The efforts to impart correct instruction and revive the ancient faith by means of the Chaldee expositions, doubtless had effect upon more or less of those who frequented the synagogues and the temple services; but to the great ma.s.s, so far as can be judged from history, or from their sentiments and condition, at the period of the advent, they were of no avail. How natural, then, that the successors of this party of Sadducean and Pharasaic infidelity, with the stimulus added by the conversion or, as they regarded it, the apostasy of many to the Christian faith, and the further stimulus of Mohammedan and pseudo-Christian intolerance and persecution, should do their utmost to conceal or extirpate from the Hebrew text all traces of the Christian doctrine!
With reference to the subject now specially in hand, it may suffice to refer to a single instance of concealment and perversion which, though of earlier origin, as appears from the Septuagint and the Vulgate, for aught that is perceived, was fastened upon the Hebrew text by the Masoretic punctuation, and was derived thence by our translators; namely, that of the formula, _Melach Jehovah_, which, by the examples formerly adduced, the connections in which it occurs, the use of the terms interchangeably, and the testimony of the Evangelists, is shown to be a clear, unequivocal, and emphatic designation of the official Person, Messiah, the Legate of the Father. But the school of Jews above referred to, of whom Kimchi may be taken as a representative, consider the person designated _Melach_ in this formula "as nothing more than one of the many angels to whom he supposes that the governance and guidance of this lower world is committed." They did not regard the term _Melach_, when employed in this formula, as a name of office, signifying Messenger, but as a personal designation, signifying Angel, an angel, one of the angels. The points accordingly are so adjusted as to require the rendering to be, _an_ angel _of_ the Lord, or _the_ angel, understood as one of _the angels of_ the Lord. To gloss over the apparent ident.i.ty, in some pa.s.sages, of that angel with Jehovah, and the ascription of the same acts to each separately, they represent the angel as personating, and speaking in the name of, Jehovah; and explain his calling himself the G.o.d of Beth-El as signifying no more than Jacob"s calling a place El-Beth-El.
Now it is apparent that our translators have in the instance under consideration given us, not the clear and definite import of the original text, but, closely adhering to the points and following the steps of their Rabbinical guides, have given at second-hand a version of their _sense_, "a translation of their interpretation." In every instance but one (Malachi iii.) in their translation of the word _Melach_, (except when applied to men,) they employ the word _Angel_, a personal designation, not a name of office; and in most cases, if not in all, the English reader must naturally suppose that the reference was merely to one of the many created beings called angels. Accordingly, though they sometimes say, _the_ angel of the Lord, in other instances, where the original is the same, they say, _an_ angel of the Lord, implying that they did not uniformly refer to the same Person, nor in any case to any other than a created angel. The same thing is further ill.u.s.trated and confirmed by their grammatical construction of the formula in accordance with the points, rendering it uniformly, the angel, or an angel _of_ the Lord, or of G.o.d. For instance, in Judges, chap. ii. 1, in the original, _Melach Jehovah_ came up from Gilgal to Bochim, is translated, "_an_ angel _of_ the Lord came up," &c. So in chap. vi. 11 of the same book, _Melach Jehovah_ is rendered, _an_ angel _of_ the Lord; and in the next verse the same formula is rendered, _the_ angel _of_ the Lord; and three times in the 20th and 21st verses, _the_ angel; and twice in the 22d verse, _an_ angel. In all these cases, and many others like them, it is demonstrable from the context that one and the same person is referred to; that the same acts are ascribed to him and to Jehovah, and that the formula by which he is designated is employed interchangeably with the names Jehovah and Elohim. Yet, looking no farther than the sentences which announce the actor or speaker as an angel, neither collating those sentences with others in the same or other chapters, nor being able, if he did, to explain or reconcile the various and discordant renderings, the reader is left in doubt and perplexity, or else concludes that a created angel is referred to.
Had the translators in this and other cases of the kind taken the unpointed Hebrew text as their guide, compared all its parallel pa.s.sages, and understood the word Melach according to its original and primary meaning, and its specific and necessary import where joined with the Divine names, as in the formulas above-mentioned, to be a name of office, signifying Messenger, Legate, one delegated, sent; who can doubt but that they would have discerned in the designation an unmistakable reference to the Messiah; that they would have retained the original Hebrew formulas, or translated them intelligibly and uniformly, and left their readers in no perplexity as to their sentiments or the meaning of their version?
