Chapter IX: Part 9

St. Austin, in his epistle to Januarius, justly condemns the practice; but St. Gregory of Tours, by the following instance, which he relates as having happened to himself, shows that he entertained a better opinion of it:—“Leudastus, Earl of Tours,” says he, “who was for ruining me with Queen Fredegonde, coming to Tours, big with evil designs against me, I withdrew to my oratory under a deep concern, where I took the Psalms, to try if, at opening them, I should light upon some consoling verse. My heart revived within me, when I cast my eyes on this of the 77th Psalm, ‘He caused them to go on with confidence, whilst the sea swallowed up their enemies.’ Accordingly, the Count spoke not a word to my prejudice; and leaving Tours that very day, the boat in which he was, sunk in a storm, but his skill in swimming saved him.”

The following is also from the same author. “Chranmes having revolted against Clotaire, his brother, and being at Dijon, the ecclesiastics of the place, in order to foreknow the success of this procedure, consulted the sacred books; but instead of the Psalms, they made use of St. Paul’s Epistles, and the Prophet Isaiah. Opening the latter they read these words: ‘I will pluck up the fence of my vineyard, and it shall be destroyed, because instead of good, it has brought forth bad grapes.’ The Epistles agreeing with the prophecy, it was concluded to be a sure presage of the tragical end of Cranmes.”

St. Consortia, in her youth, was passionately courted by a young man of a very powerful family, though she had formed a design of taking the veil. Knowing that a refusal would expose her parents to many inconveniences, and perhaps to danger, she desired a week’s time to determine her choice. At the expiration of this time, which she had employed in devout exercises, her lover, accompanied by the most distinguished matrons of the city, came to know her answer. “I can neither accept of you nor refuse you,” said she, “every thing is in the hand of God: but if you will agree to it, let us go to the church, and have a mass said; afterwards, let us lay the holy gospel on the altar, and say a joint prayer; then we will open the book, to be certainly informed of the divine will in this affair.” This proposal could not with propriety be refused; and the first verse which met the eyes of both, was the following: “Whosoever loveth father or mother better than me, is not worthy of me.” Upon this, Consortia said, “You see God claims me as his own;” and the lover acquiesced.

But about the eighth century, this practice began to lose ground, as soon or late, reason and authority will get the better of that which is founded on neither. It was proscribed by several popes and councils, and in terms which rank it among Pagan superstitions. However, some traces of this custom are found for several ages after, both in the Greek and the Latin church. Upon the consecration of a bishop, after laying the bible upon his head, a ceremony still subsisted, that the first verse which offered itself, was accounted an omen of his future behaviour, and of the good or evil which was reserved for him in the course of his episcopacy. Thus, a Bishop of Rochester, at his consecration by Lanfranc, Archbishop of Canterbury, had a very happy presage in these words: “Bring hither the best robe, and put it on him.” But the answer of the Scripture, at the consecration of St. Lietbert, Bishop of Cambray, was still more grateful: “This is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased.” The death of Albert, Bishop of Liege, is said to have been intimated to him by these words, which the Archbishop, who consecrated him, found at the opening of the New Testament, “And the king sent an executioner, and commanded his head to be brought; and he went and beheaded him in the prison.” Upon this the primate tenderly embracing the new bishop, said to him with tears, “My son, having given yourself up to the service of God, carry yourself righteously and devoutly, and prepare yourself for the trial of martyrdom.” The Bishop was afterwards murdered by the treacherous connivance of the Emperor Henry VI.

These prognostics were alleged upon the most important occasions. De Garlande, Bishop of Orleans, became so odious to his clergy, that they sent a complaint against him to Pope Alexander III. concluding in this manner: “Let your apostolical hands put on strength to _strip naked_ the iniquity of this man; that the curse prognosticated on the day of his consecration, may overtake him; for the gospels being opened, _according to custom_, the first words were, _And the young man, leaving his linen cloth, fled from them naked_.”

William of Malmsbury relates, that Hugh de Montaigne, Bishop of Auxerre, was obliged to go to Rome, to answer different charges brought against the purity of his morals, by some of his chapter; but they who held with the bishop, as an irrefragable proof of his spotless chastity, insisted that the prognostic on the day of his consecration was, “Hail, Mary, full of grace.”

I proceed to the second manner of this consultation, which was to go into a church with the intention of receiving, as a declaration of the will of Heaven, any words of the Scripture which might chance to be sung or read, at the moment of the person’s entrance. Thus, it is said, St. Anthony, to put an end to his irresolution about retirement, went to a church, where immediately hearing the deacon pronounce these words, “Go sell all thou hast, and give it to the poor, then come and follow me;” he applied them to himself, as a direct injunction from God, and withdrew to that solitude for which he is so celebrated among the Catholics.

The following passage from Gregory of Tours, is too remarkable to be omitted. He relates that Clovis, the first Christian king of France, marching against Alaric, King of the Visgoths, and being near the city of Tours, where the body of St. Martin was deposited, he sent some of his nobles, with presents to be offered at the saint’s tomb, to see if they could not bring him a promising augury, while he himself uttered this prayer “Lord, if thou wouldest have me punish this impious people, the savage enemy of thy holy name, give me some signal token, by which I may be assured that such is thy will.” Accordingly, his messengers had no sooner set foot within the cathedral, than they heard the priest chaunt forth this verse of the eighteenth Psalm, “Thou hast girded me with strength for war, thou hast subdued under me those that rose up against me.” Transported at these words, after laying the presents at the tomb of the saint, they hastened to the King with this favourable prognostic; Clovis joyfully accepted it, and engaging Alaric, gained a complete victory.

