Demonology and Devil-lore Part 26

CHAPTER VI.

THE CONSUMING FIRE.

The Shekinah--Jewish idols--Attributes of the fiery and cruel Elohim compared with those of the Devil--The powers of evil combined under a head--Continuity--The consuming fire spiritualised.

That Abraham was a Fire-worshipper might be suspected from the immemorial efforts of all Semitic authorities to relieve him of traditional connection with that particular idolatry. When the good and evil powers were being distinguished, we find the burning and the bright aspects of Fire severally regarded. The sign of Jehovah's covenant with Abram included both. 'It came to pa.s.s that when the sun went down, and it was dark, behold a smoking furnace and a burning lamp that pa.s.sed between those pieces' (of the sacrifice). In the legend of Moses we have the glory resting on Sinai and the burning bush, the bush which, it is specially remarked, was 'not consumed,'

an exceptional circ.u.mstance in honour of Moses. To these corresponded the Urim and Thummim, marking the priest as source of light and of judgment. In his favourable and adorable aspect Jehovah was the Brightness of Fire. This was the Shekinah. In the Targum, Jonathan Ben Uzziel to the Prophets, it is said: 'The mountains trembled before the Lord; the mountains Tabor, Hermon, Carmel said one to the other: Upon me the Shekinah will rest, and to me will it come. But the Shekinah rested upon Mount Sinai, weakest and smallest of all the mountains. This Sinai trembled and shook, and its smoke went up as the smoke of an oven, because of the glory of the G.o.d of Israel which had manifested itself upon it.' The Brightness [25] pa.s.sed on to illumine every event a.s.sociated with the divine presence in Semitic mythology; it was 'the glory of the Lord' shining from the Star of Bethlehem, and the figure of the Transfiguration.

The Consuming Fire also had its development. Among the spiritual it was spiritualised. 'Who among us shall dwell with the Devouring Fire?' cries Isaiah. 'Who among us shall dwell with the Everlasting Burnings? He that walketh righteously and speaketh uprightly; he that despiseth the gain of oppressions, that shaketh his hands from holding of bribes, that stoppeth his ears from hearing of blood, and shutteth his eyes from seeing evil.' It was by a prosaic route that the Devouring Fire became the residence of the wicked.

After Jeroboam (1 Kings xiii.) had built altars to the Elohim, under form of Calves, a prophet came out of Judah to denounce the idolatry. 'And he cried against the altar in the word of Jehovah, and said, O altar, altar! thus saith Jehovah, Behold, a child shall be born unto the house of David, Josiah by name; and upon thee shall he offer the priests of the high places that burn incense upon thee, and men's bones shall be burnt upon thee.' It was deemed so important that this prophecy should be fulfilled in the letter, when it could no longer be fulfilled in reality, that some centuries later Josiah dug up the bones of the Elohistic priests and burned them upon their long-ruined altars (2 Kings xxiii.).

The incident is significant, both on account of the prophet's personification of the altar, and the inst.i.tution of a sort of Gehenna in connection with it. The personification and the Gehenna became much more complete as time went on. The Jews originally had no Devil, as indeed had no races at first; and this for the obvious reason that their so-called G.o.ds were quite equal to any moral evils that were to be accounted for, as we have already seen they were adequate to explain all physical evils. But the antagonists of the moral Jehovah were recognised and personified with increasing clearness, and were quite prepared for connection with any General who might be theoretically proposed for their leadership. When the Jews came under the influence of Persian theology the archfiend was elected, and all the Elohim--Moloch, Dagon, Astarte, Chemosh, and the rest--took their place under his rebellious ensign.

The descriptions of the Devil in the Bible are mainly borrowed from the early descriptions of the Elohim, and of Jehovah in his Elohistic character. [26] In the subjoined parallels I follow the received English version.

Gen. xxii. 1. 'G.o.d tempted Matt. iv. 1. 'Then was Jesus Abraham.' led up into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil.'

See also 1 Cor. vii. 5, 1 Thes. iii. 5, James 1.13.

Exod. v. 3. 'I (Jehovah) will John xiii. 2. 'The devil having harden Pharaoh's heart;' v. 13, now put into the heart Judas 'He hardened Pharaoh's heart.' Iscariot, Simon's son, to betray him.'

1 Kings xxii. 23. 'Behold the John viii. 44. 'He (the devil) is Lord hath put a lying spirit in a liar' ('and so is his father,'

the mouth of all these thy continues the sentence by right prophets, and the Lord hath of translation). 1 Tim. iii. 2, spoken evil concerning them.' 'slanderers' (diabolous). 2 Tim.

