Page images
PDF
EPUB

against the church, which, as is usual in Roman Catholic countries, are dictated by a spirit of bigotry and intolerance, and deliberate murders and treason are alone punished capitally. It is to be regretted that the benefit of public trial is not accorded to any political offender. His trial is secret, and publication of the procedure is not permitted, and what becomes of the party is often unknown. The administration of civil justice in Naples is in a wretched condition-there seems to be no public opinion to bear upon the political de. cisions, which are capricious, and often corrupt. An illustration is furnished by an advocate to Mr. Whiteside:

"I had two will cases lately, which exemplify this uncertainty. Having in the first instance to maintain the formal execution of a will, I failed, and an honest man's will was set aside on a trifling protest; in one week after I had a will to attach on the same identical grounds, and failed again. Reminding the judges of their own decision on the former case, they answered me by observing, "They were older and wiser men that week than they were the week before.'

[ocr errors][merged small]

Both our tourists had the good fortune to be present at the eighth congress of the Italian Scienzati (somewhat similar to our Bristol Association), which met at Genoa, in September, 1846. If we may judge from the proceedings of this body, and the tone and sentiments of the orators, we may hope better things for Italy, and believe that the spirit of nationality, and the love of free institutions, are yet too strong in their hearts to be repressed or extinguished. In the appropriate sections, every subject of arts, science, and statistics, were debated with ability and boldness :

"One of the most interesting and appropriate ceremonies of the week," says Mr. Geale, "was the auspicious inauguration of the statue of Columbus; and, while attending one of the sections of the University, I heard a resolution brought forward in favour of free trade,

during the discussion of which sentiments were uttered (in spite of repeated attempts to silence the speakers), that abundantly shewed the liberal tendencies of the public mind of Italy."

Similar testimony is borne by Mr. Whiteside. We are inclined, notwithstanding, to believe that as yet the principles of free trade, as understood and now recognised in England, have made but small progress in Italy. Indeed the diffusion of economical science, or of any views which do not suit their rules, is still too rigorously restrained by the censorship of the press.

Mr. Whiteside had many opportunities of seeing the present pontiff, both in private and public, and of forming an estimate of his character as an individual and a sovereign-a temporal prince and a priest. He has given us a few sketches of Pio Nono:

[blocks in formation]

not what some would call dignified; he appeared as if royalty sat awkwardly upon him; in appearance very unlike the portraits of Pius VI. The countenance, stout figure, and whole bearing of Pius IX. denote plain, vigorous sense, resolution, and manliness of character, and true benevolence, more than refined or polished taste, lofty dignity, royal pride, or grandeur of thought. Strip him of his robes of state, he never would be mistaken for a subtle Jesuit or crafty priest, but would pass all the world over for a sagacious, clear-headed, English country gentleman.

His true political character appears to have been that of a benevolent sovereign, who wished to govern honestly, but absolutely; to execute useful administrative reforms, but retain all legislative authority in his single person; to soothe the laymen, but confine the honours and emoluments of the state to his orderthe priesthood; to permit a liberty of discussion, saving from its influence all corrupt institutions and the despotic character of the government; to preserve without alteration all the obnox ious privileges of the sacred college, and the unlimited power of the popedom. Such do I believe to have been the true character of Pope Pius in things political. With respect to the ecclesiastical character of Pius IX., he proved himself to be every inch

.

a Pope. To all the prerogatives of the infallible head of the Church he laid claim; to all the doctrines of the Church he rigidly subscribed; its ceremonies he scrupulously performed."

Of the abilities of Pius IX. as a politician, and the principles which guided him in the important reforms which, from the commencement of his pontificate, have taken place in Rome, very conflicting opinions are entertained. Many concur with our author in the belief, that he was a reformer more from the force of circumstances, than from a genuine love of liberal institutions and a free people, so utterly at variance with all the policy and instincts of the head of a priestly oligarchy.

"He was shouted," says Mr. Whiteside, "into popularity, without meaning to be the assertor of liberty. The bitter opposition he met with from some cardinals-his critical position-the circumstances of the times-the loud demands of his people-forced him onward in a track, glorious, I admit, but which I do not believe he meant originally to pursue. The good Pope forgot, when his oppressed subjects tasted the sweets of partial freedom that they never would be content with less than the entire blessing, and that the acquisition of a little liberty the better enabled them to secure the whole."

