(DAVIES, Druids) The Anglo-Saxons, when they received that name, in the very same way as they made Odin into Wodin, would naturally change Sythan into Swythan; and thus, in St. Swithin's day and the superstition therewith connected, we have at once a striking proof of the wide extent of Devil-worship in the heathen world, and of the thorough acquaintance of our Pagan ancestors with the great Scriptural fact of the forty days' incessant rain at the Deluge. If any one thinks it incredible that Satan should thus be canonised by the Papacy in the Dark Ages, let me call attention to the pregnant fact that, even in comparatively recent times, the Dragon--the Devil's universally recognised symbol--was worshipped by the Romanists of Poictiers under the name of "the good St. Vermine"!! (Notes of the Society of the Antiquaries of France, SALVERTE)
Now, as the Pagan Pontifex, to whose powers and prerogatives the Pope had served himself heir, was thus the High-priest of Satan, so, when the Pope entered into a league and alliance with that system of Devil-worship, and consented to occupy the very position of that Pontifex, and to bring all its abominations into the Church, as he has done, he necessarily became the Prime Minister of the Devil, and, of course, came as thoroughly under his power as ever the previous Pontiff had been. *
* This gives a new and darker significance to the mystic Tau, or sign of the cross. At first it was the emblem of Tammuz, at last it became the emblem of Teitan, or Satan himself. How exact the fulfilment of the Divine statement that the coming of the Man of Sin was to be "after the working or energy of Satan." Here, then, is the grand conclusion to which we are compelled, both on historical and Scriptural grounds, to come: As the mystery of godliness is God manifest in the flesh, so the mystery of iniquity is--so far as such a thing is possible--the Devil incarnate. Note
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Attes, the Sinner
We have seen that the name Pan signifies "to turn aside," and have concluded that as it is a synonym for Hata, "to sin," the proper generic meaning of which is "to turn aside from the straight line," that name was the name of our first parent, Adam. One of the names of Eve, as the primeval goddess, worshipped in ancient Babylon, while it gives confirmation to this conclusion, elucidates also another classical myth in a somewhat unexpected way.