One or two writers of the nineteenth century remarked that there seemed to be some connexion between certain points of the Sabbat ceremonial and the rites of various pagan deities, which is, of course, a perfectly correct observation. For we have seen that Witchcraft as it existed in Europe from the eleventh century was mainly the spawn of Gnostic heresy, and heresy by its very nature embraced and absorbed much of heathendom. In some sense Witchcraft was a descendant of the old pre-Christian magic, but it soon assumed a slightly different form, or rather at the advent of Christianity it was exposed and shown in its real foul essence as the worship of the Evil Principle, the Enemy of Mankind, Satan. It may freely be acknowledged that there are certain symbols common to Christianity itself and to ancient religions. It would in truth be very surprising if, when seeking to propagate her doctrines in the midst of Græco-Roman civilization, the Church had adopted for her intercourse with the people a wholly unknown language, and had systematically repudiated everything that until then had served to give expression to religious feeling. Within the limits imposed by the conventions of race and culture, the method of interpreting the emotions of the heart cannot be indefinitely varied, and it was natural that the new religion should appropriate and incorporate all that was good in a ritual much of which only required to be rightly interpreted and directed to become the language of the Christian soul aspiring to the one True God. Certain attitudes of prayer and reverence, the use of incense and of lamps burning day and night in the sanctuary, the offering of ex-votos as a testimony to benefits received, all these are man’s natural expressions of piety and gratitude towards a divine power, and it would be strange indeed if their equivalents were not met with in all religions. Cicero tells us that at Agrigentum there was a much-venerated statue of Hercules, of which the mouth and chin were worn away by the many worshippers who pressed their lips to it.[61] The bronze foot of the statue of the first Pope, S. Peter, in Rome has not withstood any better the pious kisses of the faithful. Yet he were a very fool who imagined that modern Christians have learned anything from the Sicilian contemporaries of Verres. What is true is that the same thought in analogous circumstances has found natural expression after an interval of centuries in identical actions and attitudes.