The word _Melach_ first occurs in the Hebrew Scriptures, Gen. xvi., where it is employed in its primary signification, and occurs four times in the formula _Melach Jehovah_, clearly designating the official Person, Jehovah, in his delegated character--the Anointed and Sent of the Father, _The Messenger Jehovah_. In the original there is uniformity, consistency, and perfect freedom from ambiguity and uncertainty in the use of this term as an official designation, here and wherever it occurs throughout the Scriptures. There is no mistaking it if regarded in its grammatical relation with the Divine names, and its connection with the context, independently of the points and of the hereditary Jewish construction; and had the translators so regarded it, and in their version employed the term _Messenger_ instead of _Angel_, it would have been as clearly understood to designate the official Person as if they had subst.i.tuted or added the term _Messiah_.
Subsequently, this name of office was applied to created angels and to men employed, and because they were employed, as messengers; and it finally came to be used as a personal appellative. The first instance of this occurs Gen. xix. 1: "There came two _angels_ to Sodom," that is, two messengers; two who were _sent_ by Jehovah while he was present with Abraham in the visible form of man. And chap. x.x.xii. 3, 6: "Jacob _sent messengers_ before him to Esau.... And _the messengers_ returned to Jacob;" that is, he _sent_ two of his servants with a message. But in the original, the word translated angels in chap. xix., and messengers in chap. x.x.xii., is the same, and differs from that in chap. xvi. and all the parallel pa.s.sages translated _angel_, only by being in the plural form.
This term _Melach_, as an official designation of Jehovah, including the instances in which it is coupled with the name Elohim, occurs more than twenty times in the books of Moses, and more than twice that number of times in the later Hebrew Scriptures; and considering that it is often employed interchangeably with the names Jehovah and Elohim; that the same acts, revelations, promises, covenants, and predictions, are in the same or in different pa.s.sages ascribed indifferently to Jehovah, Elohim, and the Messenger Jehovah; and that in the New Testament, both in references to the Old and in original revelations and announcements, the same acts, promises, &c., are ascribed to the Logos or personal Word under that and other designations; it is manifest that, had our translators rightly apprehended the import and reference of the designation, and represented it in their version by a term as guarded, unequivocal, and distinctive as the original, their readers would be at no loss as to how or in what relations Moses wrote of Christ.
But their misguided and erroneous apprehensions and renderings of this official designation are scarcely more remarkable than the like proceedings on their part in reference to several other peculiar or official Hebrew designations of the Messiah, which occur both in Moses and the prophets; their inadequate and uncertain or erroneous versions of which are no doubt to be ascribed to their concurrence with the Jewish expositions and with the requirements of the vowel points. And without imputing any other than honest intentions, or doing any injustice to the translators, but only allowing for the effect of their theological education, and for the arbitrary and controlling influence of the guides which they thought it safe to follow, and which, from their own convictions and the ascendant notions of the times, they were in effect necessitated to adopt, it may safely be alleged that, with respect to the great Actor and Revealer, the pervading theme of Moses and the prophets, they have in numerous instances wholly failed, and in their version, as a whole, but partially succeeded, in exhibiting the designations and references of the original.
That their version, as a whole, is superior to any of the other modern versions, is generally admitted; that it exhibits the historical narratives and those doctrinal statements which do not immediately relate to the official Person, with a fidelity and an intelligibleness scarcely indeed to be avoided by able and honest men, but which such men at the present day would not be likely to excel, is justly to be acknowledged; but in regard to the personal designations, ascriptions and references alluded to, their guides subjected their intentions to an erroneous theory.