Ezek. xiv. 9. 'If the prophet be iii. 3, 'false accusers'

deceived when he hath spoken a (diabolo). Also t.i.tus ii. 3, Von thing, I the Lord have deceived Tischendorf translates that prophet, and I will stretch 'calumniators.'

out my hand upon him, and will destroy him from the midst of my people.'

Isa. xlv. 7. 'I make peace and Matt. xiii. 38. 'The tares are create evil. I the Lord do all the children of the wickied these things.' Amos iii. 6. one.' 1 John iii. 8. 'He that 'Shall there be evil in a city committeth sin is of the devil; and the Lord hath not done it?' for the devil sinneth from the 1 Sam. xvi. 14. 'An evil spirit beginning.'

from the Lord troubled him'

(Saul).

Exod. xii. 29. 'At midnight the John viii. 44. 'He (the devil) Lord smote all the firstborn of was a murderer from the Egypt.' Ver. 30. 'There was a beginning.'

great cry in Egypt; for there was not a house where there was not one dead.' Exod. x.x.xiii. 27.

'Thus saith the Lord G.o.d of Israel, Put every man his sword by his side, and go in and out from gate to gate throughout the camp, and slay every man his brother, and every man his companion, and every man his neighbour.'

Exod. vi. 9. 'Take thy rod and Rev. xii. 7, &c. 'There was war cast it before Pharaoh and it in heaven: Michael and his angels shall become a serpent.' Ver. 12. fought against the dragon.... And 'Aaron's rod swallowed up their the great dragon was cast out, rods.' Num. xxi. 6. 'Jehovah sent that old serpent, called the fiery serpents (Seraphim) among Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the people.' Ver. 8. 'And the the whole world.... Woe to the Lord said unto Moses, Make thee a inhabiters of the earth and of fiery serpent, and set it upon a the sea! for the devil has come pole: and it shall come to pa.s.s, down to you, having great wrath.'

that every one that is bitten, when he looketh upon it, shall live.' (This serpent was worshipped until destroyed by Hezekiah, 2 Kings xviii.) Compare Jer. viii. 17, Ps. cxlviii., 'Praise ye the Lord from the earth, ye dragons.'

Gen. xix. 24. 'The Lord rained Matt. xxv. 41. 'Depart from me, upon Sodom and Gomorrah brimstone ye cursed, into everlasting fire, and fire from the Lord out of prepared for the devil and his heaven.' Deut. iv. 24. 'The Lord angels.' Mark ix. 44. 'Where thy G.o.d is a consuming fire.' Ps. their worm dieth not, and the xi. 6. 'Upon the wicked he shall fire is not quenched.' Rev. xx.

rain snares, fire and brimstone.' 10. 'And the devil that Ps. xviii. 8. 'There went up a deceiveth them was cast into the smoke out of his nostrils.' Ps. lake of fire and brimstone.' In xcvii. 3. 'A fire goeth before Rev. ix. Abaddon, or Apollyon, is him, and burneth up his enemies represented as the king of the round about.' Ezek. x.x.xviii. 19, scorpion tormentors; and the &c. 'For in my jealousy, and in diabolical horses, with stinging the fire of my wrath, have I serpent tails, are described as spoken.... I will plead against killing with the smoke and him with pestilence and with brimstone from their mouths.

blood, and I will rain upon him ... fire and brimstone.' Isa.

x.x.x. 33. 'Tophet is ordained of old; yea, for the king is it prepared: he hath made it deep and wide; the pile thereof is fire and much wood; the breath of the Lord, like a stream of brimstone, doth kindle it.'

In addition to the above pa.s.sages may be cited a notable pa.s.sage from Paul's Epistle to the Thessalonians (ii. 3). 'Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day (of Christ) shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition; who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called G.o.d, or that is worshipped; so that he, as G.o.d, sitteth in the temple of G.o.d, showing himself that he is G.o.d. Remember ye not that, when I was yet with you, I told you these things? And now ye know what withholdeth that he might be revealed in his time. For the mystery of iniquity doth already work: only he who now letteth will let, until he be taken out of the way: and then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming: even him whose coming is after the working of Satan, with all power, and signs, and lying wonders, and with all the deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this cause G.o.d shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie; that they all might be d.a.m.ned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.'

