Daily Steps Towards Heaven; Or, Practical Thoughts On the Gospel History, and Especially On ... Book

This weekend I picked up The History of the Devil and the Idea of Evil by Paul Carus. The book was originally written in 1900 and had 300 illustrations of gorgeous old images of the devil, demons and deities from around the world. Typically I like books that were written at the turn of the century with late Victorian scholarship so I was very happy to find this reproduction. There was only one problem with it, the author. He was president of the American Monists. Which he summed up in his last chapter on the philosophy of Evil, and was unfortunately permeated throughout his work. He seemed to be suffering from the problem that plagues us today in the form of people using misunderstood quantum physics to try and explain their own philosophical leanings. Though in his case it was the theory of evolution. He had taken the idea of neutral evolution and had made it so every form of evolution was a step towards the better. Society was in a constant state of evolution with each bit of Progress so much better than what had preceded, and the same was true of religion, progression being made from "The lower stage of devil worship to the higher stage of God worship" of course what was demon or devil or God was totally in the perspective of the author. This made to some rather unfortunate misconceptions about how the world worked, and some really horrible prejudicial statements being made.

So with that disclaimer said I shall try and look more closely at the rest of the book. The author seemed to tackle the areas he was more familiar with much better than his early arguments that seemed to really be reaching to make fit to his presupposed arguments. His basic thesis was that man started worshiping devils because he was afraid of them and their power and tried to placate them, then went over to a creator god, or gods, and then settled on monotheism. A popular idea of the time, which has since been shown to be very wrong. I think calling early deities devils is wrong, people didn't so much worship them out of fear but out of need. You wanted help with the things you were doing, the world was an unstable place and you wanted something on your side. Also the earliest religious figures found have been women, the idea of a female creator is much older than a male creator deity. Nowhere did Carus mention a female creator, perhaps this hadn't been discovered yet, but it seemed more in keeping with his other ideas that he just ignored things that didn't fit his view!

In his view of Egypt, Set obviously became the Devil, however there was no mention of Set being an independent deity that was subjugated when Egypt was unified. Carus had in mind the idea that duality was the essence of early religion and so made it fit with Egypt. He seemed to not be as successful with the Hindu Ideas and so mostly just recounted myths for his chapter on them, which was quite nice. His look at Buddhism was rather entertaining. He also recounted the origins and the ideas, however he had the ultimate goal of Buddhists to be reborn in the Western Paradise, nowhere did he talk about Nirvana, or the freedom on non-existence, an end to the cycle of rebirth. In fact the whole idea of rebirth seemed very uncomfortable to him and he just used the wheel of life as an example of the evil one having control over the world. In other words he seemed to miss the point. Still I suppose it was a step in the right direction that he actually included those religions at all.

After that the book focused more on Christianity and the author became a little less obnoxious. There were some really interesting translations of early apocryphal teachings on Christianity, and hell. He spent a lot of time looking at the Gnostics which sound very interesting and made me want to learn more about them. He also looked at the influence of the Mithras cult on Early Christianity which was also very interesting. When the author was sticking to things he knew about it became a much different book. I found myself intrigued instead of wanting to throw it across the room.

Likewise I enjoyed his chapter on the Demonology of Norther Europe, there was nice retelling of their mythology and the implications of it. This was the first place he was able to separate into, "what was originally giants but later became classified as demons". He also looked at the influence of the Northern religions on Christianity.

The majority of the book was spent looking at the middle ages and the inquisition. In looking at the culture of magic and superstition that was rampant in Europe during that period, he was quick to point out the hypocrisy that went along with when you do something it's a miracle and when they do something it's witchcraft. Which was nice and a refreshing change. He did a good job linking the Inquisition with the subsequent persecution of witchcraft and had copies of some interesting documents, including a reproduction of the contract with the devil used in evidence against Grandier after claims by the nuns of Loudun.

He did also spend a nice section looking at the history of the devil in literature, spending time, unsurprisingly on Milton and Faustus. His analysis of Milton was interesting and showed a great deal of sympathy for Milton's devil and what he represented. The history of the story of Faustus was also interesting to read.

The last chapter was a philosophical treatise on why monism was the religion of the future. And how it all fit together. When discussing the idea of evil he stated how the "savage" will respond that evil is when someone steals his wife but good is when he steals someone else's wife calling this hedonism, morality that helps yourself. Later in trying to define his own view of morality he talks about how it is evil for a wolf to kill a sheep but not evil when man does it.(?) His argument rests not on the idea that man was breeding the sheep and the sheep would not have existed without man, but rather that man being "higher evolved" is closer to God or the laws of nature.
The lamb dies on the alter of humanity and this sacrifice is right and good if, and in so far as, it substitutes a higher life for a lower life...The difference between man's and the wolf's actions appears only when we take into account the objective conditions of man's superiority

Which I think is a fancy way of saying it's okay for me to take a sheep but when someone else does it it's bad because they are inferior. Not really that different in my mind from the argument he used about "the savage's" morality.

The best book I've ever read about the history of the devil is The Devil in Early Modern England By Darren Oldbride. That was one of the first books I read on the history of the Devil. He did a great job looking at the Early modern (middle ages) of England and showed how belief was transformed and what it's influences were, and how it came about. It was a very insightful work that I enjoyed immensly and I can't recommend it highly enough. Since then everything I've read has fallen short. The other authors all seem to have some kind of agenda their expounding through their illustrations of the way things have been throughout history, whether it's the case of dualism from Jeffrey Burton Russell, or Monism as in the case of Carus. I just wish someone would write a book as detailed as Oldbridge's looking at the rest of history, without a hidden agenda.

This book did have a lot of nice illustrations (300 in a text 500 pages long) and great quotes and obscure texts. My favorite quote was from Johannes Kepler:
Astrology is indeed a foolish child, but, good gracious, where would her mother, the wise astronomy, be if she had not this foolish child! Is not the world more foolish still, so foolish, indeed, that the sensible old mother must be introduced to the people..through her daughter's foolishness...But when the guesses are limited to yes and no, one has always about half the chances in one's favor...Right guesses are rewarded and failures forgotten, and so the astrologer remains in honor.