"The Occult Revival: Satan Returns"

While innocently searching the web looking for candles and candle holders with themes like "baphomet", "setian", etc, I happened upon what I at first assumed was a clever photoshopping job.

It looked, I thought, very much like a legit Time Magazine cover, with some sort of crudely "Satanic" looking drawing and the headline: "The Occult Revival." The subtitle did not disappoint either: "Satan Returns."

Turns out, it was no joke. At least not intentionally.

Inside the June 19, 1972 issue of Time, the cover story is given the title: "The Occult: A Substitute Faith." Subtle. Very subtle.

This bit of early 70's upscale yellow journalism proceeds to describe a friendly suburban get-together: an army officer, his wife, a computer programmer (they had computers back then?), a store clerk, a dog trainer and a university student (psychology major), meet up at a "comfortable split-level home, which stands amid the tidy landscaping of a housing development in Louisville", and after exchanging a few pleansantries, they "all troop downstairs to a vinyl floored recreation room."

It sounds innocent enough until we are told that "the hour is midnight", and that these good folks are now "gathered solemnly before a black draped altar." On the wall above the altar is, quite naturally, "a chartreuse goat-image superimposed on a purple pentagram." One can almost hear the Church Lady: "Well, isn't that special? And just who might we be worshipping tonight?? Hmmmmm???"

1972 was the same year that the low-low budget cult movie Blood Sabbath was released. It was also a full three years after the members of the Birmingham based heavy blues band Earth (lead vocalist: Ozzy Osbourne) decided to change their name to Black Sabbath (inspired by the 1963 Mario Bava/Boris Karloff movie of the same title that was playing across the street from their rehearsal studio). And it would still be another 14 years before Dana Carvey first introduced his "Church Lady" character to the world on Saturday Night Live.

It was also 320 years after the original publication of Thomas Brooks' little classic Precious Remedies Against Satan's Devices:

To his most dear and precious ones, the sons and daughters of the Most High God, over whom the Holy Spirit has made him a Watchman.

Beloved in our dearest Lord,

Christ, the Scripture, your own hearts, and Satan's devices, are the four prime things that should be first and most studied and searched. If any cast off the study of these, they cannot be safe here, nor happy hereafter. It is my work as a Christian, but much more as I am a Watchman, to do my best to discover the fullness of Christ, the emptiness of the creature, and the snares of the great deceiver; which I have endeavored to do in the following discourse, according to that measure of grace which I have received from the Lord. God once accepted a handful of meal for a sacrifice (Lev. 2:2; 5:12), and a small quantity of goat's hair for an oblation; and I know that you have not so "learned the Father," as to despise "the day of small things" (Zech. 4:10).

Beloved, Satan being fallen from light to darkness, from felicity to misery, from heaven to hell, from an angel to a devil, is so full of malice and envy that he will leave no means unattempted, whereby he may make all others eternally miserable with himself; he being shut out of heaven, and shut up "under the chains of darkness until the judgment of the great day" (Jude 6), makes use of all his power and skill to bring all the sons of men into the same condition and condemnation with himself. Satan has cast such sinful seed into our souls, that now he can no sooner tempt, but we are ready to assent; he can no sooner have a plot upon us, but he makes a conquest of us. If he does but show men a little of the beauty and finery of the world, how ready are they to fall down and worship him! Whatever sin the heart of man is most prone to, that the devil will help forward.

If David is proud of his people, Satan will provoke him to number them, that he may be yet prouder (2 Sam. 24). If Peter is slavishly fearful, Satan will put him upon rebuking and denying of Christ, to save his own skin (Matt. 16:22; 26:69-75). If Ahab's prophets are given to flatter, the devil will immediately become a lying spirit in the mouths of four hundred of them, and they shall flatter Ahab to his ruin (2 Kings 22). If Judas will be a traitor, Satan will quickly enter into his heart, and make him sell his master for money, which some heathen would never have done (John 13:2). If Ananias will lie for advantage, Satan will fill his heart that he may lie, with a witness, to the Holy Spirit (Acts 5:3). Satan loves to sail with the wind, and to suit men's temptations to their conditions and inclinations. If they be in prosperity, he will tempt them to deny God (Proverbs 30:9); if they be in adversity, he will tempt them to distrust God; if their knowledge be weak, he will tempt them to have low thoughts of God; if their conscience be tender, he will tempt to scrupulosity; if large, to carnal security; if bold-spirited, he will tempt to presumption; if timorous, to desperation; if flexible, to inconstancy; if stiff, to impenitency.

From the power, malice and skill of Satan--proceeds all the soul-killing plots, devices, stratagems and machinations, which are in the world. Several devices he has to draw souls to sin, and several plots he has to keep souls from all holy and heavenly services, and several stratagems he has to keep souls in a mourning, staggering, doubting and questioning condition.

He has several devices to destroy the great and honorable, the wise and learned, the blind and ignorant, the rich and the poor, the real and the nominal Christians.
At one time, he will restrain from tempting, that we may think ourselves secure, and neglect our watch. At another time he will seem to flee, that he may make us proud of the victory. At one time he will fix men's eyes on others' sins than their own, that he may puff them up. At another time he may fix their eyes more on others' graces than their own, that he may discourage them. A man may as well count the stars, and number the sands of the sea, as reckon up all the Devices of Satan; yet those which are most considerable, and by which he does most mischief to the precious souls of men, are in the following treatise discovered, and the Remedies against them prescribed.

Beloved, I think it necessary to give you and the world a faithful account of the reasons moving me to appear in print, in these days, wherein we may say, there was never more writing and yet never less practicing, and they are these that follow:

Reason 1. Because Satan has a greater influence upon men, and higher advantages over them than they think he has--and the knowledge of his high advantage is the highway to disappoint him, and to render the soul strong in resisting, and happy in conquering.

Reason 2. Your importunity, and the importunity of many other "precious sons of Zion" (Lam. 4:2), has after much striving with God, my own heart, and others, made a conquest of me, and forced me to do that at last, which at first was not a little contrary to my inclination and resolution.
Reason 3. The strange opposition that I met with from Satan, in the study of this following discourse, has put an edge upon my spirit, knowing that Satan strives mightily to keep those things from seeing the light, that tend eminently to shake and break his kingdom of darkness, and to lift up the kingdom and glory of the Lord Jesus Christ, in the souls and lives of the men.

Reason 4. Its exceeding usefulness to all sorts, ranks and conditions of men in the world. Here you have salve for every sore, and a plaster for every wound, and a remedy against every disease, especially against those that tend most to the undoing of souls, and the ruin of the State.

Reason 5. I know not of any one or other that have written of this subject; all that ever I have seen have only touched upon this theme, which has been no small provocation to me, to attempt to do something this way, that others, that have better heads and hearts, may be the more stirred to improve their talents in a further discovery of Satan's Devices, and in making known of such choice Remedies, as may enable the souls of men to triumph over all his plots and stratagems.

Reason 6. I have many precious friends in several countries, who are desirous that my pen may reach them, now that my voice cannot. I have formerly been, by the help of the mighty God of Jacob, a weak instrument of good to them, and cannot but hope and believe that the Lord will also bless these labors to them; they being, in part, the fruit of their desires and prayers.