This remarkable utterance shows how potent was the survival in the mind of Paul of the old Elohist belief. Although the ancient deity, who deceived prophets to their destruction, and sent forth lying spirits with their strong delusions, was dethroned and outlawed, he was still a powerful claimant of empire, haunting the temple, and setting himself up therein as G.o.d. He will be consumed by Christ's breath when the day of triumph comes; but meanwhile he is not only allowed great power in the earth, but utilised by the true G.o.d, who even so far cooperates with the false as to send on some men 'strong delusions'

('a working of error,' Von Tischendorf translates), in order that they may believe the lie and be d.a.m.ned. Paul speaks of the 'mystery of iniquity;' but it is not so very mysterious when we consider the antecedents of his idea. The dark problem of the origin of evil, and its continuance in the universe under the rule of a moral governor, still threw its impenetrable shadow across the human mind. It was a terrible reality, visible in the indifference or hostility with which the new gospel was met on the part of the cultured and powerful; and it could only then be explained as a mysterious provisional arrangement connected with some divine purpose far away in the depths of the universe. But the pa.s.sage quoted from Thessalonians shows plainly that all those early traditions about the divinely deceived prophets and lying spirits, sent forth from Jehovah Elohim, had finally, in Paul's time, become marshalled under a leader, a personal Man of Sin; but this leader, while opposing Christ's kingdom, is in some mysterious way a commissioner of G.o.d.

We may remark here the beautiful continuity by which, through all these shadows of terror and vapours of speculation, 'clouding the glow of heaven,' [27] the unquenchable ideal from first to last is steadily ascending.

'One or three things,' says the Talmud, 'were before this world--Water, Fire, and Wind. Water begat the Darkness, Fire begat Light, and Wind begat the Spirit of Wisdom.' This had become the rationalistic translation by a crude science of the primitive demons, once believed to have created the heavens and the earth. In the process we find the forces outlawed in their wild action, but becoming the choir of G.o.d in their quiet action:--

1 Kings xix. 11-13. 'And he said, Go forth, and stand upon the mount before the Lord. And, behold, the Lord pa.s.sed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks before the Lord; but the Lord was not in the wind: and after the wind an earthquake; but the Lord was not in the earthquake: and after the earthquake a fire; but the Lord was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice. And it was so, when Elijah heard it, that he wrapped his face in his mantle.'

But man must have a philosophical as well as a moral development: the human mind could not long endure this elemental anarchy. It asked, If the Lord be not in the hurricane, the earthquake, the volcanic flame, who is therein? This is the answer of the Targum: [28]

'And he said, Arise and stand on the mountain before the Lord. And G.o.d revealed himself: and before him a host of angels of the wind, cleaving the mountain and breaking the rocks before the Lord; but not in the host of angels was the Shechinah. And after the host of the angels of the wind came a host of angels of commotion; but not in the host of the angels of commotion was the Shechinah of the Lord. And after the angels of commotion came a host of angels of fire; but not in the host of angels of fire was the Shechinah of the Lord. But after the host of the angels of the fire came voices singing in silence. And it was when Elijah heard this he hid his face in his mantle.'

The moral sentiment takes another step in advance with the unknown but artistic writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews. Moses had described G.o.d as a 'consuming fire;' and 'the sight of the glory of the Lord was like devouring fire on the top of the mount in the eyes of the children of Israel' (Exod. xxiv. 17). When next we meet this phrase it is with this writer, who seeks to supersede what Moses (traditionally) built up. 'Whose voice,' he says, 'then shook the earth; but now he hath promised, saying, Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven. And this word, 'yet once more,' signifieth the removing of those things that are shaken, as of things that are made, that those which cannot be shaken may remain.... For our G.o.d is a consuming fire.'

'Our G.o.d also!' cries each great revolution that advances. His consuming wrath is not now directed against man, but the errors which are man's only enemies: the lightnings of the new Sinai, while they enlighten the earth, smite the old heaven of human faith and imagination, shrivelling it like a burnt scroll!

In this nineteenth century, when the old heaven, amid which this fiery pillar glowed, is again shaken, the ancient phrase has still its meaning. The Russian Tourgenieff represents two friends who had studied together in early life, then parted, accidentally meeting once more for a single night. They compare notes as to what the long intervening years have taught them; and one sums his experience in the words--'I have burned what I used to worship, and worship what I used to burn.' The novelist artfully reproduces for this age a sentence a.s.sociated with a crisis in the religious history of Europe. Clovis, King of the Franks, invoked the G.o.d of his wife Clotilda to aid him against the Germans, vowing to become a Christian if successful; and when, after his victory, he was baptized at Rheims, St. Remy said to him--'Bow thy head meekly, Sicambrian; burn what thou hast worshipped, and worship what thou hast burned!' Clovis followed the Bishop's advice in literal fashion, carrying fire and sword amid his old friends the 'Pagans' right zealously. But the era has come in which that which Clovis' sword and St. Remy's theology set up for worship is being consumed in its turn. Tourgenieff's youths are consuming the altar on which their forerunners were consumed. And in this rekindled flame the world now sees shrivelling the heavens once fresh, but now reflecting the aggregate selfishness of mankind, the h.e.l.ls representing their aggregate cowardice, and feeds its n.o.bler faith with this vision of the eternal fire which evermore consumes the false and refines the world.

CHAPTER VII.

PARADISE AND THE SERPENT.