We believe ourselves that Pius is a man of excellent intentions, though we do not think him vain or weak, as some assert; but his intentions can never get fair play, even from himself. The system, of which he is at the head, is anomalous and contrariant. Two antagonistic principles are at work within it-the temporal and the spiritual. The priest is ever thwarting the prince. The social happiness of the people over whom he is placed admonish him that liberty of action, toleration of thought, free institutions, and a voice in the legislation, are the birth-right of men, and as needful to their welfare as the air of heaven is to their bodily health; but the infallible head of an all-exacting church sanctions no freedom, tolerates no schisms, admits the rights of none, who are not invested with that infallibility, to share in its counsels. So it has ever been, so it will ever be, till this union-not of God but of man-is rent asunder once and for ever. No real permanent

progress, in securing political liberty can be achieved in the papal states while this anomaly continues. It is impossible to make the liberal institutions, which the enlightenment of the age demands and the advancement tions of Europe have attained to, in political science which the free naharmonise or consist with a system, whose very foundation-stone is absolutism, which can admit of no modification, because it pretends to infallibility. Pius IX. has tried it, but how has he succeeded? So far as popular liberty has been won or yielded, it is an encroachment on the vital

principle of the Papacy. To stand still seems now impossible-progress is inevitable. Either the people will press their victory, or the priest will latter is hard to accomplish-let us reassume his enslaving sway. hope for the former :—

The

"No future Pope," reflects Mr. Whiteside, "dare retrograde; if the rash attempt to undo what has been done were made, the Pope and the Papacy would perish together.

"The elections have been held; deputies have been chosen; the parliament has met, and already stormy discussions have taken place.

"The Jesuits have been expelled; and, I verily believe, had the Pope longer resisted the popular demand for a declaration of a war against Austria, he would have been expelled also.

"What the future condition of the papacy may be, or what effect this free constitution may produce on the spiritual authority of the Pope, it is not easy to prophesy. Some maintain the spiritual power will be greater, and more respected and obeyed, when divested of the arbitrary temporal power with which it has been so long associated and detemporal authorities have been so long filed. Others insist, the spiritual and connected, that they cannot exist in full independent action, separate and apart. I incline to the latter opinion; the habit of examining and criticising the Pope's acts, as a temporal ruler, will lead to the like practice in reference to his acts as a spiritual ruler; and reason may be applied to the consideration of his conduct in both capacities alike. Moreover, how is the Pope to enforce his spiritual edicts? Will the laity of Rome longer submit to be imprisoned if they do not attend confession?

Most unlikely; and if the ceremonies of the Church cannot be enforced, what becomes of their value in the eyes of the people? How long will

the Index Expurgatorius exist? How long the monasteries and convents, and the religious corporations ?"

We now close these works, and commend them to the public. In each there is much to entertain; and each traveller, in his way, has afforded us instruction. Of Mr. Geale's little tome, we have already said that it is written with taste and feeling, making little pretensions, and yet showing the scholar and the man of observation. Mr. Whiteside's volumes aim higher, and challenge a stricter scrutiny. They have merits, which call for high praise, with faults, to which we cannot readily accord pardon. Lively, forcible, humorous, and caustic, his style is constantly careless, obscure, abrupt, and even coarse. A capital guide, but an indifferent describer, he points out what you are to see and understand, yet conveys to you but an inadequate impression. He is scholarly, yet not elegant, erudite without enthusiasm, and a book-maker, in the worst sense of that term. This is a monster grievance, and deserves grave reprehension. In the three volumes he has published, we venture to assert, one-third, at least, will be found to consist of the works of others. To what extent this is justifiable, nay, laudable, we have already stated. But how will he justify inserting whole pages from Eustace, and Matthews, De Stael, Addison, Hobhouse, Bell, and Sir James Clarke ? How will he justify the introduction not only of well-known poems of Manzoni, but even a whole scene from the "Promessi Sposi" of that author, with the English_translation appended, though every Italian scholar is familiar with the original, and every boarding-school miss has been thumbing the "Betrothed," since Mr. Bentley made it a five-shilling matter for all circulating libraries? Perhaps, after all, we are unreasonably querulous, and that considering Mr. Whiteside, while in Italy, was ani

mated less by the "genius loci "—the spirit of improvisation-than possessed by the demon of plagiarism, we should rather be thankful that, in passing through the domains of literature, he has arrayed himself in so moderate a share of plunder. Should we not be grateful for the abstinence that saved us in Florence from a canto of Dante, or a novel of Boccaccio, and that carried him unfeloniously through Ferrara without rifling one page from Tasso or Ariosto?

