Satanism

SATANISM. - The state of that which is satanic, that is, subject to the action of Satan, or consecrated to the antagonist of God, or pervaded by his spirit. The term takes on one of three meanings: Satan's empire over the world, the cult rendered to Satan, the following-imitation of his rebellion against God; each of these must be illustrated, since often it was and is denied or ignored or misunderstood.

I. THE EMPIRE OF SATAN OVER THE WORLD

Through sin (opposed to the will of God), the flesh (opposed to the spirit of God) and the purely exterior law (opposed to interior faith, to which the Grace of God attaches itself), it is often affirmed by Jesus and by St. Paul. Satan, head (ὁ ἄρχων) of this world (Jn. 12:31; 14:30; 16:11), shows himself as such already when he tempts Jesus (Mt. 4:8-10; Lk. 4:6-13) in the vain attempt to subject even him, the only one in whom he "has nothing" (Jn. 14:30; 17:16). He is even "the god of this world" (II Cor. 4:4), a world withdrawn from the true God its creator, become the prey of corruption and death. He envelops it, hovering in the air, whence he governs all commands (Eph. 2:11; 6:12). This will last until the final restoration, when Christ victorious will hand over the kingdom to God the Father "after having destroyed every principality and every authority and power... all his enemies" (I Cor. 15:24). While respecting the Roman order (Jn. 19:11), Jesus and his own are in struggle with the world of power and wealth, which hates and persecutes them (Jn. 15:18-25); despite the infinite love of God who has sent his Only-begotten to it, the world remains a son of Satan (Jn. 3:16-18; 8:44, 48) who is darkness and death, while God is light and life (Is. 9:2; Lk. 1:79; Jn. 1:4-10; Eph. 5:8, 14).

Satan extends his dominion not only over "his angels" (Mt. 25:41; Apoc. 12:7), but over all men infested by evil, "sons of rebellion" (Eph. 2:2; 5:6), "all enclosed in unfaithfulness, under sin" (Rom. 11:32; Gal. 3:22); "all are under sin," "the whole world is debtor of punishment to God" (Rom. 3:9, 19). In this "kingdom" of his (Lk. 11:15), from the first sin, the original one, Satan makes sin spread, and the death that follows from it, over all (Rom. 5:12-14; I Tim. 2:14), and humanity is subject to his baleful influence; he has in it "strongholds and heights rising up against the knowledge of God" (II Cor. 10:4-5); the entire world lies in the evil one (ἐν τῷ πονηρῷ κεῖται; I Jn. 5:19); because he is the irreducible enemy of light his sin is irremissible (Jn. 1:5, 9-11; 15:22-24; 17:9; Mt. 12:32). It is more than an empire; it is almost a mystical body, as, echoing St. Augustine, St. Gregory the Great affirms (Hom. 16 in Ev.; cf. Moral., IV, 14); "Certe iniquorum omnium caput diabolus est; et huius capitis membra sunt omnes iniqui."

Christ founds the Kingdom of God in opposition to the kingdom of Satan. The two kingdoms are opposed as yes and no, as life and death, good and evil, light and darkness; their end and function is to annihilate each other. God has freed his elect "from the power of darkness, transferring them into the Kingdom of his Only-begotten Son" (Col. 1:13). The two kingdoms are not static, but are realized, at every instant, in mutual combat. The two adverse "cities" ("Una est Dei, altera diaboli") are founded on two opposing loves: the self, God (St. Augustine, De civ. Dei, XIV, 18 and XXI, 1). This Christian "Weltanschauung" was ingeniously reaffirmed in the 19th century by Card. Pie and Newman (L. Bouyer, Newman, Paris 1952, p. 236). Only hatred has led to identifying Satan with this or that figure; no man is Satan, who is essentially invisible, universal, enduring; but Satan must be recognized in occult powers, because he works in "mystery" (II Thess. 2:7) without letting his aims, his plans, his successes leak out; he is the stable master of all the resources of the world; he is humanly invincible; with superhuman cunning he makes everyone applaud his orders, seducing and putting the masses to sleep with promises of peace and enjoyment (Mt. 24:38 ff.; I Thess. 5:3). More than in spectacular deeds, the satanic presence and action is inherent, with silent dynamism, in ordinary life (Mt. 6:13; 13:25-28), so that the spiritual combat of the Christian must be incessant (Eph. 6:11-18). The most profound and capillary s. is the apotheosis of man, with the reduction of religion and morality to a free thing. Society is "reduced to pure automatism" under the irresistible imposture and oppression, radiated with a massive propaganda that destroys the much-vaunted freedom (Christmas radio message of Pius XII, 24 Dec. 1951, nos. 40-46), and, after having overthrown Catholicism, inexorably applies the "two false ways" of collectivism and individualism which lead humanity to annihilation, first moral and then physical (Christmas radio message of Pius XII, 24 Dec. 1952, nos. 12-30).