Reason 7. Lastly, Not knowing how soon my hour-glass may be out, and how soon I may be cut off by a hand of death from all opportunities of doing further service for Christ or your souls in this world, I was willing to sow a little handful of spiritual seed among you; that so, when I put off this earthly tabernacle, my love to you, and that dear remembrance of you, which I have in my soul, may strongly engage your minds and spirits to make this book your companion, and under all external or internal changes, to make use of this heavenly salve, which I hope will, by the blessing of the Lord, be as effectual for the healing of all your wounds, as their looking up to the bronze serpent was effectual to heal theirs--who were bit and stung with fiery serpents. I shall leave this book with you as a legacy of my dearest love, desiring the Lord to make it a far greater and sweeter legacy than all those carnal legacies that are left by the high and mighty ones of the earth to their nearest and dearest relations.

Beloved, I would not have affection carry my pen too much beyond my intention. Therefore, only give me leave to signify my desires for you, and my desires to you, and I shall draw to a close,

My desires for you are, "that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge--that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God." (Eph. 3:16-19) "And we pray this in order that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and may please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, and joyfully giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light." (Col. 1:10-12) "That you do no evil." (2 Cor. 13:7); "That your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge, and in all judgment." "That you may approve things that are excellent, that you may be sincere, and without offence until the day of Christ." (Phil. 1:27, 4:1) That "our God would count you worthy of this calling, and fulfill all the good pleasure of his goodness, and the work of faith with power." "That the name of our Lord Jesus Christ may be glorified in you, and you in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ." (2 Thess. 1:11, 12) And that you may be eminent in sanctity, sanctity being Zion's glory (Psalm 93:5); that your hearts may be kept upright, your judgments sound, and your lives unblamable. That as you are now "my joy", so in the day of Christ you may be "my crown"; that I may see my labors in your lives; that your lives may not be earthly, when the things you hear are heavenly; but that it may be "as becomes the gospel" (Phil. 1:9, 10).

That as the fish which live in the salt sea yet are fresh, so you, though you live in an ungodly world, may yet be godly and loving; that you may, like the bee, suck honey out of every flower; that you may shine in a sea of troubles, as the pearl shines in the sky, though it grows in the sea; that in all your trials you may shine like the stone in Thracia, which neither burns in the fire nor sinks in the water; that you may be like the heavens, excellent in substance and beautiful in appearance; that so you may meet me with joy in that day wherein Christ shall say to his Father, "Lo, here am I, and the children that you have given me" (Is. 8:18).

My desires to you are--That you would make it your business to study Christ, his Word, your own hearts, Satan's plots, and eternity--more than ever. That you would endeavor more to be inwardly sincere than outwardly glorious; to live, than to have a mere name to live. That you would labor with all your might to be thankful under mercies, and faithful in your places, and humble under divine appearances, and fruitful under precious ordinances. That as your means and mercies are greater than others--so your account before God may not prove a worse than others. That you would pray for me, who am not worthy to be named among the saints, that I may be a precious instrument in the hand of Christ to bring in many souls unto him, and to build up those who are brought in, in their most holy faith; and "that utterance may be given to me, that I may make known all the will of God" (Eph. 6:19); that I may be sincere, faithful, frequent, fervent and constant in the work of the Lord, and that my labor be not in vain in the Lord; that my labors may be accepted in the Lord and his saints, and I may daily see the travail of my soul.

But, above all, pray for me--that I may more and more find the power and sweet of those things upon my own heart, that I give out to you and others; that my soul may be so visited with strength from on high, that I may live up fully and constantly to those truths that I hold forth to the world; and that I may be both in life and doctrine "a burning and a shining light," that so, when the Lord Jesus shall appear, "I may receive a crown of glory which he shall give to me in that day, and not only to me, but to all who love his appearing." (John 5:35 and 2 Tim. 1:8).

For a close, remember this, that your life is short, your duties many, your assistance great, and your reward sure; therefore faint not, hold on and hold up, in ways of well- doing, and heaven shall make amends for all!

I shall now take leave of you, when my heart has by my hand subscribed, that I am, your loving pastor under Christ, according to all pastoral affections and engagements in our dearest Lord,

Thomas Brooks

[If you think some of the art work in this post is pretty crazy, check out where I found it!!]

Underground Paganism in the Renaissance. Literally. (The Heathen-Minded Humanists, Part Four)

[The Heathen-Minded Humanists: Part One provides the background of the struggle between Pope Paul II and the Roman Academy; Part Two describes the crisis of 1468; Part Three (which I haven't posted yet) presents the denouement, in which all charges are dropped and the Heathen Academy survives intact; Part Four (below) tells the tale of the surprising evidence discovered four centuries later of the literally underground Paganism that existed in Rome in the 15th century; Part Five looks at the other Roman Academy and its head, Cardinal Bessarion.]

The main focus of this post is on two excerpts from works by Rodolfo Lanciani, in which Lanciani discusses the discovery, starting in 1852, by Giovanni Battista de Rossi, of a number of inscriptions attributed to Pomponius Laetus (aka Pomponio Leto) and other members of the 15th century Roman Academy.

Lanciani was in no doubt as to the significance of these inscriptions:

"One line, one word alone, of the records which have been discovered by us four centuries later, made known in proper time to the court of Castle S. Angelo, would have brought their heads under the sword of the public executioner."

But first I will provide a little background information on De Rossi and Lanciani.

The following is from the entry for Giovanni Battista de Rossi from the online Catholic Encyclopedia:

A distinguished Christian archaeologist, best known for his work in connection with the Roman catacombs, born at Rome, 23 February, 1822; died at Castel Gandolfo on Lake Albano, 20 September, 1894. De Rossi, the modern founder of the science of Christian archaeology, was well-skilled in secular archaeology, a master of epigraphy, an authority on the ancient and medieval topography of Rome, an excellent historian, and a very productive and many-sided author. In addition to his professional acquaintance with archaeology De Rossi had a thorough knowledge of law, philology, and theology. He was the son of Commendatore Camillo Luigi De Rossi and Marianna Marchesa Bruti, his wife, who had two sons, Giovanni and Michele Stefano. Two days after birth Giovanni was baptized in the parish church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva and, according to Roman custom was confirmed while still very young, by Cardinal Franzoni, Prefect of the Propaganda. Up to 1838 De Rossi attended the preparatory department of the well-known Jesuit institution, the Collegio Romano, and through his entire course ranked as its foremost pupil. From 1838 to 1840 he studied philosophy there, and jurisprudence (1840-44) at the Roman University (Sapienza), where he was a disciple of the celebrated professors Villani and Capalti. At the close of his university studies he received, after a severe examination, the degree of doctor utriusque juris ad honorem.

And this is from Rodolfo Lanciani's entry in the online Dictionary of Art Historians (Lee Sorensen, ed. www.dictionaryofarthistorians.org):

Date born: 1847
Place Born: Montecelio, Rome vicinity, Italy
Date died: 1929
Place died: Rome, Italy
Lanciani was a pioneer of a rational, modern approach to Roman cartography and archaeology. He formed part of a core of distinguished late nineteenth-century scholars of the Roman forum who included Thomas Ashby (q.v.), Heinrich Jordan (1833-1886), Christian Huelsen (q.v.), and Samuel B. Platner (1863-1921). In 1967, Richard Brilliant (q.v.) described Lanciani's Ruins and Excavations of Ancient Rome as undiminished in vitality as a study of ancient Roman ruins. His Forma Urbis Romae was "a magnificent map of the city and a marvellous example of cartography as well as an encyclopaedia of typographical information. It is still an essential tool for anyone working on the ancient city" (Richardson). City maps of the twenty-first century typically have a scale of 1:20,000 (five cm on the map equivalent to one km on the ground). The forty-six maps of the Forma Urbis have a scale of 1:1,000. The work is still unsurpassed to this day. Many of his English-language books on Rome were subsequently translated into Italian.