Herakles and Athena in a holy picture--Human significance of Eden--The legend in Genesis puzzling--Silence of later books concerning it--Its Vedic elements--Its explanation--Episode of the Mahabharata--Scandinavian variant--The name of Adam--The story re-read--Rabbinical interpretations.

Montfaucon has among his plates one (XX.) representing an antique agate which he supposes to represent Zeus and Athena, but which probably relates to the myth of Herakles and Athena in the garden of Hesperides. The hero having penetrated this garden, slays the dragon which guards its immortalising fruit, but when he has gathered this fruit Athena takes it from him, lest man shall eat it and share the immortality of the G.o.ds. In this design the two stand on either side of the tree, around which a serpent is twined from root to branches. The history which Montfaucon gives of the agate is of equal interest with the design itself. It was found in an old French cathedral, where it had long been preserved and shown as a holy picture of the Temptation. It would appear also to have previously deceived some rabbins, for on the border is written in Hebrew characters, much more modern than the central figures, 'The woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise.'

This mystification about a design, concerning whose origin and design there is now no doubt, is significant. The fable of Paradise and the Serpent is itself more difficult to trace, so many have been the races and religions which have framed it with their holy texts and preserved it in their sacred precincts. In its essence, no doubt, the story grows from a universal experience; in that aspect it is a mystical rose that speaks all languages. When man first appears his counterpart is a garden. The moral nature means order. The wild forces of nature--the Elohim--build no fence, forbid no fruit. They say to man as the supreme animal, Subdue the earth; every tree and herb shall be your meat; every animal your slave; be fruitful and multiply. But from the conflict the more real man emerges, and his sign is a garden hedged in from the wilderness, and a separation between good and evil.

The form in which the legend appears in the Book of Genesis presents one side in which it is simple and natural. This has already been suggested (vol. i. p. 330). But the legend of man defending his refuge from wild beasts against the most subtle of them is here overlaid by a myth in which it plays the least part. The mind which reads it by such light as may be obtained only from biblical sources can hardly fail to be newly puzzled at every step. So much, indeed, is confessed in the endless and diverse theological theories which the story has elicited. What is the meaning of the curse on the Serpent that it should for ever crawl thereafter? Had it not crawled previously? Why was the Tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil forbidden? Why, when its fruit was tasted, should the Tree of Life have been for the first time forbidden and jealously guarded? These riddles are nowhere solved in the Bible, and have been left to the fanciful inventions of theologians and the ingenuity of rabbins. Dr. Adam Clarke thought the Serpent was an ape before his sin, and many rabbins concluded he was camel-shaped; but the remaining enigmas have been fairly given up.

The ancient Jews, they who wrote and compiled the Old Testament, more candid than their modern descendants and our omniscient christians, silently confessed their inability to make anything out of this snake-story. From the third chapter of Genesis to the last verse of Malachi the story is not once alluded to! Such a phenomenon would have been impossible had this legend been indigenous with the Hebrew race. It was clearly as a boulder among them which had floated from regions little known to their earlier writers; after lying naked through many ages, it became overgrown with rabbinical lichen and moss, and, at the Christian era, while it seemed part of the Hebrew landscape, it was exceptional enough to receive special reverence as a holy stone. That it was made the corner-stone of Christian theology may be to some extent explained by the principle of omne ignotum pro mirifico. But the boulder itself can only be explained by tracing it to the mythologic formation from which it crumbled.

How would a Parsi explain the curse on a snake which condemned it to crawl? He would easily give us evidence that at the time when most of those Hebrew Scriptures were written, without allusion to such a Serpent, the ancient Persians believed that Ahriman had tempted the first man and woman through his evil mediator, his anointed son, Ash-Mogh, 'the two-footed Serpent.'

But let us pa.s.s beyond the Persian legend, carrying that and the biblical story together, for submission to the criticism of a Brahman. He will tell us that this Ash-Mogh of the Parsi is merely the ancient Aeshma-daeva of the Avesta, which in turn is Ahi, the great Vedic Serpent-monster whom Indra 'prostrated beneath the feet'

of the stream he had obstructed--every stream having its deity. He would remind us that the Vedas describe the earliest dragon-slayer, Indra, as 'crushing the head' of his enemy, and that this figure of the G.o.d with his heel on a Serpent's head has been familiar to his race from time immemorial. And he would then tell us to read the Rig-Veda, v. 32, and the Mahabharata, and we would find all the elements of the story told in Genesis.

In the hymn referred to we find a graphic account of how, when Ahi was sleeping on the waters he obstructed, Indra hurled at him his thunderbolt. It says that when Indra had 'annihilated the weapon of that mighty beast from him (Ahi), another, more powerful, conceiving himself one and unmatched, was generated,' This 'wrath-born son,'