Europe's inner demons

Nevertheless, the similarities between early Christian and medieval Christian attitudes should not be exaggerated. The atmosphere of morbid fascination which fills the medieval descriptions is quite lacking in the polemics of the early Fathers; and it is easy to see why. In the days of the Fathers the Church was still full of optimism, still sure of its faith and of the triumph of that faith. Satan might be strong, but it was within the power of any Christian to resist him. The work known as The Shepherd of Hermas, which dates from the first half of the second century, is emphatic on the point: he who fears God cannot be affected by the Devil; Satan himself takes flight when he comes up against strong resistance, so only those without the Christian faith need fear him.⁽³⁸⁾ In the second half of the second century Irenaeus maintains that the Devil flees before the prayers of Christians,

⁽³⁹⁾ while Tertullian is convinced that it is enough simply to pronounce the name of Christ.⁽⁴⁰⁾ If God allows demons to tempt a Christian, it is in order that the Christian may put them to shame and at the same time strengthen his own faith. And in Origen’s view the power of Satan and his hosts is already declining; each time a demon is successfully resisted by a Christian, he is thrust into hell and loses the right to tempt. As a result, the number of demons on active service is diminishing, the power of the pagan gods dwindles, and pagans find it ever easier to become Christians.⁽⁴¹⁾

This sublime self-confidence still inspired the Church which christianized the Germanic and Celtic peoples of Europe. But gradually over the centuries new and terrible anxieties began to make themselves felt in Christian minds, until it came to seem that the world was in the grip of demons and that their human allies were everywhere, even in the heart of Christendom itself.

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Satan and his demons, as they were known to the early Christians, were already products of a long and complex evolution; and they continued to change during the following centuries. By the later Middle Ages they had become far more powerful and menacing, and they were also far more closely involved in the lives of individual Christians.

They also shed their ethereal bodies. As early as the fifth century, the religious philosopher known as Pseudo-Dionysius or the Pseudo-Areopagite propounded the theory that the angels were purely spiritual beings, organized in an elaborate hierarchy; and the same applied to fallen angels, or demons. The book containing these speculations, entitled The Celestial Hierarchy, was translated from Greek into Latin by Joannes Scotus Erigena in the ninth century; and in the twelfth century the mystic Hugh of St Victor, in Paris, wrote a commentary on it, in which he argued powerfully for the absolute spirituality of the demonic as of the angelic hosts. Hugh’s disciple, Richard of St Victor, pointed out that if, as is stated in the New Testament, a man can contain a legion of demons, demons must indeed be incorporeal, for a legion comprises 6,666 individuals. The great scholastics followed in the footsteps of these mystics, until in the thirteenth century St Thomas Aquinas established the spiritual nature of angels and demons as an unshakeable part of Roman Catholic doctrine.

Yet these speculations were of limited relevance, for demons retained their capacity to take on a bodily form at will. Early in the fifth century Jerome insisted that demons were able to take on grotesque forms, and to be seen, heard and felt by human beings. About the same time the ecclesiastical historian Theodoret told how in the preceding century Bishop Marcellus of Apamea in Syria had tried to burn down a temple of Jupiter; he was constantly impeded by a black demon, who kept extinguishing the fire.⁽⁴²⁾

Around 600 Pope Gregory the Great introduced Satan or some lesser devil into many of his stories about monks and bishops. He describes, for instance, the curious adventure of a Jew who happened one night to find himself in a temple of Apollo. A throng of demons were in the temple, and they were reporting to their leader on the various tricks they had played on pious Christians. One of them had even induced a bishop to pat a nun tenderly on her back.⁽⁴³⁾ The biography of St Afra, which belongs to the period between 700 and 850, already shows Satan in the form that was to become standard in the later Middle Ages: pitch-black, naked and covered with a wrinkled skin.⁽⁴⁴⁾