Excerpt One: from Rodolfo Lanciani's Ancient Rome, Chapter One, pp. 8-12 (first published in 1890):

We must now pass to the time of the return of the popes from Avignon to Rome, which marks the beginning of the Renaissance, — the beginning, that is, of the most glorious period in the history of my own nation. At this period, mediaeval Italy had disappeared. A new element, the genius of the ancient world, had risen in its glory, and had fascinated the higher classes of society, the heads of the various states into which the Peninsula was politically divided, the aristocracy, the fashionable and literary circles, and, in a more modest measure, the members of the clergy and of monastic orders. That mighty genius took possession at once of the field of art and science, modified the manners and the education of the higher classes, and even shook, for the time being, the very foundations of the Christian faith. At the head of the movement marched a handful of scientific men, philologists rather than archaeologists, better known under the name of the Humanists. They became professors in the universities, they won confidential positions in princely houses as private secretaries, they attached themselves especially to the princes of the Church. Their engagements lasted only for a short period, sometimes for six months only: thus they were able to move without intermission from town to town, from court to court, from college to college, multiplying, as it were, from one end to the other of the Peninsula, and sowing everywhere the seed which was to bring forth such magnificent harvests.

The study of the Greek language and literature was the most fashionable of all studies: hence the fifteenth century has been called the Golden Age of Hellenism. The beginning of the following century saw the first decline of this pursuit; under the Popes of the Medici family, Greek had already left public life, to confine itself again within the precincts of cloisters and schools, which became, and are now, I regret to say, its last insecure shelter. In order to obtain able masters from the East, especially from Byzantine schools, fabulous prices were offered and paid to those professors who were willing to change their country; but the capture of Constantinople, May 29, 1453, very soon dried up this rich source. These circumstances enable us to understand why, at the beginning of the fifteenth century, men of letters and women of the upper classes could easily converse in Greek; whereas, fifty years later, the same language was no longer spoken, but only read, and was totally forgotten at the beginning of the sixteenth century.

It is difficult to form an idea of such a powerful movement towards classical studies; more difficult to investigate its causes. We can explain something by a reference to Fashion, that despotic and capricious goddess; but this will not explain all. Captivated by hitherto unknown fascinations, eager to tear aside the veil which concealed its mysteries, the Humanists deified and idolized archaeology, and congregated around its temple to partake of the treasures of science which had been kept there in safe concealment since the fall of the Roman Commonwealth, more than nine centuries before. Many conceived the hope or labored under the illusion that pagan science would heal the wounds of society; some followed the movement out of pure love of fascinating enquiries, others from curiosity; the profanum vulgus felt the contagion of example and fashion; the higher classes hoped to find in ancient philosophy the consolations which, to their own misfortune, they had ceased to expect from faith.

Paganism not only penetrated the domain of science, but conquered also the field of fine arts, although this last was exclusively and absolutely consecrated to the service of the Church. The evidence of this fact is to be found everywhere in Italy, in churches as well as in public edifices of Rome, Florence, and Venice. Those genii who surround the Blessed Virgin, holding on high the torch of life; those winged classic youths who are meant to represent angels; those nymphs whose part it is to represent the holy women of Christendom, and whose immodest forms were not considered out of place in a church, — are all nothing but a revival of paganism and of pagan art. Every one knows that Daniele da Volterra was surnamed "il Braghettone," or breeches-maker, because he contrived to cover the most crude nudities of Michael Angelo's "Last Judgment," and that the reclining statue of Giulia Farnese, near S. Peter's chair in the Vatican, the masterpiece of Guglielmo della Porta, was clothed by Bernini with clothes of painted lead. Giorgio Vasari asserts that Perugino could never be induced to believe in the immortality of the soul, although he had devoted all his life to painting saints and madonnas.

I must quote here an incident from the life of the greatest Humanist of the fifteenth century, Pomponius Laetus, because, owing to a recent discovery made in the catacombs of S. Calixtus, on the Appian Way, we are able to solve for the first time a mystery connected with the pagan tendencies of the Renaissance. Pomponio Leto founded in Rome an academy for classic studies, to which the most celebrated literary men of the period belonged: Cardinal Platina, the historian of the Church; Giovanni Antonio Campano, Bishop of Teramo, Pietro Sabino, professor of epigraphy in the University of Rome; Marco Antonio Sabellico, Pietro Pallini, and many others.b All these illustrious members of the Roman Academy, either because they had exchanged their Christian names for names of pagan heroes, or else on account of their extravagant worship of ancient philosophy and civilization, were stigmatized by so‑called public opinion as apostates from the faith, as worshippers of false gods, as conspirators against the authority and the life of the Pope. Imprisoned and chained in the Castle of S. Angelo by order of Paul II, a religious and political action was brought against them upon the charge of conspiracy to secure the supreme pontificate of Rome for their master and president, Pomponio Leto. Cardinal Platina vindicated the innocence of his colleagues, and Pomponio himself addressed to the court of Castle S. Angelo a vigorous speech, the original of which is preserved in the Vatican archives. The lack of positive evidence and the intervention of influential friends caused them to be set free; so that the Academy was able to return to its work, amidst the applause and with the help of cardinals and prelates of the Roman Church.

It is, no doubt, exceedingly remarkable that the evidence against these men, sought in vain by Paul II and his judges, should have come to light only a few years ago, and in a place entirely unsuspected. In the course of the excavations carried on by my illustrious master, Commendatore G. B. de Rossi, in the catacombs of Callixtus, a cubiculum, or crypt, was discovered, May 12, 1852, in the remotest part of that subterranean labyrinth which had been used by Pomponio's brotherhood as a secret place of meeting. On the white plaster of the ceiling the following inscription had been written with the smoke of a tallow candle: "January 16, 1475. Pantagathus, Mammeius, Papyrius, Minicinus, Æmilius, Minucius, all of them admirers and investigators of antiquities, and the delight of the Roman dissolute women, [have met here] under the reign of Pomponius, supreme pontiff [pontifex maximus]." Many other records of the same nature have been since discovered in the catacombs of SS. Pietro e Marcellino and of Praetextatus, in which records Pantagathus (Cardinal Platina?) is styled sacerdos academiae Romanae, and Pomponius again sovereign pontiff.

It is evident that such a priesthood and such a pontificate have nothing to do with the Christian hierarchy; on the other hand, it is difficult to determine whether we have to deal with a more or less absurd pedantry, or with a solemn apostasy from the Christian faith by a handful of dissolute conspirators. One thing only is certain: that Pomponio and his colleagues were very wise in confiding their secret to the deepest and most impenetrable recesses of the Roman catacombs. One line, one word alone, of the records which have been discovered by us four centuries later, made known in proper time to the court of Castle S. Angelo, would have brought their heads under the sword of the public executioner.

Excerpt Two: from Rodolfo Lanciani's Pagan and Christian Rome, Chapter Seven, pp. 358-361 (first published in 1896):

The catacombs of SS. Peter and Marcellinus have another attraction for students. Poor as they are in epitaphs and works of art, they contain hundreds of names of celebrated humanists, archaeologists, and artists who explored these depths in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and made record of their visits. When one walks between two lines of graves, in the almost oppressive stillness of the cemetery, with no other company than one's thoughts, the names of Pomponius Letus and his academicians, of Bosio, Panvinio, Avanzini, Severano, Marangoni, Marchi, and d'Agincourt, written in bold letters, give the lonely wanderer the impression of meeting living and dear friends; and one wonders at the great love which these pioneers of "humanism" must have had for antiquities, to have spent days and days, and to have held their conferences and banquets, in places like these.