Here also may be subjoined a passage in the history of St. Louis IX. In the first emotions of his clemency, he had granted a pardon to a criminal under sentence of death; but some minutes after, happening to alight upon this verse of the Psalms, “Blessed is he that doth righteousness at all times;” he recalled his pardon, saying, “The King who has power to punish a crime, and does not do it, is, in the sight of God, no less guilty than if he had committed it himself.”

The _Sortes Sanctorum_ were fulminated against by various councils. The council of Varres “forbade all ecclesiastics, under pain of excommunication, to perform that kind of divination, or to pry into futurity, by looking into any book, or writing, whatsoever.” The council of Ayde, in 506, expressed itself to the same effect; as did those of Orleans, in 511; and Auxerre, in 595. It appears, however, to have continued very common, at least in England, so late as the twelfth century: the council of Aenham, which met there in 1110, condemned jointly, sorcerers, witches, diviners, such as occasioned death by magical operations, and who practised fortune-telling by the holy book-lots.

Peter de Blois, who wrote at the close of the twelfth century, places among the sorcerers, those who, under the veil of religion, promised, by certain superstitious practices, such as the lots of the Apostles and Prophets, to discover hidden and future events: yet this same Peter de Blois, one of the most learned and pious men of his age, in a letter to Reginald, whose election to the see of Bath had a long time been violently opposed, tells him, that he hopes he has overcome all difficulties; and further, that he believes he is, or soon will be, established in his diocese. “This belief,” says he, “I ground on a dream I lately had two nights successively, of being at your consecration; and also, that being desirous of knowing its certain meaning, by lots of human curiosity, and the Psalter, the first which occurred to me were, ‘Moses and Aaron among his priests.’”

Thus, though the ancient fathers, and, since them, others have in general agreed, that the _Sortes Sanctorum_ cannot be cleared of superstition, though they assert that it was tempting God, to expect that he would inform us of futurity, and reveal to us the secrets of his will, whenever the sacred book is opened for such a purpose, though it contain nothing which looks like a promise of that kind from God; though so far from being warranted by any ecclesiastical law, it has been condemned by several, and, at last, in more enlightened times, has been altogether abolished, yet they do not deny, that there have been occasions, when discreet and pious persons have opened the sacred book, not to discover futurity, but to meet with some passage to support them in times of distress and persecution.

SIBYLS.

This word is supposed to be formed of the two Greek words σιου for Θεου _Dei_, and βουλη counsel.

The Sibyllæ of antiquity were virgin-prophetesses, or maids supposed to be divinely inspired; who, in the height of their enthusiasm, gave oracles, and foretold things to come.

Authors are at variance with respect to the number of sibyls. Capella reckons but two; _viz._ Erophyte of Troy, called Sibylla Phrygia; and Sinuachia of Erythræa. Solinus mentions three, _viz._ Cumæa, Delphica, and Erythræa. Ælian makes their number four, and Varro increases it to ten, denominating them from the places of their birth; the Persian, Delphic, Cumæan, Erythræan, Samian, Cuman, Hellespontic or Troiad, Phrygian, and Tiburtine. Of these the most celebrated are, the Erythræan, Delphic, and Cumæan Sibyls.

The sibylline oracles were held in great veneration by the more credulous among the ancients; but they were much suspected by the better informed. The books wherein they were written, were kept by the Romans with infinite care; and nothing of moment was undertaken without consulting them. Tarquin first committed them to the custody of two patrician priests for that purpose.

TALISMANS.

Magical figures, engraven or cut under superstitious observances of the characterisms and configurations of the heavens, are called talismans; to which some astrologers, hermetical philosophers, and other adepts, attribute wonderful virtues, particularly that of calling down celestial influences.

The author of a book, intituled _Talismans Justifies_, pronounces a talisman is the seal, figure, character, or image of a heavenly sign, constellation, or planet, engraven on a sympathetic stone, or on a metal corresponding to the star, &c. in order to receive its influences.

The talismans of the Samothracians, so famous of old, were pieces of iron formed into certain images, and set in rings, &c. They were held as preservatives against all kinds of evils. There were other talismans taken from vegetables, and others from minerals.

Three kinds of _Talismans_ were usually distinguished, _viz._ _Astronomical_, which are known by the signs or constellations of the heavens engraven upon them, with other figures, and some unintelligible characters. _Magical_, which bear very extraordinary figures, with superstitious words and names of angels unheard of. And _mixt_, which consist of signs and barbarous words; but have no superstitious ones, or names of angels.

It is maintained by some rabbins, that the brazen serpent raised by Moses in the Wilderness, for the destruction of the serpents that annoyed the Israelites, was properly a _Talisman_.

All the miraculous things wrought by Apollonius Tyanæus are attributed to the virtue and influence of _Talismans_; and that wizard, as he is called, is even said to have been the inventor of them.

