playing the part of God); but at the same time he pursued an
independent and vigorous papal policy, foreshadowing in his
aims both the pretensions of Gregory the Great and the
Crusades."

MADAM LUCIFER

BY RICHARD GARNETT

Perhaps the most fascinating--and the most dangerous--character in the
infernal world is this _Mater tenebrarum_--Our Lady of Darkness. "A
lady devil," says Daniel Defoe, "is about as dangerous a creature as
one could meet." When Lucifer fails to bring a man to his fall, he
hands the case over to his better half, and it is said that no man has
ever escaped the siren seductions of this Diabo-Lady. A poem, _The
Diabo-Lady, or a Match in Hell_, appeared in London in 1777.

According to Teutonic mythology, this diabolical Madonna is the mother
or the grandmother of Satan. The mother or grandmother of Grendel, the
Anglo-Saxon evil demon, became Satan's mother or grandmother by
adoption. A mother was a necessary part of the devil's equipment.
Having set his mind to equal Christ in every detail of his life, Satan
had to get a mother somehow. In his story "The Vision Malefic" (1920)
Mr. Huneker tells of the appearance of this counterfeit Madonna on a
Christmas Eve to the organist of a Roman Catholic church in New York.
Partly out of devotion to her and partly also because he could not
obtain the sacramental blessing of the Church, Satan was forced to
remain single. In the story "Devil-Puzzlers" by Fred B. Perkins the
demon Apollyon appears as an old bachelor. "I have a mother, but no
wife," he tells the charming Mrs. Hicok. The synagogue was more
lenient towards the devil. The rabbis did not hesitate to perform the
marriage ceremony for the diabolical pair. According to Jewish
tradition the chief of the fallen angels married Lilith, Adam's first
wife. She is said to have been in her younger days a woman of great
beauty, but with a heart of ice. Now, of course, she is a regular
hell-hag. If we can trust Rossetti, who painted her Majesty's
portrait, she still is a type of beauty whose fascination is fatal.
This woman was created by the Lord to be the help-meet of Adam, but
mere man had no attraction for this superwoman. She is said to have
started the fight for woman's emancipation from man, and contested
Adam's right to be the head of the family. Their married life was very
brief. Their incompatibility of character was too great. One fine
morning Adam found that his erstwhile angel