Page:The history of Witchcraft and demonology.djvu/57

 Tanchelin declared himself to be the Messiah, God, the Son of God, the Perfect Man, the sum of all the divine emanations in one system, upon whom had descended and in whom abode the pleroma of the Holy Spirit. “This miserable wretch advanced from evil to evil and at length proceeded to such an extremity of unheard-of wickedness that he gave himself out to be God, asserting that if Christ be God because the Holy Ghost dwelt in Him, he himself was not less than and of the same nature as God, seeing that he enjoyed the plenitude of the Holy Ghost.” Here the Gnostic character of his teaching is very apparent. He even caused a temple to be erected in his honour where he was worshipped with sacrifice and hymns. His followers, indeed, regarded this lunatic wretch with such an excess of veneration that the dirty water from his bath was actually collected in phials and solemnly distributed among them, whereof they partook as of a sacrament.

It must be borne in mind that Tanchelin’s programme did not solely comprise a negation of Christian dogma; this we find in most of the innovators at the time of the so-called Reformation, but his ultimate aim was to effect a social revolution, to overturn the existing order of things and produce communistic chaos with himself as overlord and dictator. The way for anarchy could only have been paved by the destruction of the Church, the supreme representative of authority and order throughout the world, and it was accordingly against the Church that this superman launched his fiercest diatribes. To further his ends he encouraged, nay, commanded, the open practice of the foulest vices; incest, adultery, fornication were declared to be works of spiritual efficacy; unmentionable abominations flaunted themselves in the face of day; virtue became an offence; men were driven to vice and crime, and anon they gradually sank in a stupor of infamy and sheer boneless degradation.

The unfortunate town of Antwerp came directly under Tanchelin’s influence. Here he reigned as king, surrounded by vile and obsequious satellites who ground the miserable citizens to the dust and filled each street and corner with orgies of lust and blood. There is a strange and striking parallel between the details of his foul career and the Russian tyranny to-day. Little wonder that in 1116 a priest,