George Eliot
has, with her usual penetration, noted this fact in "Silas Marner,"
where, in Mrs. Winthrop's simple theological system, the Trinity is
always referred to as "Them."
[Footnote 1: Hecker, Epidemics of the Middle Ages, p. 85.]
[Footnote 2: Bullinger, p. 348. Parker Society.]
17. The posthumous history of Francis of Assisi affords a striking
illustration of this strange tendency towards polytheism. This
extraordinary man received no little reverence and adulation during his
lifetime; but it was not until after his death that the process of
deification commenced. It was then discovered that the stigmata were not
the only points of resemblance between the departed saint and the Divine
Master he professed to follow; that his birth had been foretold by the
prophets; that, like Christ, he underwent transfiguration; and that he
had worked miracles during his life. The climax of the apotheosis was
reached in 1486, when a monk, preaching at Paris, seriously maintained
that St. Francis was in very truth a second Christ, the second Son of
God; and that after his death he descended into purgatory, and
liberated all the spirits confined there who had the good fortune to be
arrayed in the Franciscan garb.[1]
[Footnote 1: Maury, Histoire de la Magie, p. 354.]
18. (ii.) The second principle is that of the Manichaeists: the division
of spirits into hostile camps, good and evil.
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