Thaumaturgia; Or, Elucidations of the Marvellous. Oxonian
He haunts both the church and the court;
And sometimes he visits the city,
Where all the best christians resort.
Thus dress'd up in full masquerade,
He the bolder can range up and down
For he better can drive on his trade,
In any one's name than his own.
To be brief, the devil, it appears, is by far too cunning still for mankind, and continues to manage things in his own way, in spite of bishops, priests, laymen, and new churches. He governs the vices and propensities of men by methods peculiarly his own; though every crime or extortion, subterfuge or design, whether it be upon the purse or the person, will not make a man a devil; it must nevertheless be confessed, that every crime, be its magnitude or complexion what it may, puts the criminal, in some measure, into the devil's power, and gives him an ascendancy and even a title to the delinquent, whom he ever afterwards treats in a very magisterial manner.
We are told that every man has his attendant evil genius, or tutelary spirit, to execute the orders of the master demon—that the attending evil angel sees every move we make upon the board; witnesses all our actions, and permits us to do mischief, and every thing that is pernicious to ourselves;—that, on the contrary, our good spirit, actuated by more benevolent motives, is always accessary to our good actions, and reluctant to those that are bad. If this be the case, it may be fairly asked, how does it happen that those two contending spirits do not quarrel and give each other black eyes and broken heads during their rivalship for pre-eminence? And why does the evil tempting spirit so often prevail?
Instead of literally answering these difficult questions, it may be resolved into a good argument, as an excellent allegory to represent the struggle in the mind of man between good and evil inclinations. But to take them as they actually are, and merely to talk by way of natural consequence—for to argue from nature is certainly the best way to get to the bottom of the devil's story—if there are good and evil spirits attending us, that is to say, a good angel and a devil, then it is no unjust reproach to say, when people follow the dictates of the latter, that the devil's in them, or that they are devils! or, to carry the simile a point farther, that as the generality, and by far the greatest number of people follow and obey the evil spirit and not the good one, and that the power predominating is allowed to be the nominating power, it must then of course be allowed that the greater part of mankind have the devil in them, which brings us to the conclusion of our argument; and in support of which the following stanzas come happily to our recollection.
To persons and places he sends his disguises,
And dresses up all his banditti,
Who, as pickpockets flock to country assizes,
Crowd up to the court and the city.
They're at every elbow, and every ear,
And ready at every call, Sir;
The vigilant scout, plants his agents about,
And has something to do with us all, Sir.
In some he has part, and some he has whole,
And of some, (like the Vicar of Baddow) It can neither be said they have body or soul; And only are devils in shadow.
The pretty and witty are devils in masque;
The beauties are mere apparitions;
The homely alone by their faces are known,
And the good by their ugly conditions.
The beaux walk about like the shadows of men,
And wherever he leads them they follow;
But tak'em, and shak'em, there's not one in ten
But's as light as a feather, and hollow.
Thus all his affairs he drives on in disguise,
And he tickles mankind with a feather,
Creeps in at one's ear, and looks out at our eyes,
And jumbles our senses together.
He raises the vapours and prompts the desires,
And to ev'ry dark deed holds the candle;
The passions inflames and the appetite fires,
And takes every thing by the handle.
Thus he walks up and down in complete masquerade
And with every company mixes;
Sells in every shop, works at every trade,
And ev'ry thing doubtful perplexes.
The Jewish traditions concerning evil spirits are various, some of which are founded on Scripture, some borrowed from the opinions of the Pagans, some are fables of their own invention, and some are allegorical.
The demons of the Jews were considered either as the distant progeny of Adam or Eve, resulting from an improper intercourse with supernatural beings, or of Cain. As the doctrine, however, was extremely revolting to some few of the early Christians, they maintained that demons were the souls of departed human beings, who were still permitted to interfere in the affairs of the Earth, either to assist their friends or to persecute their enemies. But this doctrine did not obtain.
About two centuries and a half ago an attempt, in a condensed form, was made, to give the various opinions entertained of demons at an early date of the christian era; and it was not until a much later period of Christianity, that a more decided doctrine relative to their origin and nature was established. These tenets involved certain very knotty points respecting the fall of those angels, who, for disobedience, had forfeited their high abode in Heaven. The gnostics of early christian times, in imitation of a classification of the different orders of spirits by Plato, had attempted a similar arrangement with respect to an hierarchy of angels, the gradation of which stood as follows.
The first, and highest order, was named SERAPHINS; the second, CHERUBINS; the third was the order of THRONES; the fourth, of DOMINIONS; the fifth, of VIRTUES; the sixth, of POWERS; the seventh, of PRINCIPALITIES; the eighth, of ARCHANGELS; the ninth, and lowest, of ANGELS. This fable was, in a pointed manner, censured by the Apostles: yet strange to say, it almost outlived the pneumatologists of the middle ages. These schoolmen, in reference to the account that Lucifer rebelled against heaven, and that Michael the archangel warred against him, long agitated the momentous question, what order of angels fell on the occasion. At length it became the prevailing opinion that Lucifer was of the order of Seraphins. It was also proved after infinite research, that Agares, Belial, and Barbatos, each of them deposed angels of great rank, had been of the order of Virtues; that Beleth, Focalor, and Phoenix, had been of the order of Thrones; that Gaap had been of the order of Powers, and Virtues; and Murmur of Thrones and Angels. The pretensions of many noble devils were, likewise, canvassed, and, in an equally satisfactory manner, determined; a multiplicity of incidents connected therewith were arranged, which previously had been matter of considerable doubt and debate. These sovereign devils, to each of whom was assigned a certain district, had many noble spirits subordinate to them whose various ranks and precedence were settled with all the preciseness of heraldic distinction:—there were, for instance, devil-dukes; devil-marquises; devil-earls; devil-knights; devil-presidents, devil-archbishops, and bishops; prelates; and, without question, devil-physicians, and apothecaries.
In the middle ages, when conjuration had attained a certain pitch of perfection, and was regularly practised in Europe, devils of distinction were supposed to make their appearance under decided forms, by which they were as well recognised, as the head of any ancient family would be by his crest and armorial bearings. The shapes they were accustomed to adopt were registered among their names and characters.
Although the leading tenets of Demonology may be traced to the Jews and early Christians, yet they were matured by our early communications with the Moors of Spain, who were the chief philosophers of the dark ages, and between whom and the natives of France and Italy, a great communication existed. Toledo, Seville and Salamanca, became the greatest schools of magic. At the latter