Some authors take several Runic medals,—medals, at least, whose inscriptions are in the Runic characters,—for talismans, it being notorious, that the northern nations, in their heathen state, were much devoted to them. M. Keder, however, has shewn, that the medals here spoken of are quite other things than talismans.

PHILTERS, CHARMS, &c.

A drug, or other preparation, used as a pretended charm to excite love. These are distinguished into true and spurious: the spurious are spells or charms supposed to have an effect beyond the ordinary law of nature, by some inherent magic virtue; such are those said to be possessed formerly by old women, witches, &c.—The true Philters were supposed to operate by some natural and magnetical power. There are many enthusiastic and equally credulous authors, who have encouraged the belief in the reality of these Philters; and adduce matter in fact in confirmation of their opinions, as in all doubtful cases. Among these may be quoted Van Helmont, who says, that by holding a certain herb in his hand, and afterwards taking a little dog by the foot with the same hand, the animal followed him wherever he went, and quite deserted his former master. He also adds, that Philters only require a confirmation of Mumia[51]; and on this principle he accounts for the phenomena of love transplanted by the touch of an herb; for, says he, the heat communicated to the herb, not coming alone, but animated by the emanations of the natural spirits, determines the herb towards the man, and identifies it to him. Having then received this ferment, it attracts the spirit of the other object magnetically, and gives it an amorous motion. But all this is mere absurdity, and has fallen to the ground with the other irrational hypothesis from the same source.

HELL,

A place of punishment, where, we are told in Scripture, the wicked are to receive the reward of their evil deeds, after this life. In this sense, hell is the antithesis of HEAVEN.

Among the ancients hell was called by various names, Ταρταρος, Ταρταρᾶ, _Tartarus_, _Tartara_; Ἁδης, _Hades_, _Infernus_, _Inferna_, _Inferi_, &c.—The Jews, wanting a proper name for it, called it _Gehenna_, or Gehinnon, from a valley near Jerusalem, wherein was Tophet, or place where a fire was perpetually kept.

Divines reduce the torments of hell to two kinds, _pœna damni_, the loss and privation of the beatific vision; and _pœna sensus_, the horrors of darkness, with the continual pains of fire inextinguishable.

Most nations and religions have a notion of a hell. The hell of the poets is terrible enough: witness the punishment of Tityus, Prometheus, the Danæids, Lapithæ, Phlegyas, &c. described by Ovid, in his _Metamorphosis_. Virgil, after a survey of Hell, _Æneid_, lib. vi. declares, that if he had a hundred mouths and tongues, they would not suffice to recount all the plagues of the tortured. The New Testament represents hell as _a lake of fire and brimstone_; and _a worm which dies not_, &c. Rev. xx. 10, 14, &c. Mark ix. 43, &c. Luke xvi. 23, &c.

The Caffres are said to admit thirteen hells, and twenty-seven paradises; where every person finds a place suited to the degree of good or evil he has done.

There are two great points of controversy among writers, touching hell: the first, whether there be any local hell, any proper and specific place of torment by fire? the second, whether the torments of hell are to be eternal?

I. The locality of hell, and the reality of the fire thereof, have been controverted from the time of Origen. That father, in his treatise Περι Αρχαν, interpreting the scripture account metaphorically, makes hell to consist not in eternal punishments, but in the conscience of sinners, the sense of their guilt, and the remembrance of their past pleasures. St. Augustine mentions several of the same opinion in his time; and Calvin, and many of his followers, have embraced it in ours.

The retainers to the contrary opinion, who are much the greatest part of mankind, are divided as to situation, and other circumstances of this horrible scene. The Greeks, after Homer, Hesiod, &c. conceived hell, τοπον τινα ὐπο την γην μεγσν, &c. a large and dark place under the earth.—Lucian, _de Luctu_; and Eustathius, _on Homer_.

Some of the Romans lodged in the subterranean regions directly under the lake Avernus, in Campania, which they were led to from the consideration of the poisonous vapours emitted by that lake. Through a dark cave, near this lake, Virgil makes Æneas descend to hell.

Others placed hell under Tenarus, a promontory of Laconia; as being a dark frightful place, beset with thick woods, out of which there was no finding a passage. This way, Ovid says, Orpheus descended to hell. Others fancied the river or fountain of Styx, in Arcadia, the spring-head of hell, by reason the waters thereof were mortal.

But these are all to be considered as only fables of poets; who, according to the genius of their art, allegorizing and personifying every thing, from the certain death met withal in those places, took occasion to represent them as so many gates, or entering-places into the other world.

The primitive Christians conceiving the earth a large extended plain, and the heavens an arch drawn over the same, took hell to be a place in the earth, the farthest distant from the heavens; so that their hell was our antipodes.

Tertullian, _De Anima_, represents the Christians of his time, as believing hell to be an abyss in the centre of the earth: which opinion was chiefly founded on the belief of Christ’s descent into _hades_, hell, Matt. xii. 40.

Mr. Wiston has lately advanced a new opinion. According to him, the comets are to be conceived as so many hells, appointed in the course of their trajectories, or orbits, alternately to carry the damned into the confines of the sun, there to be scorched by his flames, and then to return them to starve in the cold, dreary, dark regions, beyond the orb of Saturn.

The reverend and orthodox Mr. T. Surnden, in an express _Inquiry into the nature and place of Hell_, not contented with any of the places hitherto assigned, contends for a new one. According to him, the sun itself is the _local hell_.

