Confront the dark parts of yourself, and work to banish them with illumination and forgiveness. Your willingness to wrestle with your demons will cause your angels to sing.
It is better to conquer yourself than to win a thousand battles. Then the victory is yours. It cannot be taken from you, not by angels or by demons, heaven or hell.
All at once, in the midst of this profound calm, a fresh sound arose; a sound as celestial, divine, ineffable, ravishing, as the other had been horrible. It was a hymn which issued from the gloom, a dazzling burst of prayer and harmony in the obscure and alarming silence of the night; women's voices, but voices composed at one and the same time of the pure accents of virgins and the innocent accents of children,--voices which are not of the earth, and which resemble those that the newborn infant still hears, and which the dying man hears already. This song proceeded from the gloomy edifice which towered above the garden. At the moment when the hubbub of demons retreated, one would have said that a choir of angels was approaching through the gloom.
This doctrine, stripped of much of its grossness, is reproduced in the New Testament. Satan is the [Greek: diabolos] (Matt. xiii. 39; John xiii. 2; Eph. iv. 27; Heb. ii. 14; Rev. ii. 10), slanderer or accuser, the [Greek: peirazôn] (Matt. iv. 3; 1 Thess. iii. 5), the tempter, the [Greek: ponêros] (Matt. v. 37; John xvii. 15; Eph. vi. 16), the evil one, and the [Greek: echthros] (Matt. xiii. 39), the enemy. He is apparently identified with Beelzebub (or Beelzebul) in Matt. xii. 26, 27. Jesus appears to recognize the existence of demons belonging to a kingdom of evil under the leadership of Satan "the prince of demons" (Matt. xii. 24, 26, 27), whose works in demonic possessions it is his function to destroy (Mark i. 34, iii. 11, vi. 7; Luke x. 17-20). But he himself conquers Satan in resisting his temptations (Matt. iv. 1-11). Simon is warned against him, and Judas yields to him as tempter (Luke xxii. 31; John xiii. 27). Jesus's cures are represented as a triumph over Satan (Luke x. 18). This Jewish doctrine is found in Paul's letters also. Satan rules over a world of evil, supernatural agencies, whose dwelling is in the lower heavens (Eph. vi. 12): hence he is the "prince of the power of the air" (ii. 2). He is the tempter (1 Thess. iii. 5; 1 Cor. vii. 5), the destroyer (x. 10), to whom the offender is to be handed over for bodily destruction (v. 5), identified with the serpent (Rom. xvi. 20; 2 Cor. xi. 3), and probably with Beliar or Belial (vi. 15); and the surrender of man to him brought death into the world (Rom. v. 17). Paul's own "stake in the flesh" is Satan's messenger (2 Cor. xii. 7). According to Hebrews Satan's power over death Jesus destroys by dying (ii. 14). Revelation describes the war in heaven between God with his angels and Satan or the dragon, the "old serpent," the deceiver of the whole world (xii. 9), with his hosts of darkness. After the overthrow of the Beast and the kings of the earth, Satan is imprisoned in the bottomless pit a thousand years (xx. 2). Again loosed to deceive the nations, he is finally cast into the lake of fire and brimstone (xx. 10; cf. Enoch liv. 5, 6; 2 Peter ii. 4). In John's Gospel and Epistles Satan is opposed to Christ. Sinner and murderer from the beginning (1 John iii. 8) and liar by nature (John viii. 44), he enslaves men to sin (viii. 34), causes death (verse 44), rules the present world (xiv. 30), but has no power over Christ or those who are his (xiv. 30, xvi. 11; 1 John v. 18). He will be destroyed by Christ with all his works (John xvi. 33; 1 John iii. 8). Entry: DEVIL
The Egyptian writer Hermes Trismegistus (c. 250), in a work called _Asclepius_ (cited by Augustine, _De civit. Dei_, viii. 26), claims that his ancestors discovered the art of making gods, and since they could not create souls, they called up the souls of demons or angels and introduced them into the holy images and divine mysteries, that through these souls the idols might possess powers of doing good and harm. This was the belief of the pagans, and the Christians for centuries shared it with them. Not a few Christian martyrs sought and won the palm by smashing the idols in order to dislodge the indwelling devil; occasionally their zeal was further gratified by beholding it pass away like smoke from its ruined home. Entry: IMAGE
