and devils, but quite as
much the jealousy of that sex. If the former were weaknesses which
might overthrow kingdoms, the latter was a species of animalism which
could devastate the home and society. Although jealousy is sometimes
regarded as venial, if not indeed a sign of true love, it is an outcome
of the animal nature. The Japanese have shown a true observation of
nature in portraying their female Oni (devil) of jealousy (Fig. 28)
with sharp erect horns and bristling hair. The raising 'of the
ornamental plumes by many birds during their courtship,' mentioned
by Mr. Darwin, is the more pleasing aspect of that emotion which,
blending with fear and rage, puffs out the lizard's throat, ruffles
the cock's neck, and raises the hair of the insane. [205]
An ancient legend mingles jealousy with the myth of Eden at every
step. Rabbi Jarchi says that the serpent was jealous of Adam's
connubial felicity, and a passage in Josephus shows that this was an
ancient opinion. The jealousy of Adam's second wife felt by his first
(Lilith) was by many said to be the cause of her conspiracy with
the serpent. The most beautiful mediæval picture of her that I have
seen was in an illuminated Bible in Strasburg, in which, with all
her wealth of golden hair and her beauty, Lilith holds her mouth,
with a small rosy apple in it, towards Adam. Eve seems to snatch
it. Then there is an old story that when Eve had eaten the apple
she saw the angel of death, and urged Adam to eat the fruit also,
in order that he might not become a widower.
It is remarkable that there should have sprung up a legend that Satan
made his second attack upon the race formed by Jehovah, and his plan
for perpetuating it on earth by means of a flirtation with Noah's
wife, and also by awakening her jealousy. The older legend concerning
Noah's wife is that mentioned by Tabari, which merely states that she
ridiculed the predictions of a deluge by her husband. So much might
have been suggested by the silence of the Bible concerning her. The
Moslem tradition that the Devil managed to get into the ark is also
ancient. He caught hold of the ass's tail just as it was about to
enter. The ass came on slowly, and Noah, becoming impatient, exclaimed,
'You cursed one, come in quick!' When Noah, seeing the Devil in the
ark, asked by what right he was there, the other said, 'By your order;
you said, "Accursed one, come in;" I am the accursed one!' This story,
which seems contrived to show that one may not be such an ass as he
looks, was superseded by the legend which represents Satan as having
been brought into the ark concealed under Noria's (or Noraita's) dress.
The most remarkable legend of this kind is that found in the Eastern
Church, and which is shown in various mediæval designs in Russia. Satan
is shown, in an early sixteenth century picture belonging to Count
Uvarof (Fig. 29), offering Noah's wife a bunch of khmel (hops) with
which to brew kvas and make Noah drunk; for the story was that Noah
did not tell his wife that a deluge was coming, knowing that she
could not keep a secret. In the old version of the legend given by
Buslaef, 'after apocryphal tradition used by heretics,' Satan always
addresses Noah's wife as Eve, which indicates a theory. It was meant
to be considered as a second edition of the attack on the divine
plan begun in Eden, and revived in the temptation of Sara. Satan not
only taught this new Eve how to make kvas but also vodka (brandy);
and when he had awakened her jealousy about Noah's frequent absence,
he bade her substitute the brandy for the beer when her husband,
as usual, asked for the latter. When Noah was thus in his cups she
asked him where he went, and why he kept late hours. He revealed his
secret to his Eve, who disclosed it to Satan. The tempter appears
to have seduced her from Noah, and persuaded her to be dilatory when
entering the ark. When all the animals had gone in, and all the rest
of her family, Eve said, 'I have forgotten my pots and pans,' and went
to fetch them; next she said, 'I have forgotten my spoons and forks,'
and returned for them. All of this had been arranged by Satan in order
to make Noah curse; and he had just slipped under Eve's skirt when he
had the satisfaction of hearing the intended Adam of a baptized world
cry to his wife, 'Accursed one, come in!' Since Jehovah himself could
not prevent the carrying out of a patriarch's curse, Satan was thus
enabled to enter the ark, save himself from being drowned, and bring
mischief into the human world once more.
