Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 06.djvu/216

* DEVIATION OF THE PLUMB-LINE. 17.S DEVIL. DEVIATION OF THE PLUMB-LINE. An eiritt obstTvud wlu'ii a |iluiiib-liiiu is :iU»|ii'iidiHl in the viciiiily of ilill's or inountnins. It con- sists in tlio lino Iwiiig drawn out of tin- jjorpt'ii- dieular. evidently l>y the altraetion of the moun- tain. It has heen ohserved that the delleetion is greater near an ishmd mountain than near nn inhtnd eontinental mountain, and this is attributed to the fact that the water surroundinj; the ishind is lighter than the mountain mass, whieli thus exerts a stronger attraction com- paratively than if it were surrounded by land. Practically the same phenomenon is observed on plains, and is thought to be due to the pres- ence of caves, or of large masses of matter whose density varies from the average value of that of the earth. DEVICE (yiE. devise; OF. devise, will, inten- tion, till- is, division, plan, will, from Lat. rft- ri.vHS, p. part, of diritlcrc, to divide!. An emblem vvliich. with its accompanying motto or legend, was assumed as an ingenious expression of some particular conceit of the wearer, generally con- taining a hidden meaning. Devices became gen- eral in the fourteenth century, and reached their full development during the period of the French wars in Italy. Mary Stuart solaced her cap- tivity by inventing devices which slie afterwards executed in embroidery. A device was composed of two |)arts. the l)Oily and soul, as they were called by the Italians. The 'body,' or painted metaphor, was not to represent the human form, but was to be pleasing in appearance. The 'soul' was to be short, and in a foreign language. The combined emblem was not to be so plain as to be understood by all. nor so obscure as to reqiiire a S|ihinx to interpret it. Devices were borne only by the person who assumed them, and not. like the crest or cognizance, by his family or descendants. .s example: l.onis XHI. of France had a falcon as a device, with the words Aqiiila grncroxinr ales (a nobler bird than the eagle), by which he implied a claim of superiority to the Emperor; T.ouis XH'. had the sun in its splen- dor, with the motto Xec pliiribtis impar. Con- sult Radowitz. Dlr Drrisen inid Motlos des spStcrn Millcliillns (Stuttgart, 1,S.50). DE VIGNY, dr v^'ny^-', ALFiiEi), Conite. See VifiNV, .iini:i). Comte de. DEVIL, or S.TAN- (OF. dfofnl. Lat. diaboltis, Gk. S"'i ioor, dinlxdos. .slanderer, from Si6. din, across + /SdXXfvv, halleiii, to throw. Hob. .So(<i». adversary, from salan, to persecute). In the Old and Xew Testaments, a mighty spirit of evil who has. during unknown ages, ruled over a kingdom of evil spirits, and is in con-tant and restlessly active opposition to God. This belief, however, was very giaduall.v developed in the .Tewish mind: and it is beyond all question that it acrpiired clearness and prominence through extra- natifmal influences. The older Uebrews who lived before the period of the Babylonish cap- tivity — judging from the silence of ' Scripture^ knew nothing, and certainly taught nothing, of evil spirits in the later sense — i. e. of beings separated from fiod. who were evil in (he essence of their nature, and worked evil only. Moral evil was rather looked upon as properly the act of man: pln/nirnl evil, or adversity, on the other hand, as puni-^hment merited through sin. and inlliited by a just and holy God. who was thus necessarily conceived as the trtie source of all calamity. The angels who foretold God's pur- poses, and executed His will, however great might be the physical evil they occasioned, are never accused of mural evil. Kven in the .Mosaic ac- count of the .-■eduction of Kve, there is nothing to induce us to believe that the author regarded the serpent other than as 'the most subtle of all the beasts of the licld,' or that he meant to con- ceal under so plain a slatenu'ut an allusion to Satan. It is probable, however, that at some early period in their history the popular faith of the Jews, |)artly divorcing itself from its grand religious conceptions of^the "one living and true God,' and lapsing into' pett.v supersti- tions, had beconu' familiar with the idea of certain fearful, uiiearthi.v beings haunting wilder- nesses, similar to the fauns and satyrs of (ircecc, who might form the connecting link in tlic later development of an actual dcmonisni. Traces of this are clearly visible in the Pentateuch. The Hebrew word scirim, occurring in l.ev. xvii. 7, which the translators have rendered "devils,* means only 'hairy ones.' Xow the ICgyptians wor- slkipcd the hc-iiiinl. and the Hebrews partook, as we know, of their idolatry. Therefore Moses in this vcr.se, forbidding them to commit this sin in future, says: "They shall uo mon- olVer their sacrfices to scirim" — i. c. to the Fgyptian he- goats. The devclopmi'nt of demonism was ma- terially furthered during and after the Uaby- lonisli eaptivit.v by .MedoPersian inlluences. In those canonical books of the Old Testament which belong, in their present form, to the ]iost-exilic period — i. e. the period subsequent to tiu> exile — the Jewish conceptions of angels bcciune more delinite. They possess dill'erent ranks. n;inics, and specific olllces. They are the tutelary guar- dians and helpers of particular lands and peo- ples, but are everywhere in absolute d<>pendenee on God. And now we meet also, for the first time, with an angel called Satan, who, however, still figures as a minister of God. and. along with the others, appears in heaven before the throne of Jehovah, but with the function assigned to him of accuser and seducer. It is he who (1. Chron. xxi. 1) stirs uj) David to number the people: while in the older Hebrew version (II. Sam. xxiv. 1 ) the same act is attributed to an angrv (Jod, the conce|)tion of Satan not Ihrn having clearly, if at all, presented itself to the Hebrew mind. It is Satan also who throws sus- picion on the piet.v of Job. and, with the permis- sion of .Jehovah, causes a series of misfortunes to befall him (.Tob i. 21 : while in Zach. iii. 1 he is represented as 'i-esisting' the angel of God. ami as a false accuser nf the liigh priest .Tusbua. .s yet, however, an evil nature is not txprtssh/ ascribed to liim. but. wliat is much the same, it is assumed that he takes a pleasure- in active evil. It is a purely arbitrarv and tmtextual interpreta- tion of Isaiah xiv. 12 ("How art thou fallen from Heaven. O T.ueifer. son of the morning!") that would force these words to refer to the fall of the Devil, or determine from thcTU hi-; n:ime. In the .Vpocrjplia. of which only a small part is Palestinian, the rest being either ChnUlnirn- I'crninn (as. for example, Tobias and Haruch) or .■EpiiiiloAh.riindriaii (as. for example. Wis- dom) in its origin, the older Hebrew doctrine of misfortune coming from the angel of .Tehovah is. so to speak, dismembered and demons or evil spirits, in the N"ew Testament sense of the term, are for the first time mentioned (and in Tobias I