In answer to questions raised and doubts expressed by Porphyry, the writer of this treatise appeals to the innate idea all men have of the gods as testifying to the existence of divinities countless in number and various in rank (to the correct arrangement of which he, like Iamblichus, attaches the greatest importance). He holds with the latter that above all principles of being and intelligence stands the absolute one, from whom the first god and king spontaneously proceeds; while after these follow the ethereal, empyrean, and heavenly gods, and the various orders of archangels, angels, demons, and heroes distinguished in nature, power, and activity, and in greater profusion than even the imagination of Iamblichus had conceived. He says that all the gods are good (though he in another place admits the existence of evil demons who must be propitiated), and traces the source of evil to matter; rebuts the objection that their answering prayer implies passivity on the part of gods or demons; defends divination, soothsaying, and theurgic practices as manifestations of the divine activity; describes the appearances of the different sorts of divinities; discusses the various kinds of sacrifice, which he says must be suitable to the different natures of the gods, material and immaterial, and to the double condition of the sacrificer as bound to the body or free from it (differing thus in his psychology from Iamblichus); and, in conclusion, states that the only way to happiness is through knowledge of and union with the gods, and that theurgic practices alone prepare the mind for this union--again going beyond his master, who held assiduous contemplation of divine things to be sufficient. It is the passionless nature of the soul which permits it to be thus united to divine beings,--knowledge of this mystic union and of the worship associated with it having been derived from the Egyptian priests, who learnt it from Hermes. Entry: IAMBLICHUS
(c) _Doctrine of Angels and of Hypostases._--In the writings of the pre-exilian period we have frequent references to supernatural personalities good and bad. It is only necessary to refer to them by name. _Sebaoth_, or "hosts," attached to the name of Yahweh, denoted the heavenly retinue of stars. The _seraphim_ were burning serpentine forms who hovered above the enthroned Yahweh and chanted the Trisagion in Isaiah's consecration vision (Isa. vi.). We have also constant references to "angels" (_malachim_) of God, divine messengers who represent Him and may be regarded as the manifestation of His power and presence. This especially applies to the "angel of Yahweh" or angel of His Presence [Ex. xxiii. 20, 23 (E). Note in Ex. xxxiii. 14 (J) he is called "my face" or "presence"[33] (cf. Isa. lxiii. 9)]. We also know that from earliest times Israel believed in the evil as well as good spirits. Like the Arabs they held that demons became incorporate in serpents, as in Gen. iii. The _nephilim_ were a monstrous brood begotten of the intercourse of the supernatural beings called "sons of God" with the women of earth. We also read of the "evil spirit" that came upon Saul. Contact with Babylonia tended to stimulate the angelology and demonology of Israel. The Hebrew word _shed_ or "demon" is no more than a Babylonian loan word, and came to designate the deities of foreign peoples degraded into the position of demons.[34] _Lilith_, the blood-sucking night-hag of the post-exilian Isa. xxxiv. 14, is the Babylonian _Lilatu_. Whether the _se'irim_ or shaggy satyrs (Isa. xiii. 31; Lev. xvii. 7) and _Azazel_ were of Babylonian origin it is difficult to determine. The emergence of _Satan_ as a definite supernatural personality, the head or prince of the world of evil spirits, is entirely a phenomenon of post-exilian Judaism. He is portrayed as the arch-adversary and accuser of man. It is impossible to deny Persian influence in the development of this conception, and that the Persian Ahriman (Angromainyu), the evil personality opposed to the good, Ahura Mazda, moulded the Jewish counterpart, Satan. But in Judaism monotheistic conceptions reigned supreme, and the Satan of Jewish belief as opposed to God stops short of the dualism of Persian religion. Of this we see evidence in the multiplication of Satans in the Book of Enoch. In the Book of Jubilees he is called _mastema_. In later Judaism _Sammael_ is the equivalent of Satan. Persian influence is also responsible for the _vast multiplication of good spirits or angels_, Gabriel, Raphael, Michael, &c., who play their part in apocalyptic works, such as the Book of Daniel and the Book of Enoch. Entry: 10
Theoretically, the philosophy of Plotinus was an attempt to harmonize the principles of the various Greek schools. At the head of his system he placed the transcendent incommunicable one ([Greek: hen amethekton]), whose first-begotten is intellect ([Greek: nous]), from which proceeds soul ([Greek: psychê]), which in turn gives birth to [Greek: physis], the realm of nature. Immediately after the absolute one, Iamblichus introduced a second superexistent unity to stand between it and the many as the producer of intellect, and made the three succeeding moments of the development (intellect, soul and nature) undergo various modifications. He speaks of them as intellectual ([Greek: theoi noeroi]), supramundane ([Greek: hyperkosmioi]), and mundane gods ([Greek: egkosmioi]). The first of these--which Plotinus represented under the three stages of (objective) being ([Greek: on]), (subjective) life ([Greek: zôê]), and (realized) intellect ([Greek: nous])--is distinguished by him into spheres of intelligible gods ([Greek: theoi noêtoi]) and of intellectual gods ([Greek: theoi noeroi]), each subdivided into triads, the latter sphere being the place of ideas, the former of the archetypes of these ideas. Between these two worlds, at once separating and uniting them, some scholars think there was inserted by Iamblichus, as afterwards by Proclus, a third sphere partaking of the nature of both ([Greek: theoi noêtoi kai noeroi]). But this supposition depends on a merely conjectural emendation of the text. We read, however, that "in the intellectual hebdomad he assigned the third rank among the fathers to the Demiurge." The Demiurge, Zeus, or world-creating potency, is thus identified with the perfected [Greek: nous], the intellectual triad being increased to a hebdomad, probably (as Zeller supposes) through the subdivision of its first two members. As in Plotinus [Greek: nous] produced nature by mediation of [Greek: psychê], so here the intelligible gods are followed by a triad of psychic gods. The first of these is incommunicable and supramundane, while the other two seem to be mundane though rational. In the third class, or mundane gods ([Greek: theoi egkosmioi]), there is a still greater wealth of divinities, of various local position, function, and rank. We read of gods, angels, demons and heroes, of twelve heavenly gods whose number is increased to thirty-six or three hundred and sixty, and of seventy-two other gods proceeding from them, of twenty-one chiefs ([Greek: hegemones]) and forty-two nature-gods ([Greek: theoi genesiourgoi]), besides guardian divinities, of particular individuals and nations. The world is thus peopled by a crowd of superhuman beings influencing natural events, possessing and communicating knowledge of the future, and not inaccessible to prayers and offerings. Entry: IAMBLICHUS
As regards the form of words prescribed for use in these "litanies" or "supplications," documentary evidence is defective. Sometimes it would appear that the "procession" or "litany" did nothing else but chant _Kyrie eleison_ without variation. There is no reason to doubt that from an early period the special written litanies of the various churches all showed the common features which are now regarded as essential to a litany, in as far as they consisted of (1) invocations, (2) deprecations, (3) intercessions, (4) supplications. But in details they must have varied immensely. The offices of the Roman Catholic Church at present recognize two litanies, the "Litaniae majores" and the "Litaniae breves," which differ from one another chiefly in respect of the fulness with which details are entered upon under the heads mentioned above. It is said that in the time of Charlemagne the angels Orihel, Raguhel, Tobihel were invoked, but the names were removed by Pope Zacharias as really belonging to demons. In some medieval litanies there were special invocations of S. Fides, S. Spes, S. Charitas. The litanies, as given in the Breviary, are at present appointed to be recited on bended knee, along with the penitential psalms, in all the six week-days of Lent when ordinary service is held. Without the psalms they are said on the feast of Saint Mark and on the three rogation days. A litany is chanted in procession before mass on Holy Saturday. The "litany" or "general supplication" of the Church of England, which is appointed "to be sung or said after morning prayer upon Sundays, Wednesdays and Fridays, and at other times when it shall be commanded by the ordinary," closely follows the "Litaniae majores" of the Breviary, the invocations of saints being of course omitted. A similar German litany will be found in the works of Luther. In the Roman Church there are a number of special litanies peculiar to particular localities or orders, such as the "Litanies of Mary" or the "Litanies of the Sacred Name of Jesus." Entry: A
The buccina, in respect of its technical construction and acoustic properties, was the ancestor of both trumpet and trombone; the connexion is further established by the derivation of the words Sackbut and _Posaune_ (the German for trombone) from buccina. The relation was fully recognized in Germany during the 15th and 16th centuries, as two translations of Vegetius, published at Ulm in 1470, and at Augsburg in 1534, clearly demonstrate: "Bucina das ist die trumet oder pusan"[6] ("the bucina is the trumpet or trombone") and ("Bucina ist die trummet die wirt ausz und eingezogen"[7] ("the bucina is the trumpet which is drawn out and in"). A French translation by Jean de Meung (Paris, 1488),[8] renders the passage (chap. iii. 5) thus: "Trompe est longue et droite; buisine est courte et reflechist en li meisme si comme partie de cercle." On Trajan's column[9] the tuba, the cornu and the buccina are distinguishable. Other