This is substantially the same legend as that of the mediæval Morality
called 'Noah's Ark, or the Shipwright's Ancient Play or Dirge.' The
Devil says to Noah's wife:--
Yes, hold thee still le dame,
And I shall tell thee how;
I swear thee by my crooked snout,
All that thy husband goes about
Is little to thy profit.
Yet shall I tell thee how
Thou shalt meet all his will;
Do as I shall bid thee now,
Thou shalt meet every deal.
Have here a drink full good
That is made of a mightful main,
Be he hath drunken a drink of this,
No longer shall he learn:
Believe, believe, my own dear dame,
I may no longer bide;
To ship when thou shalt sayre,
I shall be by thy side.
There are some intimations in the Slavonic version which look as if
it might have belonged to some Paulician or other half-gnostic theory
that the temptation of Noraita (Eve II.), and her alienation from
her husband, were meant to prevent the repopulation of the Earth. [206]
The next attempt of the Devil, as agent of the Elohistic creation,
to ruin the race of man, introduces us to another form of animalism
which has had a large expression in Devil-lore. It is related in
rabbinical mythology that when, as is recorded in Gen. ix. 20, Noah
was planting a vineyard, the Devil (Asmodeus) came and proposed to
join him in the work. This having been agreed to, this evil partner
brought in succession a sheep, a lion, and a hog, and sacrificed
them on the spot. The result was that the wine when drunk first gave
the drinker the quality of a sheep, then that of a lion, and finally
that of a hog. [207] It was by this means that Noah was reduced to
swinish inebriation. There followed the curses on those around him,
which, however drunken, were those of a father, and reproduced on
the cleansed world all the dooms which had been pronounced in Eden.
If the date of this legend could be made early enough, it would appear
to be a sort of revenge for this temptation of Noah to drunkenness
that Talmudic fable shows Asmodeus brought under bondage to Solomon,
and forced to work on the Temple, by means of wine. Asmodeus had
dug for himself a well, and planted beside it a tree, so making for
himself a pleasant spot for repose during his goings to and fro on
earth. But Solomon's messenger Benaja managed to cover this with a
tank which he filled with wine. Asmodeus, on his return, repeated
to himself the proverb, 'Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging,
and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise' (Prov. xx. 1); yet,
being very thirsty, he drank, fell asleep, and when he awoke found
himself loaded with chains.
However, after working for a time for Solomon, he discovered that
king's weaknesses and played upon them. Solomon was so puffed up with
a sense of his power that he accepted a challenge from his slave
(Asmodeus) to show his superiority without the assistance of his
magic ring, and without keeping his competitor in bonds. No sooner
was Asmodeus free, and in possession of the ring, than he transported
Solomon four hundred miles away, where he remained for a long time
among the seductive beauties of the Courts of Naamah, Rahab, and
other she-devils. Meanwhile the Devil, assuming the form of Solomon,
sat on his throne, and became the darling of his Queen and concubines.
The Devil of Wine and strong drink generally has a wide representation
in folklore. We find him in the bibulous Serpent of Japan, who first
loses his eight heads metaphorically, and then literally from the first
of Swords-men. The performances of Mephistopheles in Auerbach's Cellar
are commemorated in its old frescoes, and its motto: 'Live, drink,
carouse, remembering Faust and his punishment: it came slowly, but was
in ample measure.' Thuringian legends relate that the Devil tries to
stop the building of churches by casting down the stones, but this may
be stopped by the builders promising to erect a winehouse in the same
neighbourhood. An old English legend relates that a great man's cellar
was haunted by devils who drank up his wine. On one occasion a barrel
was marked with holy water, and the devil was found stuck fast on it.
