( 381 ) CHAPTER XXVII. LE BON DIABLE. The Devil repainted-Satan a divine agent-St. Orain's heresyPrimitive universalism-Father Sinistrari-Salvation of demons -Mediæval sects-Aquinas-His prayer for Satan-Popular antipathies-The Devil's gratitude-Devil defending innocenceDevil against idle lords-The wicked ale-wife-Pious offenders punished-Anachronistic Devils-Devils turn to poems-Devil's good advice-Devil sticks to his word-His love of justiceCharlemagne and the Serpent-Merlin-His prison of AirMephistopheles in Heaven. THE phrase which heads this chapter is a favourite one in France. It may have had a euphemistic origin, for the giants dreaded by primitive Europeans were too formidable to be lightly spoken of. But within most of the period concerning which we have definite knowledge such phrases would more generally have expressed the halfcontemptuous pity with which these huge beings with weak intellects were regarded. The Devil imported with Christianity was made over, as we have seen, into the image of the Dummeteufel, or stupid good-natured giant, and he is represented in many legends which show him giving his gifts and services for payments of which he is constantly cheated. Le Bon Diable in France is somewhat of this character, and is often taken as the sign of tradesmen who wish to represent themselves as lavishing their goods recklessly for inadequate compensation. But the large accession of demons and devils from the East. 382 THE DEVIL REPAINTED. through Jewish and Moslem channels, of a character far from stupid, gave a new sense to that phrase and corresponding ones. There is no doubt that a very distinct reaction in favour of the Devil arose in Europe, and one expressive of very interesting facts and forces. The pleasant names given him by the masses would alone indicate this,-Monsieur De Scelestat, Lord Voland, Blümlin (floweret), Federspiel (gay-plumed), Maitre Bernard, Maitre Parsin (Parisian). The Devil is not so black as he's painted. This proverb concerning the long-outlawed Evil One has a respectable antiquity, and the feeling underlying it has by no means been limited to the vulgar. Even the devout George Herbert wrote We paint the Devil black, yet he Robert Burns naively appeals to Old Nick's better nature But fare ye weel, auld Nickie-ben! I'm wae to think upon yon den, E'en for your sake! It is hard to destroy the natural sentiments of the human heart. However much they may be overlaid by the transient exigencies of a creed, their indestructible nature is pretty certain to reveal itself. The most orthodox supporters of divine cruelty in their own theology will cry out against it in another. The saint who is quite satisfied that the everlasting torture of Satan or Judas is justice, will look upon the doom of Prometheus as a sign of heathen heartlessness; and the burning of one widow for a few moments on her husband's pyre will stimulate merciful missionary ardour among millions of christians SAINT ORAIN'S HERESY. 383 whose creed passes the same poor victim to endless torture, and half the human race with her. It is doubtful whether the general theological conception of the functions of Satan is consistent with the belief that he is in a state of suffering. As an agent of divine punishment he is a part of the divine government; and it is even probable that had it not been for the necessity of keeping up his office, theology itself would have found some means of releasing him and his subordinates from hell, and ultimately of restoring them to heaven and virtue. It is a legend of the island Iona that when St. Columba attempted to build a church there, the Devil—i.e., the same Druid magicians who tried to prevent his landing there by tempests-threw down the stones as often as they were piled up. An oracle declared that the church. could arise only after some holy man had been buried alive at the spot, and the saint's friend Orain offered himself for the purpose. After Orain had been buried, and the wall was rising securely, St. Columba was seized with a strong desire to look upon the face of his poor friend once more. The wall was pulled down, the body dug up; but instead of Orain being found dead, he sat up and told 1 In the pre-petrified era of Theology this hope appears to have visited the minds of some, Origen for instance. But by many centuries of utilisation the Devil became so essential to the throne of Christianity that theologians were more ready to spare God from their system than Satan. Even the clever Madame de Staël,' said Goethe, was greatly scandalised that I kept the Devil in such good-humour. In the presence of God the Father, she insisted upon it, he ought to be more grim and spiteful. What will she say if she sees him promoted a step higher,—nay, perhaps, meets him in heaven?' Though, in another conversation with Falk, Goethe intimates that he had written a passage 'where the Devil himself receives grace and mercy from God,' the artistic theory of his poem could permit no nearer approach to this than those closing lines (Faust, II.) in which Mephistopheles reproaches the casehardened Devil' and himself for their mismanagement. To the isolated, the not yet humanised, intellect sensuality is evil when senseless, and its hell is folly. 384 PRIMITIVE UNIVERSALISM. the assembled christians around him that he had been to the other world, and discovered that they were in error about various things, especially about Hell, which really did not exist at all. Outraged by this heresy the christians immediately covered up Orain again in good earnest. The resurrection of this primitive universalist of the seventh century, and his burial again, may be regarded as typifying a dream of the ultimate restoration of the universe to the divine sway which has often given signs of life through christian history, though many times buried. The germ of it is even in Paul's hope that at last 'God may be all in all' (1 Cor. xv. 28). In Luke x. 17, also, it was related that the seventy whom Jesus had sent out among the idol-worshipping Gentiles 'returned again with joy, saying, Lord, even the devils are subject unto us through thy name.' These ideas are recalled in various legends, such as that elsewhere related of the Satyr who came to St. Anthony to ask his prayers for the salvation. of his demonic tribe. On the strength of Anthony's courteous treatment of that Satyr, the famous Consulteur of the Inquisition, Father Sinistrari (seventeenth century), rested much of his argument that demons were included in the atonement wrought by Christ and might attain final beatitude. The Father affirmed that this was implied in Christ's words, 'Other sheep I have which are not of this flock them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold and one shepherd'1 (John x. 16). That these words were generally supposed to refer to the inclusion of the Gentile world was not accepted by Sinistrari as impairing his argument, but the contrary. He maintained with great ingenuity that the 1 'Demonialite,' 60-62, &c. We may hope that this learned man, during his tenure of office under the Inquisition, had some mercy for the poor devils dragged before that tribunal. FATHER SINISTRARI. 385 salvation of the Gentiles logically includes the salvation of their inspiring demons, and that there would not be one fold if these aerial beings, whose existence all authorities attested, were excluded. He even intimates, though more timidly, that their father, Satan himself, as a participator in the sin of Adam and sharer of his curse, may be included in the general provision of the deity for the entire and absolute removal of the curse throughout nature. Sinistrari's book was placed on the 'Index Expurgatorius' at Rome in 1709, 'donec corrigatur,' eight years. after the author's death; it was republished, 'correctus,' 1753. But the fact that such sentiments had occupied many devout minds in the Church, and that they had reached the dignity of a consistent and scholarly statement in theology, was proved. The opinion grew out of deeper roots than New Testament phrases or the Anthony fables. The Church had been for ages engaged in the vast task of converting the Gentile world; in the course of that task it had succeeded only by successive surrenders of the impossible principles with which it had started. The Prince of this World had been baptized afresh with every European throne ascended by the Church. Asmodeus had triumphed in the sacramental inclusion of marriage; St. Francis d'Assisi, preaching to the animals, represented innumerable pious myths which had been impossible under the old belief in a universal curse resting upon nature. The evolution of this tendency may be traced through the entire history of the Church in such sects as the Paulicians, Cathari, Bogomiles, and others, who, though they again and again formulated anew the principle of an eternal Dualism, as often revealed some further stage in the progressive advance of the christianised mind towards a normal relation with nature. Thus the Cathari maintained that only those VOL. II. 2 B |