This does not seem to be his own discovery: it is probable he was led into it by that passage in Rev. xvi. 8, 9. Though it must be added, that Pythagoras seems to have the like view, in that he places hell in the sphere of fire; and that sphere in the middle of the universe. Add, that Aristotle mentions some of the Italic or Pythagoric school, who placed the sphere of fire in the sun, and even called it Jupiter’s Prison.—_De Cælo_, lib. ii.

To make way for his own system, Mr. Swinden undertakes to remove hell out of the centre of the earth, from these two considerations:—1. That a fund of fuel or sulphur, sufficient to maintain so furious and constant a fire, cannot be there supposed; and, 2. That it must want the nitrous particles in the air, to sustain and keep it alive. And how, says he, can such fire be eternal, when by degrees the whole substance of the earth must be consumed thereby?

It must not be forgot, however, that Tertullian had long ago obviated the former of these difficulties, by making a difference between _arcanus_ and _publicus ignis_, secret and open fire: the nature of the first, according to him, is such, as that it not only consumes, but repairs what it preys upon. The latter difficulty is solved by St. Augustine, who alleges, that God supplies the central fire with air, by a miracle.

Mr. Swinden, however, proceeds to shew, that the central parts of the earth are possessed by water rather than fire; which he confirms by what Moses says of _water under the earth_, Exod. xx. from Psalm xxiv. 2, &c.

As a further proof, he alleges, that there would want room in the centre of the earth, for such an infinite host of inhabitants as the fallen angels and wicked men.

Drexelius, we know, has fixed the dimensions of hell to a German cubic mile, and the number of the damned to an hundred thousand millions: _De Damnator_, _Carcer_, &c. Rogo. But Mr. Swinden thinks he need not to have been so sparing in his number, for that there might be found an hundred times as many; and that they must be insufferably crowded in any space he could allow them on our earth. It is impossible, he concludes, to stow such a multitude of spirits in such a scanty apartment, without a penetration of dimensions, which, he doubts, in good philosophy, even in respect of spirits: “If it be (he adds,) why God should prepare, _i. e._ make, a prison for them, when they might all have been crowded together into a baker’s oven.” p. 206.

His arguments for the sun’s being the local hell are: 1. Its capacity. Nobody will deny the sun spacious enough to receive all the damned conveniently; so that there will be no want of room. Nor will fire be wanting, if we admit of Mr. Swinden’s argument against Aristotle, whereby he demonstrates, that the sun is hot, p. 208, _et seq._ The good man is “filled with amazement to think what Pyrenian mountains of sulphur, how many Atlantic oceans of scalding bitumen, must go to maintain such mighty flames as those of the sun; to which our Ætna and Vesuvius are mere glow-worms.” p. 137.

2. Its distance and opposition to the empyreum, which has usually been looked upon as the local heaven: such opposition is perfectly answerable to that opposition in the nature and office of a place of angels and devils, of elect and reprobate, of glory and horror, of hallelujahs and cursings; and the distance quadrates well with Dives seeing Abraham _afar off, and the great gulph between them_; which this author takes to be the solar vortex.

3. That the empyreum is the highest, and the sun the lowest place of the creation; considering it as the centre of our system; and that the sun was the first part of the visible world created; which agrees with the notion of its being primarily intended or prepared to receive the angels, whose fall he supposes to have immediately preceded the creation.

4. The early and almost universal idolatry paid to the sun; which suits well with the great subtilty of that spirit, to entice mankind to worship his throne.

II. As to the eternity of _hell torments_, we have Origen again at the head of those who deny it; it being the doctrine of that writer, that not only men, but devils themselves, after a suitable course of punishment, answerable to their respective crimes, shall be pardoned and restored to heaven.—_De civit. Dei._ l. xxi. c. 17. The chief principle Origen went upon was this, that all punishments was emendatory; applied only to painful medicines, for the recovery of the patient’s health. And other objections, insisted on by modern authors, are the disproportion between temporary crimes and eternal punishments, &c.

The scripture phrases for eternity, as is observed by Archbishop Tillotson, do not always import an infinite duration: thus, in the Old Testament, _for ever_ often signifies only for a long time; particularly till the end of the Jewish dispensation: thus in the epistle of _Jude_, ver. 7, the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah are said to be set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of _eternal fire_; that is, of a fire that was not extinguished till those cities were utterly consumed. So one generation is said to come, &c. but the earth endureth _for ever_.

In effect, Mr. Le Clerc notes, that there is no Hebrew word which properly expresses eternity: עולם _gnolam_, only imports a time whose beginning or end is not known; and is accordingly used in a more or less extensive sense, according to the thing treated of.

Thus when God says, concerning the Jewish laws, that they must be observed לעולם _legnolam_, for ever, we are to understand as long a space as we should think fit; or a space whose end was unknown to the Jews before the coming of the Messiah. All general laws, and such as do not regard particular occasions, are made _for ever_, whether it be expressed in those laws, or not; which yet is to be understood in such a manner, as if the sovereign power could no way change them.