illustrations of the buccina may be seen in François Mazois' _Les Ruines de Pompéi_ (Paris, 1824-1838), pt. iv, pl. xlviii. fig. 1, and in J.N. von Wilmowsky's _Eine römische Villa zu Nennig_ (Bonn, 1865), pl. xii. (mosaics), where the buccinator is accompanied on the hydraulus. The military buccina described is a much more advanced instrument than its prototype the _buccina marina_, a primitive trumpet in the shape of a conical shell, often having a spiral twist, which in poetry is often called _concha_. The buccina marina is frequently depicted in the hands of Tritons (Macrobius i. 8), or of sailors, as for instance on terra-cotta lamp shown by G.P. Bellori (_Lucernae veterum sepulcrales iconicae_, 1702, iii. 12). The highly imaginative writer of the apocryphal letter of St Jerome to Dardanus also has a word to say concerning the buccina among the Semitic races: "Bucca vocatur tuba apud Hebreos: deinde per diminutionem buccina dicitur." After the fall of the Roman empire the art of bending metal tubes was gradually lost, and although the buccina survived in Europe both in name and in principle of construction during the middle ages, it lost for ever the characteristic curve like a "C" which it possessed in common with the cornu, an instrument having a conical bore of wider calibre. Although we regard the buccina as essentially Roman, an instrument of the same type, but probably straight and of kindred name, was widely known and used in the East, in Persia, Arabia and among the Semitic races. After a lapse of years during which records are almost wanting, the buccina reappeared all over Europe as the busine, buisine, pusin, busaun, pusun, posaun, busna (Slav), &c.; whether it was a Roman survival or a re-introduction through the Moors of Spain in the West and the Byzantine empire in the East, we have no records to show. An 11th-century mural painting representing the Last Judgment in the cathedral of S. Angelo in Formis (near Capua), shows the angels blowing the last trump on busines.[10] Entry: BUCCINA
The place of Avicenna amongst Moslem philosophers is seen in the fact that Shahrastani takes him as the type of all, and that Ghazali's attack against philosophy is in reality almost entirely directed against Avicenna. His system is in the main a codification of Aristotle modified by fundamental views of Neo-Platonist origin, and it tends to be a compromise with theology. In order, for example, to maintain the necessity of creation, he taught that all things except God were admissible or possible in their own nature, but that certain of them were rendered necessary by the act of the creative first agent,--in other words, that the possible could be transformed into the necessary. Avicenna's theory of the process of knowledge is an interesting part of his doctrine. Man has a rational soul, one face of which is turned towards the body, and, by the help of the higher aspect, acts as practical understanding; the other face lies open to the reception and acquisition of the intelligible forms, and its aim is to become a reasonable world, reproducing the forms of the universe and their intelligible order. In man there is only the susceptibility to reason, which is sustained and helped by the light of the active intellect. Man may prepare himself for this influx by removing the obstacles which prevent the union of the intellect with the human vessel destined for its reception. The stages of this process to the acquisition of mind are generally enumerated by Avicenna as four; in this part he follows not Aristotle, but the Greek commentator. The first stage is that of the hylic or material intellect, a state of mere potentiality, like that of a child for writing, before he has ever put pen to paper. The second stage is called _in habitu_; it is compared to the case of a child that has learned the elements of writing, when the bare possibility is on the way to be developed, and is seen to be real. In this period of half-trained reason, it appears as happy conjecture, not yet transformed into art or science proper. When the power of writing has been actualized, we have a parallel to the _intellectus in actu_--the way of science and demonstration is entered. And when writing has been made a permanent accomplishment, or lasting property of the subject, to be taken up at will, it corresponds to the _intellectus adeptus_--the complete mastery of science. The whole process may be compared to the gradual illumination of a body naturally capable of receiving light. There are, however, grades of susceptibility to the active intellect, i.e. in theological language, to communication with God and his angels. Sometimes the receptivity is so vigorous in its affinity, that without teaching it rises at one step to the vision of truth, by a certain "holy force" above ordinary measure. (In this way philosophy tried to account for the phenomenon of prophecy, one of the ruling ideas of Islam.) But the active intellect is not merely influential on human souls. It is the universal giver of forms in the world. Entry: ARABIAN