The ill consequences to the English reader, so far as the doctrines essential to his salvation are concerned, are counteracted by the record of the visible appearance of the official Person incarnate, the historical narratives of his acts, his expiatory death, his resurrection and ascension, and the doctrinal revelations and apostolic testimonies of the New Testament; and he is far too easily led to regard the Divine oracles as of little significance or importance, except in so far as they specially teach those essential doctrines. In this partial view of their import and design, the Old Testament is lightly esteemed or disregarded with respect to the far greater part of its contents, by those who most highly esteem the New, and with respect to the whole of its contents, by many. It is not recognized as a continuous record of personal Divine manifestations, visible appearances, supernatural acts, audible enunciations; a record of the creation, of the apostasy and its consequences, of the administration of providence and grace, and of visible interpositions and retributions towards individuals, families, and nations; a progressive disclosure of the attributes, prerogatives, and purposes of the Self-existent, of his acts as Lawgiver and Ruler, and of his supremacy, majesty and glory, whereby He who personally appeared and acted under the ancient dispensations, and at length became incarnate, revealed himself in his delegated relations as truly to the universe of the unfallen as to man, and as truly with reference to results yet future as to those incipient events in which were laid the foundations of his onward, universal, and never-ending system of manifestations and agencies, and in the progress of which all the wonders of mercy and justice, all the retributions of time and awards of eternity, all the paradoxes and mysteries of the past, and their relations to the future, are to be disclosed, vindicated, and rendered luminous to the apprehension of intelligent creatures. The eternal purposes which were purposed in him before the foundation of the world, and the sequel of the covenants, prescriptions, promises, comminations, symbols, and predictions which, in connection with the first of their respective series of events, were announced to the patriarchs and prophets, await the future for their ever-widening range of ill.u.s.tration and accomplishment. The scene is but begun. The first steps only of an endless progress, the first events only of a continuous, inseparable, and endless series, the first disclosures only of a boundless range of development by the same divine Actor and Revealer, have yet transpired.
The earth as his footstool is yet to be the scene of the rest.i.tution of all things. His early footsteps on it are to be retraced in a renewed paradise, and the visible manifestations of the past to be resumed, when all that is recorded of Him in his offices and his administration, and his intercourse with the first Adam, and with the patriarchs and prophets, will be understood and heeded as of the scheme and fabric of his glory.
CHAPTER XVI.
Continuation of the subject of the preceding Chapter--Combined influence of Rabbinical and figurative Interpretations--German method of Hebrew study--Preposterous notion of the inadequacy of Language as a vehicle of Thought.
There is a view of the ill effects of the combined influence of the education and Rabbinical example and prescription under which our translation was produced, which would confirm the foregoing observations, were it competently traced in connection with the no less imposing and effective influence of the system of allegorical, mystical, and figurative interpretation which prevailed from and after the days of Origen. Had our translators not been spell-bound by the influence first above-mentioned, they would have been impelled by their Protestantism, their piety, and their good sense, to discard the latter. Had they discerned the real meaning, official reference, and literal import of the designations above considered, and of the references, manifestations, and acts ascribed in connection with them to the Messiah, and recognized him as the One often visible and always acting Administrator and Revealer, they could not have failed to give a translation with which allegorical, mystical or tropical interpretations of the literal language of the historical, and the literal announcements of the prophetic portions of the Scriptures, would have been palpably incongruous and inadmissible. But the one influence, by keeping the Messiah personally, and in respect to his offices and agency, out of sight, or as nearly so as possible, was not repugnant to the other system, which contemplated Him only as foreshadowed by types and figures, prophetic symbols and mystical allusions, as though the first manifestation of his official agency was not intended to occur till his incarnation.
Unlike the fixed and imperative rules which governed the use of the Masoretic points, this figurative system was subject to no conditions or restraints other than such as might exist in the imaginations of individuals. It furnished no just discrimination or definition of the different figures of speech, of their object, or of their legitimate use, nor pretended to give a reason why any word was in any given case said to be used figuratively, or to have a figurative instead of a literal import. It neither descended to such particulars, nor was in any way dependent on them. The fact that every word in a given sentence was employed by the writer in the most strictly literal sense, was no sign that it must of course be construed literally, nor hindrance of Origen or his followers, orthodox or Swedenborgian, down to the present day, from giving the whole or any portion of it a figurative meaning, and, maugre its obvious literal import, making it refer to something or any thing, past, present, or future, which the fancy of the expositor might suggest.
Under this system, it is easy to see how the literal designations and literal statements of the Old Testament relating to the Messiah, the visible appearances, special interpositions, and various acts ascribed to him; and the literal announcements of the prophecies concerning his yet future manifestations, the descendants of his ancient covenant people, Jerusalem, the millennium, &c., &c., may be obscured, mystified, misconstrued, or wholly explained away.
