Europe's inner demons

There is in fact no serious evidence for the existence of such a sect of Devil-worshippers anywhere in medieval Europe. One can go further: there is serious evidence to the contrary. Very few inquisitors claimed to have come across these Devil-worshippers, and most of those few are known to have been fanatical amateurs, of the stamp of Conrad of Marburg. We may be sure that if any sect really had held such beliefs, it would have figured in one or other of the two standard manuals for inquisitors: that by Bernard Gui or that by Nicolas Eymeric, both dating from the fourteenth century, when the Luciferans are supposed to have been at the height of their influence. But it does not. As we shall see in a later chapter, the only kind of “demonolatry” known to Eymeric lay in the efforts of individual practitioners of ritual or ceremonial magic to induce demons to do their will — which is a different matter altogether.⁽⁶⁸⁾ Gui’s comments have even less bearing on the matter. In fact, neither Eymeric nor Gui even hint at the existence of a sect of Devil-worshippers; and that should settle the question.

To understand why the stereotype of a Devil-worshipping sect emerged at all, why it exercised such fascination and why it survived so long, one must look not at the belief or behaviour of heretics, Dualist or other, but into the minds of the orthodox themselves. Many people, and particularly many priests and monks, were becoming more and more obsessed by the overwhelming power of the Devil and his demons. That is why their idea of the absolutely evil and anti-human came to include Devil-worship, alongside incest, infanticide and cannibalism.

But how did this preoccupation with the Devil ever start? How did it turn into such a terrifying obsession? How, above all, could it be believed that Christendom was threatened by a conspiracy of human beings under the Devil’s direct command? This chapter in the history of the European psyche deserves more than a passing glance.

4. CHANGING VIEWS OF THE DEVIL AND HIS POWER

— 1 —

The Old Testament has little to say about the Devil and does not even hint at a conspiracy of human beings under the Devil’s command.

For the early Hebrews Yahweh was a tribal god, they thought of the gods of the neighbouring peoples as antagonistic to them and to Yahweh, and they felt no need for any more grandiose embodiment of evil. Later, of course, the tribal religion developed into a monotheism; but then the monotheism is so absolute, the omnipotence and omnipresence of God are so constantly affirmed, that the powers of evil seem insignificant by comparison. The desert demon Azazel in Leviticus, the night demon Lilith and the goat demons in Isaiah — these are all residues of pre-Yahwistic religion and they remain outside the bounds of the religion of Yahweh; they are hardly brought into relation with God at all and they are certainly not powers standing in opposition to him. As for the dragon which appears in the Old Testament under the names of Rahab, Leviathan and Tehom Rabbah — that is taken over from the Babylonian creation myth, and symbolizes primeval chaos rather than evil at work in the created world. Nor does the Old Testament know anything of Satan as the great opponent of God and the supreme embodiment of evil. We are accustomed to regard the serpent, which deceived Eve in the Garden of Eden, as being Satan at war with God; but there is no warrant for this in the text. On the contrary, on the few occasions when Satan appears in the Old Testament, he figures less as the antagonist of Yahweh than as his accomplice.

Satan, in fact, developed out of Yahweh himself, in response to changing ideas about the nature of God.⁽¹⁾

 When Yahweh ceased to be a tribal god and became the Lord of the universe, he was at first regarded as the author of all happenings, good and evil. Thus we read in Amos (eighth century B.C.): “. . shall there be evil in a city and the Lord hath not done it?”⁽²⁾ Even Deutero-Isaiah (sixth century B.C.) can still make Yahweh say: “I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace and create evil: I the Lord do all these things.”⁽³⁾ But gradually the religious consciousness changed until it was felt as an incongruity that God should be directly responsible for evil. At this point the threatening, hurtful functions of God detach themselves from the rest and are personified as Satan.⁽⁴⁾