So that this world, the seat of Satan, is in some way hell. The expulsion of the sinner from the protecting paradise (Gen. 3:22) corresponds to the intrinsic exigency of sin, which places him under the sovereignty of Satan; the return to paradise (Lk. 24:43) will be the term of the Redemption, often described as resurrection to the spiritual-celestial life (I Cor. 15:20-54). Since in reality there is no naturally good order of the world, without Christ man is the prey of Satan. To be reunited with God in his Grace and glory (Rom. 8:28-30) implies liberation from the "ius tyrannicum" that belongs "non immerito" to the ancient enemy (St. Leo the Great, Sermo 22 in Natio., 3), the exodus from the cosmos dominated by him. Since, "according to the holy Doctors and the Platonists, all corporeal things are dominated by spiritual substances" (St. Thomas, Sum. Theol., 1ª, 110, 1 ad 3), the devil exercises an influence on men and also on the material creatures that are in their use, so that these become an occasion of sin. The Redemption is therefore a cosmic drama (Rom. 8:19-23; Apoc. 12-13), which will be resolved with the triumph of the absolute sovereignty of God over the shattered satanic empire (I Cor. 15:22-57; Apoc. 20:1-21:4). The descent into hell (kingdom of death), the resurrection from the dead and the ascension into heaven were stages by which the Incarnate Word had to redeem man from sin and from the world of Satan.

Three truths belong to the faith (E. Hugon, Tractatus Dogm., I, 5th ed., Paris 1926, p. 759): the demons fight men, tempt them, and sometimes invade them. Satan's great activity lies in multiform and incessant temptation (v.); so that St. Paul defines him as "he who tempts" (ὁ πειρᾶζων; I Thess. 3, 5): he tempts, that is, he puts to the test (seduction or violence, pleasure or pain, intoxication or dejection, empowerment or denial of the self), in order to compromise or impede or arrest the ascent of souls (cf. the vision of St. Anthony in the Vita, 65-66, of St. Athanasius: PG 26, 935 and 938). Therefore the world, in which the Evil One rages, is a cursed tangle of scandals (Mt. 18, 7; Lk. 17, 1), that is, of stumbling blocks, obstacles and traps, causes of fall and ruin. Satan's proper office is to tempt "ut noceat, in peccatum praecipitando... si homo aliquando sic tentet, hoc agit in quantum est minister diaboli"; at least indirectly he is the cause of all our sins (St. Thomas, Sum. Theol., 1a, 114, 2-3). St. Thomas (ibid., 1a, 114, 4) affirms that the demons can seduce men by performing miracles (in the broad sense: "that exceed the possibilities and the comprehension of man"), as the magicians of Pharaoh "by satanic power" produced serpents and frogs (Ex. 7, 11-8, 7). Such prodigies will be multiplied through the work of the Antichrist (II Thess. 2, 9). Such satanic portents consist principally in infestation (of persons or of things), in obsession or possession. Diabolical possession (v.) is like the dwelling of a demon within the human body, which he moves "quasi ab intrinseco"; as the Rituale Romanum observes, its indications are the use and understanding of unknown tongues, knowledge of hidden or distant things, and unusual muscular strength. The Gospel describes many deliverances of possessed persons performed by Jesus with a mere command (Mk. 1, 34; 9, 24; Lk. 8, 30; 11, 14-26). Jesus gives as a characteristic of the Kingdom of God founded by him the expulsion of Satan and his demons (Mt. 12, 28; Lk. 10, 17; 11, 20) and transmits this exorcistic charism to his Apostles and to his Church (Mt. 10, 1; Mk. 16, 17). The Apostles in turn cast out "unclean spirits" (Acts 5, 16; 19, 12-16), and the Church gloried in this victorious power over Satan: "Quid isto opere manifestius? Quid hac probatione fidelius?" (Tertullian, Apol., 23). Often practiced was the "pact with the devil," signed with one's own blood, in which one gives one's soul in exchange for longevity, wealth, power, as in the legend of Theophilus, administrator (5th century) of the Church of Adana in Cilicia (F. Nau, Revue de l'Orient Chrétien, 1910, pp. 125-32), popularized by the Legenda aurea of James of Voragine, by Hrotsvitha and Rutebeuf; akin to it is the legend of Cyprian (Calderón, El mago de los prodigios); the myth of Faust is the best-known version of the satanic pact. Given Satan's sovereignty over unredeemed humanity (the article of faith "A. Stolz), the ancient apologists were inclined to regard all non-Christian religions and mysticisms, even the most elevated, as diabolical artifices and machinations (Tertullian, De Corona, 15: "Agnoscamus ingenia diaboli, idcirco quaedam de divina affectantis, ut nos de suorum fide confundat et iudicet"). Today, "by means of purely natural goodness, the prince of this world seeks to chain men in order to keep them more securely under his dominion, that is, far from the true Church of Christ" (Stolz, op. cit. in bibl., p. 66).

