<pre style="font-size: 13px; line-height: normal; text-align: left;">THE ABGOTT.
The ex-god — Deities demonised by conquest — Theological animo-
sity — Illustration from the Avesta — Devil-worship an arrested
Deism — Sheik Adi — Why demons were painted ugly — Survivals
of their beauty.
The phenomena of the transformation of deities into
demons meet the student of Demonology at every step.
We shall have to consider many examples of a kind simi-
lar to those which have been mentioned in the preceding
chapter; but it is necessary to present at this stage of
our inquiry a sufficient number of examples to establish
the fact that in every country forces have been at work
to degrade the primitive gods into types of evil, as
preliminary to a consideration of the nature of those
forces.
We find the history of the phenomena suggested in the
German word for idol, Abgott — ex-god. Then we have
' pagan/ villager, and 'heathen/ of the heath, denoting those
who stood by their old gods after others had transferred
their faith to the new. These words bring us to consider the
influence upon religious conceptions of the struggles which
have occurred between races and nations, and consequently
between their religions. It must be borne in mind that by
the time any tribes had gathered to the consistency of a
nation, one of the strongest forces of its coherence would <span style="font-size: 12px; text-align: justify;">be its priesthood. So soon as it became a general belief </span></pre>
<pre style="font-size: 13px; line-height: normal; text-align: left;">that there were in the universe good and evil Powers, there
must arise a popular demand for the means of obtaining
their favour ; and this demand has never failed to obtain a
supply of priesthoods claiming to bind or influence the
praeternatural beings. These priesthopds represent the
strongest motives and fears of a people, and they were
gradually intrenched in great institutions involving power-
ful interests. Every invasion or collision or mingling of
races thus brought their respective religions into contact
and rivalry ; and as no priesthood has been known to con-
sent peaceably to its own downfall and the degradation of
its own deities, we need not wonder that there have been
perpetual wars for religious ascendency. It is not unusual
.to hear sects among ourselves accusing each other of
idolatry. In earlier times the rule was for each religion
to denounce its opponent's gods as devils. Gregory the
