Identifier: historyofdevilid00caru (find matches)
Title: The history of the devil and the idea of evil; from the earliest times to the present day
Year: 1899 (1890s)
Authors: Carus, Paul, 1852-1919
Subjects: Devil Demonology Good and evil
Publisher: Chicago : Open Court Pub. Co. London, K. Paul, Trench, Trubner
Contributing Library: University of California Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Internet Archive

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14. THE first century of our era is a time in which thefear of evil leads to the organisation of religious in-stitutions having in view the atonement of sin and theredemption of the soul from the terrors of hell. Theideas evil, sin, hell, salvation, and immortal life werefamiliar to the Greek mind even before the days of Plato,but were still mixed up with the traditional mythology.When philosophers began to wage war against the grossidolatry of Greek polytheism, a fermentation set in whichprepared the Greek nation for the reception of Christian-ity. We say prepared, but we might just as well sa^that it resulted in the formation of the Christian Churchas an institution to deliver mankind from evil. The fearof punishment in the life to come led in the days of sav-agery to human sacrifices as a vicariov:s atonement. Thisbarbarous practice was abandoned in the progress of civil-isation by a substitution of animal victims. But the idealingered in the minds of the people and was retained in
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Hades,(Greatly reduced from ^fon. Inst., VIII., g.) Picture of a vase found at Altamura, representing a period in which the fearof Hell had become greatly subdued and the belief in its terrors is offset by thelegend of a return from the realm of the dead and the conquest of death. (The upper center shows Pluto and Persephone, the rulers of the NetherWorld, in their palace, the former with scepter and Kantharos, or sacred cup, thelatter holding the cross-torch and a dish filled with fruits and flowers. Kantharosmeans both scarabaeus-beelle, the Egyptian symbol of immortality, and the drink-ing vessel used in the mysteries which probably derives its name from some un-known connexion with the scarabseus. Underneath we see Heracles taming thethree-headed Cerberus in the moment of crossing the Acheron, which originates(see Homer, Odyssey, X, 513) in the conflux of Cocytos and Pyriphlegethon. Her-mes points out the road leading back to the upper world. The Danaides with thewater vessels on

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