II. CULT OF SATAN

Whoever does not believe in Satan does not, naturally, admit the existence of Satanism. Satan's most dangerous victory is having shaken or abolished in men the faith in his power. "Very few among the Christians of our time really believe in the devil" (H.-I. Marrou, in Satan [Etudes Carmél., Paris 1948], p. 28; cf. p. 96). And Satan has never reigned as an uncontested master as he has since he no longer appears corporeally, with horns. "Satan's finest trick is to persuade us that he does not exist," said Baudelaire, an expert in Satanism. But no less dangerous is the superstition superimposed upon faith. Undisciplined credulity, giving free rein to the imagination in the doubly mysterious field of superhuman forces and of evil, adulterates the concept of Satan as the enemy of God and of the just, turning him into a malevolent deity to be served or propitiated for personal interest. Hence there arise, in the pagan world, offerings to placate him, and the thousand apotropaic practices still persisting today. The cult of the serpent (Mac Culloch, Croote, Welsford, Serpent-worship, in Enc. of Rel. and Ethics, XI [1920], pp. 399-423), widely practiced in the ancient world. Egypt, the Semitic East (cf. Don. 14, 22-27). Delphi, interpreted by the Fathers as Satanism (Chrysostom, Hom. 29 in Ep. I ad Cor., 1), spread from east to west, from south to north; in 1387 the king of Poland had the many serpents worshiped in his kingdom killed. At times Christian optimism mocked the "stupid" devil (A.M. Weiss, op. cit. in bibl., pp. 413-15). But generally superstition exasperates the fear of Satan; sometimes it strives to deceive him, to appease him or to force him to serve; in various cases it drives the sinner to substitute him for God by performing without restraint the works: blasphemous parody of divine worship, lust, subversion. This full-blown Satanism is characterized by the will of evil for evil's sake, by the total inversion of good into evil and vice versa, by an active hatred, in the name of absolute freedom, against every religious and moral law, a hatred not explicable by human psychology.

Among the ancient Gnostics, the Ophites or Naassenes (Irenaeus, Adv. Haer., I, 24 and 30, 7-8; Tertullian, Praescr., 47). Satan, identified with the serpent of paradise, is exalted for having vindicated the rights of man by revealing to Adam the "gnosis" of good and evil, teaching rebellion against the tyrannical command of the Creator. Marcion drew close to this doctrine (Irenaeus, I, 27, 2). The Cainites (Irenaeus, I, 31) exalted as liberators the great rebels against God: Cain, Esau, Sodom, Korah, and above all Judas, who merits divine worship for having freed humanity from Jesus. These and other Gnostics were organized in strictly secret groups (Tertullian, Adv. Valentin., 1); such "synagogues of Satan" (Rev. 2, 9; 3, 9), perpetuated, explain the rapid spread, in the Middle Ages, of the disciplined and highly secret Cathar-Albigensian movement (v.). Manichaeism exalted Satan to the supreme degree permitted by dualism; as emerges from the Kephalaia (chs. 27 and 6) of Mani discovered in 1931 at Medinet Madi (Egypt) in a sub-Akhmimic Coptic translation, the "King" or "Prince of Darkness" is the precosmic principle, uncreated and omnipotent, from which the universe resulted; he is equal to God, but is not divinized; there is no true Satanism, since offering him sacrifices or divine homage is a grave sin in the Khuastuanift (Manichaean confession formulary).

