Demonology and Devil-lore Part 32

Jacob--cunning, extortionate, fraudulent in spirit even when technically fair--is not a pleasing figure in the eyes of the nineteenth century. But he does not belong to the nineteenth century. His contest was with Esau. The very names of them belong to mythology; they are not individual men; they are conflicting tendencies and interests of a primitive period. They must be thought of as Israel and Edom historically; morally, as the Barter principle and the Bandit principle.

High things begin low. Astronomy began as Astrology; and when Trade began there must have been even more trickery about it than there is now. Conceive of a world made up of nomadic tribes engaged in perpetual warfare. It is a commerce of killing. If a tribe desires the richer soil or larger possessions of another, the method is to exterminate that other. But at last there rises a tribe either too weak or too peaceful to exterminate, and it proposes to barter. It challenges its neighbours to a contest of wits. They try to get the advantage of each other in bargains; they haggle and cheat; and it is not heroic at all, but it is the beginning of commerce and peace.

But the Dukes of Edom as they are called will not enter into this compact. They have not been used to it; they are always outwitted at a bargain; just like those other red men in the West of America, whose lands are bought with beads, and their territorial birthright taken for a mess of pottage. They prefer to live by the hunt and by the sword. Then between these two peoples is an eternal feud, with an occasional truce, or, in biblical phrase, 'reconciliation.'

Surrounded by a commercial civilisation, with its prosaic virtues and its petty vices, we cannot help admiring much about the Duke of Edom, non-producer though he be. Brave, impulsive, quick to forgive as to resent; generous, as people can afford to be when they may give what they never earned; his gallant qualities cast a certain meanness over his grasping brother, the Israelite. It is a healthy sign in youth to admire such qualities. The boy who delights in Robin Hood; the youth who feels a stir of enthusiasm when he reads Schiller's Robbers; the ennuyes of the clubs and the roughs, with unfulfilled capacities for adventure in them, who admire 'the gallant Turk,' are all lingering in the nomadic age. They do not think of things but of persons. They are impressed by the barbaric dash. The splendour of warriors hides trampled and decimated peasantries; their courage can gild atrocities. Beside such captivating qualities and thrilling scenes how poor and commonplace appear thrifty rusticity, and the cautious, selfish, money-making tradesmen!

But fine and heroic as the Duke of Edom may appear in the distance, it is best to keep him at a distance. When Robin Hood reappeared on Blackheath lately, his warmest admirers were satisfied to hear he was securely lodged in gaol. The Jews had just the same sensations about the Dukes of Edom. They saw that tribe near to, and lived in daily dread of them. They were hirsute barbarians, dwelling amid mountain fastnesses, and lording it over a vast territory. The weak tribe of the plains had no sooner got together some herds and a little money, than those das.h.i.+ng Edomites fell upon them and carried away their savings and substance in a day. This made the bartering tribe all the more dependent on their cunning. They had to match their wits against, the world; and they have had to do the same to this day, when it is a chief element of their survival that their thrift is of importance to the business and finance of Europe. But in the myth it is shown that Trade, timorous as it is in presence of the sword, may have a magnanimity of its own. The Supplanter of Edom is haunted by the wrong he has done his elder brother, and driven him to greater animosity. He resolves to seek him, offer him gifts, and crave reconciliation. It is easy to put an unfavourable construction upon his action, but it is not necessary. The Supplanter, with droves of cattle, a large portion of his possessions, pa.s.ses out towards perilous Edom, unarmed, undefended, except by his amicable intentions towards the powerful chieftain he had wronged. At the border of the hostile kingdom he learns that the chieftain is coming to meet him with four hundred men. He is now seized, with a mighty spirit of Fear. He sends on the herdsmen with the herds, and remains alone. During the watches of the night there closes upon him this phantom of Fear, with its presage of Death. The tricky tradesman has met his Conscience, and it is girt about with Terror. But he feels that his n.o.bler self is with it, and that he will win. Finely has Charles Wesley told the story in his hymn:--

Come, O thou traveller unknown, Whom still I hold but cannot see!

My company before is gone And I am left alone with thee: With thee all night I mean to stay And wrestle till the break of day.