FERRARI, GAUDENZIO (1484-1549), Italian painter and sculptor, of the Milanese, or more strictly the Piedmontese, school, was born at Valduggia, Piedmont, and is said (very dubiously) to have learned the elements of painting at Vercelli from Girolamo Giovenone. He next studied in Milan, in the school of Scotto, and some say of Luini; towards 1504 he proceeded to Florence, and afterwards (it used to be alleged) to Rome. His pictorial style may be considered as derived mainly from the old Milanese school, with a considerable tinge of the influence of Da Vinci, and later on of Raphael; in his personal manner there was something of the demonstrative and fantastic. The gentler qualities diminished, and the stronger intensified, as he progressed. By 1524 he was at Varallo in Piedmont, and here, in the chapel of the Sacro Monte, the sanctuary of the Piedmontese pilgrims, he executed his most memorable work. This is a fresco of the Crucifixion, with a multitude of figures, no less than twenty-six of them being modelled in actual relief, and coloured; on the vaulted ceiling are eighteen lamenting angels, powerful in expression. Other leading examples are the following. In the Royal Gallery, Turin, a "Pietà," an able early work. In the Brera Gallery, Milan, "St Katharine miraculously preserved from the Torture of the Wheel," a very characteristic example, hard and forcible in colour, thronged in composition, turbulent in emotion; also several frescoes, chiefly from the church of Santa Maria della Pace, three of them being from the history of Joachim and Anna. In the cathedral of Vercelli, the choir, the "Virgin with Angels and Saints under an Orange Tree." In the refectory of San Paolo, the "Last Supper." In the church of San Cristoforo, the transept (in 1532-1535), a series of paintings in which Ferrari's scholar Lanini assisted him; by Ferrari himself are the "Birth of the Virgin," the "Annunciation," the "Visitation," the "Adoration of the Shepherds and Kings," the "Crucifixion," the "Assumption of the Virgin," all full of life and decided character, though somewhat mannered. In the Louvre, "St Paul Meditating." In Varallo, convent of the Minorites (1507), a "Presentation in the Temple," and "Christ among the Doctors," and (after 1510) the "History of Christ," in twenty-one subjects; also an ancona in six compartments, named the "Ancona di San Gaudenzio." In Santa Maria di Loreto, near Varallo (after 1527), an "Adoration." In the church of Saronno, near Milan, the cupola (1535), a "Glory of Angels," in which the beauty of the school of Da Vinci alternates with bravura of foreshortenings in the mode of Correggio. In Milan, Santa Maria delle Grazie (1542), the "Scourging of Christ," an "Ecce Homo" and a "Crucifixion." The "Scourging," or else a "Last Supper," in the Passione of Milan (unfinished), is regarded as Ferrari's latest work. He was a very prolific painter, distinguished by strong expression, animation and fulness of composition, and abundant invention; he was skilful in painting horses, and his decisive rather hard colour is marked by a partiality for shot tints in drapery. In general character, his work appertains more to the 15th than the 16th century. His subjects were always of the sacred order. Ferrari's death took place in Milan. Besides Lanini, already mentioned, Andrea Solario, Giambattista della Cerva and Fermo Stella were three of his principal scholars. He is represented to us as a good man, attached to his country and his art, jovial and sometimes facetious, but an enemy of scandal. The reputation which he enjoyed soon after his death was very great, but it has not fully stood the test of time. Lomazzo went so far as to place him seventh among the seven prime painters of Italy. Entry: FERRARI
Each play, then, was performed by the representative of a particular trade or company, after whom it was called the fishers', glovers', &c., _pageant_; while a general prologue was spoken by a herald. As a rule the movable stage sufficed for the action, though we find horsemen riding up to the scaffold, and Herod instructed to "rage in the pagond and in the strete also." There is no probability that the stage was, as in France, divided into three platforms with a dark cavern at the side of the lowest, appropriated respectively to the Heavenly Father and his angels, to saints and glorified men, to mere men, and to souls in hell. But the last-named locality was frequently displayed in the English miracles, with or without fire in its mouth. The costumes were in part conventional,--divine and saintly personages being distinguished by gilt hair and beards, Herod being clad as a Saracen, the demons wearing hideous heads, the souls black and white coats according to their kind, and the angels gold skins and wings. Entry: 10