Cox, George - Aryan Mythology Vol 2.pdf

60 MYTHOLOGY OF THE ARYAN NATIONS.
l BOOK malignant devils ; but unless their horrible fellowship was
. ^ , speedily to come to an end, they must be under the rule of
some king, and this king they found in the Semitic Satan.
Of the theology which sprung from this root it is enough to
say that it endowed the king of the fallen angels with the
powers of omnipresence and omniscience, and made him so
far a conqueror in his great struggle with the author of his
being as to succeed in wresting for ever out of the hands of
God all but an insignificant fraction of the whole race of
mankind. The victory of the Almighty God could not
extend either to the destruction of Satan and his subordinate
demons, or to the rescue of the souls whom he had enticed
to their ruin ; and if power be measured by the multitude of
subjects, his defeat by Michael could scarcely be regarded as
much impairing his magnificent success. Of the effect of
this belief on the moral and social developement of Christen-
dom, it is unnecessary to speak : but it must not be forgotten
that this particular developement of the Jewish demonology
was the natural outgrowth of passionate convictions anima-
ting a scanty band in an almost hopeless struggle against a
society thoroughly corrupt and impure. It was almost im-
possible for any whose eyes were opened to its horrors to
look upon it as anything but a loathsome mass which could
never be cleansed from its defilement. What could they see
but a vast gulf separating the few who were the soldiers of
Christ from the myriads who thronged together under the
standard of his adversary? Hence grew up by a process
which cannot much excite our wonder that severe theology,
which, known especially as that of Augustine, represented
the Christian Church as an ark floating on a raging sea,
open only to those who received the sacrament of baptism,
and shut both here and hereafter to infants dying before it
could be administered. It was inevitable that under such
conditions the image of Satan should more and more fill the
1 The Christian missionaries were und siindlich, nicht als absolut nichtig
further conscious that their own thau- schilderte : die Wunder des Christen
maturgy might be called into question, erscheinen dadurch ghuihhafter, dass
if that of the old creed were treated as audi dem althergebrachten Heidenmere
imposture or illusion. ' Die neue thum etwas ubernatiirliches gelassen
Lehre konnte leichter keimen und wurde.'—Grimm, 1). M. 7o7.
wurzeln wenn sie die alte als gehassig