Demonologia : $b or, natural knowledge revealed; being an exposé of ancient and modern superstitions, credulity, fanaticism, enthusiasm, & imposture, as connected with the doctrine, caballa, and jargon, of amulets, apparitions, astrology, charms, demonology, devils, divination, dreams, deuteroscopia, effluvia, fatalism, fate, friars, ghosts, gipsies, hell, hypocrites, incantations, inquisition, jugglers, legends, magic, magicians, miracles, monks, nymphs, oracles, physiognomy, purgatory, predestForsyth, J. S.
History
Demonologia : $b or, natural knowledge revealed; being an exposé of ancient and modern superstitions, credulity, fanaticism, enthusiasm, & imposture, as connected with the doctrine, caballa, and jargon, of amulets, apparitions, astrology, charms, demonology, devils, divination, dreams, deuteroscopia, effluvia, fatalism, fate, friars, ghosts, gipsies, hell, hypocrites, incantations, inquisition, jugglers, legends, magic, magicians, miracles, monks, nymphs, oracles, physiognomy, purgatory, predest
Forsyth, J. S.
Demonology; Superstition; Witchcraft
Such was the object of demonology, as taught by its most orthodox
professors. Yet other systems of it were devised, which had their origin
in causes attending the propagation of Christianity. For it must have
been a work of much time to eradicate the universal belief, that the
Pagan deities, who had become so numerous as to fill every part of the
universe, were fabulous beings. Even many learned men were induced to
side with the popular opinion on the subject, and did nothing more than
endeavour to reconcile it with their acknowledged systems of demonology.
They taught that such heathen objects of reverence were fallen angels in
league with the prince of darkness, who, until the appearance of our
Saviour, had been allowed to range on the earth uncontrolled, and to
involve the world in spiritual darkness and delusion. According to the
various ranks which these spirits held in the vast kingdom of Lucifer,
they were suffered, in their degraded state, to take up their abode in
the air, in mountains, in springs, or in seas. But, although the various
attributes ascribed to the Greek and Roman deities, were, by the early
teachers of Christianity, considered in the humble light of demoniacal
delusions, yet for many centuries they possessed great influence over
the minds of the vulgar. In the reign of Adrian, Evreux, in Normandy,
was not converted to the Christian faith, until the devil, who had
caused the obstinacy of the inhabitants, was finally expelled from the
temple of Diana. To this goddess, during the persecution of Dioclesian,
oblations were rendered by the inhabitants of London. In the 5th
century, the worship of her existed at Turin, and incurred the rebuke of
St. Maximus. From the ninth to the fifteenth century, several
denunciations took place of the women who, in France and Germany,
travelled over immense spaces of the earth, acknowledging Diana as their
mistress and conductor. In rebuilding St. Paul’s cathedral, in London,
remains of several of the animals used in her sacrifices were found; for
slight traces of this description of reverence, subsisted so late as the
reign of Edward the First, and of Mary. Apollo, also, in an early period
of Christianity, had some influence at Thorney, now Westminster. About
the 11th century, Venus formed the subject of a monstrous apparition,
which could only have been credited from the influence which she was
still supposed to possess. A young man had thoughtlessly put his ring
around the marble finger of her image. This was construed by the Cyprian
goddess as a plighted token of marriage; she accordingly paid a visit to
her bridegroom’s bed at night, nor could he get rid of his bed-fellow
until the spells of an exorcist had been invoked for his relief. In the
year 1536, just before the volcanic eruption of Mount Etna, a Spanish
merchant, while travelling in Sicily, saw the apparition of Vulcan
attended by twenty of his Cyclops, as they were escaping from the
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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