Archbishop Tillotson, however, argues very strenuously, that where _hell torments_ are spoken of, the words are to be understood in the strict sense of infinite duration; and what he esteems a peremptory decision of the point is, that the duration of the punishment of the wicked is in the very same sentence expressed by the very same word which is used for the duration of the happiness of the righteous, which all agree to be eternal. “These, speaking of the wicked, shall go away εις ηολασιν ονεωνιον, into eternal punishment; but the righteous, εις ζωην αιωνι, into life eternal.”

Oldham, in his “Satires upon the Jesuits,” alludes to their “lying legends,” and the numerous impositions they practised on the credulous. The following lines are quoted from these legendary miracles, noticed under the article LEGEND, and the amours of the Virgin Mary are narrated in vol. ii. under the article _Religious Nouvellete_:—

Tell, how _blessed Virgin_ to come down was seen,
Like playhouse punk descending in machine,
How she writ _billet-doux_ and _love discourse_,
Made _assignations_, _visits_, and _amours_;
How hosts distrest, her smock for _banner_ wore,
Which vanquished foes!
——How fish in conventicles met,
And _mackerel_ were the _bait_ of _doctrine_ caught;
How cattle have judicious hearers been!
How consecrated hives with bells were hung,
And _bees_ kept mass, and holy _anthems sung_!
How _pigs_ to the _rosary_ kneel’d, and sheep were taught
To bleat _Te Deum_ and _Magnificat_;
How _fly-flap_, of church-censure houses rid
Of insects, which at _curse_ of _fryar_ died.
How _ferrying cowls_ religious pilgrims bore
O’er waves, without the help of sail or oar;
How _zealous crab_ the _sacred image_ bore,
And swam a catholic to the distant shore.
With shams like these the giddy rout mislead,
Their folly and their superstition feed.

These are all extravagant fictions in the “Golden legend.” Among other gross and equally absurd impositions to deceive the mob, Oldham also attacks them for certain publications on topics not less singular. The tales he has recounted, says Oldham, are only baits for children like toys at a fair; but they have their profounder and higher matters for the learned and the inquisitive.

One undertakes by scales of miles to tell
The bounds, dimensions, and extent of hell;
How many German leagues that realm contains!
How many hell each year expends
In coals, for roasting Hugonots and friends!
Another frights the rout with useful stories
Of wild chimeras, limbos, PURGATORIES!
Where bloated souls in smoky durance hung
Like a Westphalia gammon or neat’s tongue,
To be redeemed with masses and a song.

Topographical descriptions of HELL, PURGATORY, and even HEAVEN, were once favourite researches among certain orthodox and zealous defenders of the papish church, who exhausted their materials in fabricating a hell to their own ideas, or for their particular purpose. There is a treatise of Cardinal Bellarmin, a jesuit, on _Purgatory_, wherein he appears to possess all the knowledge of a land-measurer among the secret tracts and formidable divisions of “the bottomless pit.” This jesuit informs us that there are beneath the earth four different places, or a place divided into four parts; the deepest of which is hell: it contains all the souls of the damned, where will be also their bodies after the resurrection, and likewise all the demons. The place nearest hell is _purgatory_, where souls are purged, or rather where they appease the anger of God by their sufferings. The same fires and the same torments, he says, are alike in both places, the only difference between _hell_ and _purgatory_ consisting in their duration. Next to _purgatory_ is the _limbo_ of those _infants_ who die without having received the sacrament; and the fourth place is the limbo of the _Fathers_; that is to say, of those _just men_ who died before the death of Christ. But since the days of the Redeemer this last division is empty, like an apartment to let. A later Catholic theologist, the famous Tillemont, condemns all the _illustrious pagans to the eternal torments of hell_! because they lived before the time of Jesus, and, therefore, could not be benefited by the redemption! Speaking of young Tiberius, who was compelled to fall on his own sword, Tillemont adds, “Thus by his own hand he ended his miserable life, _to begin another, the misery of which will never end_!” Yet history records nothing bad of this prince. Jortin observes, that he added this _reflection_ in his later edition, so that the good man as he grew older grew more uncharitable in his religious notions. It is in this matter too that the Benedictine editor of Justin Martyr speaks of the illustrious pagans. This father, after highly applauding Socrates, and a few more who resembled him, inclines to think that they are not fixed in _hell_. But the Benedictine editor takes infinite pains to clear the good father from the shameful imputation of supposing that a _virtuous pagan might be saved_ as well as a Benedictine monk[52]!

The adverse party, who were either philosophers or reformers, received all such information with great suspicion. Anthony Cornelius, a lawyer in the 16th century, wrote a small tract, which was so effectually suppressed, as a monster of atheism, that a copy is now only to be found in the hands of the curious. This author ridiculed the absurd and horrid doctrine of _infant damnation_, and was instantly decried as an atheist, and the printer prosecuted to his ruin! Cœlius Secundus Curio, a noble Italian, published a treatise _De Amplitudine beati regno Dei_, to prove that heaven has more inhabitants than hell, or in his own phrase, that the _elect_ are more numerous than the _reprobate_. However we may incline to smile at these works, their design was benevolent. They were the first streaks of the morning-light of the Reformation. Even such works assisted mankind to examine more closely, and hold in greater contempt, the extravagant and pernicious doctrines of the domineering papistical church.

INQUISITION.