In chapter I, page 10, of "Ancient Rome," [see immediately preceding excerpt] I mentioned Pomponio's Academy, and its visits to the crypts of Callixtus. Since the publication of my book, and the subject has been investigated again and illustrated by Giacomo Lombroso and de Rossi. It appears that after the trial which the Academicians underwent at the time of Paul II., and their unexpected liberation from the Castle of S. Angelo, they decided to turn over a new leaf. From a fraternity which was pagan in manners and instincts, which had made itself conspicuous by the use of profane language, and by the celebration of profane meetings over the tombs of the martyrs, they became the "Societas litteratorum S. Victoris et sociorum in Esquiliis," a literary society under the patronage of S. Victor and his companion saints, namely, Fortunatus and Genesius. Their pontifex maximus became a president; their sacerdos a priest, whose duty it was to say mass on certain anniversaries. The most important celebration fell, as before, on April 21, the birthday of Rome. We have a description by an eye-witness, Jacopo Volaterrano, of that which took place in 1483: "On the Esquiline, near the house of Pomponius, the society of literary men has celebrated the birthday of Rome. Divine service was performed by Peter Demetrius of Lucca; Paul Marsus delivered the oration. The dinner was served in the hall adjoining the chapel of S. Salvatore de Cornutis," etc. In 1501, after the death of Pomponius, the anniversary meetings were held on the Capitol; the solemn mass was sung in the church of the Aracoeli, while the banquet took place in the Palazzo dei Conservatori. The convivial feast of 1501 was not a success. Burckhardt describes it as satis feriale et sine bono vino (commonplace and with no good wine).

Was the conversion of the Academicians a sincere one? We believe it was not; they manifested under Sixtus V. the same feelings which had brought them to justice under Paul II.

In the calendars of the Church of Rome only one name is registered on April 21, that of Pope Victor. His alleged companions, Fortunatus and Genesius, were singled out of old, disused calendars of the church of Africa, unknown to the Latins. Why did the academicians select such enigmatic and obscure protectors? The reason is evident. Genesius was chosen because his name suggested an allusion to the genesis (natalis) or birthday of Rome; Victor and Fortunatus, likewise, were considered names of good omen, with a suggestion of the Victory and Fortune who presided over the destinies of ancient Rome.

Under the protection of these alleged saints, Pomponius and his friends worshipped, and celebrated the birthday of Rome, and the goddesses connected with the city.

This state of things did not wholly escape the attention of contemporary observers. One of them, Raffaele Volaterrano, expressly says: "Pomponius Laetus worshipped Romulus and kept the birthday of Rome; the beginning of a campaign against religion (initium abolendae fidei)."

The Roman academy found the means of keeping faithful to its traditions, and to the spirit of its institutions, in spite of the reform of its statutes. Victor, Fortunatus, Genesius, in whose honor divine service was performed on April 20, did not represent to the initiated the saints of the Church, but the fortunes of ancient Rome, its founder, the Paliliae. Still, we are not yet able to discover whether all this was done simply out of love and admiration for the ancient world, under the influence of the Renaissance of classical studies; or from hatred and contempt of the Christian faith: initium abolendae fidei.

Geert Wilders' popularity in the Netherlands increases dramatically

A new poll conducted in the Netherlands by Maurice de Hond has found that if another election were held today, Geert Wilders' Party For Freedom (PVV) would be, by far, the largest vote getter. In fact, the PVV would receive 35 seats in the Dutch Parliament, four more than the 31 currently held by the Netherland's largest party, the VVD (Peoples Party for Freedom and Democracy) led by Mark Rutte (which would be reduced to 23 seats!), and an increase of nearly 50% over the 24 seats garnered by Wilders' PVV in the elections held on June 9.

Meanwhile the right-wing VVD is still trying to form a new coalition government with Labor, the Greens, and the "D66" party (variously described as center-left, radical democratic, and progressive liberal). Both Labor and the Christian Democrats have publicly ruled out any coalition that involves Wilders, while the VVD is open to such a coalition, but would need other partners to form a majority.

Lastly, a new video has been posted here, showing Wilders' announcement of his plans for an "International Freedom Alliance" that will initially include the US, the UK, Germany, France and Canada. Wilders mostly speaks in Dutch, but there are subtitles.

"Children Accused of Witchraft": New UNICEF Report on Africa's "Witch Children"

UNICEF has released a new 59 page report titled: Children Accused of Witchcraft An anthropological study of contemporary practices in Africa (click that link to download the pdf of the full report). The report is dated "April, 2010", but has only recently been widely publicized first in the African press, and now in the western media.

One of the main themes of the report is that widespread violence against children accused of witchcraft is a very recent phenomenon in Africa, and it is not related to African Traditional Religion, but rather is associated with the spread of Christianity and Pentecostalism in particular.

Unfortunately, the idea that traditional "African superstitions" are behind this phenomenon has been widely disseminated in the West, even by people who are supposedly committed to helping the thousands of victims of these accusations, who often suffer horrific abuse and death.

One man in particular, Gary Foxcroft, has made a career for himself out of sensationalizing this tragedy in the name of raising money for his Stepping Stones Foundation (which Foxcroft runs from his hometown of Lancaster in the UK). Foxcroft and his "charity" have consistently stated that the root of the problem lies in traditional African beliefs. According to Foxcroft, the solution is for Africans to become better Christians, because then they would stop being so ignorant and superstitious.

Below are two excerpts from the full UNICEF report. [Also check out other relevant posts from this blog collected here: The Christian Roots of the "Witch Children" Phenomenon in Africa.]

Excerpt 1. Predominance of Christianity [section 2.2. in the report]

Churches, especially those belonging to the Pentecostal and prophetic movement (charismatic, revivalist, etc.), play an important role in the diffusion and legitimization of fears related to witchcraft, and in particular, child witches. The pastor‐prophet is an important figure in the process of accusing children of witchcraft, by effectively validating the presence of a “witchcraft spirit”. Pentecostalists, for example, present their faith as a form of divine armour against witchcraft, and they participate actively in the fight against Evil that is incarnated through witchcraft.
Despite a lack of precise and detailed information, it would appear that this phenomenon is far less significant in Islamic countries. It is important to understand why reactions to witchcraft in countries of Islamic belief differ from those in Christianized countries. Certain writers believe the difference stems from the ability to translate their religious message. The translation of the Bible into the local language was a priority for early ministers and priests: “The Word of God: open to everyone” (Fancello, 2006:113). For example, in Burkina Faso, the policy of indigenization resulted in missionaries from the Assemblies of God learning the Möré language and investing in translating biblical text (ibid.). In contrast with Christian practice, Islam considers Arabic to be a sacred language and has rejected any attempt at translating religious texts into local languages. “Whoever wants to praise God,” comment Christine Henry and Emmanuelle Kadya Tall, “must do it in Arabic, and submit to learning verses at a Koranic school” (2008: 19). In contrast, by putting sacred texts within everyone’s reach, Christianity has facilitated the successful localization of its message and led to the creation of authentic African movements and churches.

Another possible reason is the difference in the perception of Evil in each of the religions. Witchcraft is able to integrate itself so well within Christian discourse because it has been personified and associated with the Devil or Satan. Do witches benefit from the same support from Satan or the Devil in Islamic discourse? While it should be acknowledged that in Islam there is reference to a satanic force, it is not attributed to a single figure who personifies Evil. Instead, Islam discusses “satans”, in the plural. The satans are generally incarnated as jinns and shayâtîn. The latter spirits are generally considered to be responsible for illness and madness that is attributed to satanic possession. However, it is clear that, although there is a difference in the perception of Evil, Islam does present itself as an antidote to witchcraft, by developing talismans or other counter‐measures to warn of or thwart witchcraft spells or attacks.

