2 S 



POPULAR BELIEFS. 



amidst the most holy and solemn of beliefs; but, at the same time, these 

 errors would not have been sustained had not the credulity of the men of 

 learning helped to propagate them by the creation of a world of fantastic 

 beings (see Fig. 178). Thus, for instance, when Peter the Eater, called 

 Comestor, a famous theologian of the twelfth century, in his paraphrase of the 

 Scriptures, arrived at the fourth chapter of Genesis, where Moses speaks of 

 the giants born to the sons of God and the daughters of men, he takes care 



Fig. 178. The Serpent, or the Dragon, and the Behemoth, or the Devil. Miniature from a 

 Commentary on the Apocalypse. Manuscript of Ihe Twelfth Century. In the Library ot 

 M. Ainbroise Firmin-Didot, Paris. 



to state that these giants are of the family of Enceladus and Briareus. The 

 deluge of Deucalion and Pyrrha was borrowed from to furnish certain 

 dramatic incidents in the Deluge of the Bible ; the serpent Python and the 

 monsters bred from the slime of the earth (Figs. 179 to 182), in the Greek 

 theogony, were imported into the glossology which the rabbis, those grand 

 masters of superstition, were continually introducing into the elastic frame- 

 work of the Talmud. The Christians were careful not to abandon the 