'Confident in self-despair,' the Supplanter conquers his Fear; with the dawn he travels onward alone to meet the man he had outraged and his armed men, and to him says, 'I have appeared before thee as though I had appeared before G.o.d, that thou mightest be favourable to me.' The proud Duke is disarmed. The brothers embrace and weep together. The chieftain declines the presents, and is only induced to accept them as proof of his forgiveness. The Tradesman learns for all time that his mere cleverness may bring a demon to his side in the night, and that he never made so good a bargain as when he has restored ill-gotten gains. The aristocrat and warrior returns to his mountain, aware now that magnanimity and courage are not impossible to quiet men living by merchandise. The hunting-ground must make way now for the cattle-breeder. The sword must yield before the balances.

Whatever may have been the tribes which in primitive times had these encounters, and taught each other this lesson, they were long since reconciled. But the ghosts of Israel and Edom, of Barter and Plunder, fought on through long tribal histories. Israel represented by the archangel Michael, and Edom by dragon Samael, waged their war. One characteristic of the opposing power has been already considered. Samael embodied Edom as the genius of Strife. He was the especial Accuser of Israel, their Antichrist, so to say, as Michael was their Advocate. But the name 'Edom' itself was retained as a kind of personification of the barbaric military and lordly Devil. The highwayman in epaulettes, the heroic spoiler, with his hairy hand which Israel itself had imitated many a time in its gloves, were summed up as 'Edom.'

This personification is the more important since it has characterised the more serious idea of Satan which prevails in the world. He is mainly a moral conception, and means the pride and pomp of the world, its natural wildness and ferocities, and the glory of them. The Mussulman fable relates that when Allah created man, and placed him in a garden, he called all the angels to wors.h.i.+p this crowning work of his hands. Iblis alone refused to wors.h.i.+p Adam. The very idea of a garden is hateful to the spirit of Nomadism. [70] Man the gardener receives no reverence from the proud leader of the Seraphim. G.o.d said unto him (Iblis), What hindered thee from wors.h.i.+pping Adam, since I commanded thee? He answered, I am more excellent than he: thou hast created me of (ethereal) fire, and hast created him of clay (black mud). G.o.d said, Get thee down therefore from paradise, for it is not fit that thou behave thyself proudly therein. [71]

The earnestness and self-devotion of the northern pagans in their resistance to Christianity impressed the finest minds in the Church profoundly. Some of the Fathers even quoted the enthusiasm of those whom they regarded as devotees of the Devil, to shame the apathy of christians. The Church could show no martyr braver than Rand, down whose throat St. Olaf made a viper creep, which gnawed through his side; and Rand was an example of thousands. This gave many of the early christians of the north a very serious view of the realm of Satan, and of Satan himself as a great potentate. It was increased by their discovery that the pagan kings--Satan's subjects--had moral codes and law-courts, and energetically maintained justice. In this way there grew up a more dignified idea of h.e.l.l. The grotesque imps receded before the array of majestic devils, like Satan and Beelzebub; and these were invested with a certain grandeur and barbaric pride. They were regarded as rival monarchs who had refused to submit themselves to Jehovah, but they were deemed worthy of heroic treatment. The traces of this sentiment found in the ancient frescoes of Russia are of especial importance. Nothing can exceed the grandeur of the Hierarchy of h.e.l.l as they appear in some of these superb pictures. Satan is generally depicted with similar dignity to the king of heaven, from whom he is divided by a wall's depth, sometimes even resembling him in all but complexion and hair (which is fire on Satan). There are frequent instances, as in the accompanying figure (4), where, in careful correspondence with the att.i.tude of Christ on the Father's knees, Satan supports the betrayer of Christ. Beside the king of h.e.l.l, seated in its Mouth, are personages of distinction, some probably representing those poets and sages of Greece and Rome, the prospect of whose d.a.m.nation filled some of the first christian Fathers with such delight.

In Spain, when a Bishop is about to baptize one of the European Dukes of the Devil, he asks at the font what has become of his ancestors, naming them--all heathen. 'They are all in h.e.l.l!' replies the Bishop. 'Then there will I follow them,' returns the Chief, and thereafter by no persuasion can he be induced to fare otherwise than to h.e.l.l. Gradually the Church made up its mind to ally itself with this obstinate barbaric pride and ambition. It was willing to give up anything whatever for a kingdom of this world, and to wors.h.i.+p any number of Princes of Darkness, if they would give unto the Bishops such kingdoms, and the glory of them. They induced Esau to be baptized by promise of their aid in his oppressions, and free indulgences to all his pa.s.sions; and then, by his help, they were able to lay before weaker Esaus the christian alternatives--Be baptized or burnt!