But to be serious, this extension of the principle of Communism in literature is neither decent nor honest, and Mr. Whiteside must know that it is not. The rules of literary appropriation are well known. To illustrate a sentiment, or fortify a position, short quotations are always allowable; they who write best, use them most sparingly, simply because they feel they can say things as well as others; but neither writers or readers will tolerate numerous or lengthened extracts from books within the reach of all the world. He who lards his own leanness with the fat of others, shews not the capacity of his mind for thought, but of his fingers for filching; and the motley pages of a plagiarist, like the parti-coloured patches of a beggar's coat, may eke out its dimensions, but betokens not wealth but poverty. Let us then entreat Mr. Whiteside, if his book reach a second edition, as we think it well deserves, to cut out his quotations with as liberal a hand as he put them in. Let the scissors once more do its work, and the two volumes will be an improved edition. We promise him a place for it in every library. Abounding in information of every kind, discursive as well as minute, nothing is left untouched, every subject is explored, and the whole is one of the most valuable accessions to our stock of continental knowledge, which has for years been given to the public.

1848.] Pythonic and Demoniac Possessions in India and Judea.

PYTHONIC AND DEMONIAC POSSESSIONS IN INDIA AND JUDEA.*

421

PART II.

RESUMING our examination of the language employed in the Gospels, in reference to the daimoniac possessions of Judea, we must point it out as a very remarkable circumstance, and one deserving of great weight, that nowhere in the gospels does our Lord himself use the term daimon, or any of its derivatives, in our sense of devil. Wherever a spiritual being, morally wicked, is spoken of in the gospels, it is either Satan, or the wicked one, or diabolos, the proper word for devil, that is used. This latter word occurs fifteen times in the evangelical narratives; it is applied nine times to the tempter of our Lord in the wilderness; once, to the enemy who steals the good seed; once, to the enemy who sows the tares; once, to the spirit that animated the wicked Jews, "Ye are of your father the devil;" once, in the condemnation

of the

wicked at the general judgment, to "the fire prepared for the devil and his angels;" once, to the devil, who put it into the heart of Judas to betray Jesus; once to Judas himself, where it is used without the definite article, and is properly translated "a devil;" the first fourteen of these cases referring to the wicked spirit, who is the tempter of mankind, and the last to a man morally evil. Now, although the words "daimon," its neuter form, "daimonion," and the participle "daimonizomenos," which is translated,

66

possessed by devils," or "tormented by devils," occur no less than sixty-three times in the gospels, in no one of these cases are the terms applied in a purely moral sense. In forty-eight instances, they are applied to those cases of possession, which, in common with other diseases, our Lord heuled-a term repeatedly applied to them; twice to the case of Magdalen, in connexion with "evil spirits and infirmities," and evidently referring to cases of physical suffering or weakness like the rest; four times-still in connexion

with these bodily cures- -to "the prince of daimons," an exorcist power, through whom these daimoniac affections or paroxysms were supposed to be expelled-of whom more hereafter; and twice in reference to St. John the Baptist's having, and seven times in reference to our Lord himself having a daimon, where it is clear, from the context, daimon has the same sense as the Mahratta pishachu, alluded to in our former paper, and referred to madness; for we read, in John, x. 20, "And many of them said, he hath a devil [daimon], and is mad; why hear ye him?" Here we have the sense in which the Jews understood having a daimon, precisely that of the Hindoo of this day. For, as we said in our former paper, in reference to the application of the term pishachu, and its derivatives, "The ideas of lunacy and of devil-action, are, therefore, one; to have a devil, is to be mad; all forms of lunacy are forms of demoniacal possession." This is clearly a very different sense from the notion attached to our word devil, or the Greek diabolos, which is applied to the cases of moral evil, as above noticed. In no one instance in the gospels is the word daimon, or any of its deri vatives, so applied.