The cult of Satan (sometimes under the name of Satanel, Sammael) was practiced by a portion of the Messalians; then, among the medieval Gnostic-dualistic sects (Cathars-Albigensians, Bogomils, Paulicians) there emerged the "Luciferians," sectarians spread in small groups throughout the West. On the cult of Satanel, fallen god, father of Cain, whose wrath is tremendous, among the Bogomils of Bulgaria (11th century), cf. Euthymius Zigabenus, Panoplia dogm., 27, 6-20: PG 130, 1293-1316. In 1022 the canons of Sainte-Croix (Orléans) were condemned to the stake because "adorabant diabolum," and similar horrors are often denounced thereafter (PL. 141, 71-72; 142, 659-60; 155, 2011). Joachim of Fiore (Exposit. in Apoc., Venice 1527, p. 130 b) attributes obscene nocturnal gatherings to the Patarines, and Alan of Lille to the Cathars (PL. 210, 366). Matthew Paris (Chron., ad a. 1236) says that Milan was the refuge of all heresies, among them the Luciferians (MGH, Script., XXVIII, p. 134). In the first half of the 13th century Germany was invaded by Satanism, and Conrad of Marburg proceeded with rigor against the Luciferians from 1214 to 1233 (at Hildesheim, in 1224, the Premonstratensian provost Henry Minneke was condemned); the bull Vox in Rama of Gregory IX (13 June 1233) addressed to Siegfried archbishop of Mainz, to Conrad bishop of Hildesheim, and to the magister Conrad of Marburg, describes the horrid initiation rites in the assemblies in which Satan appears; but the Rhenish bishops accused Conrad of Marburg of having extorted from the accused the confession of crimes that did not exist (MGH, Scripti, XXIII, pp. 931-32, where Alberic of Trois-Fontaines says that "infidelitas illa de cultu Lucifer" was brought into the Rhineland by a master from Toulouse); then Gregory IX softened the procedure. In the 14th century such Satanism is reported as frequent in Austria, Bohemia and the surrounding regions, with orgies and blasphemous rites. For the most part the participants in such a cult intended to protect themselves from Satan, a powerful demiurge who, defeated by Jesus, harmed men. The Templars (v.) too were accused of Satanism in the trial that condemned them.

Even today the Yazidi Kurds (about 60,000) of Mount Singār (Upper Mesopotamia), Sunni Shafi'i Muslims, worship Iblis ("devil") who, according to Islam, was damned for a jealous, exclusive love of the pure idea of God. Their sacred books, kitāb al-galwah ("book of revelation") and malafē-rāf ("black book") teach that Iblis (like the martyr Hallāf, tortured in 922 at Baghdad by the Shi'ites) was damned for pure love, refusing every reward; a fallen archangel, he was forgiven, and God left him the government of the world and the transmigration of souls; he is called Melek Tā'ās "the peacock angel," because he recovered the spiritual colors.

In the Middle Ages demonological literature abounds, in which magic or witchcraft, reputed to be commerce with Satan, was considered, more than a superstition, a heresy, the gravest of all. While St. Albert the Great, Thomas, and Scotus mostly rejected the prodigies of witchcraft, Jo. Nider in his Formicarius (1437) spread the fantasies about the witches' sabbath. Against Gerson, G. Biel denied satanic action on earth. Besides the spiritual struggle against Satan described in the multiform Ars Moriendi (v.), besides the Manual of the Inquisitor of Bernard Gui (v.) and of others (ed. G. Mollat, Paris 1926), besides the various terrifying tales that circulated (Gilles de Rais, or Bluebeard, in the 15th century), the printing press immediately spread theological works as well: translations of Michael Psellos, On the Energy or Operation of Demons (PG 122, 819-82); Ulrich Molitor of Constance, De Lamis et pythonicis mulieribus (Leipzig 1495; trans. Des sorcières et des devineresses, Paris 1926, Nourry), already very widespread in manuscripts; Giacomo di Teramo (v. BELIAL); Jacob Sprenger, Malleus maleficarum (Strasbourg 1486) enlarged by Henr. Institutia (Cologne 1489) developed up to the 4 vols. of Lyon 1669 (in German: 3 vols., Berlin 1906; in English: Clay in Bungay 1928); G. F. Pico della Mirandola, Strix sive de ludificatione daemonum dialogi III, nunc primum in Germania eruti (Strasbourg 1612; trans. by Furino Furini, La strega ovvero degli inganni dei demoni, Milan 1864). The Malleus maleficarum of the Dominicans J. Sprenger (inquisitor in the Rhineland) and H. Institutia (inquisitor of Upper Germany) was the manual of European anti-Satanism; it had 28 editions between 1486 and 1600. The popes, after the decretals of John XXII, intervened with many bulls to encourage inquisitors to repress Satanism, from Innocent VIII (Summis desiderantes, 6 Dec. 1484) and Alexander VI (Cum acceperimus, 1494) up to Paul V (Omnipotentis Dei, 1623); but Urban VIII (1623-44) recommended moderation to the judges of those accused of Satanism, and his example would be followed by prelates and local councils.

