The Anatomy of Melancholy

Causes of religious melancholy. From the Devil, through miracles, apparitions and oracles. His instruments or agents: politicians, priests, impostors, heretics and blind guides. In them: credulity, fear, blind zeal, ignorance, solitude, curiosity, pride, vanity, presumption and so on. His devices: fasting, solitude, hope, fear and the rest.

We are taught in Holy Scripture that the Devil roams abroad like a roaring lion, always seeking someone to devour. In various shapes, and by various devices and tricks, he goes about enticing us astray. Sometimes he transforms himself into an angel of light; and he is so cunning that he could, if it were possible, deceive even the elect.

He insists on being worshipped as God himself, and the heathen revere and regard him as such. In imitation of that divine power, as Eusebius observes, and to mock or rival God’s glory, as Dandini adds, he demands that all homage, sacrifices, offerings and everything else belonging to God’s worship be offered to him as well: he will be like the Most High. By this means he makes fools of the world, deceiving, ensnaring and destroying many thousands of souls.

Sometimes the Devil speaks to them in various shapes through dreams and visions, as God spoke directly and intimately to Moses. This is common in the Indies, and in China nothing is more familiar than apparitions, inspirations and oracles. He terrifies them with false portents and counterfeit miracles, sends storms, tempests, diseases and plagues—as in ancient Athens there was Apollo the Averter of Evil, Apollo the Pestilential, the plague-bringer and the dispeller of evils—raises wars and rebellions through spectres, troubles their consciences and drives them to despair, mental terrors and unbearable pain. Through promises, rewards, benefits and gentle means he inspires such belief in his divinity and greatness that they dare do nothing but worship him and obey his will: they dare not offend him.

And to compel them to fear him still more, he sends and cures diseases, disturbs their spirits, as Cyprian says, and torments and terrifies their souls to make them worship him. All his attention and effort goes towards turning them from true religion to superstition; and because he is himself damned and in error, he would have the whole world share his errors and be damned with him.

The first moving cause, therefore, the first mover of all superstition, is the Devil, that great enemy of mankind, the chief agent who, in a thousand different shapes and forms, with various devices and illusions and under various names, has deceived the inhabitants of the earth in different places and countries, always rejoicing at their falls.