Te Devil, Superstition, and the Fragmentation of Magic
"Both Reformations, Protestant and Catholic, shared a common concern
with reforming popular practice and belief. Above all, this meant cleaning away
the superstition and popular magical practice that encrusted everyday life.13
Whereas the medieval church had tolerated much of this, the reforming energies of the era from 1400 to 1700 saw such practices as far from harmless: they
were nothing less than idolatry, the greatest of sins.
This emphasis on idolatry marked a major shift in consciousness, which
John Bossy characterizes as the move from a morality based on avoiding the
seven deadly sins to one observing the Ten Commandments.14 A new theology15 emphasized God’s absolute sovereignty, and with it a new and increasingly
onerous conception of fundamental human sinfulness. These changes predated
the Reformation and were shared by both main confessional streams. Whereas
the old morality had emphasized sins against society, the new emphasized sins
against God, and stressed how unknowable, terrifying, and unapproachable he
was. Nothing angered him more than idolatry: his first two commandments
were devoted to condemning it. And as God grew more terrifying, so did the
devil. In the old morality he had been the enemy of sociability, comical as often
as not, but the new conception set him up as God’s rival, the goal of all idolatry,
the titanic rebel angel whose greatest wish was to be worshiped himself.16"