Devil Worship

The meaning of this compound term is sufficiently obvious, for all 
must be familiar with the significance of its two component parts. 
But the thing denoted by the name is by no means so easy to 
understand. For there is such a strange startling incompatibility 
between the notion of devil and that of an object of worship, that 
the combination in this case may well present a grave difficulty. 
And the more we are able to understand about the character and 
history of the Devil and about the true nature of worship, the 
more difficult is it to believe that men can have been led, even 
in the utmost extremity of folly and wickedness, to worship the 
Devil. Yet, incredible as it may seem, it is unfortunately true 
that some worship of this kind has prevailed at many times and 
among widely different races of mankind. The following 
considerations may help in some degree to lighten the difficulty 
presented by this singular phenomenon. 

In the first place it may be well to recall the analogy between 
the worship given to a divine being and the tribute paid to a 
king. Both alike are sensible proofs of service and subjection. In 
the case of kings, besides the willing service paid to a just and 
legitimate sovereign, there may be tribute paid to some alien 
oppressors or blackmail grudgingly given to some pirate Chief or 
marauder in order to deprecate the evils that may be feared at his 
hands. And so in the case of religious worship, we may find that 
in the rude polytheism of barbarous races, where the gods were not 
only many in number but various in character, besides the willing 
worship given to good and beneficent beings in the service of love 
and gratitude, there is a sort of liturgical blackmail offered to 
the evil and malignant gods or demons in order to placate them and 
avert their anger. In like manner, when we pass from Polytheism to 
the philosophic Dualism--where the worlds of light and darkness, 
good and evil, sharply defined, are constantly warring against 
each other over against the good men, who offer worship to the 
good god, Ahura Mazda, there are the wicked Daeva-worshippers who 
sacrifice to the Demons and to Ahriman their chief, the principle 
of evil. 

Another source of this strange worship may be found in the fact 
that in the early days each nation had its own natural gods; hence 
racial rivalry and hatred sometimes led one nation to regard the 
protecting divinities of its enemies as evil demons. In this way 
many who merely worshipped gods whom they themselves regarded as 
good beings would be called devil worshippers by men of other 
nations. Such may be the case with the Daeva-worshippers in the 
Avesta. In the same way the Greeks and Romans may have worshipped 
their divinities, fondly believing them to be good. But the 
Christian Scriptures declare that all the gods of the Gentiles are 
demons. 

This declaration, it may be added, was not the utterance of a 
rival race but the teaching of Holy Scripture. For as the Fathers 
and theologians explain the matter, the fallen angels besides 
tempting and assailing men in other ways have, by working on their 
fears or exciting their cupidity, brought them to give worship to 
themselves under the guise of idols. If not in all cases, it would 
seem that much of the heathen idolatrous worship, especially in 
its worst and most degraded forms, was offered to the devils. This 
may explain some of the manifestations in the old pagan oracles. 
And something of the same kind occurs in the demonic 
manifestations among the modern demonolaters in India. Nor has 
this been confined to heathen nations, for in connection with 
magical practices and occultism some forms of devil worship appear 
in the heresy history of medieval Europe. Görres, in his great 
work on Christian Mysticism, gives some curious and repulsive 
details of their obscene ceremonial. Of late years there seems to 
have been a recrudescence of this evil superstition in certain 
countries of Europe. While there is some authentic evidence as to 
the existence of these evil practices, the truth is overlaid with 
a mass of legend, many charges of this kind are false or grossly 
exaggerated, and a number of innocent persons have been cruelly 
put to death on charges of witchcraft or devil worship. It is well 
also to remember St. Augustine's words: "Non uno modo sacrificatur 
traditoribus angelis"; and possibly calumny and cruelty may be 
more dangerous forms of devil worship than all the dark rites of 
African Medicine men or medieval magicians. 

W. H. KENT 
Transcribed by Rick McCarty 


From the Catholic Encyclopedia, copyright © 1913 by the 
Encyclopedia Press, Inc. Electronic version copyright © 1996 by 
New Advent, Inc. 

Taken from the New Advent Web Page (www.knight.org/advent).

This article is part of the Catholic Encyclopedia Project, an 
effort aimed at placing the  entire Catholic Encyclopedia 1913 
edition on the World Wide Web. The coordinator is Kevin Knight,  
editor of the New Advent Catholic Website. If you would like to 
contribute to this  worthwhile project, you can contact him by e-
mail at (knight.org/advent). For  more information please download 
the file cathen.txt/.zip.

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