In the civil and canon law, inquisition implies a manner of proceeding for the discovery of some crime by the sole office of the judge, in the way of search, examination, or even torture. It is also used in common law for a like process in the king’s behalf, for the discovery of lands, profits, and the like; in which sense it is often confounded with the office of the

_Inquisition, or the Holy Office_,

Which denotes an ecclesiastical jurisdiction established in Spain, Portugal, and Italy, for the trial and examination of such persons as are suspected to entertain any religious opinions contrary to those professed in the church of Rome. It is called _inquisition_ because the judges of their office take cognizances of crime or common report, without any legal evidence, except what they themselves fish out.

Some people fancy they see the original inquisition, in a constitution made by Pope Lucius, at the council of Verona, in 1184, where he orders the bishops to get information, either by themselves or by their commissaries, of all such persons as were suspected of heresy; and distinguishes the several degrees of suspected, convicted, penitent, relapsed, &c. However this may be, it is generally allowed, that Pope Innocent III., laid the first foundation of the _holy office_; and that the Vaudois and Albigenses were what gave the occasion to it. The pontiff sent several priests, with St. Dominic at their head, to Tholouse, in order to blow up a spirit of zeal and persecution amongst the prelates and princes. These missionaries were to give an account of the number of heretics in those parts, and the behaviour of the princes and persons in authority to them; and thence they acquired the names of inquisitors: but these original inquisitors had not any court, or any authority; they were only a kind of spiritual spies, who were to make report of their discoveries to the Pope.

The Emperor Frederick II. at the beginning of the 13th century, extended their power very considerably: he committed the taking cognizances of the crime of heresy, to a set of ecclesiastical judges; and as fire was the punishment decreed to the obstinate, the inquisitors determined indirectly, with regard both to the persons and the crimes; by which means the laity was cut off from its own jurisdiction, and abandoned to the devout madness and zeal of the ecclesiastics.

After the death of Frederick, who had long before repented the power he had given the churchmen, as having seen some of the fruits of it; Pope Innocent IV. erected a perpetual tribunal of inquisitors, and deprived the bishops and secular judges of the little power the Emperor Frederick had left them. And this jurisdiction, which depended immediately on himself, he took care to introduce into most of the states of Europe. But the inquisitors were so fiery hot, and made such horrid butchery among the reputed heretics, that they raised an universal detestation, even in some Catholic countries themselves. Hence it was that their reign proved very short both in France and Germany; nor was even Spain entirely subject to them till the time of Ferdinand and Isabella, in 1448, when their power was increased, under the pretence of clearing the country of Judaism and Mahometanism. The power of the inquisition is very much limited in some countries, particularly at Venice, where it is received under such modifications as prove a great check on its authority. Indeed at Venice it seems rather a political than a religious contrivance, and serves rather for the security of the state, than that of the church. There are appeals from the subaltern inquisitions in Italy, to the congregation of the holy office at Rome.

It is the constant practice of the inquisition to affect, in all their procedures, to inspire as much terror as possible; every thing is done with the most profound silence and secrecy, and with the greatest rigour and pretended impartiality. When a person is seized all the world abandons him; not the nearest friend dares to speak a word in his defence; that alone would be enough to render them suspected of heresy, and would bring them within the claws of the inquisition. The criminals are seized, examined, tried, tortured, and unless they recant, are even condemned and executed, without ever seeing or knowing their accusers; whence the revengeful have a fair opportunity of wreaking their malice on their enemies. When the inquisition has done with them, and condemned them to death, they are turned over to the secular arm, with a world of prayer, and pious entreaty, that their lives may not be touched.

Time is no manner of security in point of heresy, nor does the grave itself shelter the accused from the pursuits of the inquisition; even the deceased have their trials, and they proceed in all their form and solemnity against the dead carcases. The execution is always deferred till the number of condemned is very great, that the multitude of sufferers may strike the deeper horror, and make the scene more terrible and shocking.

The inquisition of Rome is a congregation of twelve cardinals and some other officers, where the Pope presides in person. This is accounted the highest tribunal in Rome; it began in the time of Pope Paul IV. on occasion of the Lutheranism.

The inquisition is very severe in the Indies. It is true, there must there be the oaths of seven witnesses to condemn a man; but the deposition of slaves or children are taken. The person is tortured till he condemns himself; for his accusers are never brought to confront him. Persons are accused for the most slender expression against the church; or even for a disrespectful word against the inquisitors.

The standard of the inquisition is a piece of red damask, on which is painted a cross, with an olive branch on one side and a sword on the other; with these words of the Psalm, _Exurge, Domine, et judica causam meam_.

This infernal engine of tyranny, bigotry, and superstition, did not become known in Spain before the year 1484. The court of Rome owed this obligation to another Dominican, John de Torquemada. As he was the confessor of Queen Isabella, he had extorted from her a promise that if ever she ascended the throne, she would use every means to extirpate heresy and heretics. Ferdinand had conquered Grenada, and had expelled from the Spanish realms multitudes of unfortunate Moors. A few remained, who, with the Jews, he compelled to become Christians: they at least assumed the name, but it was well known that both these nations naturally respected their own faith, rather than that of the Christians. This race was afterwards distinguished as _Christianos novos_; and in marriages, the blood of the Hidalgo was considered to lose its purity by mingling with such a suspicious source.