Not to have known how to conquer in bloodless victories the barbaric Esaus of the world by a virtue more pure, a heroism more patient, than theirs, and with that 'sweet reasonableness of Christ,'

which is the latest epitaph on his tomb among the rich; not to have recognised the true n.o.bility of the Dukes, and purified their pride to self-reverence, their pa.s.sion to moral courage, their daring and freedom to a self-reliance at once gentle and manly; this was no doubt the necessary failure of a dogmatic and irrational system. But it is this which has made the christian Israel more of an impostor than its prototype, in every country to which it came steadily developing to a hypocritical imitator of the Esau whose birthright it stole by baptism. It speedily lost his magnanimity, but never his sword, which however it contrived to make at once meaner and more cruel by twisting it into thumbscrews and the like. For many centuries its voice has been, in a thin phonographic way, the voice of Jesus, but the hands are the hands of Esau with Samael's claw added.

CHAPTER XIV.

JOB AND THE DIVIDER.

Hebrew Polytheism--Problem of Evil--Job's disbelief in a future life--The Divider's realm--Salted Sacrifices--Theory of Orthodoxy--Job's reasoning--His humour--Impartiality of Fortune between the evil and good--Agnosticism of Job--Elihu's eclecticism--Jehovah of the Whirlwind--Heresies of Job--Rabbinical legend of Job--Universality of the legend.

Israel is a flouris.h.i.+ng vine, Which bringeth forth fruit to itself; According to the increase of his fruit He hath multiplied his altars; According to the goodness of his land He hath made goodly images.

Their heart is divided: now shall they be found guilty; He will break down their altars, he will spoil their images.

These words of the prophet Hosea (x. 1, 2) foreshadow the devil which the devout Jahvist saw growing steadily to enormous strength through all the history of Israel. The germ of this enemy may be found in our chapter on Fate; one of its earliest developments is indicated in the account already given of the part.i.tion between Jacob and Esau, and the superst.i.tion to which that led of a ghostly Antagonist, to whom a share had been irreversibly pledged. From the principle thus adopted, there grew a host of demons whom it was believed necessary to propitiate by offering them their share. A divided universe had for its counterpart a divided loyalty in the heart of the people. The growth of a belief in the supremacy of one G.o.d was far from being a real monotheism; as a matter of fact no primitive race has been monotheistic. In 2 Kings xvii. it is stated as a belief of the Jews that some a.s.syrians who had been imported into their territory (Samaria) were slain by lions because they knew not 'the manner of the G.o.d of the land.' Spinoza noticed the indications given in this and other narratives that the Jews believed that G.o.ds whose wors.h.i.+p was intolerable within their own boundaries were yet adapted to other regions (Tractatus, ii.). With this state of mind it is not wonderful that when the Jews found themselves in those alien regions they apprehended that the G.o.ds of those countries might also employ lions on such as knew not their manner, but adhered to the wors.h.i.+p of Jehovah too exclusively.

Among the Jews grew up a more spiritual cla.s.s of minds, whose feeling towards the mongrel wors.h.i.+p around them was that of abhorrence; but these had a very difficult cause to maintain. The popular superst.i.tions were firmly rooted in the fact that terrible evils afflicted mankind, and in the further fact that these did not spare the most pious. Nay, it had for a long time been a growing belief that the bounties and afflictions of nature, instead of following the direction promised by the patriarchs,--rewarding the pious, punis.h.i.+ng the wicked,--were distributed in a reverse way. Dives and Lazarus seemed to have their respective lots before any future paradise was devised for their equalisation--as indeed is natural, since Dives attends to his business, while Lazarus is investing his powers in Abraham's bosom. Out of this experience there came at last the demand for a life beyond the grave, without whose redress the pious began to deem themselves of all men the most miserable. But before this heavenly future became a matter of common belief, there were theories which prepared, the way for it. It was held by the devout that the evils which afflicted the righteous were Jehovah's tests of their loyalty to him, and that in the end such trials would be repaid. And when observation, following the theory, showed that they were not so repaid, it was said the righteousness had been unreal, the devotee was punished for hidden wickedness. When continued observation had proved that this theory too was false, and that piety was not paid in external bounties, either to the good man or his family, the solution of a future settlement was arrived at.