In the 16th century the obsession with Satanism is widespread, among Catholics and Protestants, among the common people as in the educated classes; an inverted religion or antireligion that spreads within Christendom, Satanism invades art and literature as a theme. Satan presents himself with multitudes of followers; his cult has its initiates, ministers and pontiffs; many women (the witches!) were its victims at the stake. The series of demonological treatises grows richer; Samuele Casini (1505); Vincenzo Dodo (1506); Bernardo di Como (1508); Jo. Trithemius (1508); Jac. van Hoogstraeten (1510). Between 1511 and 1520 wrote Pedro de Ciruelo, Silvestro Mazzolini, and above all Bartolomeo Spina (Quaestio de strigibus et lamiis, Apologiae tres de lamiis); around 1550 Arnaldo Albertini, Alfonso de Castro (De impietate sortilegum), others. In 1579 Jean Bodin (v.) published De la dimanomanie des sorciers, widespread throughout Europe (Italian, Venice 1591; Latin, Frankfurt 1603); the De confessionibus maleficarum et sagarum (1589) of Peter Binsfeld, coadjutor of Trier, also met with rapid success. The last decade of the 16th century sees the analogous works of Jean Boguet (1591), Franz Agricola (1596), Nicolas Remi (1595), and of the Jesuits Greg. de Valencia (1595) and Martin Del Rio (1599). The immense literature on the anguished theme, embracing several thousand works (enumerated by J. Graesse, Bibliotheca magica et pneumatica, Leipzig 1843; R. Yve-Plessis, Paris 1900, lists about 2000 works in French alone), fed the psychosis of Satanism, attested also by painting (Jer. Bosch, the Breughels, Bouts, Cranach, A. Dürer, Grien, Cambiaso, Hier. Cock, Fries, Huys, Lucas van Leyden, Civetta, etc., and the ever-renewing motif of the Ars moriendi, the Danse macabre, the Judgment). Some protested against the fanaticism that accused so many unfortunates of Satanism: the Benedictine Guillaume Edeline (1454), the Carmelite Jo. de Beetz (1486), Jo. Wier (1564), and others, who helped to mitigate the legislation. Decisive was the influence of the Jesuits Adam Tanner (1626) and F. von Spee, his disciple, in softening the anti-Satanic criminology of the time, based on prejudices, upheld also by physicians, alchemists and astrologers (C. Agrippa, G. Cardano, Paracelsus, A. Paré, etc.). Usually magicians or soothsayers were not tried, but only witches and sorcerers, who cast lots, and those who confessed a pact or relation with Satan. Out of 400 judged (mostly women) in the county of Namur (Belgium) between 1500 and 1650, 149 were burned, 49 acquitted, 96 condemned to exile or lesser penalties, of 106 the sentence is unknown (E. Brouette). In 1682 Louis XIV put an end to witchcraft trials in France; in the other Catholic nations too the era of Satanism was over. The coup de grâce to popular prejudices on the matter was given by Scipione Maffei, in long polemics sustained in the 2nd half of the 18th century.