Despite the translation of the Christian message and the perception of witchcraft as the Devil’s work, the question remains as to why children are accused more frequently in Christian circles. And why are these accusations less common in Islam? There is not enough detailed data to answer these questions. However, it would appear that the response lies within the doctrines and representations that each religion has with regard to children and their place in the religious system. Generally speaking, the Koran does not address underage children, but rather older children with an understanding of responsibility, or the adults responsible for them. The power of the child thus appears to be reduced. Consequently, a child would not be capable of assuming the role of a witch. In contrast, in Christian belief, there has been a transformation in the perception of children’s power: previously children were considered too weak to practice witchcraft, as in current Islamic belief. Now, however, their “power” seems to be gaining in strength.

Excerpt 2. The Deliverance of Child Witches [section 4.1 in the full report]

Revivalist churches [subsection 4.1.1]

Since the end of the 1980s, there has been a rise of various religious movements in sub‐Saharan Africa. The most visible groups originate in the large “universal religions”: protestant movements (evangelical, apostolic, Pentecostal, Baptist or Methodist) and the charismatic renewal in Catholicism. In sub‐Saharan cities, the public space is filled with these churches. It is of course necessary to distinguish, state André Mary and André Corten, the “historical” Pentecostal churches (Assemblies of God or Pentecostal Churches), some of whom have been present for over a hundred years, and those churches belonging to the “Pentecostal movement”, such as revivalist, spiritualist or African prophetic churches (2000: 12).

Pentecostalism is a religious movement in which followers claim personal experience of a supernatural force, the Holy Spirit. Generally speaking, Pentecostalists believe that everyone can be saved by faith in Jesus. The force of the Holy Spirit within those who have been truly saved is the most obvious characteristic that distinguishes Pentecostalism from other forms of evangelical Christianity. During services, the Holy Spirit is called upon to descend on the faithful and is a necessary presence in ceremonies.

Followers attend services several times a week that can last many hours and take place in a highly charged atmosphere of singing, prayers, trances, sermons, revelations – testifying and confessions – healing rituals through laying on of hands, miracles and offerings. The “high” points are undoubtedly the public or private deliverance sessions, divine healing and testifying typically related to the forces of evil. Followers’ whole lives centre on their church, which integrates them in a new kind of community, the Pentecostal family. They call each other brothers and sisters. The main message of these churches focuses on their ability to use the presence of the Holy Spirit to fight against the satanic world that is incarnated by witches, evil spirits and ancestral spirits. Pentecostalism takes all these imaginary African characters seriously and gives them a new status through assimilation with Satan. These are of course highly syncretistic churches that have successfully integrated African beliefs into their discourse, as well as certain behaviour, such as trances and possession. According to André Mary and André Corten, Pentecostal discourse gains “its strength and ability to mobilize the two imaginary worlds of public space and invisible forces by intertwining them and inventing a new syntax” (ibid.: 17). By manipulating the forces of good to combat the forces of evil, Pentecostalism operates essentially in the universe of demonization.

Deliverance and the “spiritual war” [subsection 4.1.2]

Most Pentecostal churches (revivalist and charismatic) are centred around a pastor or prophet who claims to have been chosen by God through divine revelation. In their main objective to fight an omnipresent evil (witchcraft is an evil force that is still omnipresent), the pastor‐prophets offer their followers not only a better life – financial prosperity – but above all divine healing and deliverance (from where the commonly named, “healing churches”).

Maman Joséphine L. was born in 1954 and began working in 1974 in response to a miraculous divine calling. In 1997, she began to help children overcome bad spirits through deliverance. In her opinion, it is God who has given her this gift. The bewitching of children is shown to her by a spirit and through prayer. (Aguilar Molina, 2005: 27)

The phenomenon of deliverance is, according to Sandra Fancello, “at the heart of the explosion of Pentecostalism in Africa since the beginning of the 1990s” (2006: 147). The practice of deliverance is at essence based on a dualistic vision of the world between the forces of evil and divine power. It is closely linked with divine healing through the fight against genies and evil spirits that haunt African populations by inflicting physical and psychological harm. The personalization of the image of the demon, notably in the figure of the witch, enables churches to declare a “war against Satan” (Meyer, 1995).

Through increased reliance on therapeutic aspects – the miraculous healing – these churches’ discourse focuses on the healing and salvation of the soul, through “exorcisms” that are often accompanied by singing or performance that reduce anxiety. Many confessions by members involve visions or being possessed by evil spirits. While exorcism and promises of divine or miraculous healing apply to the individual – within the family – “deliverance” often contains a collective dimension, that of spiritual war and liberation from evil forces.

This healing by the Holy Spirit is interpreted as being miraculous, and forms part of the validation or certification procedure of the prophet, who is supposed to be capable of healing all kinds of illnesses. These include diabolic, satanic illnesses that modern medicine (that is, “the white man’s”) cannot cure, such as AIDS, cancer and diabetes. Accounts by people who have been “cured” of AIDS can be heard every day on the radio or television. They give hope to all those who have not yet received this deliverance from God. According to Fancello, “miraculous healing is at the centre of conversion strategies of Pentecostal churches” (2006: 148), but is equally valid for other revivalist churches.

The role of pastor‐prophets and “spiritual” treatment [subsection 4.1.3]

The role of pastor‐prophets in these churches seems to be of major importance in the “anti‐witch hunt”, not only through the possibility of bringing deliverance to people possessed, but also through their ability to identify witches. In several African cities, these pastor‐prophets play an essential role in witchcraft accusations against children. Although they are not always at the origin of the accusation – the person is already suspected by the family or members of the community – they confirm and legitimize the accusation. Numerous articles in the press, videos on the Internet64 and anthropological studies indicate that in Angola,65 CAR, DRC66 and Nigeria,67 as elsewhere in sub‐ Saharan Africa, these pastors detect witches through visions and dreams.

Maman Putu, from the Eben Ezer centre in Kinshasa, calls herself a prophet and explains her gifts in the following terms:

When a child first comes here, I first check the condition of his soul. I’m not only a prophet but also a clairvoyant. I start by praying with the child and then I ask him some questions about his dreams and his food situation. I use references and I can very quickly tell if a child is bewitched or not. (D’Haeyer, 2004: 37)

The “spiritual” treatment can only begin once the child has confessed. The confession is often obtained under duress or violence, as one accused of witchcraft, Bruno, explains:

For three days we were not allowed to eat or drink. On the fourth day, the prophet put our hands above a candle to make us confess. So I admitted the accusations and the harsh treatment stopped. Those who didn’t confess were threatened with whipping. (Interview by Human Rights Watch with Bruno, Kinshasa, 30 September 2005)

In exchange for money, the pastors then propose the “soul cure”, which consists of divine healing and the deliverance of the child. In the language of the Pentecostal churches, a child that is possessed by the evil spirits of “witchcraft” must be delivered “from the forces of darkness”. Deliverance ceremonies can last several days, and generally begin with the laying on of hands and prayers; they regularly transform into extremely violent “exorcisms”. According to de Boeck, “the space of the healing church enables the relocation and reformulation of the physical and psychological violence, sometimes extreme, that the accused child undergoes within the family group. In fact, the child is extracted from the threatening family situation in which his place has become very problematic, to be entrusted to a pastor. There, the treatment is often equally severe, beginning with a period of reclusion or quarantine, which may be individual or collective with other child witches.” (2000: 41)

The “spiritual” treatments described in studies carried out in Angola68 and DRC69 also exhibit a violent nature. The “healing” of children accused of witchcraft varies from one church to the next, and from one region to the next. Children are sometimes isolated in the churches for a period ranging from a few days to several months. During this time, they are forced to fast, deprived of food and water for such long periods that some children die.