Under the hitherto unrestrained predominance of these two fountains of influence, the current of Hebrew learning has for the most part been restricted to the grammatical study of the text and its real or fancied difficulties and defects. The Germans, who lead the way, set out with the a.s.sumption that the student is to regard the Bible as differing in no respect from other books. He is to take it in hand just as he would if he had never heard of its claim of inspiration or of Divine authority, of the attributes and perfections of its Author, of his works of creation and providence, or any thing of the religion which it teaches. With no guiding theory of the great scheme of the Creator and Ruler of the world, and of his method of carrying it into effect; with no conviction that in a volume inspired by Him, that scheme and method must const.i.tute the leading and pervading theme, and be so prominent as to render the petty difficulties and obscurities he may meet with of no account; they seem to enter upon the study as we may suppose one of the natives of our ancient forests, with no other knowledge of art than was required in the construction of his cabin, would enter upon the task of learning the architectural theory which governed the construction of an immense and complicated edifice, with the objects and uses of the whole and of each const.i.tuent part, by examining separately and in detail duplicates of each particular brick, stone, timber, nail, hinge, clamp, latch, and every other material and element of the finished structure.
After wearying himself with this undertaking, he would be apt either to abandon it, content with what he had learned of the disconnected elementary materials, or to form an erroneous theory of their relations and uses, if united in conformity with the model; or else to conclude, despite the model before him, that the separate pieces could not be combined in one harmonious whole; that no theory would account for such a result, and that all that could be done was to study them separately, ascertain their separate uses, and discover their defects; that though, to superficial observers, apparently united in the stately edifice, they were not really united, but were of diverse natures and different ages, fashioned and added by many different builders at widely distant periods; and that the structure was but a ma.s.s of patchwork, the result of what the successive builders added to the work of their predecessors, each bringing his own peculiar materials, and pursuing the style of architecture prevalent in his own day; and therefore to comprehend it the student must take the portion of each builder separately, and make it his object to investigate and criticize the materials and style employed by him, compare each with all the others, enumerate their defects, and in the end show that, viewed collectively, the whole is but a ma.s.s of discordant materials, clumsily arranged, with innumerable defects, inconsistencies, superfluities, erroneous combinations, and objects as diverse and various as the capacities, tastes, and circ.u.mstances of the several builders.
If this, as an ill.u.s.tration of the modern German method of studying the Hebrew Scriptures, is in any degree exaggerated, it is yet probably exact enough to account for the worse than Rabbinical, worse than Popish, worse than Mohammedan results--neological infidelity, both with respect to the Old and the New Testaments, and atheism with respect to their Author. Doubtless there are exceptions--here and there a Lot escaping for his life from this critical Sodom. The reference is to the general and notorious results.
The system virtually begins with a denial of the Divine origin and authority of the Scriptures, and a degradation of them to the level of the works of heathen authors, and as a system, pursued under the influences above referred to, is no better calculated to lead the student to a right apprehension and knowledge of the great theme and connected chain of things revealed, than the study of insects, under the name of the science of entomology, is calculated to enable the student to conceive, understand, and comprehend the doctrines of the Newtonian philosophy.
Among the results of this course of things, it is obvious to notice the wide-spread, notorious, and effective sentiment of doubt and uncertainty as to the claims of the Scriptures in respect to the most important facts and doctrines, among the learned, scientific and professional men extensively on both sides of the Atlantic. Hence the origin, popularity, and influence of the geological doctrines concerning the antiquity of the earth, successive creations or developments, diversity of origin of different families of the human race, and various kindred matters. The excited minds of scientific men, unsatisfied, unestablished, and misled by the results of Rabbinical and neological study and criticism, have appealed from the Scripture records to the fossil relics of what they fancy to have been a world of immeasurably higher antiquity than that of whose creation Moses is the historian. They seek there, and imagine that they discover, engraven on the rocks, an earlier revelation, a more correct chronology, a higher and more intelligible theory of the origin, progress, uses, and ends of the earth, its changes, and its families of rational and irrational inhabitants. And finally the better portion of this great school, as the only means left of guarding the rising generation from blank atheism, recommend the inst.i.tution of professorships of Natural Theology, that, by a due exhibition to them of the evidences of geological and other natural sciences, they may, if possible, be convinced that there is a G.o.d!
Another result is obvious in the still more extended influence among all cla.s.ses, learned, religious, ignorant and skeptical, of the discovery--made, probably, or adopted, alike by the Talmudists and Origen though not openly professed as a clue to their productions--that language is a very inadequate, imperfect, indeterminate vehicle of thought; an uncertain, incompetent, unreliable means of expressing men"s ideas. The incautious, half demented inheritors of this discovery, however, apprehending, in the present condition of things, no danger of injury to their intellectual, professional, literary or religious reputation, proclaim it as boldly and unreservedly as if it were universally admitted and confirmed by universal experience. Out of charity or out of hypocrisy towards their readers, indeed, or because they consider themselves exceptions to a general rule, applicable, in their view, even to the penmen of the sacred writings, they directly profess and apply this fancied discovery only in relation to the language of Scripture and to that of orthodox creeds and confessions.