The cult of Satanism is concentrated in the "black masses," heinous orgies mixed with ecstatic profanations, presided over if possible by corrupted priests, a derivation of the ancient "sabbath," with grotesque practices that recall Masonic formulas and rites; D. A. F. de Sade (1740-1814), atheist builder of nature, describes satanic orgies with consecrated hosts; in France missals of the satanic cult were printed (F. Boutet, op. cit. in bibl., pp. 159-207). J. K. Huysmans (Là-Bas, Paris 1891, ch. 19) describes them, as later J. Bois (Le satanisme et la magie, ibid. 1896, pp. 200-43) and Ramón del Valle-Inclán (1870-1935). Huysmans had frequented supporters of Satanism and had in hand the writings of Jean-Antoine Boullan (d. 1893), apostate priest, "sword of God" to liberate the Roman Church; these papers were given, by Huysmans's friend Léon Leclaire, to the well-known Islamicist Louis Massignon who, on 14 July 1930, deposited them in the Vatican Library. A secret den of Satanism is certainly Freemasonry, which inherits the faith and customs of Cainite Gnosticism (A. M. Weiss, op. cit. in bibl., pp. 452-54), especially in its "Egyptian rite" (Misrājm), as appears from many documents since 1797 (v. BARRUEL) and from the numerous ecclesiastical condemnations, especially the encyclical Humanum genus (1885). Léo Taxil (v.) made, from 1885 to 1895, sensational revelations about the Satanism practiced in the lodges, but in 1897 he cynically declared that everything had been invented by him. Masonic propaganda drew great triumph from this: all the Satanism attributed to it rested on a hoax! E. S. Hartland and H. Grüber maintain that modern Satanism is a pure deception of L. Taxil and of Huysmans. But, without excluding the hypothesis that the comedy staged by L. Taxil had been arranged by the Masonic lodges, the hoaxer invented only the sensational and picturesque details, the novel of Miss Diana Vaughan, etc., but the substance of Masonic Satanism remained that already well known before L. Taxil, and is recognized as real by accomplished Masons, such as the physicist Pasquale Barreca (I rituali massonici scozzesi di L. Taxil. Loro veridicita, Reggio Cal. 1932). Freemasonry, unique in spirit and in fundamental laws, is the international anti-Church (E. Jouin); from the invisible "Masonic papacy" (P. Barreca, op. cit., p. 138), unknown to ordinary initiates themselves, depend the destinies of peoples; no one, in the "masses," knows what happens or will happen in a day, no one is conscious of influencing anything; and yet for 160 years a constant line of march emerges, tending toward uncontrollable "progress," toward the religion of nature, excluding every positive religion or morality. The struggle is waged only against Catholicism; once it has fallen, Christianity will be no more than a symbol or a memory. Spiritism-occultism and theosophy (De Libero, op. cit. in bibl., pp. 254-290) are the maturist religion and philosophy promoted by Freemasonry. Masonic Satanism manifests itself principally in the ritual profanation of consecrated hosts. In Fribourg, Switzerland (Rue Grand' Fontaine, 41), anyone may visit, in a vast grotto, today a chapel of reparative adoration, the implements that served the satanic rites. In our own day, notorious Satanists are not lacking, all of them more or less open promoters of Freemasonry. On 2 Dec. 1947 there died at Brighton (England), at over 70 years of age, Aleister Crowley, a filthy master of black magic, who had founded the journals Gnosis and Lucifer; in his satanic temple in London a special ritual is in force, and there are sung the "Hymn to Pan" and the "Collects for the Gnostic Mass," composed by Crowley; at his tomb his disciples sing them, together with diabolical formulas and Carducci's "Hymn to Satan." On 29 March 1948 there died Harry Price, metapsychist, demonologist, perpetual secretary of the Council for Psychical Investigation of the University of London, who in a report declared: "In all the districts of London, hundreds of men and women, of high culture and distinguished families, worship Satan and render him a permanent cult; black magic, witchcraft, diabolical evocation, these three forms of 'medieval superstition' are practiced today in London on a scale and with a license unknown to the Middle Ages."

III. SATANIC REBELLION

A sacrilegious challenge to God, «a heroic affirmation of the self, which defends itself in its absolute integrity» (U. Dettore), it is a pose of religious-moral rebellion and of mortal «risk», a taste for perverse feelings in the struggle against limit and constraint, in vogue among many «libertines» and decadent writers; it has many contacts with today's «titanism». J. K. Huysmans defined s. as «the forbidden joy of transferring to Satan the homage and prayers due to God...; of committing, in order to outrage Christ more gravely, the sins that he has most expressly cursed: the contamination of worship and carnal orgy». Even Catholic theologians, in order to flatter the human will or freedom no longer mirroring the one divine will, dare to caress «the risk of sin», asserting that «the only total assurance against evil would be inaction» (G. Didier, in Nouv. Rev. Théol., 85 [1953], p. 11). Dante described with theological precision the agitation of the «emperor of the dolorous kingdom», the defeat of the monstrous «worm» imprisoned in the earth: an abject traitor, a monster whose suffering moves no one, Dante's Lucifer is a unique type. After T. Tasso and G. B. Marino, Milton, followed by many down to V. Hugo and P. Valéry, would make of him a Promethean rebel, in whom the ancient beauty tragically survives, grand in his collapse (Chateaubriand, Le génie du christ., IV, 9 and 12, ed. 1854, I, pp. 298-301 and 308-10, praises him); but such a «hero», for Dante, is Capaneus.

While Gnosticism assumed the name of «Enlightenment», French and European libertinism, abetted by English antireligion (H. Cherbury, J. Toland, M. Tindal, etc.) and then by the «philosophes» such as Voltaire, is s. that already in the 1700s prepares the Revolution (P. Hazard, La crise de la conscience européenne: 1680-1715, 3 vols., Paris 1935); the last noisy libertines were the Freemasons Cagliostro (d. 1795) and Casanova (d. 1798).

