Moreover, a rampant demonology environs the entire field of existence; but this disordered multitude of noxious spirits has no recognition in the imperial homage.
In the popular religion demonology and magic play a constant part, and numerous growths out of the worship of ancestors provide ever fresh additions to the higher ranks of spirits.
They do not realise how greatly Luther’s influence counted in the demonology and demonomania of the ensuing years.
Christianity, the religion of the West, has received its corporeal ideas of demonology from the divinities and demons of heathenism.
Christian demonologyis a confused mixture of pagan, Oriental, and Christian ideas.
The science of magic proper is developed in the later schools of philosophy, in which Oriental theology or demonology was largely mixed.
It is opportune here to examine the common beliefs of demonology and sorcery as they existed in Europe.
The sentiments of the royal chaplain on demonology are curious.
The Jewish demonology (probably influenced by the Persian) chose for the head of its kingdom of evil an old god (the Satan) or the similar figure Azazel.
He holds that the prophetic teaching of God's unity was the best bulwark against demonology and mysticism.
The Essenes seem to have made special studies of both demonology and angelology, believing that they could invoke the good spirits and conjure the evil ones, thus curing various diseases, which they ascribed to possession by demons.
It was by a train of observations and experience like this, that James was prompted seven years after to compose and publish his Dialogues on Demonology in Three Books.
It is in this spirit that I now enter upon the second division of the subject in hand, in which I shall try to indicate the chief features of the belief in demonology as it existed during the Elizabethan period.
He is, indeed, formed upon a basis half fairy, half devil, because it was only through the current notions upon demonology that Shakspere could speak his ideas.
Notwithstanding this, demonology played a large part in the production of disease according to their theories, and religious observances were helpful in the cures.
Through the influence of Philo's writings, Jewish demonology was propagated among Christian converts, and the Gnostics quickly absorbed and spread the notion of preternatural interposition.
There seems to have been a rather elaborate system of demonology among the Jews, who were at one time the chief exponents of the doctrine, and consequently the principal exorcists.
The theory of demonology was never very clear nor consistent.
When the conversion of northern races to Christianity began, demonology received a stimulus.
A rather complicated science of demonology had come down from primitive sources through Egyptian, Babylonian, and Greek civilization, although the demons of the Greeks were principally good spirits.
Some trace in this the Persian demonology where the good spirits surround Ormuzd and where Ahriman is the spirit of evil.
Two thousand three hundred years ago demonology had not yet passed into the region of fable.
A similar story is narrated by Sir Walter Scott, in his Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft, the hero of which was a gentleman of birth and distinction, well known in the political world.
But the real issue (he contends) is whether the men of the nineteenth century are to adopt the demonology of the men of the first century, as divinely revealed truth, or to reject it as degrading falsity.
It is Alexandrian Judaism and Neoplatonistic mystagogy, and as much of the old idolatry and demonology as could be got in under new or old names.
This was a restatement of the fundamental principles of the agnostic position, arising out of the controversies of the last two years upon the demonology of the New Testament.
We have seen how the popular demonology furnished materials for the earliest exercise of comic art in the middle ages, and how the taste for this particular class of grotesque lasted until the close of the mediaeval period.
As I have already stated in the last chapter, there can be no doubt that the whole system of the demonology of the middle ages was derived from the older pagan mythology.
The playfully burlesque, which held so great a place in these superstitions, no doubt gave a more comic character to this Christian demonology than it had possessed before the mixture.
In one of the "Twelve Sketches illustrative of Sir Walter Scott's Demonology and Witchcraft" (1830) he shows the archfiend seated on the back of a smiling elf who poses as a quadruped to provide a stool.
Twelve Sketches illustrative of Sir Walter Scott's Demonology and Witchcraft, by George Cruikshank" (London: J.
But it is impossible to do more than deal with a few types, which will illustrate the main features of the demonology of savage, barbarous and semi-civilized peoples.
In connexion with demonology mention must be made of the custom of expelling ghosts, spirits or evils generally.
Tales of ghosts and demonologyare out of date at forty years of age and upward.
Instead of Christian morals surviving in the form of humanitarian morals, Christian demonology has survived in the form of heathen demonology.
I remember reading, not without amusement, a severe and trenchant article in the Hibbert Journal, in which Christ's admission ofdemonology was alone thought enough to dispose of his divinity.
The overthrow of idolatry and demonology was the mastery of forces that are above nature.
Here astronomy, meteorology, and geography are thus grouped together, and angelology is put into relation with astronomy and demonology with meteorology.
But, I repeat my conviction that, whether Jesus sanctioned the demonology of his time and nation or not, it is doomed.
And, if the demonology is accepted, there can be no reason for rejecting all those miracles in which demons play a part.
Whatever else Luther assailed, he left the traditional demonology untouched; nor could any one have entertained a more hearty and uncompromising belief in the devil, than he and, at a later period, the Calvinistic fanatics of New England did.
But we must go still further; there is a modern system of thaumaturgy and demonology which is just as well certified as the ancient.
Ecclesiasticism says: The demonology of the Gospels is an essential part of that account of that spiritual world, the truth of which it declares to be certified by Jesus.
The immediate effect of such judgment will be the decision of the question whether the men of the nineteenth century are to adopt the demonology of the men of the first century as divinely revealed truth, or to reject it as degrading falsity.
Only here and there has the progress of scientific thought, outside the ecclesiastical world, so far affected Christians, that they and their teachers fight shy of the demonology of their creed.
Apart from other evidence to be adduced by and by, the history of ancient demonology and of modern revivalism does not permit me to doubt that the accounts of these phenomena given in the history of Saul may be perfectly historical.
Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft, addressed to J.
Fraser's Magazine: Review of Letters onDemonology and Witchcraft, Vol.
The astrology and alchemy and demonology that give the former many of its characteristic features may have existed in China from a very remote age.
They condemn the Chinese for their demonology and superstitious follies, yet many of them are merely substituting Western superstition for Eastern.
This lore not only stood him in good stead when he compiled his Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft (1830), but served to adorn his poems and novels.
The above list will hopefully give you a few useful examples demonstrating the appropriate usage of "demonology" in a variety of sentences. We hope that you will now be able to make sentences using this word. Other words: devilry; diabolism; sorcery