This simple process may be traced in various races, and in its several phases.

The most impressive presentation of the experiences under which the primitive secular theory of rewards and punishments perished, and that of an adjustment beyond the grave arose, is found in the Book of Job. The solution here reached--a future reward in this life--is an impossible one for anything more than an exceptional case. But the Book of Job displays how beautiful such an instance would be, showing afflictions to be temporary and destined to be followed by compensations largely outweighing them. It was a tremendous statement of the question--If a man die, shall he live again? Jehovah answered, 'Yes' out of the whirlwind, and raised Job out of the dust. But for the millions who never rose from the dust that voice was heard announcing their resurrection from a trial that pressed them even into the grave. It is remarkable that Job's expression of faith that his Vindicator would appear on earth, should have become the one text of the Old Testament which has been adapted by christians to express faith in immortality. Job strongly disowns that faith.

There is hope for a tree, If it be cut down, that it will sprout again, And that its tender branches will not fail; Though its root may have grown old in the earth, And though its trunk be dead upon the ground, At the scent of water it will bud, And put forth boughs, like a young plant.

But man dieth and is gone for ever!

Yet I know that my Vindicator liveth, And will stand up at length on the earth; And though with my skin this body be wasted away, Yet in my flesh shall I see G.o.d.

Yea, I shall see him my friend; My eyes shall behold him no longer an adversary; For this my soul panteth within me. [72]

The scenery and details of this drama are such as must have made an impression upon the mind of the ancient Jews beyond what is now possible for any existing people. In the first place, the locality was the land of Uz, which Jeremiah (Lam. iv. 21) points out as part of Edom, the territory traditionally ruled over by the great invisible Accuser of Israel, who had succeeded to the portion of Esau, adversary of their founder, Jacob. Job was within the perilous bounds. And yet here, where scape-goats were offered to deprecate Samael, and where in ordinary sacrifices some item entered for the devil's share, Job refused to pay any honour to the Power of the Place. He offered burnt-offerings alone for himself and his sons, these being exclusively given to Jehovah. [73] Even after his children and his possessions were destroyed by this great adversary, Job offered his sacrifice without even omitting the salt, which was the Oriental seal of an inviolable compact between two, and which so especially recalled and consecrated the covenant with Jehovah. [74] Among his twenty thousand animals, Azazel's animal, the goat, is not even named. Job's distinction was an absolute and unprecedented singleness of loyalty to Jehovah.

This loyalty of a disciple even in the enemy's country is made the subject of a sort of boast by Jehovah when the Accuser enters. Postponing for the moment consideration of the character and office of this Satan, we may observe here that the trial which he challenges is merely a test of the sincerity of Job's allegiance to Jehovah. The Accuser claims that it is all given for value received. These possessions are taken away.

This is but the framework around the philosophical poem in which all theories of the world are personified in grand council.

First of all Job (the Troubled) asks--Why? Orthodoxy answers. (Eliphaz was the son of Esau (Samael), and his name here means that he was the Accuser in disguise. He, 'G.o.d's strength,' stands for the Law. It affirms that G.o.d's ways are just, and consequently afflictions imply previous sin.) Eliphaz repeats the question put by the Accuser in heaven--'Was not thy fear of G.o.d thy hope?' And he brings Job to the test of prayer, in which he has so long trusted. Eliphaz rests on revelation; he has had a vision; and if his revelation be not true, he challenges Job to disprove it by calling on G.o.d to answer him, or else securing the advocacy of some one of the heavenly host. Eliphaz says trouble does not spring out of the dust.

Job's reply is to man and G.o.d--Point out the error! Grant my troubles are divine arrows, what have I done to thee, O watcher of men! Am I a sea-monster--and we imagine Job looking at his wasted limbs--that the Almighty must take precautions and send spies against me?

Then follows Bildad the Shuhite,--that is the 'contentious,' one of the descendants of Keturah (Abraham's concubine), traditionally supposed to be inimical to the legitimate Abrahamic line, and at a later period identified as the Turks. Bildad, with invective rather than argument, charges that Job's children had been slain for their sins, and otherwise makes a personal application of Eliphaz's theology.