In this they feel secure of the acquiescence of the great majority of all descriptions, and, but for their heresies in other relations, and having other bearings, would feel in other respects, as well as in this, secure of the learned among the orthodox.
It is obvious how, by this device, the Arch-enemy wins and secures his prey among those who have the oracles of G.o.d; as of old among the heathen by his own oracles, the responses from which were ever capable of several meanings, from among which the consulting party might adopt the one most agreeable to his wishes, feelings, and emotions.
CHAPTER XVII.
Relation of the antagonism between the Messiah and the great Adversary to the local, personal, and visible Manifestations of the former--Modes of Visibility on the part of the latter, through human agents and various instrumentalities.
The antagonism between the Messiah and the great Adversary, which, in the Scriptures, is conspicuous in all that relates to idolatry and other princ.i.p.al forms of impiety, and the means employed to counteract and punish them, strongly implies and confirms the reality and visibility of the local personal appearances and acts recorded of the delegated Person.
The scene of that antagonism was on the earth. It involved an abiding enmity and active hostility between the followers of the respective leaders, separated the descendants of Adam into two hostile parties, and was carried on by means of their visible agency in all the forms in which they could express their inward sentiments, and in all the relations they sustained to the Divine Lawgiver, to the Arch-apostate, and to one another. In so far, then, as their acts and doings were visible in carrying on this warfare, it was requisite that the means of opposing, counteracting and condemning them should be visibly exhibited, that they might be observed, rightly judged of, and productive of appropriate moral effects.
But granting this to be apparent from the nature of the case, so far as concerns the agency of righteous men on one side, and that of wicked men on the other; it may at first be thought not to require any visible manifestations or acts of the Divine leader of the righteous, any more than of the apostate leader of the wicked. The sequel may show that such visibility in respect to both was exhibited; by the one, to whom it occasioned no difficulty in any respect, in whatever mode, and to whatever extent he pleased; by the other, in whatever ways it was possible for him to render himself visible, by subjecting the bodies of men or of inferior animals to his possession and control, and through their physical organs acting and speaking, and thereby giving visibility to his acts and audible utterance to his words; or by counterfeit apparitions, and by such arts and jugglery as his followers, the magicians of Egypt and elsewhere, practised with such success as to render their apparent acts undistinguishable from real ones.
That he had the power of occupying and actuating the bodies of men and of inferior animals, is shown by what is recorded of him and of the demons under him, in the New Testament; and it is very evident from what was said by the Jews on various occasions, that such possessions were no matter of surprise or doubt; and that they well understood that it was Satan, Baal-Zebub, the prince of the demons, that was cast out by the power of Christ, is evident from his question when answering them on one occasion, "How can Satan cast out Satan?"
In that which, from the events in Eden to the day of Pentecost, was remarkable as a dispensation of visible agencies and results, visible teachings, rites, ordinances, inst.i.tutions, mercies and judgments, manifestations and events, the Adversary carried on his system of hostility and rivalry by visible agents and instruments, as will be ill.u.s.trated with reference to the all but universal system of idolatry of which he was the head under the name of Baal, and in which he was represented by visible images without number, and had innumerable priests and counterfeits of all the visible accompaniments of the system prescribed for the worship of Jehovah.
In the progress of that dispensation it is observable, not only that the Divine Messenger appeared in the visible likeness, and, at its close, in the nature of man, but also that created spiritual beings, angels, appeared visibly from time to time, and at the advent, resurrection and ascension of Christ. The power of rendering themselves visible, if it resided in the unfallen angels, and was a condition of their nature, is likely to have been retained and exercised by the fallen. And if--as hypocrites, by their outward and visible acts, make themselves appear to be honest and true--Satan can deceive by a.s.suming the appearance of an angel of light, he is likely to have exercised that power in every way possible to him and conducive to his ends. Possessing capacities little conceived of or comprehended by mortals; capacities indicated by the att.i.tude of opposition and rivalship which he a.s.sumed towards his Creator and rightful Sovereign, the omnipotent and omniscient One; by the boldness and perseverance of his rebellion, the vastness of the results which he accomplished in the seduction of his celestial followers, and the ruin of this world, the indescribable audacity of his personal encounter in the wilderness with the incarnate Word, and the still more amazing desperateness of the conflicts predicted in the Apocalypse; who can doubt but that he had at all times ways and means of rendering his agency visible, directly and by instruments at his command?
