in the remote deserts-their idea of the borders of chaos- but they had progressed one step nearer the later ideal, by making their satyr a compound of man and goat. The distinctive features of their satyr however was, that he was "a hairy one;" and we accordingly find the same term applied to Esau, the hairy man,' as was applied to some of the deities worshipped by Jeroboam, who "ordained him priest for the high places, and for the devils" (hairy ones), "and for the calves which he had made.” * And Isaiah speaking of utter desolation in a passage already quoted, emphasises his prophecy by describing a place as the abode of satyrs, or hairy ones. It is interesting to note, that Esau, called one of the "sè-irim," or hairy demons, was red, and therefore surnamed Edom (red), that he sold his birthright for a mess of red pottage, and that he was specially assigned Mount Seir as a home for his descendants: we have seen that red was a special colour for evil spirits.

3

It has been suggested that the horns popularly attributed to the Devil may have originated with the aureole of a divine being, still lingering round his head after his fall from heaven, and that the brightness of Moses' face, when he came down

1 Gen. xxvii. II. 2 2 Chron. xi. 15. Moloch had a calf's head. 3 Is. xxxiv. 14; and see xiii. 21.

from Mount Sinai was of the same nature, and that this also has been called horns: both Satan and Moses being both represented as horned, and both from a similar cause.' But this explanation of the Devil's horns would have seemed far-fetched, even had we not been able to show by records, probably older than Moses, and certainly older than the Pentateuch, that beings closely akin to the Devil were already being depicted with horns, hoofs, and a tail. These same beings, with but slight modifications, were always kept alive in mythology as Pans, Priaps, Satyrs and Fauns, and when a bodily shape was wanted for the arch-enemy of mankind, this seemed the most appropriate and was adopted accordingly.

The addition of dragon's wings to the satyr form was a further development, arising from the concurrent claims of the two ideals, and again "juxtaposition led to combination."

1

Conway's "Demonology," vol. i. 19.

Q

IX.

CONCLUSION.

At the outset, the Devil was defined as the Supreme Spirit of Evil, and Evil was identified with Opposition. In accordance with that view, we found that the Satan of the Hebrews was' an "adversary," a spy and informer, an accuser of man to his God, and, as such, man's opponent. We saw how Chaldean and Persian influences gradually modified the ideal, and created the Satan of the New Testament, in whom were combined attributes which made him more and more hateful and formidable, until he became a shroud of sombre darkness, overshadowing and oppressing the whole moral world: he became more and more the enemy-the opponent of

man.

We have traced the lineage of spiritual beings of most varied characters, with whom the Earth and the Abyss, Heaven and Hell, have been peopled, and whose histories have gradually melted into that of the Christian Devil; and we have shown that in many instances these beings were quondam gods of

high renown. We have examined the history of Hell and its monarchs, all now deposed by Satan, who has usurped the sole control of the nether world. We have found him clothed with fire, physical and moral, and a form derived from the most remote antiquity, when monsters, at first the denizens, and afterwards the types of a half-chaotic world, were strong in opposition to mankind, and waged a not unfairly balanced warfare for supremacy. We have seen how all these lines have from time to time converged to build up the great embodiment of the modern Satan, and to perfect him in the possession of every known or imagined evil, physical or moral, which the universe of Nature and of thought could formulate. The result has been a Protean being, shifting and changing with the point of view, and never seen by any two alike. Each one who thinks of a Devil at all, fancies him at his own will, and has such a vast variety of materials from which to draw, that he can construct with ease an ideal quite special to himself. No dogmatic definition of the Devil would meet with general adoption, or if adopted in one age would pass muster in the next; and it is a fact that the ideal has shifted with the age, and still shifts and changes with every breath of doctrine, religious or philosophical.

The Hebrews had their Satan, and the Jews a revised ideal. Asmodeus came from Persia, was

adopted by the Rabbins, and the mantle of Ahriman fell upon him the product was the Satan of the New Testament. The cultured systems of Egypt, Greece and Rome, and the venerable myths of Babylon, all contributed their quota, before the arch-enemy of the Christian faith assumed his final shape-in the Apocalypse the Devil is truly polymorphous.

Even in the Christian Church the form was still always changing, and was not tied down to fixed tradition. The medieval monks did not realize a Hebrew Satan, who passed half his time in heaven; nor a Rabbinical Asmodeus, who could be mistaken for King Solomon; but they made their Devil black like the sooty Vulcan, and gave him horns and hoofs like the Satyrs and Pans, with breath of fire and brimstone, like the Chimera and Typhoeus of their classic lore. The Apollyon of Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress" is not the monkish Devil, nor the king of locusts of the Bible, but a foul fiend, conscientiously built up with biblical materials found in the visions of Daniel and the Apocalypse. Few amongst us now would think of the Devil in either of these forms, or in any bodily form at all, and would only accord him personality as the great spirit of evil. The latest guide to popular knowledge broadly lays it down that "the idea of the Devil certainly no longer hulks in Christian thought as it once did, nor is his reign