It was pretended by Torquemada, that this dissimulation would greatly hurt the holy religion. The Queen listened with respectful diffidence to her confessor; and at length gained over the king to consent to the establishment of the unrelenting tribunal. Torquemada, indefatigable in his zeal for the holy see, in the space of fourteen years that he exercised the office of chief inquisitor, is said to have prosecuted near eighty thousand persons, of whom six thousand were condemned to the flames.

Voltaire attributes the taciturnity of the Spaniards to the universal horror such proceedings spread. “A jealousy and suspicion took possession of all ranks of people: friendship and sociability were at an end! Brothers were afraid of brothers, fathers of their children.”

The situation and feelings of one imprisoned in the cells of the inquisition are forcibly painted by Orobio, a mild, and meek, and learned man, whose controversy with Limborch is well known. When he escaped from Spain he took refuge in Holland, was circumcised, and died a philosophical Jew. He has left this admirable description of himself in the cell of the inquisition:—“Inclosed in this dungeon I could not even find space enough to turn myself about; I suffered so much that I found my brain disordered. I frequently asked myself, am I really Don Bathazaar Orobio, who used to walk about Seville at my pleasure, who so much enjoyed myself with my wife and children? I often imagined that all my life had only been a dream, and that I really had been born in this dungeon! The only amusement I could invent was metaphysical disputations. I was at once opponent, respondent, and phæses!” In the cathedral at Saragossa is the tomb of a famous inquisitor; six pillars surround the tomb; to each is chained a Moor, as preparatory to his being burnt. On this St. Foix ingeniously observes, “If ever the jack-ketch of any country should be rich enough to have a splendid tomb, this might serve as an excellent model.”

Bayle informs us, that the inquisition punished heretics by fire, to elude the maxim, _Ecclesia non novit sanguinem_; for burning a man, say they, does not shed _his blood_! Otho, the bishop at the Norman invasion, in the tapestry worked by Matilda, the queen of William the Conqueror, is represented with a _mace_ in his hand, for the purpose, that when he _dispatched_ his antagonist, he might not _spill blood_, but only break bones! Religion has had her quibbles as well as law.

The establishment of this despotic order was resisted in France; but it may perhaps surprise the reader that a recorder of London, in a speech, urged the necessity of setting up an inquisition in England! It was on the trial of Penn the Quaker, in 1670, who was acquitted by the jury, which seems highly to have provoked the said recorder. “_Magna Charta_,” says the preface to the trial, “with the recorder of London, is nothing more than _Magna F——_!” It appears that the jury after being kept two days and two nights to change their verdict, were in the end both fined and imprisoned. Sir John Howell, the recorder, said, “Till now I never understood the reason of the policy and prudence of the Spaniards, in suffering the inquisition among them; and certainly it will not be well with us, till something _like unto the Spanish inquisition_ be in England.” Thus it will ever be, while both parties, struggling for pre-eminence, rush to the sharp extremity of things, and annihilate the trembling balance of the constitution. But the adopted motto of Lord Erskine must ever be that of every Briton, “_Trial by Jury_.”

Gabriel Malagrida, an old man of seventy, so late as the year 1761, was burnt by these evangelical executioners. His trial was printed at Amsterdam, 1762, from the Lisbon copy. And for what was this unhappy Jesuit condemned? Not, as some imagined, for his having been concerned in a conspiracy against the King of Portugal. No other charge is laid to him in his trial, but that of having indulged certain heretical notions, which any other tribunal but that of the inquisition, would have looked upon as the deleterious fancies of a fanatical old man. Will posterity believe, that in the eighteenth century an aged visionary was led to the stake for having said, amongst other extravagances, “that the Virgin having commanded him to write the life of Antichrist, told him, that he, Malagrida, was a second John, but more clear than John the Evangelist; that there were to be three Antichrists, and that the last should be born at Milan, of a monk and a nun, in the year 1920; that he would marry Proserpine, one of the infernal furies.”

For such ravings as these the unhappy old man was burnt in recent times. Granger assures us, that a horse, in his remembrance, who had been taught to tell the spots upon cards, the hour of the day, &c. by significant tokens, was, together with his _owner_, put into the inquisition, for both of them dealing with the devil! A man of letters declared that, having fallen into their hands, nothing perplexed him so much as the ignorance of the inquisitor and his council; and it seemed very doubtful whether they had read even the Scriptures.

The following most interesting anecdote relating to the terrible inquisition, exemplifying how the use of the diabolical engines of torture forces men to confess crimes they have not been guilty of, was related to Mr. D’Israeli by a Portuguese gentleman.

A nobleman in Lisbon having heard that his physician and friend was imprisoned by the inquisition, under the stale pretext of Judaism, addressed a letter to one of them, to request his freedom, assuring the inquisitor, that his friend was as orthodox a Christian as himself. The physician, notwithstanding this high recommendation, was put to the torture; and, as was usually the case, at the height of his sufferings, confessed every thing they wished. This enraged the nobleman, and feigning a dangerous illness, he begged the inquisitor would come to give him his last spiritual aid.

