448 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



of 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 descent 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 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, and his writings, and spread thence to the Lutheran 

 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. 



Lender the influence, then, of such infallible teachings, in the 

 older Church and in the new, this superstition was developed 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 develop it among the 

 people, so Luther's translation of the Bible, especially in the 

 numerous editions of it illustrated with engravings, wrought with 

 enormous power to spread and deepen it. In every peasant's cot- 

 tage some one could spell out the story of the devil bearing 

 Christ through the air and placing him upon the pinnacle of the 

 Temple, — of the woman with seven devils, — of the devils cast 

 into the swine. Every peasant's child could be made to under- 

 stand the quaint pictures in the family Bible or the catechism 

 which illustrated vividly all those texts. In the ideas thus deep- 

 ly 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.* 



So was the treatment of demoniacs developed by theology; 

 aud such was the ]3ractice enforced by ecclesiasticism for more 

 than a thousand years. 



How an atmosphere was spread in which this belief began to 

 dissolve away, how its main foundations were undermined by 

 science, and how there gradually came in a reign of humanity, 

 will be related in the next chapter. 



* As to the grotesques in mediaeval churches, the writer of this article, in visiting the 

 town church of Wittenberg, noticed just opposite the pulpit where Luther so often 

 preached, a very spirited figure of an imp peering out upon the congregation. One can 

 but suspect that this mediaeval survival frequently suggested Luther's favorite topic during 

 his sermons. 



