Satan reaches the highest degree of his development and of his power in the Middle Ages, in that troubled and unhappy period wherein Christianity shows itself most vigorous. He reaches maturity at the same time as the various institutions and peculiar types of that life, and when Gothic art flourishes in lofty-spired temples, the myth of Satan flourishes also, gloomy and stupendous, in the consciousness of the Christian peoples. After the close of the thirteenth century he begins to decline and languish, as do the papacy, scholasticism, the feudal spirit and the spirit of asceticism. Satan is the child of sadness. In a religion like that of the Greeks, all radiant with life and colour, he could not have held any prominent role; in order that he may grow and thrive, there is need of shadows, of the mysteries of sin and of sorrow, which like a funeral shroud enfold the religion of Golgotha. Satan is the child of fear; and terror dominates the Middle Ages. Seized with an unconquerable dread, the souls of men fear nature, pregnant with portents and monsters; they fear the physical world, opposed to the world of the spirit, and its irreconcilable foe; they fear life, the perpetual incentive and tinderbox of sin; they fear death, behind which yawn the uncertainties of eternity. Dreams and visions torment men’s minds. The ecstatic hermit, kneeling long hours in prayer before the doorway of his cell, sees flying through the air aweinspiring armies and riotous hordes of apocalyptic monsters; his nights are lighted up by flaming portents; the stars are distorted and bathed in blood, sad omens of impending evil. In seasons of pestilence that mow men down like ripened stalks of grain are seen darts, hurled by invisible hands, cleaving the air and disappearing with hissing sounds; and ever and anon, across the face of terror-stricken Christendom runs, like a tremor presaging the world’s end, the sinister word that Antichrist is already born and is about to open the fearful drama foretold in the Apocalypse.

      Satan grows in the melancholy shadows of vast cathedrals, behind the massive pillars, in the recesses of the choir; he grows in the silence of the cloisters, invaded by the stupor of death; he grows in the embattled castle, where a secret remorse is gnawing the heart of the grim baron; in the hidden cell, where the alchemist tests his metals; in the solitary wood, where the sorcerer weaves his nightly spells; in the furrow, wherein the starving serf casts, with a curse, the seed that is destined to nourish his lord. Satan is everywhere; countless are they who have seen him, countless they who have conversed with him.

      This belief had taken firm root, nor did the Church fail to favour and strengthen it. The Church made good use of Satan, employed him as a most effective political tool, and gave him all possible credit; since what men would not do through love of God or in a spirit of obedience, they would do through fear of the Devil. Satan was presented under all guises, painted or carved, to the dismayed contemplation of the devout; Satan rounded out each period of the preacher, each admonition of the confessor; Satan became the hero of a legend unending, that offered counterparts and examples for all the vicissitudes of life, for every action, every thought. Not a few of the Visions of the Middle Ages show what sort of application could be made of the Devil to politics in general; certainly, to ecclesiastical politics the Devil rendered far better service than did the Inquisition and the fagot, though both of these rendered service enough. As early as the year 811, Charlemagne, in one of his capitularies, accused the clergy of abusing the Devil and Hell for the sake of filching money and seizing estates.

      But great as was the fear that men had of Satan, the hatred that they cherished against him was no less.

      Such hatred was not, indeed, unjustified, since in hating him one hated the author of all evil, and the more one loved Christ the more one ought to hate His enemy. But in this case also, fear and hatred produced their customary results, extravagance in opinions and exaggeration in beliefs. The figure of Satan had to suffer the consequences of this; and this excess, being noted by some one of more moderate spirit, gave rise to the proverb, “The Devil is not so black as he is painted”.

      I. The Devil

      Hans Memling, Triptych of Terrestrial Vanity and Celestial Redemption (detail), c. 1490. Wood. Musée des Beaux-Arts, Strasbourg, France.

      The Person of the Devil

      Enguerrand Quarton, The Coronation of Mary (detail), 1454. Oil on panel, 183 × 220 cm. Musée Pierre de Luxembourg, Villeneuve-lès-Avignon, France.

      Only with the utmost difficulty, if at all, do men succeed in forming a concept of an incorporeal substance, essentially different from that which meets their senses. For them, the incorporeal is usually an attenuation, a rarefaction, of the corporeal, a state of minimum density, comparable though inferior to that of air or flame. To all uncivilised men, and to the great majority of those who call themselves civilised, the soul is a breath, or a light vapour, and it can be seen under the appearance of a shadow. The gods of all the mythologies are, to a lesser or a greater degree, corporeal; those of Greek mythology feed on ambrosia and nectar, and in case they meddle (as they are sometimes wont to do) in the brawls of mortals, they run the risk of catching a sound drubbing. It ought not to seem strange, then, that the pneumatological doctrines of both Jews and Christians generally assign bodies to angels and to demons.

      Doctors and Fathers of the Church are almost unanimous in holding that demons are provided with bodies, already possessed by them when they lived in the condition of angels but become denser and heavier after their fall. The density of these bodies of theirs, always far lighter than the bodies of men, has not been similarly estimated by all investigators; in the second century Tatianus declared that it was like that of air or fire, and a body formed of air was attributed to the demons by Isidorus of Seville (560–636) at the beginning of the seventh century. Others, like Saint Basil the Great (330–379), were inclined to assign to them an even more rarefied body. But it is easy to understand how, in a matter of this sort, there could not possibly be one single opinion that must be universally accepted; and how Dante, without offending the conscience of any one, could give his Lucifer, down amid the frost and ice of Cocytus, a solid, compact body, to which he and Virgil cling, as to a rock.[21]

      Having bodies, the demons must also have certain natural needs, as have all living, corporeal beings; foremost among all these being that of repairing their organism, whose structure is being constantly worn away by the exercise of life. The devils must require to be fed; and in fact, Origen (185–253), Tertullian (150–230), Athenagoras (about 176), Minucius Felix (second century), Firmicus Maternus (about 347), Saint John Chrysostom (347–407) and many others, say that the devils greedily absorb the vapour and smoke of the victims sacrificed by the pagans – a somewhat unsubstantial food, to be sure, but one not unsuited to their constitution. Some Jewish Rabbis, in a little more generous spirit, endeavouring to introduce a somewhat greater variety into the diabolic diet, said that the devils subsist on the odour of fire and the vapour of water, but that they are also very fond of blood when they can get it; and a German proverb adds that when the Devil is famished he eats flies.

      The common people frequently speak of old devils and young devils; and many are the proverbs which, in various languages, give evidence of this popular belief. We know that the Devil, grown old, became a hermit;[22] and it would seem reasonable that he too

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