d Diana by witches was condemned by a Church Council atAncyra. Pipernus and other writers have noted the evident identity of Herodias with Lilith. Isis preceded both. Diana is very vigorously, even dramatically, set forth in this poemas the goddess of the god forsaken and ungodly, of thieves, harlots, and,truthfully enough, of the 'minions of the moon,' as Falstaff would have fain had them called. It was recognized in ancient Rome, as it is in modern India, that no human being can be so bad or vile as to have forfeited all right to divine protection of some kind or other, and Diana was this protectress. It my be as well to observe here, thatamong all free thinking philosophers, educated parias, and literary or book bohemians, there has ever been a most unorthodox tendency to believethat the faults and errors of humanity are more due (if not altogether due)to unavoidable causes which we cannot help, as, for instance, heredity,the being born savages, or poor, or in vice, or unto 'bigotry and virtue'in excess, or unto inquisitioning - that is to say, when we are so over burdened with innately born sin that all our free will cannot set us free from it. It was during the so called Dark Ages, or from the downfall of the Roman Empire until the thirteenth century, that the belief that all whichwas worst in man owed its origin solely to the monstrous abuses and tyrannyof Church and State. For then, at every turn in life, the vast majority encountered downright shameless, palpable iniquity and injustice, with nolaw for the weak who were without patrons. The perception of this drove vast numbers of the discontented into rebellion, and as they could not prevail by open warfare, they took their hatred out in a form of secret anarchy, which was, however, intimately blended with superstition and fragments of old tradition. Prominent inthis, and naturally enough, was the worship of Diana the protectress, forthe alleged adoration of Sa...
