The Anatomy of Melancholy

It is lamentable to consider how many myriads of people this idolatry and superstition—for that includes them all—has made fools of in every age, stupefying them with this blind zeal, religion’s ape, religion’s bastard, religion’s shadow and distorting mirror. For where God has a temple, the Devil will have a chapel; where God has sacrifices, the Devil will have his offerings; where God has ceremonies, the Devil will have his traditions; wherever there is religion, the Devil will plant superstition. It is pitiful to see and read of the tortures and miseries it has caused, the slaughter of souls it has committed, and how it rages among those ancient Persians, Syrians, Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Etruscans, Gauls, Germans, Britons and so on.

Britain even today practises it with such awe, says Pliny, with such elaborate ceremonies—speaking of superstition—that she might seem to have taught it to the Persians. The Britons are so astonishingly superstitious in their ceremonies that they surpass the Persians.

Anyone who merely reads Pausanias’s account of the gods, temples, altars, idols and statues among the ancient Greeks, made with such exquisite workmanship and boundless expense, in such multitudes and so many varieties—as Gerbelius rightly observes—may stand amazed and never cease to wonder. At the same time, he may thank God that the light of the Gospel has so happily freed us in our own days from that enslaving idolatry. But formerly, in almost every country and place, superstition blinded people’s hearts. In every age, how small a portion the true Church has been!

The Devil shares dominion with Jove.

The patriarchs and their families; the Israelites, a mere handful by comparison; Christ and his apostles—and not even all of them. Into what narrow bounds it has been confined: a little flock! Meanwhile, how superstition has spread; how error, ignorance, barbarism, folly and madness have deceived, triumphed over and mocked the wisest, most prudent and most discerning people! Philosophers, rulers and monarchs were all enveloped and overshadowed by this mist, in darkness deeper than that of the Cimmerians. So greatly does ignorant superstition corrupt human minds and sometimes lead even the wise astray.

At the present time, what a fraction! How small a part is truly religious, how little by comparison! Divide the world into six parts, and one part, or less, is Christian. Idolaters and Muslims possess almost all of Asia, Africa, America and Magellanica. The kings of China, the Great Khan, Siam, Borneo, Pegu, the Deccan, Narsinga, Japan and so on are pagans and idolaters; so are many other minor princes in Asia, those of Monomotapa and Congo, and I know not how many Black princes in Africa. All the Unknown Southern Land and most of America are pagan, differing in their various superstitions, yet all idolaters.