Demonology and Devil-lore Part 55

[41] Entdeckes Judenthum.

[42] This legend may have been in the mind of the writer of the Book of Revelations when (xii. 14) he describes the Woman who received wings that she might escape the Serpent. Lilith's wings bore her to the Serpent.

[43] Inferno, ix. 56-64.

[44] She was a Lybian Queen beloved by Zeus, whose children were victims of Hera's jealousy. She was daughter of Belus, and it is a notable coincidence, if no more, that in Gen. x.x.xvi. 'Bela' is mentioned as a king of Edom, the domain of Samael, who married Lilith.

[45] The martial and hunting customs of the German women, as well as their equality with men, may be traced in the vestiges of their decline. Hexe (witch) is from hag (forest): the priestesses who carried the Broom of Thor were called Hagdissen. Before the seventeenth century the Hexe was called Drud or Trud (red folk, related to the Lightning-G.o.d). But the famous female hunters and warriors of Wodan, the Valkyries, were so called also; and the preservation of the epithet (Trud) in the n.o.ble name Gertrude is a connecting link between the German Amazons and the political power so long maintained by women in the same country. Their office as priestesses probably marks a step downward from their outdoor equality. By this route, as priestesses of diabolised deities, they became witches; but many folk-legends made these witches still great riders, and the Devil was said to transform and ride them as dapplegrey mares. The chief charge against the witches, that of carnal commerce with devils, is also significant. Like Lilith, women became devils' brides whenever they were not content with sitting at home with the distaff and the child.

[46] Mr. W. B. Scott has painted a beautiful picture of Eve gazing up with longing at a sweet babe in the tree, whose serpent coils beneath she does not see.

[47] 'Records of the Past,' iii. p. 83. See also i. p. 135.

[48] 'Chaldean Genesis,' by George Smith, p. 70.

[49] Copied in 'Chald. Gen.,' p. 91. As to the connection of this design with the legend of Eden, see chap. vii. of this volume.

[50] 'Chaldean Genesis,' pp. 62, 63.

[51] Ib., 97.

[52] 'Records of the Past,' ix. 141.

[53] Anu was the ruler of the highest heaven. Meteors and lightnings are similarly considered in Hebrew poetry as the messengers of the Almighty. (Psalm civ. 4, 'Who maketh his ministers a flaming fire,'

quoted in Heb. i. 7.)

[54] Im, the G.o.d of the sky, sometimes called Rimmon (the Thunderer). He answers to the Jupiter Tonans of the Latins.

[55] The abyss or ocean where the G.o.d Hea dwelt.

[56] The late Mr. G. Smith says that the Chaldean dragon was seven-headed. 'Chaldean Genesis,' p. 100.

[57] 'Records of the Past,' vii. 123.

[58] 'Records of the Past,' x. 127.

[59] See i. pp. 46 and 255. Concerning Ketef see Eisenmenger, ii. p. 435.

[60] Isaiah xiv. It may appear as if in this personification of a fallen star we have entered a different mythological region from that represented by the a.s.syrian tablets; but it is not so. The demoniac forms of Ishtar, Astarte, are fallen stars also. She appears in Greece as Artemis Astrateia, whose wors.h.i.+p Pausanias mentions as coming from the East. Her development is through Asteria (Greek form of Ishtar), in whose myth is hidden much valuable Babylonian lore. Asteria was said to have thrown herself into the sea, and been changed into the island called Asteria, from its having fallen like a star from heaven. Her suicide was to escape from the embraces of Zeus, and her escape from him in form of a quail, as well as her fate, may be instructively compared with the story of Lilith, who flew out of Eden on wings to escape from Adam, and made an effort to drown herself in the Red Sea. The diabolisation of Asteria (the fallen star) was through her daughter Hecate. Hecate was the female t.i.tan who was the most potent ally of the G.o.ds. Her rule was supreme under Zeus, and all the gifts valued by mortals were believed to proceed from her; but she was severely judicial, and rigidly withheld all blessings from such as did not deserve them. Thus she was, as the searching eye of Zeus, a star-spy upon earth. Such spies, as we have repeatedly had occasion to mention in this work, are normally developed into devils. From professional detectives they become accusers and instigators. Ishtar of the Babylonians, Asteria of the Greeks, and the Day-star of the Hebrews are male and female forms of the same personification: Hecate with her torch (hekatos, 'far-shooting') and Lucifer ('light-bringer'

on the deeds of darkness) are the same in their degradation.

[61] 'Paradise Lost,' i. 40-50.

