Volume - The Clarence Darrow Collection

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THEOLOGICAL IDEAS OF LUNACY AND ITS TREATMENT, ijr
Galatians, and, regarding idiocy, on the account in Genesis
of the birth of children whose fathers were " sons of God "
and whose mothers were " daughters of men."
One idea of his was especially characteristic. The de-
scent of Christ into hell was a frequent topic of discussion
in the Reformed Church. Melanchthon, with his love of
Greek studies, held that the purpose of the Saviour in mak-
ing such a descent was to make himself known to the great
and noble men of antiquity Plato, Socrates, and the rest ;
but Luther insisted that his purpose was to conquer Satan
in a hand-to-hand struggle.
This idea of diabolic influence pervaded his conversation,
his preaching, his writings, and spread thence to the Lu-
theran Church in general.
Calvin also held to the same theory, and, having more
power with less kindness of heart than Luther, carried it
out with yet greater harshness. Beza was especially severe
against those who believed insanity to be a natural malady,
and declared, " Such persons are refuted both by sacred and
profane history."
Under the influence, then, of such infallible teachings, in
the older Church and in the new, this superstition was devel-
oped more and more into cruelty ; and as the biblical texts,
popularized in the sculptures and windows and mural decorations
of the great mediaeval cathedrals, had done much to
so Luther's translation of the
develop it among the people,
Bible, especially in the numerous editions of it illustrated
with engravings, wrought with enormous power to spread
and it. deepen In every peasant's cottage some one could
I woman
spell out the story of the devil bearing Christ through the
air and placing him upon the pinnacle of the Temple of the
with seven devils of the devils cast into the swine.
Every peasant's child could be made to understand the
quaint pictures in the family Bible or the catechism which
illustrated vividly all those texts. In the ideas thus deeply
implanted, the men who in the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries struggled against this mass of folly and cruelty
found the worst barrier to right reason.*
*
For Luther, see, among the vast number of similar passages in his works, the