The treatment can also consist of swallowing potions, administering perfume, spiced sauces, as well as injecting petrol in the eyes or ears. They are also often beaten.70 The surveys carried out by Ballet, Dumbi and Lallou in Kinshasa offer further evidence of the extreme violence inflicted on certain children. Glodie Mbete, aged eleven, recounts her “deliverance”:

The healing ceremonies took place in the revivalist churches. One pastor burned my body with candles. A prophet mama covered my body with a red cloth. In yet another church, they poured the sap from a tree into my eyes. It stung terribly. The healer said that the witchcraft had gone. My eyes hurt so badly. (Ballet, Dumbi and Lallou, 2007: 15)

In this way, the children are not only stigmatized because they are accused of witchcraft, they are also abused and tortured within the churches. The churches claim to eliminate the evil definitively from the child’s body. However, if the child survives this “spiritual” treatment, he will be stigmatized as being a witch and rejected by his family. The phenomenon of the child witches illustrates, as Facello rightly notes, “the paradox of churches that are themselves caught in the trap of witchcraft accusations while claiming to fight against witches. Between witch and counter‐witch, there is a constant switching of places (2008: 78). Another result is that parents sometimes doubt that their child has been healed after deliverance ceremonies in churches. It is not uncommon that after being initially convinced, after experiencing a single new misfortune, the child is once again accused.

Miracle Merchants [subsection 4.1.4]

All the “spiritual” treatments offered by pastors and prophets belonging to Pentecostal, revivalist and other churches require some form of payment. To my knowledge, no church offers these services for free. While the fee may vary from one church to the next, it is generally higher than most people can afford. For example, one Congolese family, for whom the pastor had detected five cases of witchcraft, had to pay the equivalent of €24 plus a piece of sheet metal for each child. Another family had to pay the equivalent of €27 per child, and so on. (Aguilar Molina, 2005: 29). One young believer explained it thus:

The hard‐earned money of the women selling vegetables in the market goes towards building the pastor’s villas or the upkeep of one or other of his mistresses. (D’Haeyer, 2004: 45)

The earnings from a deliverance ceremony, and also during a regular service when the collection plate goes around, are not insignificant. Consequently, a number of pastor‐prophets, including women, have found their calling in the anti‐witch hunt, as is the case with Prophet Helen Ukpabio in Nigeria. She founded the Liberty Foundation Gospel Ministries, whose primary goal has become the detection and deliverance of child witches. For these pastor‐prophets, “detecting” child witches brings not only money, but also a certain social status and popularity that draws new members and “clients”, and leads to yet more income. Accusations against children therefore form part of this vicious circle of the prophets’ “business” and their status.

According to Marshal‐Fratani (2001), these days, pastor‐prophets are the new models of social success and power. They are associated with wealth, social status, connections with transnational networks and contacts among the political elite. Their conspicuous wealth – clothes, luxury cars, mobile phones and computers, villas, jewellery, etc. – escapes no one. They own television channels and radio stations, and they do not hesitate to advertise themselves, as the following billboard shows:



All this promotion is part of the goal to increase the number of members, who represent their “wealth in numbers”. Without ignoring their social function, while fighting evil, revivalist churches keep their members afraid of their neighbours and promote fatalism rather than action. Furthermore, although pastor‐prophets represent the fighters in the struggle against the forces of evil, they cannot escape from the suspicion that they are in fact collaborating with these forces. “Through healing gestures and other “miracles” that are supposed to replace the “charlatan witch”, these pastors appear to be endowed with the same extraordinary magical powers, and are therefore witches.” (Marshal Fratani, 2001: 43). This brings them, symbolically at least, closer to their direct “competition”, traditional healers.

"Republicanism, Irreligion, Heresy, Paganism, and Sodomy." (Heathen-Minded Humanists, Part Two)

[The Heathen-Minded Humanists: Part One provides the background of the struggle between Pope Paul II and the Roman Academy; Part Two (below) describes the crisis of 1468; Part Three (which I haven't posted yet) presents the denouement, in which all charges are dropped and the Heathen Academy survives intact; Part Four tells the tale of the surprising evidence discovered four centuries later of the literally underground Paganism that existed in Rome in the 15th century; Part Five looks at the other Roman Academy and its head, Cardinal Bessarion.]

Before picking back up where we left off with Ludwing von Pastor's narrative of the struggle waged by Pope Paul II against the forces of Heathenism, here is a more recent summary of these same events, from James Hankins' 1990 study Plato in the Italian Renaissance, Vol. I, pp. 211-212 (notice that Hankins' fashionably modern bias causes him to uncritically accept the charges of political conspiracy, while being just as uncritically dismissive toward the religious aspect of the conflict):

The floodwaters of the conspiracy had evidently been collecting since the early days of the Paul II's pontificate, when the pontiff reorganized the College of the Abbreviators in the chancery in such a fashion as to displace large numbers of humanist functionaries. One of the humanists, Bartolomeo Platina, was so enraged that he composed an absurd and self-important letter in which he threatened the Pope with a council unless he restored the abbreviators to their places. Like other popes of the later Quattrocentro, Paul regarded the promotion of a council as tantamount to treason and revoluation, and so imprisoned Platina in the Castel Sant'Angelo for four months until Cardinal Gonzaga procured his release. Platina, far from being mollified by this [Notice how Hankins passes over in the silence the small matter of Platina having been subjected to torture from the first day of his imprisonment - perhaps that had something to do with how far he was from being "mollified".], joined himself to some other discontented humanists who had been meeting in the house of Pomponio Leto, a well-known Roman educator. It is difficult to say precisely what activities this group engaged in -- many of them appear to have been cardinal's secretaries -- and with what degree of seriousness, but there is good evidence that they wrote salacious homosexual poetry, longed (like Cola di Rienzo and Stefano Porcari) for a return to the Roman republic, muttered treasonously against "papal tyranny", and gave others the impression of holding heretical beliefs. In February of 1468 the Cardinals Fortiguerri and Gonzaga informed the Pope that the Academicians were conspiring against his life, and named "Callimachus" (Filippo Buonaccorsi), Platina, "Petreius" (Pietro Demetrio), and "Glaucus" (Lucio Condulmer) as the ringleaders. The Roman police acted swiftly, making numerous arrests. Platina was incarcerated once more in the Castel Sant'Angelo, and Pomponio Leto, who was standing trial in Venice for sodomy, was brought back in chains for trial. The conspirators were charged with republicanism, irrelegion, heresy, neopaganism, and sodomy. Although Leto and Platina were ultimately acquitted of the charge of heresy and released, the affair kept Rome in turmoil for most of the summer, and the papal legate was still trying to secure Callimachus' extradition from Poland as late as 1470.

But now, let us return to Pastor, who covers the same ground as Hankins, above, but in greater detail, and with far greater interest in and understanding of the religious motivations on both sides of this struggle (emphases are mine):

In the last days of February, 1468, the inhabitants of Rome suddenly learned that the police had discovered a conspiracy against the Pope, and had made numerous arrests, chiefly among the Literati and members of the Roman Academy.

