The Necessity of Atheism

of philosophers admitted this, with the exception of the Epicureans, who
denied the existence of evil spirits. The magicians, in Greece and Rome,
were at times punished because they injured men and not because they
offended the gods. During the latter period of pagan Rome, some of the
emperors passed laws against the magicians, if it was proven that by
casting the horoscope the magicians had ascertained what was, according
to their belief, the most auspicious time to start a rebellion against
their rule. The emperors, however, notably Marcus Aurelius and Julian,
were the patrons of magicians who foretold coming events to them. The
public methods of foretelling the future, such as the oracle of the
gods, formed part of their religion.

When the first Christians came into Rome and spread Christianity
throughout the empire, they were inspired by an intense religious
enthusiasm. They thought much less of the civil than of the religious
consequence of magic, and sacrilege seemed much more terrible in their
eyes than anarchy.

The Christians found in Rome a vast polytheistic religion in contrast to
their own in which the entire world was divided into the Kingdom of God
and the Kingdom of Satan. For them the world seemed to be teeming with
malignant demons, who had in all ages persecuted and deluded mankind.
"According to these Christians, the immediate objects of the devotions
of the pagan world were subsidiary spirits of finite power and imperfect
morality; angels, or, as they were then called, demons, who acted the
part of mediators, and who, by permission of the Supreme and
Inaccessible Deity, regulated the religious government of mankind. The
Christians had adopted this conception of subsidiary spirits, but they
maintained them to be not the willing agents, but the adversaries of the
Deity; and the word demon, which among the pagans, signified only a
spirit below the level of a Divinity, among the Christians signified a
devil." (_Lecky._)

"This notion seems to have existed in the very earliest period of
Christianity; and in the second century, we find it elaborated with the
most minute and detailed care. Tertullian, who wrote in that century,
assures us that the world was full of these evil spirits, whose
influence might be descried in every portion of the pagan creed. If a
Christian in any respect deviated from the path of duty, a visible
manifestation of the devil sometimes appeared to terrify him. The terror
which such a doctrine must have spread among the early Christians may
be easily conceived. They seemed to breathe an atmosphere of miracles.
Wherever they turned they were surrounded and beleaguered by malicious
spirits, who were perpetually manifesting their presence by supernatural
arts. Watchful fiends stood beside every altar, they mingled with every
avocation of life, and the Christians were the special objects of their
hatred. All this was universally believed, and was realized with an
intensity which, in this secular age, we can scarcely conceive. The
bearing of this view upon the conception of magic is very obvious. Among
the more civilized pagans, magic was mainly a civil, and in the last
days of the empire, a political crime. In the early church, on the other
hand, it was esteemed the most horrible form of sacrilege effected by
the direct agency of evil spirits. It included the whole system of
paganism, explained all its prodigies, and gave a fearful significance
to all its legends. When the Church obtained the direction of the civil
power, she soon modified or abandoned the tolerant maxims she had
formerly inculcated; and in the course of a few years, restrictive laws
were enacted, both against Jews and heretics." (_Lecky._)

Constantine, after his conversion to Christianity, enacted laws against
the magicians. These were made more rigid under Constantius, his son,
but suspended under Julian. These persecutions were renewed by
Valentinian, spasmodically carried on to a slight extent, and then
lapsed. During the period that elapsed between the sixth and thirteenth
centuries the executions for sorcery were comparatively rare.

It is to be borne in mind, then, that magic as existing in pagan Rome
was part of the religious conceptions of the Romans. The oracle as well
as the various demons, which to them signified what the word "angel"
signifies to us now, formed an elaborate system of mythology and
idolatry. The early Christians coming into contact with these
conceptions, at first found an insurmountable difficulty in spreading
their beliefs among the rural inhabitants of the Roman empire.
Polytheism was dominant while their monotheism was as yet a persecuted
belief. The road of least resistance was compromise, and so this vast
system of polytheism was perverted, while seemingly accepted into their
beliefs, by making these "angels," "demons," as we now understand the
word. Since the early Christians were dominated by a belief in constant
Satanic presence, these demons were said to be the "Hosts of Satan." It
was firmly believed that the arch-fiend (Satan) was forever hovering
about the Christians, but it was also believed that the sign of the
cross, or a few drops of holy water, or the name of Mary, could put him
to an immediate and ignominious flight.

"In the twelfth century, however, the subject passed into an entirely
new phase. The conception of a witch, as we now conceive it, that is to
say of a woman who had entered into a deliberate compact with Satan, who
was endowed with the power of working miracles whenever she pleased, and
who was continually transported through the air to the Sabbath, where
she paid her homage to the Evil One--first appeared. The panic created
by the belief at first advanced slowly, but after a time with a
fearfully accelerated rapidity. Thousands of victims were sometimes
burnt alive in a few years. Every country in Europe was stricken with
the wildest fever. Hundreds of the ablest judges were selected for the
extirpation of this crime. A vast literature was created on the subject,
and it was not until a considerable portion of the eighteenth century
had passed away that the executions finally ceased. The vast majority of
those accused of witchcraft were women, and again the Bible furnished
the authority for the belief that women were inherently wicked. That
the Fathers of the Church believed this is exemplified by the statement