As soon as the Dominican arrived, the lord, who had prepared his confidential servants, commanded the inquisitor, in their presence, to acknowledge himself a Jew; to write his confession and to sign it. On the refusal of the inquisitor, the nobleman ordered his people to put on the inquisitor’s head a red hot helmet, which to his astonishment, in drawing aside a screen, he beheld glowing in a small furnace. At the sight of this new instrument of torture, “Luke’s iron crown,” the monk wrote and subscribed this abhorred confession. The nobleman then observed, “See now the enormity of your manner of proceeding with unhappy men! My poor physician, like you, has confessed Judaism; but with this difference, only torments have forced that from him, which fear alone has drawn from you!”

The inquisition has not failed of receiving its due praises. Macedo, a Portuguese Jesuit, has discovered the “Origin of the _Inquisition_,” in the terrestrial Paradise, and presumes to allege, that God was the first who began the functions of an inquisitor over Cain and the workmen of Babel! Macedo, however, is not so dreaming a personage as he appears; for he obtained a professor’s chair at Padua, for the arguments he delivered at Venice, against the Pope, which were published by the title of “The Literary Roarings of the Lion of St. Mark;” besides, he is the author of 109 different works; but it is curious how far our interest is apt to prevail over conscience,—Macedo praised the inquisition up to heaven, while he sank the Pope to nothing.

Among the great revolutions of this age, the inquisition of Spain and Portugal is abolished, but its history enters into that of the human mind; and the history of the inquisition by Limborch, translated by Chandler, with a very curious “Introduction,” loses none of its value with the philosophical mind. This monstrous tribunal of human opinions, aimed at the sovereignty of the intellectual world, without intellect. It may again be restored, to keep Spain stationary at the middle ages!

DEMON,

A name the ancients gave to certain spirits, or _genii_, which, they say, appeared to men, either to do them service, or to hurt them.

The first notion of demons was brought from Chaldea; whence it spread itself among the Persians, Egyptians, and Greeks. Pythagoras and Thales were the first who introduced demons into Greece. Plato fell in with the notion, and explained it more distinctly and fully, than any of the former philosophers had done. By demons, he understood spirits, inferior to gods, and yet superior to men; which inhabited the middle region of the air, kept up the communication between gods and men, carrying the offerings and prayers of men to the gods, and bringing down the will of the gods to men. But he allowed of none but good and beneficent ones: though his disciples afterwards, finding themselves at a loss how to account for the origin of evil, adopted another sort of demons, who were enemies to men.

There is nothing more common in the heathen theology, than these good and evil genii. And the same superstitious notion we find got footing among the Israelites, by their commerce with the Chaldeans. But by demons, they did not mean the devil, or a wicked spirit: they never took the word demon in that sense, nor was it ever used in such signification, till by the evangelists and some modern Jews. The word is Greek, θαιμων.

Gale endeavours to shew, that the origin and intitution of demons was an imitation of the Messiah. The Phœnicians called them בעלים _Baalim_. For they had one supreme being, whom they called _Baal_, (and Moloch, and various inferior deities called Baalim,) whereof we find frequent mention in the Old Testament. The first demon of the Egyptians was Mercury, or Thuet. The same author finds some resemblance between the several offices ascribed to the demons and those of the Messiah.

_Demoniac_, is applied to a person possessed with a spirit, or demon. In the Roman church, there is a particular office for the exorcism of demoniacs.

Demoniacs are also a party or branch of the Anabaptists, whose distinguishing tenet it is, that the devil shall be saved at the end of the world.—See DEMONOLOGY.

DEMONOLOGY.

——“Spirits, when they please,
Can either sex assume, or both; so soft
And uncompounded is their essence pure,
Not ty’d or manacled with joint or limb,
Nor founded on the brittle strength of bones,
Like cumbrous flesh; but in what shape they chuse,
Dilated οr condens’d, bright or obscure,
Can execute their airy purposes.”
MILTON.

Diabolus, a devil, or evil angel, is one of those celestial spirits cast down from heaven for pretending to equal himself with God.

The Ethiopians paint the devil white, to be even with the Europeans, who paint him black.

We find no mention made of the word _devil_ in the Old Testament, but only of Satan: nor in any heathen authors do we meet with the word devil, in the signification attached to it among the Christians; that is, as a creature revolted from God: their theology went no farther than to evil genii, or demons, who harassed and persecuted mankind, though we are well aware many names are given to the devil both in holy writ and elsewhere.

“O thou! whatever title suit thee,
Auld Hornie, Satan, Nick, or Clootie,
Wha in yon cavern grim an’ sootie
Closed under hatches,
Spairges about the brimstane clootie,
To scaud poor wretches.”—BURNS.

Demon was the name given by the Greeks and Romans to certain _genii_ or spirits, who made themselves visible to men with the intention of doing them either good or harm.

The Platonists made a distinction between their gods, or _dei majorum gentium_; their demons, or those beings which were not dissimilar in their general character to the good and evil angels of Christian belief; and their heroes. The Jews and the early Christians restricted the appellation of demons to beings of a malignant nature, or to devils; and it is to the early opinions entertained by this people, that the outlines of later systems of Demonology are to be traced.

“The tradition of the Jews concerning evil spirits are various; some of them are founded on Scripture; some borrowed from the notions of the pagans; some are fables of their own invention; and some are allegories.” The demons of the Jews were considered either as the distant progeny of Adam or of Eve, which had resulted from an improper intercourse with supernatural beings, or of Cain. As this 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. This doctrine, however, did not prevail.