HISTORY (NEOpagan, 1980s; 83)

[_What Witches Do_, by Stewart Ferrar, Phoenix Publishing, 
 (1983) 1989; pp. 23-4.]

      The gods of the old religion have always become
the devils of the new.  For a thousand years after
Christianity first became a State religion of
Byzantium, it coexisted with older beliefs -- at least
away from the centres of ecclesiastical power.  Many,
including priests, followed both.  When William who
became the Conqueror (and who was himself reputed to
be the son of a witch) allowed Harold to leave for
England, he made him swear loyalty on two altars, one
Christian and one pagan, and this incident, recorded
in the Bayeux Tapestry, must have seemed perfectly
natural at the time.  But when the Church felt
powerful enough to impose its monopoly of belief --
the milestone being Pope Innocent VIII's Bull of
1484, condemning witches as heretics -- it could no
longer allow the Horned God to be an alternative
visualization of universal divinity; he had to be
branded as Satan.

     In the process, Satan's image was transformed
just as much as the Horned God's.  In the Old
Testament, Satan appears as 'the adversary'; not a
rebel against God's authority, but a sort of
heavenly Public Prosecutor, licensed to draw 
attention to the debt side of a soul's record (much
as the Promoter of the Faith or 'Devil's Advocate'
does when the Pope is considering a proposed
canonization) or to test man's spiritual stamina
(as with Job).  Not a very endearing function, but
perfectly respectable, and in the New Testament
there seems every reason to see the Temptation in
the Wildernes in this light, and Jesus's abrupt
answer as a condemnation of the offer rather than
of the offerer, who was 'only doing his job'.  The
image of Satan as the Prince of Evil at war with
God is mainly post-Biblical creation, and his horns
(once a symbol of divinity) an invention of heresy-
hunting days.  The process was simple and neat.
First, equip Satan with horns.  Then point to the
Horned God of the Witches and say 'Look!  The Devil
incarnate -- and he has the horns to prove it!'
Public belief that witches worshipped the Devil was
further reinforced by official witch-trial records.
If the defendant spoke of his God, the recorder
would substitute the word 'Devil' even in a 
'verbatim' report.

     If at the height of the 'burning time' some 
witches fell for this propaganda themselves, and
felt that while they were being hounded to death
in the name of the Christian God, the Devil
(equally Christian in fact) was their only friend,
we can hardly be surprised.  But let us be clear
about it.  This was an aberration, a human reaction
in a period of bigotry and terror.  The Horned God
is not the Devil, and never has been.  If today
'Satanist' covens do exist, they are not witches
but a sick fringe, delayed-action victims of a
centuries-old Church propaganda in which even
intelligent Christians no longer believe.

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