Job declares that since G.o.d is so perfect, no man by such standard could be proved just; that if he could prove himself just, the argument would be settled by the stronger party in his own favour; and therefore, liberated from all temptation to justify himself, he affirms that the innocent and the guilty are dealt with much in the same way. If it is a trial of strength between G.o.d and himself, he yields. If it is a matter of reasoning, let the terrors be withdrawn, and he will then be able to answer calmly. For the present, even if he were righteous, he dare not lift up his head to so a.s.sert, while the rod is upon him.

Zophar 'the impudent' speaks. Here too, probably, is a disguise: he is (says the LXX.) King of the Minaeans, that is the Nomades, and his designation 'the Naamathite,' of unknown significance, bears a suspicious resemblance to Naamah, a mythologic wife of Samael and mother of several devils. Zophar is cynical. He laughs at Job for even suggesting the notion of an argument between himself and G.o.d, whose wisdom and ways are unsearchable. He (G.o.d) sees man's iniquity even when it looks as if he did not. He is deeper than h.e.l.l. What can a man do but pray and acknowledge his sinfulness?

But Job, even in his extremity, is healthy-hearted enough to laugh too. He tells his three 'comforters' that no doubt Wisdom will die with them. Nevertheless, he has heard similar remarks before, and he is not prepared to renounce his conscience and common-sense on such grounds. And now, indeed, Job rises to a higher strain. He has made up his mind that after what has come upon him, he cares not if more be added, and challenges the universe to name his offence. So long as his transgression is 'sealed up in a bag,' he has a right to consider it an invention. [75]

Temanite Orthodoxy is shocked at all this. Eliphaz declares that Job's a.s.sertion that innocent and guilty suffer alike makes the fear of G.o.d a vain thing, and discourages prayer. 'With us are the aged and h.o.a.ry-headed.' (Job is a neologist.) Eliphaz paints human nature in Calvinistic colours.

Behold, (G.o.d) putteth no trust in his ministering spirits, And the heavens are not pure in his sight; Much less abominable and polluted man, Who drinketh iniquity as water!

The wise have related, and they got it from the fathers to whom the land was given, and among whom no stranger was allowed to bring his strange doctrines, that affliction is the sign and punishment of wickedness.

Job merely says he has heard enough of this, and finds no wise man among them. He acknowledges that such reproaches add to his sorrows. He would rather contend with G.o.d than with them, if he could. But he sees a slight indication of divine favour in the remarkable unwisdom of his revilers, and their failure to prove their point.

Bildad draws a picture of what he considers would be the proper environment of a wicked man, and it closely resembles the situation of Job.

But Job reminds him that he, Bildad, is not G.o.d. It is G.o.d that has brought him so low, but G.o.d has been satisfied with his flesh. He has not yet uttered any complaint as to his conduct; and so he, Job, believes that his vindicator will yet appear to confront his accusers--the men who are so glib when his afflictor is silent. [76]

Zophar harps on the old string. Pretty much as some preachers go on endlessly with their pictures of the terrors which haunted the deathbeds of Voltaire and Paine, all the more because none are present to relate the facts. Zophar recounts how men who seemed good, but were not, were overtaken by asps and vipers and fires from heaven.

But Job, on the other hand, has a curious catalogue of examples in which the notoriously wicked have lived in wealth and gaiety. And if it be said G.o.d pays such off in their children, Job denies the justice of that. It is the offender, and not his child, who ought to feel it. The prosperous and the bitter in soul alike lie down in the dust at last, the good and the evil; and Job is quite content to admit that he does not understand it. One thing he does understand: 'Your explanations are false.'

But Eliphaz insists on Job having a dogma. If the orthodox dogma is not true, put something in its place! Why are you afflicted? What is, your theory? Is it because G.o.d was afraid of your greatness? It must be as we say, and you have been defrauding and injuring people in secret.

Job, having repeated his ardent desire to meet G.o.d face to face as to his innocence, says he can only conclude that what befalls him and others is what is 'appointed' for them. His terror indeed arises from that: the good and the evil seem to be distributed without reference to human conduct. How darkness conspires with the a.s.sa.s.sin! If G.o.d were only a man, things might be different; but as it is, 'what he desireth that he doeth,' and 'who can turn him?'