Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume V.djvu/798

 DEMONOLOGY man slew. From its blood grew the original plants and animals, to harass and destroy which Ahriman made wolves, tigers, serpents, and venomous insects. From its bleached elementary particles grew the ribas tree, into the stems, of which Ormuzd infused the breath of life, and they became the first man and the first woman ; but every human being is tempted through his whole career by Ahriman and his devs, which slip into the body and produce all diseases, and into the mind and produce all malice. It is declared that ultimately Ahriman shall be overpower- ed, driven through torrents of melted lead, pu- rified, and forgiven, and Ormuzd shall reign supreme. In the ancient Egyptian religion, Typhon (or Set) was the manifestation of the abstract idea of evil, as Osiris was of good. It is abundantly illustrated in the early sculp- tures that they were regarded as brothers, as parts of the same divine system, and both wor- shipped as gods. Their names are sometimes interchanged, as if synonymous, in the titles of the older kings; and Typhon is represented in attendance with other gods pouring from a vase the symbols of life and power over the newly crowned king. At a later period evil was resolved into sin ; Typhon was confounded with the snake-giant Apophis, the enemy of gods and men, and no longer received divine honors. His name and square-eared figure were effaced; he ceased to be esteemed a necessary antagonistic companion to Osiris, and came to be regarded as acting in oppo- sition from his own free will, and he was ex- pelled from the Egyptian pantheon. Demons first appear distinctly in the religious world of the Greeks in the "Works and Days" of Hesiod. In Homer they are not distinguished from the gods, and the name is applied to the Olympian divinities. The Homeric personages most nearly corresponding to the oriental and mediaeval demons are the Titans, the repre- sentatives of force acting against the divine gov- ernment. Ate is the power that tempts and mis- leads men. She may even tempt deity also, for she beguiled Zeus himself when Hercules was about to be born (Iliad, xix. 95). Hesiod makes the demons generically different from the gods, yet essentially good. According to him, they were the long departed golden race of men, who after death had become guardian terrestrial demons, watching unseen over the conduct of mankind, with the privilege, granted by Zeus, of dispensing wealth and taking ac- count of good and bad deeds. The Hesiodic creed received an important modification from the later philosophers. The demon of Socrates resembles the guardian angels in Christian con- ception, and the familiar spirits of medieval magicians. Empedocles first introduced the distinction of beneficent and maleficent de- mons, with every grade of each ; and he was followed by Xenocrates, Plato, Chrysippus, and Plutarch. The angelology of the Jews as- sumed shape only after the Babylonish cap- tivity, when it became tinged with Zoroastrian notions, and at a later period it was still further corrupted by popular superstitions. With the mingling of Jewish and Hellenic ideas in the first Christian centuries, and with the specula- tions especially of the Alexandrian philoso- phers, began the manifold developments in the doctrine of demons by the cabalists and other students of the black art, which were increased by the introduction of foreign elements from the Scandinavian mythology, from the Saracens of Spain, and from the Orient through the re- turning crusaders. These formed the compli- cated and fantastic systems that in the middle ages were important elements alike in popular belief, poetry, and magic. According- to Tal- mudical stories, Adam had a wife called Lilith before he married Eve, and of her he begat nothing but devils. This Lilith or Lillis figures in the middle ages as a famous witch, and is introduced by Goethe in the Walpurgis night scene in "Faust." The cabalists made Adam the natural king of the world of spirits prior to his fall, and described Solomon as a most accom- plished magician. They peopled the fire, air, earth, and water with salamanders, sylphs, gnomes, and undines, to one of which classes all evil spiritual agencies belong. Other writers made nine kinds of demons. The first rank consists of the false gods of the gentiles, whose prince is Beelzebub ; the second, of liars and equivocators, as the Pythian Apollo; the third, of inventors of mischief and vessels of anger, whose prince is Belial ; the fourth, of malicious revenging devils, whose prince is Asmodeus ; the fifth, of cozeners, as magicians and witches, whose prince is Satan ; the sixth, of those aerial devils spoken of in the Apocalypse who corrupt the air and cause plagues, thunders, and fires, and whose prince is Meresin ; the seventh is a destroyer, causing wars, tumults, combustions, uproars, who is mentioned in the Apocalypse, and called Abaddon; the eighth is the accusing, calum- niating devil, called Diabolus, that drives men to despair; the ninth embraces tempters of several sorts, whose prince is Mammon. Wierus, a celebrated demonographer of the 16th cen- tury, in his Pseudomonarchia. Dcemonum, fol- lowing old authorities, establishes a complete infernal court, of which the following is an outline : Beelzebub, supreme chief of the in- fernal empire, founder of the order of the fly ; Satan, leader of the opposition; Eurynomus, prince of death, and grand cross of the order of the fly ; Moloch, prince of the realm of tears, grand cross of the order; Pluto, prince of fire; Leonard, grand master of the sabbats, knight of the fly ; Baalberith, master of al- liances ; Proserpine, archdevil, sovereign prin- cess of malignant spirits ; Nergal, chief of the privy police ; Baal, commander-in-chief of the infernal armies, grand cross of the order ; Leviathan, lord admiral, knight of the fly ; Belphegor, ambassador in France; Mammon, ambassador in England ; Belial, ambassador in