It is true that our Lord, when the Pharisees said he cast out devils [daimonia] by Beelzebub, the prince of devils [daimonia], uses the phrase, "How can Satan cast out Satan?" But here Satan is evidently used, not as daimon was by the Jews, to denote an individual possessing power, but to indicate the great head of the king.. dom of evil upon earth, his works, and his dominion over man; and thus used, it would justly apply to these cases of bodily torture and mental derangement, whatever their intrinsic nature, as one branch of his work of evil. For, it should never be forgotten, in considering this subject, that our Lord speaks of all disease

* Vide DUBLIN UNIVERSITY MAGAZINE for September.

64

alike, nay, of all physical evil, as "the bondage of Satan," as "the power of the enemy." Thus of the "woman which had a spirit of infirmity eighteen years, and was bowed together, and could in nowise lift up herself," and whom, addressing in these words, "Woman, thou art loosed from thy infirmity, he laid his hands on her, and immediately she was made straight;" whereupon the ruler of the synagogue answered with indignation, because that Jesus had healed on the sabbath day"-of this case of infirmity, some form, evidently, of spinal, muscular, or nervous disease, which our Lord thus healed, he says, answering his adversaries and confuting them, as it is very remarkable he always does, upon their own principles and ideas, without either impugning or admitting these principles, but using them by some application, either literal or figurative, as the readiest instruments for inculcating moral truth, "Thou hypocrite, doth not each one of you, on the sabbath, loose his ox or his ass from the stall, and lead him away to watering? And ought not this woman, being a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan hath bound, lo, these eighteen years, be loosed from this bond on the sabbath day?"-Luke, xiii. 15, 16.

And with this view perfectly consorts our Lord's language on another remarkable occasion, when "the seventy returned again with joy, saying, Lord, even the devils [daimonia] are subject unto us through thy

name.

And he said unto them, I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven. Behold, I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy."-Luke, x. 18,19. Here, even the malignant instincts and energies of nature are set down by our Lord as portions of Satan's dominion; and he deems this power conferred upon his disciples over venomous reptiles, through faith in him and a union of their wills with his, to constitute, equally with the subjection of the daimonia, a part of that downfall of Satan's empire, which he depicts with such vivid brevity, in the vision of his lightning-like fall from heaven : of which it may be doubted whether it is figurative, or prophetic of some future final decadence of the rebel archangel, and the extinction of the

moral evil which he introduced into the universe; or contains a brief and vivid glance into the past records of the spiritual world, such as is supposed to be veiled under the bold figure which the Hebrew prophet applies to the prince of Babylon:-" How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! for thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend unto heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the Most High."-Is. xiv. 12–14. From this contemplation, however, of the fall of Satan's dominion, our Lord immediately turns to warn his disciples that this subjection of the spirits [are] constitutes no proper object of rejoicing to them, because this power of healing (for such it evidently was) had in it nothing intrin sically moral; it was a sanative power bestowed by him; it was an exercise of faith, which might indeed move mountains, and yet be devoid of that charity, without which it was but as a sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal; it was shared by the traitor, Judas. The true ground for their joy is added-" But rather rejoice because your names are written in heaven;" because ye are chosen to be my followers-to learn and proclaim my message of truth to the world-to imitate my example to carry my cross-to glorify God by your lives and in your death.

The whole argument used by our Lord in his reply to the Pharisees, as completed by a collation of the three first evangelists, may be thus expressed:-"You allege that I cast out the powers of darkness, manifest in these visitations, by a league with, or by the authority of Beelzebub, the prince of these powers. But how can evil overcome evil, or one member of the Satanic kingdom expel another? Every kingdom and house divided against itself is brought to desolation. If Satan rise up against himself and cast out Satan, he is divided against himself, how shall then his kingdom stand? And if I, by Beelzebub, cast out daimonia, by whom do your children cast them out? Therefore they shall be your judges. But if I, with the finger and the spirit of God, cast out daimonia, then the kingdom of God is come unto you; for as these visitations upon man indicate the presence of evil and

« PreviousContinue »