The representative of the irreducible «no» is the humanitarian positivism that crumbles every faith and every morality. After the Enlightenment of the «philosophes» and the protean Freemasonry (Saint-Martin), its promoter is the socialism of Saint-Simon, Enfantin, Marx, Blanqui, Proudhon («God is evil»), whose periodicals in various languages were titled Satan, Lucifer, The Antichrist, The Atheist, The Thief, The Ass, etc.; akin in purpose are anarchism (M. Stirner) and nihilism (v.), the militant atheism of laicism (Guyau, Fouillée, Berthelot, Binet-Sangle, Buisson, Couchoud).

The contrast between God and Satan, resolved through biblical faith by Milton and by Klopstock, already appears as the victory of the satanic will to power in C. Marlowe's Faustus (1604), and becomes a symbolic «mysticism» in Goethe's ingenious

Faust: s. is «the spirit that always denies, a force that always does evil, but is compelled to serve the good» (prologue). Humanitarian rationalism are the satanic evocations of Lessing, Elon (1824) by A. de Vigny, The Loves of the Angels (1823) by T. Moore, La chute d'un ange (1838) by Lamartine. Like Guevara followed by Lesage and Cazotte, various writers use the theme for the satire of morals (Béranger, Scribe), or for fantasies of skeptics (G. Sand, Balzac, Flaubert, Longfellow). With William Blake (Marriage of Heaven and Hell, 1790) there appears a metaphysical s., which hymns the «sacred» insurrection of man against God. But the initiator of the full exaltation of Satan is G. Byron in Manfred (1817), and more in Cain (1821), where the dark superman is exalted, defeated for having felt compassion for man. Shelley sings of Prometheus unbound, the revenge of the chained one against the fury of Jupiter; more openly blasphemous is Lenau's Faust (1836); subversive and libidinous is The Demon (1939) by M. Lermontov. Baudelaire (1857) invokes Satan «the most beautiful and the greatest of the angels», victim of divine jealousy. Symbol of antidivine defiance and of man's uprising, yesterday's vanquished is acclaimed today's victor by J. Michelet (La sorcière, 1862), who, with Quinet, predicts «the return of the kingdom of Satan» (Histoire universelle, introduction). In 1843 Sainte-Beuve defined de Sade and Byron as «the two greatest inspirers of the moderns». V. Hugo in La fin de Satan (1886) expresses his democratic faith: God and Satan will be equal through the angel Liberty sprung from both. G. Carducci, Inno a Satana (Oct. 1863) glorifies in Satan the vital force and modern progress («Satan has won!»). M. Rapisardi's Lucifero (1887) says to Prometheus: «Rise, the great Tyrant is dead». Similar is the idea of A. France, La révolte des anges (1914). In Isidore Ducasse (Chants de Maldoror, 1868, reissued 1927), s. is raging. Today, after and more than A. Gide (d. 1951), its exponents are J.-P. Sartre, A. Camus (Les justes, Paris 1950; L'homme révolté, ibid. 1951).

Isolated voices of protest are raised against the s. that asserts itself in the world through the apotheosis of man and his limitless possibilities, while revolutions distract traditions, philosophies undermine every positive faith, economic materialism produces unbridled individualism. Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881) in Sartor Resartus: The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdröckh (1833-34) rightly identifies s. with the worship of oneself (Selfworship), with «the everlasting no» (Everlasting no); he reacts against modern s., narrating the conversion of the imaginary German professor Diogenes Teufelsdröckh, «philosopher of clothes» that is of impeccable form, who however considers institutions and customs mere clothes of the human spirit, of contingent value; but disappointed by many experiences, studies and travels, he rediscovers happiness by returning to the ingenuous faith of childhood. To the divine principle, and to active love toward all, the German romantics also harked back (Körner, F. Schlegel, Hauff, T. A. Hoffmann, A. Chamisso). Already Wilhelm Meister, Goethe's young hero (1795-96), after many wanderings had found joy in daily work for others; and Jean Paul Richter (Quintus Fixlein, 1796; Titan, 1803) reacted against the apotheosis of man by condemning philhellenic classicism, the aesthetics of pure form proper to the Enlightenment. As in R. Wagner's Tannhäuser (1845), Venus is identified with Satan in G. Prati's romantic legend, Satana e le Grazie (1855), which describes the degeneration of three men (a priest, a magistrate, a warrior), redeemed by repentance and snatched by God from Satan. The Russian writers of the 19th century denounced the advance of modern s., first of all N. Gogol (Dead Souls) and more F. Dostoevsky in various works, especially in Demons (1872), where in Stavrogin, who fights God, there appears the mystery of evil loved and fomented for its own sake, with absolute disinterestedness, and Shigalev prophesies: «The ancient conception of the world will disappear, and above all the ancient morality. Men will unite to draw from life all possible enjoyments, but in this world only. The human spirit will be raised to a satanic pride, and humanity will be deified. Triumphing constantly over nature with science and will, man will feel thereby a joy that will replace in him the hopes of future goods. Everyone will resign himself to death with tranquil pride, like a God; he will refrain from complaining of the brevity of life and will love his brothers with a disinterested love.» Such an «age of gold» was described in advance by A. Huxley, The brave new world (It. trans., Il migliore dei mondi, Milan 1934). Denis de Rougemont studies its prodromes in La part du diable (1942), where he rightly notes that «le premier tour du Diable est son incognito». Those who fight to halt the advance of s. by documenting it are the Catholics H. Hello, Barbey d'Aurevilly, L. Bloy, G. Bernanos (Sous le soleil de Satan, Monsieur Ouine), G. Papini (Gog, 1930; Il libro nero, 1951), G. Rendl (Satan auf der Erde, 1934), W. Umbricht.