Disquieting reports of various kinds had, for some time, been prevalent in the city, and predictions of the Pope's speedy death had been circulated. Paul II had attached no importance to these rumors, but, after receiving a warning letter from a temporal Prince, he looked on the matter in a more serious light. Hi anxiety increased, and his determination to act was confirmed, when some of the Cardinals also made communications of an alarming character. On the same night an order was issued for the arrest of the ringleaders of the Conspiracy. Four members of the Roman Academy, viz., Callimachus, Glaucus, Petrejus, and Platina, had been named to the Pope as chiefs. The first three, having received intimation of the danger which threatend them, succeeded in making their escape. Callimachus, himself in a letter subsequently written for his own justification, declares that he had at first remained hidden in Rome, and then fled secretly to Apulia.

Others who had been connected with the Academicians were, together with Platina, incarcerated in St. Angelo, and afterwards examined by torture. "Every night someone is arrested," wrote the Milanese Ambassador, Johannes Blanchus, on the 28th Februrary, "and every day the matter is better understood; it is not, as Cardinal Ammanati supposed, a dream, but a reality. The plan would have succeeded if God had not protected the Pope."

It is most interesting to observe the manner in which Paul II himself took the whole affair. Hitherto, we have had little save the somewhat scanty account of his biographer, Canensius, to guide us. He informs us that the Pope had taken measures to make an example of an infamous band of young Romans of corrupt morals and insolent behavior. They had maintained that the Christian religion was a fraud, trumped up by a few Saints, without any foundation in facts. Hence, it was allowable to copy the Cynics, and give themselves up to the gratification of their passions. "These persons," Canensius goes on to say, "despise our religion so much that they consider it disgraceful to be called by the name of a Saint, and take pains to substitute heathen names for those conferred on them in baptism. The leader of this sect, whom whom I will not here name, was a well-known teacher of Grammar in Rome, who, in the first instance, changed his own name, and then those of his friends and disciples in this manner. Some abandoned men associated themselves with him: as for example the Roman, Marcus, who called Asclepiades; the Venetian, Marinus, who is called Glaucus; a certain Petrus, who has styled himself Petreius; and Damian, a Tuscan, who is known as Callimachus. These had bound themselves to murder the Pope."

This account [Canensius, quoted above, which, as Pastor notes, was endorsed by Voigt as well] enables us to look at the affair from the point of view of the Pope's position as "guardian of Faith and Morals," and recently discovered Reports of the Milanese Ambassadors serve yet more clearly to elucidate its significance in this respect. Their independent character, and the direct nature of their testimony, entitle them to be considered as documents of the greatest importance.

[pp. 46-48]

Pastor is now focusing on the details of the Church's "legal" (in the Orwellian sense) proceedings against the Academicians. Fortunately, at one point members of the Italian League requested an Audience with the Pope in order to obtain more accurate information about the nature of the charges and the evidence, and a written account of this event survives from the pens of the Milanese Ambassadors (who even made copies of their notes):

This document makes it perfectly evident that, from the very first, the Pope clearly distinguished between the anti-Christian and immoral life of many Academicians, or their "heresy," as the Ambassadors shortly styled it, and the Conspiracy against his person.

On the first of these points Paul II made some very important statements, representing the Academicians as complete heathens and Materialists. They deny, he said, the existence of God, they declare that there is no other world than this, that the soul dies with the body, and that, accordingly, man may give himself up to the indulgence of his passions without any regard to the law of God; all that is needed is to avoid coming into collision with the temporal power.

Paul II had much more tell of the evil deeds of these Epicureans, who seem, indeed, to have adopted the doctrines promulgated by Valla in his book "on pleasure." They despised the commands of the Church, he said, ate meat on fast-days, and reviled the Pope and the Clergy. They said that the priests were the enemies of the laity, that they had invented fasting and forbidden men to have more than one wife. Moses, they taught, deceived the Jews, his law was a forgery, Christ was a deceiver, Mahomet a great intellect, but also an impostor [the dreaded, semi-legendary Mother of All Heathenish Abominations: The Doctrine of The Three Imposters]. They were ashamed of their Christian names and preferred those which were heathen, and they practiced the most shameful vices of antiquity. Some of these free-thinkers are said to have contemplated an alliance with the Turks. Predictions of the speedy death of the Pope were circulated by them; then there would be a new Election and a complete change in the state of affairs.

[pp. 50-51]

To be continued .....

Related posts from this blog:
The Heathen-Minded Humanists (Part One)
Ficinus. Paganus? More on the religious identity of Marsilio Ficino
On How To Look For Medieval Pagans (Assuming You Actually Want To Find Them)
Michael Psellos: An 11th Century Pagan?
Seek, and ye shall find
Which Plato and Which Platonism?
"Gotta Serve Somebody" Part Deux
"Gotta Serve Somebody" Part Un
Contra Atheos, Part Deux

"The Heathen-Minded Humanists": In Search of Renaissance Pagans

[The Heathen-Minded Humanists: Part One (below) provides the background of the struggle between Pope Paul II and the Roman Academy; Part Two describes the crisis of 1468; Part Three (which I haven't posted yet) presents the denouement, in which all charges are dropped and the Heathen Academy survives intact; Part Four tells the tale of the surprising evidence discovered four centuries later of the literally underground Paganism that existed in Rome in the 15th century; Part Five looks at the other Roman Academy and its head, Cardinal Bessarion.]

Was Paganism alive and well in Europe at the time of the Renaissance? To help answer this question, let us now turn to Ludwig von Pastor (1854-1928), the great German-Catholic historian, and his monumental The history of the popes, from the close of the Middle Ages. Drawn from the secret archives of the Vatican and other original sources, the sixteen volumes of which were published in the years 1886-1930 (the final volume being published posthumously).

The following comes from Volume IV of that work (here is the link to it at Project Gutenberg), in which Pastor describes the religious landscape in the year 1464, when Paul II was installed as Pope (emphases have been added):

The great intellectual movement of the Renaissance was at the time of Paul II still expanding and developing. Through each one of its phases the two currents of heathen and Christian tendency are always clearly discernible, but the attentive observer cannot fail to recognize a considerable difference between its conditions under Nicholas V and under Paul II.

In the time of Nicholas V the genuine and noble Renaissance, which had grown up on Christian principles, and, while embracing classical studies with enthusiasm, had made them subordinate and subservient to Christian aims and ideas, still thoroughly held its own against the other tendency. Subsequently, a change took place and the school which inclined to substitute the heathen ideal of beauty for the central sun of Christianity, became predominant. In the second generation of Humanists that one-sided devotion to classical antiquity, which led to a completely heathen view of life, gained considerably in extent and importance.
Opposition on the part of the highest ecclesiastical authority was inevitable. Even before the accession of Paul II the Church and the heathen Renaissance would already have come into collision, had it not been so extremely difficult to lay hold of this tendency by any external measures. A formal heresy might be condemned, but it was much harder to discern the many byways into which this new, and, in itself, lawful and salutary form of culture had strayed, and any interference with its course would almost necessarily have destroyed not only that which was evil, but also much that was excellent. Moreover, the partisans of the heathen Renaissance carefully avoided any appearance of conflict between their learning and theology, and altogether contrived to assume such an innocent air of dilettantism that it would have seemed ridiculous to attempt to deal seriously with them.

If, however, a case arose which did not admit of being excused as mere harmless classicism, the Humanists at once made the strongest professions of submission to the dogmas of the Church, and either altered or abandoned the theories which had been called in question. Thus, by their very frivolity and utter want of principles, the Literati were able to avoid any serious conflict with authority.

[Pastor, History of the Popes, Vol. IV, pp. 36-37 (Chapter II)]

Ludwig von Pastor then moves on to recount how, with the accession of Pope Paul II, this furtive cat and mouse game between the Heathen Literati and the Church authorities began to more clearly reveal its darker, deadlier side. Toward the end of his reign (in May 1464), the previous Pope (Pius II) had appointed a number of Literati to the College of the Abbreviators of the Chancery. When Paul II became Pope just a few months later (August, 1464), he sacked these Heathenish scholars, many of whom, after the custom of the time, had actually purchased their positions.