It is plain, from the narrative of the temptation in the wilderness, that he was locally present, and in a way implying relations to physical things a.n.a.logous to those of men; to the atmosphere, as the medium of sound and of vision; to the earth, as a basis of locomotion; that he uttered words and exerted physical power. So in the narrative of Job, and that of the scene in Paradise, to specify no others, such physical and visible acts are ascribed to him as plainly as acts visibly of a similar nature are affirmed of the two angels who, with Jehovah, came to Abraham in the form of men, partook as men of his repast, and at parting from Jehovah and Abraham, "turned their faces and went towards Sodom."
His policy as a deceiver would have been defeated, had he stood forth manifest in such form to mortal eyes as clearly to identify him, and expose his malignity and betray his evil designs towards the human race, while yet in a state of probation with reference to their repentance and salvation. He succeeded with them, for the most part, by subtlety, craft, falsehood exhibiting counterfeit resemblances of goodness, and working through visible agents actuated by him, and instrumentalities which served as screens. Thus, in the first temptation, having no alternative prior to the fall, he actuated an irrational creature, erect, perhaps, originally, in form, and otherwise preeminently adapted to his purpose, but afterwards by the curse (denounced on the visible agent as an intelligent person, in whom the fallen spirit and the animal were united as by a mock incarnation) degraded to crawl upon the ground, and called the serpent; while the actuating intelligent agent was forewarned of the enmity and prolonged hostility which would ensue between him and his followers and the race which he had seduced. The narrative, 1 Kings xxii. 19-23, shows that Satan could inspire false prophets, sorcerers and magicians; and the exercise of that power is doubtless to be supposed in respect to all those who are called false prophets, sorcerers, diviners, &c.; those who inquired of Baal-Zebub, or consulted any of the oracles of the idolatrous party.
There are in the annals of sorcery and witchcraft innumerable ill.u.s.trations of the agency, pretensions and purposes of the Evil One in securing the homage of men, and employing them as instruments of his antagonism. The following notices are taken from "Narratives of Sorcery and Magic, from the most authentic sources. By Thomas Wright, M. A., F.
S. A." This work relates chiefly to the sentiments, practices, judicial trials, confessions and executions of sorcerers and magicians, in the thirteenth and four ensuing centuries, in England, Scotland, France, Spain, Germany, and other countries of Europe. A belief in sorcery, as a kind of supernatural agency, was then universally prevalent, and was manifested in two different forms, sorcery and magic. "The magician differed from the witch in this: that while the latter was an ignorant instrument in the hands of the demons, the former had become their master by the powerful intermediation of a science which was only within the reach of a few, and which these beings were unable to disobey." Of this _science_ there were several schools in Europe. The professed object of those who studied it was to acquire the power of coercing the Evil One. In practice, the magicians, tempted by ambition, avarice, or some other pa.s.sion, generally made "the final sacrifice," that is, formally sold their souls to Satan. Thus, in the tenth century, "Gerbert is said to have sold himself, on condition of being made a pope."
"The witch held a lower degree in the scale of forbidden knowledge. She was a slave without recompense; she had sold herself without any apparent object, unless it were the mere power of doing evil." "It has been an article of popular belief, from the earliest period of the history of the nations of western Europe, that women were more easily brought into connection with the spiritual world than men; priestesses were the favorite agents of the deities of the ages of paganism. During the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the power of the witches to do mischief was derived from a direct compact with the Demon, [Devil,] whom they were bound to worship with certain rites and ceremonies, the shadows of those which had, in remoter ages, been performed in honor of the pagan G.o.ds." In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, "the witches met together by night, in solitary places, to worship their master, who appeared to them in the shape of a cat or a goat, or sometimes in that of a man. At these meetings they had feasts, and some were appointed to serve at table, while others received reward or punishment, according to their zeal in the service of the Evil One. Hither also they brought children which they had stolen from their cradles, and which were sometimes torn to pieces and devoured. We see here the first outlines of the witches" "Sabbath" of a later age."
In the progress of the narratives there are abundant testimonies to the following opinions and practices:
1. That it was Satan, the arch-apostate, personally, with whom they entered into compact; selling to him their souls for a consideration, and covenanting to worship and serve him, and to renounce Christ and blaspheme his name.