BBL.: A. M. Weiss, Umanità e umanismo: Filosofia e storia del male (in Apologia del cristianesimo, II), trad. it., Venezia 1902, pp. 411-65; J. Ribet, La mystique divine: III. Les contrefaçons diaboliques, Parigi 1902, pp. 105-459; J. Hansen, Zauberwahn, Inquisition und Hexenprozess im Mittelalter, Monaco 1911; J. Bricaud, J.-K. Huysmans et le satanisme, Parigi 1913; E. S. Hartland, Satanism, in Encyclop. of Religion and Ethics, Edimburgo 1920, pp. 203-207; M. A. Murray, The witch-cols in Western Europe, Oxford 1921; E. Jouin, Les fidèles de la Contre-Église: II. Les Mayons, Parigi 1921; id., Les actes de la Contre-Église: II. France-Mayons, ivi 1920; Cl. Grillet, Le satanisme littéraire, in Le Correspondant, 25 febbr. 1922; id., Le diable dans la littérature française au XIXe siècle, Lione 1933; M. Summers, The history of witchcraft and demonology, Londra 1926; E. Amann, Lucifériens, in DThC, IX (1926), coll. 1044-36; M. Rudwin, Satan et le Satanisme dans l'oeuvre de V. Hugo, Parigi 1926; id., The Devil in Legend and Literature, Chicago 1931; E. Hoffmann-Kruger, Handvörterbuch des deutschen Aberglaubens, 10 voll., Berlino 1927-42; F. Boutet, Les aventuriers du mystère, Parigi 1927; H. Obendick, Satanismus und Démonie in Geschichte und Gegenwart, 1928; R. von Warben, S., trad. it., Milano 1932; C. Lancelin, Histoire myth. de Shaton, Parigi 1930; W. Lewis, The Diabolical Principles, Londra 1931; G. De Libero, Satana, Torino 1935, pp. 159-422 («L'azione») e 425-575 («Il dominio»); M. Praz, S., in Enc. Ital., XXX (1936), p. 901; H. Zieren, Studien zum Teufelsbild in der deutschen Dichtung, Bonn 1937; A. Arrighini, Gli Angeli buoni e cattivi, Torino-Roma 1937, pp. 445-667; H. Gerber (H. Grüber), Les Toxik's Palladium's Roman, oder die «Erchbällungen» über Freimaurerei und Satanismus, 3 voll., Berlino 1937-38; A. Stolz, Theologia della mistica, trad. it., Brescia 1940, pp. 36-71 («L'importo di Satana»); J. M. Gage, Theologia antibagonalistica Cosmas Presbyteri Bulgari (sec. X), Roma 1942, pp. 183-85; H.-Ch. Puech, A. Vaillant, Le traité contre les Bagnoles de Cosmas le Prêtre, Parigi 1945, pp. 181-98; U. Dettore, S., in Diz. lett. Bonpiani d. Opere e di Personaggi, I, Milano 1947, pp. 260-64; G. Gabetti, Titanismo, ibid., pp. 327-32; E. Brouette, La civilisation chrétienne du XVIe siècle devant le problème satanique, in Satan (Etudes Carmel), Parigi 1948, pp. 352-85; R. Villeneuve, Bibliographie démoniaque, ibid., pp. 647-64 (ricca per i secc. XV-XIX, inesistente per il sec. XV); P. Zuntor, V. Hugo poète de Satan, ivi 1948; S. V. McClelland, By the Finger of God Demon and exorcism in early Christianity in the light of modern views of mental illness, Nuova York 1951; M. de la Bigne de Villeneuve, Satan dans la cité, Parigi 1951; P. Scortesco, Gog et Magog, ivi 1952.