THE FALL OF LUCIFER.

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all the chief ones (great goats) of the earth: it hath raised up from their thrones all the kings of the nations (demonbegotten aliens). All these shall say unto thee, Art thou also become weak as we? Art thou become like unto us? Thy splendour is brought down to the underworld, and the noise of thy viols: the worm is spread under thee, and the worms cover thee. How art thou fallen, O Lucifer (Daystar), son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground which didst weaken the nations! For thou hast said in thy heart, I will ascend into (the upper) heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars (archangels) of God: I will sit (reign) also upon the mount of the congregation (the assembly of the enemies of God) in the sides of the north. I will ascend above the heights of the clouds (the thunder-throne of Jehovah); I will be like the Most High. Yet shalt thou be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit.'1

In this passage we mark the arena of the combat shifted from heaven to earth. It is not the throne of heaven but that of the world at which the fiends now aim. Nay, there is confession in every line of the prophecy that the enemy of Jehovah has usurped his throne. Hell has prevailed, and Lucifer is the Prince of this World. The celestial success has not been maintained on earth. This would be the obvious fact to a humiliated, oppressed,

1 Isaiah xiv. It may appear as if in this personification of a fallen star we have entered a different mythological region from that represented by the Assyrian tablets; but it is not so. The demoniac forms of Ishtar, Astarte, are fallen stars also. She appears in Greece as Artemis Astrateia, whose worship Pausanias mentions as coming from the East. Her development is through Asteria (Greek form of Ishtar), in whose myth is hidden much valuable Babylonian lore. Asteria was said to have thrown herself into the sea, and been changed into the island called Asteria, from its having fallen like a star from heaven. Her suicide was to escape from the embraces of Zeus, and her escape from him in form of a quail, as well as her fate, may be instructively compared with the story of Lilith, who flew out of Eden on wings to escape from Adam, and made an effort to drown herself in the Red Sea. The

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THE DRAGON'S TRIUMPH.

heavily-taxed people, who believed themselves the one family on earth sprung from Jehovah, and their masters. the offspring of demons. This situation gave to the vague traditions of a single combat between Bel and the Dragon, about an eclipse or a riot, the significance which it retained ever afterward of a mighty conflict on earth between the realms of Light and Darkness, between which the Elohim had set a boundary-line (Gen. i. 4) in the beginning. A similar situation returned when the Jews were under the sway of Rome, and then all that had ever been said of Babylon was repeated against Rome under the name of Edom. It recurred in the case of those Jews who acknowledged Jesus as their Messiah: in the pomp and glory of the Cæsars they beheld the triumph of the Powers of Darkness, and the burthen of Isaiah against Lucifer was raised again in that of the Apocalypse against the sevenheaded Dragon. It is notable how these writers left out of sight the myth of Eden so far as it did not belong to their race. Isaiah does not say anything even of the serpent. The Apocalypse says nothing of the two wonderful trees, and the serpent appears only as a Dragon from whom the woman is escaping, by whom she is not at all tempted. The shape of the Devil, and the Combat with him, have always been determined by dangers and evils that are actual, not such as are archæological.

diabolisation of Asteria (the fallen star) was through her daughter Hecate. Hecate was the female Titan who was the most potent ally of the gods. Her rule was supreme under Zeus, and all the gifts valued by mortals were believed to proceed from her; but she was severely judicial, and rigidly withheld all blessings from such as did not deserve them. Thus she was, as the searching eye of Zeus, a star-spy upon earth. Such spies, as we have repeatedly had occasion to mention in this work, are normally developed into devils. From professional detectives they become accusers and instigators. Ishtar of the Babylonians, Asteria of the Greeks, and the Day-star of the Hebrews are male and female forms of the same personification: Hecate with her torch (karos, 'far-shooting') and Lucifer (light-bringer' on the deeds of darkness) are the same in their degradation.

A gipsy near Edinburgh gave me his version of the combat between God and Satan as follows. 'When God created the universe and all things in it, Satan tried to create a rival universe. He managed to match everything pretty well except man. There he failed; and God to punish his pride cast him down to the earth and bound him with a chain. But this chain was so long that Satan was able to move over the whole face of the earth!' There had got into this wanderer's head some bit of the Babylonian story, and it was mingled with Gnostic traditions about Ildabaoth; but there was also a quaint suggestion in Satan's long chain of the migration of this mythical combat not only round the world, but through the ages.

The early followers of Christ came before the glories of Paganism with the legend that the lowly should inherit the earth. And though they speedily surrendered to the rulers of the world in Rome, and made themselves into a christian aristocracy, when they came into Northern Europe the christians were again brought to confront with an humble system the religion of thrones and warriors. St. Gatien celebrating mass in a cavern beside the Loire, meant as much weakness in presence of Paganism as the Huguenots felt twelve centuries later hiding in the like caverns from St. Gatien's priestly successors.

The burthen of Isaiah is heard again, and with realistic intensity, in the seventh century, and in the north, with our patriarchial poet Cadmon.

The All-powerful had
Angel-tribes,

Through might of hand,

The holy Lord,

Ten established,

In whom he trusted well

That they his service

Therefore gave he them wit,
And shaped them with his hands,
The holy Lord.

He had placed them so happily,
One he had made so powerful,
So mighty in his mind's thought,
He let him sway over so much,

Highest after himself in heaven's kingdom.
He had made him so fair,

So beauteous was his form in heaven,

That came to him from the Lord of hosts,
He was like to the light stars.

It was his to work the praise of the Lord,

It was his to hold dear his joys in heaven,

And to thank his Lord

For the reward that he had bestowed on him in that light;

Then had he let him long possess it;

But he turned it for himself to a worse thing,

Began to raise war upon him,

Against the highest Ruler of heaven,

Who sitteth in the holy seat.

Dear was he to our Lord,

But it might not be hidden from him

That his angel began

To be presumptuous,

Raised himself against his Master,

Sought speech of hate,

Words of pride towards him,

Would not serve God,

Said that his body was

Light and beauteous,

Fair and bright of hue:

He might not find in his mind

That he would God

In subjection,

His Lord, serve :

Seemed to himself

That he a power and force

Had greater

Than the holy God

Could have

THE REBELLIOUS ANGELS.

Of adherents.

Many words spake

The angel of presumption:

Thought, through his own power,

How he for himself a stronger

Seat might make,

Higher in heaven :

Said that him his mind impelled,

That he west and north

Would begin to work,

Would prepare structures :

Said it to him seemed doubtful

That he to God would

Be a vassal.

'Why shall I toil?' said he ;

'To me it is no whit needful.
To have a superior;

I can with my hands as many
Wonders work;

I have great power

To form

A diviner throne,

A higher in heaven.

Why shall I for his favour serve,
Bend to him in such vassalage?
I may be a god as he

Stand by me strong associates,
Who will not fail me in the strife,

Heroes stern of mood,

They have chosen me for chief,

Renowned warriors!

With such may one devise counsel,

With such capture his adherents;

They are my zealous friends,
Faithful in their thoughts;

I may be their chieftain,

Sway in this realm:

Thus to me it seemeth not right

That I in aught

Need cringe

To God for any good;

I will no longer be his vassal.'

When the All-powerful it

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