Gluttony, both in eating and drinking, has had its many
personifications. The characteristics of the Hunger demons are
travestied in such devils as these, only the diabolical, as
distinguished from the demonic element, appears in features of
luxuriousness. The contrast between the starveling saints of the
early Church and the well-fed friars of later times was a frequent
subject of caricature, as in the accompanying example (Fig. 30) from
the British Museum, fourteenth century (MS. Arundel), where a lean
devil is satisfying himself through a fattened friar. One of the most
significant features of the old legend of Faust is the persistence of
the animal character in which Mephistopheles appears. He is an ugly
dog--a fit emblem of the scholar's relapse into the canine temper which
flies at the world as at a bone he means to gnaw. Faust does not like
this genuine form, and bids the Devil change it. Mephistopheles then
takes the form of a Franciscan friar; but 'the kernel of the brute'
is in him still, and he at once loads Faust's table with luxuries and
wines from the cellars of the Archbishop of Salzburg and other rich
priests. The prelates are fond of their bone too. When Mephistopheles
and Faust find their way into the Vatican, it is to witness carousals
of the Pope and his Cardinals. They snatch from them their luxuries and
wine-goblets as they are about to enjoy them. Against these invisible
invaders the holy men bring their crucifixes and other powers of
exorcism; and it is all snarling and growling--canine priest against
puppy astrologer. Nor was it very different in the history of the
long contention between the two for the big bone of Christendom.
The lust of Gold had its devils, and they were not different from
other types of animalism. This was especially the case with such
as represented money, extorted from the people to supply wealth to
dissolute princes and prelates. The giants of Antwerp represent the
power of the pagan monarchs who exacted tribute; but these were
replaced by such guardians of tribute-money as the Satyr of our
picture (Fig. 31), which Edward the Confessor saw seated on a barrel
of Danegeld,
Vit un déable saer desus
Le tresor, noir et hidus.
There are many good fables in European folklore with regard to the
miser's gold, and 'devil's money' generally, which exhibit a fine
instinct. A man carries home a package of such gold, and on opening it
there drop out, instead of money, paws and nails of cats, frogs, and
bears--the latter being an almost personal allusion to the Exchange. A
French miser's money-safe being opened, two frogs only were found. The
Devil could not get any other soul than the gold, and the cold-blooded
reptiles were left as a sign of the life that had been lived.
In the legends of the swarms of devils which beset St. Anthony we
find them represented as genuine animals. Our Anglo-Saxon fathers,
however, were quite unable to appreciate the severity of the conflict
which man had to wage with the animal world in Southern countries and
in earlier times. Nor had their reverence for nature and its forms
been crushed out by the pessimist theory of the earth maintained by
Christianity. Gradually the representation of the animal tempters was
modified, and instead of real animal forms there were reported the
bearded bestialities which surrounded St. Guthlac and St. Godric. The
accompanying picture (Fig. 32) is a group from Breughel (1565),
representing the devils called around St. James by a magician. These
grotesque forms will repay study. If we should make a sketch of the
same kind, only surrounding the saint with the real animal shapes
most nearly resembling these nondescripts, it would cease to be a
diabolical scene.
For beastliness is not a character of beasts; it is the arrest of
man. It is not the picturesque donkey in the meadow that is ridiculous,
but the donkey on two feet; not the bear of zoological gardens that
is offensive morally, but the rough, who cannot always be caged; it
is the two-legged calf, the snake pretending to be a man, the ape in
evening dress, who ever made the problem of evil at all formidable. It
was insoluble until men had discovered as Science that law of Evolution
which the ancient world knew as Ethics.
A Hindu fable relates that the animals, in their migration, came to
an abyss they could not cross, and that the gods made man as a bridge
across it. Science and Reason confirm these ancient instincts of our
race. Man is that bridge stretching between the animal and the ideal
habitat by which, if the development be normal, all the passions pass
upward into educated powers. Any pause or impediment on that bridge
brings all the animals together to rend and tear the man who cannot
convey them across the abyss. A very slight arrest may reveal to a
man that he is a vehicle of intensified animalism. The lust of the
goat, the pride of the peacock, the wrath of the lion, beautiful in
their appropriate forms, become, in the guise of a man uncontrolled
by reason, the vices which used to be called possession, and really
are insanities.