For the next 20 days, the aggrieved Humanists staged a kind of protest outside the Papal Palace, demanding an audience with His Excellency. Finally one of their number, known by his pen name of "Platina" (full name: Bartolomeo Sacchi da Piadena) wrote a pamphlet calling on "the Kings and Princes" to assemble a Council before which the Pope would be "constrained" to appear. After hand delivering this work to one of the Pope's closest counsellors, Platina was arrested and tortured for a period of four months, at the end of which "he could hardly stand." The Pope had for a time considered beheading him, but in the end "excused Platina as a madman."

Though released, Platina was required to remain in Rome, and the charges against him remained on the books, so that he remained subject to arrest and torture (and execution) at any time, at the Holy Father's whim. During this time, semi-secret gatherings of members of "the other tendency" began to take place in Rome:

The meeting of these malcontents, and of the heathen-minded Humanists, took place in the house of a scholar well-known throughout Rome for his intellectual gifts and for his eccentricity. Julius Pomponius Laetus was an illegitimate scion of the princely house of Sanseverino, had come to Rome at an early age from his home in Calabria, and had become [Lorenzo] Valla's disciple, and afterward succeeded him as Professor in the University. "Of all the worshippers of antiquity, whose exclusive ideal was ancient Rome and the oldest words of the Latin toungue," he was the most extreme. [Pastor is here quoting from Georg Voigt's Die Wiederbelebung des classischen Alterthums. For more specifics, and for other quotes, see the original at Project Gutenberg.] No scholar, perhaps, ever lived so completely in the heathenism of the past; "the present was to him a mere phantom; the world of antiquity was the reality in which he lived and moved and had his being."

[pp. 41-42]

Pastor goes on to describe the Heathenism of Pomponius in unambiguous terms. "He despised the Christian religion and passionately inveighed against its adherents." And so forth. Pastor then returns to describing the gathering storm of open spiritual warfare, the eye of which was the Roman Academy:

His house on the Quirinal was filled with fragments of ancient architecture and sculpture, inscriptions and coins. Here, in an atmosphere charged with the spirit of heathen Rome, he assembled his disciples and friends. Disputations were held on ancient authors, and philosophical questions, discourses and poems were read, Comedies of Plautus and Terrence were sometimes performed, and an infatuated admiration for the old Republic was cherished. Such was the origin of a "literary sodality," called the Roman Academy, whose object was the cultivation of pure Latinity, and of the ancient national life of Rome. "Pomponius, the founder of the Society, went so far as to refuse to learn Greek, lest he should injure the perfection of his Latin pronunciation."

Around Pomponius, the representative of pagan Humanism, soon gathered a number of young freethinkers, semi-heathen in their views and morals, who sought to make up for their lost faith by a hollow worship of antiquity.

The members of the Academy looked upon themselves as a Confraternity; they laid aside their ordinary names, and adopted ancient ones instead. The original name of Pomponius, who was venerated by all as their leader and teacher, is not even known. Bartolomeo Platina and Filipo Buonaccorsi, who was called Callimachus, are the most noted of the other members. We also hear of Marcantonio Coccio of the Sabine country, called Sabelicus; Marcus Romanus, or Asclepiades; Marinus Venetus, or Glaucus; a certain Petrus or Petrejus; Marsus Cemetrius, Augustinus Campanus, &c.
It may be admitted that this use of heathen names was a mere fancy, for which a parallel may be found in the increasing preference for such names, and even those which were of ill repute, in baptism. But other practices of the Academicians cannot be thus explained. That fantastic "enthusiasm of the adherents of the old Calabrian heathen" found vent in religious practices which seemed like a parody of Christian worship. The initiated constituted their learned Society into "a formal Antiquarian College of Priests of the ancient rite, presided over by a pontifex maximus, in the person of Pomponius Laetus." The sentiments and the conduct of these "pantheistic votaries of Antiquity" were certainly more heathen than Christian. Raphael Volaterranus, in his Roman Commentaries, dedicated to Julius II, plainly declared that the meetings of these men, their antique festivities in honour of the birthday of the City of Rome and of Romulus were "the first step towards doing away with the Faith."

There was certainly grounds for the charges brought against the Academicians of contempt for the Christian religion, its servants and its precepts, of the worship of heathen divinities and the practice of the most repulsive vices of ancient times. Pomponius Laetus was the disciple of Valla, and was certainly an adherent and disseminator of the destructive doctrines of his master. A heathen idea of the State, hostility to the clergy, and the dream of substituting for the existing government of Rome a Republic of the ancient type, prevailed in this circle, together with Epicurean and materialistic views of life. "Experience had already sufficiently shewn that the enthusiastic veneration of the old Roman commonwealth was not unlikely to have practical consequences."
This heathen and republican secret society seemed all the more dangerous in the increasingly excited state of the Roman populace. Many of the youth of the city were ready for any sort of mischief, and numerous exiles lurked on the Neapolitan frontiers. In June of 1465, when Paul II went to war with Count Everso of Anguillara, there was a decided movement in favour of the tyrant. A year later, many adherents of the Fraticelli were discovered; their trial revealed the opposition of their rites and doctrines to those of the Church. Further inquiry shewed that the partisans of this sect were at work no only in the March of Ancona, but also in the Roman Campagna and in Rome itself. There is no proof of any connection between these heretics and the Roman Academy. It is, however, certain that various fanatical demagogues, and some of the angry Abbreviators, held intimate relations with the Academicians, and that in their assemblies strong language against the Pope was freely indulged in. Thus "all the hostile elements of Heathenism, Republicanism and Heresy seemed to have their centre in the Academy."

[pp. 43-46]

What will happen next, Dear Reader? Who will prevail? The Church? The "Heathen and Republican secret society"? And, very importantly, what real evidence do we have to support this rather neat and tidy, almost Manichaean, narrative laid before us by Pastor? All this and more will be revealed soon . . . .

In the meantime you can amuse yourselves with these:
Ficinus. Paganus? More on the religious identity of Marsilio Ficino
On How To Look For Medieval Pagans (Assuming You Actually Want To Find Them)
Michael Psellos: An 11th Century Pagan?
Seek, and ye shall find
Which Plato and Which Platonism?
"Gotta Serve Somebody" Part Deux
"Gotta Serve Somebody" Part Un
Contra Atheos, Part Deux

HAIL NEPTUNE!!

Hear, Neptune, ruler of the sea profound, whose liquid grasp begirts the solid ground;
Who, at the bottom of the stormy main, dark and deep-bosom'd, hold'st thy wat'ry reign;
Thy awful hand the brazen trident bears, and ocean's utmost bound, thy will reveres:
Thee I invoke, whose steeds the foam divide, from whose dark locks the briny waters glide;
Whose voice loud founding thro' the roaring deep, drives all its billows, in a raging heap;
When fiercely riding thro' the boiling sea, thy hoarse command the trembling waves obey.
Earth shaking, dark-hair'd God, the liquid plains (the third division) Fate to thee ordains,
'Tis thine, cærulian dæmon, to survey well pleas'd the monsters of the ocean play,
Confirm earth's basis, and with prosp'rous gales waft ships along, and swell the spacious sails;
Add gentle Peace, and fair-hair'd Health beside, and pour abundance in a blameless tide.

[Homeric Hymn to Poseidon, translation by Thomas Taylor]