Thus, in the confession of a Dr. Fian, of Scotland, of "the origin of his acquaintance with the Devil," while meditating how he should be revenged of his landlord, "The Devil suddenly made his appearance, clad in white raiment, and said to him, "Will ye be my servant, and adore me, and ye shall never want?" The Doctor a.s.sented to the terms, and, at the suggestion of the Evil One, revenged himself." And in that of Ganfridi, a French Catholic priest: "The Demon appeared to him in a human form, and said to him, "What do you desire of me?"" After stating what he wanted, "the Demon promised to grant him his desires, on condition that he would give up to him entirely his "body, soul, and works;" to which he agreed," excepting only to his performing the sacraments as a priest.
2. They had what they termed "Sabbaths," when they met for the worship of Satan; and also periodical feasts, appointed on days set apart for festivals of the Romish Church.
Ganfridi, the priest above mentioned, "gave an account of the Sabbaths, at which he was a regular attendant. When he was ready to go--it was usually at night--he either went to the open window of his chamber, or proceeded through the door into the open air. There Lucifer made his appearance, and took him in an instant to their place of meeting, where the orgies of the witches and sorcerers lasted usually from three to four hours. Ganfridi divided the victims of the Evil One into three cla.s.ses: the novices, the sorcerers, and the magicians. On arriving at the meeting, they all worshipped the Demon, according to their several ranks; the novices falling flat on their faces, the sorcerers kneeling with their heads and bodies humbly bowed down, and the magicians, who stood highest in importance, only kneeling. After this they all went through the formality of denying G.o.d and the saints. Then they had a diabolical service in burlesque of that of the Church, at which the Evil One served as priest in a violet chasuble; the elevation of the demon host was announced by a wooden bell, and the sacrament itself was made of unleavened bread. The scenes of unutterable licentiousness which followed, resembled those of other witch meetings."
In the early part of the seventeenth century, in Labourd, at the south-west corner of France, nearly all the families of a population of thirty thousand were subjects of sorcery. At their "Sabbaths," which were numerously attended every Wednesday and Friday night, "Satan, seated on a throne, appeared in the shape of a large black man with horns, and sometimes in other forms. The ceremonies of worship, the feasting, the dance, and the license which followed, are described in all their particulars, in a mult.i.tude of confessions."
In Navarre, the delusion was no less prevalent. The ordinary Sabbaths were held every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday evening. "The form a.s.sumed by the Demon was that of a man with a sad and choleric countenance, very black and very ugly. He was seated on a lofty throne, black as ebony, and sometimes gilt, with all the accessories calculated to inspire reverence. On his head was a crown of small horns, with two larger ones behind, and another larger one on the forehead. It was the latter which gave a light somewhat greater than that of the moon, but less than that of the sun, which served to illumine the a.s.sembly. His eyes were large and round, and terrible to look at; his beard like that of a goat, and the lower part of his body had the form of that animal, &c. His worship was conducted with the same forms and ceremonies as in Labourd. After the worship of the Demon followed a travestie of the Christian ma.s.s; after the ma.s.s, the usual licentiousness, then the feast. Before they left, the Demon preached to them on the duties they had contracted towards him, exhorted them to go and injure their fellow-creatures, and to practise every kind of wickedness, and gave them powders and liquors for poisoning and destroying. He often accompanied them himself when some great evil was to be done."
3. In the confessions of those who were tried and executed, it is related in numerous instances that they had, on their first admission at the Sabbath rites and orgies, formally renounced Christ, and uttered blasphemous expressions. It was an article of their compact that they should not, at any of their a.s.semblies, mention the name of Christ; (an interdict similar to that of the Yezzidis, or worshippers of Satan, near Mosul, mentioned by M. Layard;) and it is affirmed that whenever his name was inadvertently articulated, the a.s.sembly was instantly dispersed.
4. It was held that the initiated received from the Evil One a particular mark on their persons, to distinguish them as his; that Satan often appeared to them unexpectedly in the form of a goat, a black dog, a cat, a horse, or a toad; and that each new witch received a toad, cat, or other animal, as an imp or familiar to attend them constantly. They pretended to raise storms, destroy vessels and crops, torment and kill animals and men by their sorcery; and for such crimes many thousands of them were accused, tried, and put to death.
CHAPTER XVIII.