Fallen Angels: Soldiers of Satan's Realm

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN The Devil of the People

208 • • • Fallen Angels nation or senses, or by clothing theairwith a corporeal appearance .27 Some features of this exposition of Thomas Aquinas were criticized by his contemporaries, especially his great antagonist Duns Scotus.28 Nor has every detail been adopted bytheChurch. But in its main outlines, the satanology set forth above is still the doctrine of Rome. CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN The Devil of thePeople 'he highly abstract conception of the Devil presented inthe previous chapter was of interest only to a fewexalted intellects; butthepopular notions to which we now turn were notconfined to quaint villagers. They were shared by laity and clergy alike; even menof vast erudition believed in a most realistic sort of Devil, whose workings they were sure they hadexperienced. Nota fewwere convinced that theyhad seen him with their owneyes, in a variety of dreadful forms. Medieval literature and art depict him as a horrible monster, usually equipped with horns andwith thewings andclaws of a dragon. He takes other forms, too, notably those of thegoatand pig. Heblights alllife with hismalice; he is the source notonly of sin,but of every physical evil—sickness, storm, crop-failure, emotional disturbance. Surprisingly, the consciousness of Satan wasnot at its height in the early medieval period, the so-called Dark Ages. The twelfth and thirteenth centuries, which witnessed the building of the great cathedrals, therise of theuniversities, andthefloweringof scholastic philosophy, were precisely the years in which the awareness of theDevil and hispowers rose to a new and terrifying climax. The belief in thereality andpower of the Devil is indeed to be found in every age of historical Christianity. Tertullian, for example, was obsessed by the horror and danger of the spirit world. Butthe violent intensity of his feeling was, for his age, somewhat exceptional. More and more, however, as centuries The Devil of the People • • • 209 went by, did this mood become characteristic. Bulky tomes were compiled by monastic writers, setting forth in minutest detail the innumerable activities and stratagems of the Devil and his hosts. Nothing is too trivial for Satan's direct intervention. If the howling of the wind through the trees produces a momentary fright, if a headache distracts a brother from his devotions, or if an indolent mood prompts the postponement of some task, the Devil is at work in person. An endless store of tales in which the Devil appears visibly to torture the saints or to tempt the unsteady are solemnly set forth. No one doubted that Satan had unwisely approached St. Dunstan while the latter was working at his forge, and that the doughty saint had grasped Satan's nose with his red-hot pincers and forced him to an undignified retreat! Such tales were part of the stock-in-trade of the preachers and circulated freely among the people. As in this last instance, there is sometimes a comic note in the stories about Satan.1 I suspect that this is partly an inheritance from heathen antiquity. The relation between pre-Christian paganism and the demonology of medieval Europe has not been fully settled. The Christian teachers, we saw, identified the heathen gods and goddesses with the demonic fallen angels. Some modern investigators have taken a similar view and interpreted medieval witchcraft and diabolism as survivals of the old pre-Christian cults.2 However this may be, we cannot doubt that many an old Germanic tale of forest demons, trolls and giants persisted after the tellers of the story had become Christian; and the evil spirit of the story became Satan or one of his lieutenants. Many of these old tales concern the outwitting of the demon by some clever human device. They may be the source of some of the jollier stories in which Satan comes off second best. But by and large, there was nothing funny about the Devil in medieval Europe. A competent authority remarks: "It may almost be said that to the ordinary man during this period, the Devil was a more insistent reality than God Himself."3 He darkened men's lives with his terrors. The love of God was too often obscured by the all-powerful fear of the Devil. WITCHCRAFT. The consequences of this pervading terror were far more serious than the generation of a gloomy mood. The belief 210 • • • Fallen Angels in witchcraft—universal in former ages—now took on a more dreadful aspect. The view gradually emerges that a person can enter into...