Man was torn asunder.
But the devil was not only feared, he was also worshipped. A
devil-worship, the details of which have been little studied, existed
from the tenth to the fourteenth century (when it reached its climax),
side by side with the worship of God. The greater the dread of heresy
and witchcraft, the greater became the number of men who, despairing of
salvation, prostrated themselves before the devil, whom they seemed
unable to escape (a single evil thought was sufficient to doom their
souls to eternal damnation), in the hope that he would at least save
their bodies from the stake and vouchsafe them the pleasures of this
world. Satan promised his worshippers unlimited pleasure; he became the
redeemer of those whom the clergy persecuted. It is asserted that his
worship consisted in an obscene parody of the Mass; according to
Michelet, the body of a female worshipper served as the altar on which a
toad was consecrated and partaken of instead of the Host. The adept
solemnly renounced Jesus and did homage to Satan by kissing his image.
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