[62] And foremost rides Prince Rupert, darling of fortune and of war, with his beautiful and thoughtful face of twenty-three, stern and bronzed already, yet beardless and dimpled, his dark and pa.s.sionate eyes, his long love-locks drooping over costly embroidery, his graceful scarlet cloak, his white-plumed hat, and his tall and stately form. His high-born beauty is preserved to us for ever on the canvas of Vandyck, and as the Italians have named the artist 'Il Pittore Cavalieresco,'

so will this subject of his skill remain for ever the ideal of Il Cavaliere Pittoresco. And as he now rides at the head of this brilliant array, his beautiful white dog bounds onward joyously beside him, that quadruped renowned in the pamphlets of the time, whose snowy skin has been stained by many a blood-drop in the desperate forays of his master, but who has thus far escaped so safely that the Puritans believe him a familiar spirit, and try to destroy him 'by poyson and extempore prayer, which yet hurt him no more than the plague plaster did Mr. Pym.' Failing in this, they p.r.o.nounce the pretty creature to be 'a divell, not a very downright divell, but some Lapland ladye, once by nature a handsome white ladye, now by art a handsome white dogge.'--A Charge with Prince Rupert. Col. Higginson's 'Atlantic Essays.'

[63] Isa. lxiii. 1-6.

[64] Fol. 84, col. 1.

[65] Maarecheth haelahuth, fol. 257, col. 1.

[66] Gesenius, Heb. Lexic.

[67] Hairiness was a pretty general characteristic of devils; hence, possibly, the epithet 'Old Harry,' i.e., hairy, applied to the Devil. In 'Old Deccan Days,' p. 50, a Rakshasa is described as hairy:--'Her hair hangs around her in a thick black tangle.' But the beard has rarely been accorded to devils.

[68] Buslaef has a beautiful mediaeval picture of a devil inciting Cain to hurl stones on his prostrate brother's form.

[69] Forty-one Eastern Tales.

[70] The contest between the agriculturist and the (nomadic) shepherd is expressed in the legend that Cain and Abel divided the world between them, the one taking possession of the movable and the other of the immovable property. Cain said to his brother, 'The earth on which thou standest is mine, then betake thyself to the air;' but Abel replied, 'The garments which thou wearest are mine, take them off.'--Midrash.

[71] Sale's Koran, vii. Al Araf. Iblis, the Mussulman name for the Devil, is probably a corruption of the word diabolus.

[72] Noyes' Translation.

[73] Eisenmenger, Entd. Jud. i. 836.

[74] Job. i. 22, the literal rendering of which is, 'In all this Job sinned not, nor gave G.o.d unsalted.' This translation I first heard from Dr. A. P. Peabody, sometime President of Harvard University, from whom I have a note in which he says:--'The word which I have rendered gave is appropriate to a sacrifice. The word I have rendered unsalted means so literally; and is in Job vi. 6 rendered unsavory. It may, and sometimes does, denote folly, by a not unnatural metaphor; but in that sense the word gave--an offertory word--is out of place.' Waltonus (Bib. Polyg.) translates 'nec dedit insulsum Deo;' had he rendered tiphlah by insalsum it would have been exact. The horror with which demons and devils are supposed to regard salt is noticed, i. 288.

[75] Gesenius so understands verse 17 of chap. xiv.

[76] The much misunderstood and mistranslated pa.s.sage, xix. 25-27 (already quoted), is certainly referable to the wide-spread belief that as against each man there was an Accusing Spirit, so for each there was a Vindicating Spirit. These two stood respectively on the right and left of the balances in which the good and evil actions of each soul were weighed against each other, each trying to make his side as heavy as possible. But as the accusations against him are made by living men, and on earth, Job is not prepared to consider a celestial acquittal beyond the grave as adequate.

[77] 'The Kingdom of Heaven Taken by Prayer.' By William Huntington, S.S. This t.i.tle is explained to be 'Sinner Saved,' otherwise one might understand the letters to signify a Surviving Syrian.

[78] Num. xxii. 22.

[79] 1 Sam. xxix. 4.

[80] 2 Sam. xix. 22.

[81] 1 Kings ii. 9.

[82] 1 Kings v. 4.

[83] 1 Kings xi. 14.

[84] 1 Kings xi. 25.

[85] Zech. iii.

[86] Cf. Rev. vii. 3.

[87] 'The Sight of h.e.l.l,' prepared, as one of a 'Series of Books for Children and Young Persons,' by the Rev. Father Furniss, C.S.S.R., by authority of his Superiors.

[88] M. Anquetil Du Perron's 'Zendavesta et Vie de Zoroastre.'