Editing Horned God (section)

====Influences from literature====
The popular image of the Greek god [[Pan (god)|Pan]] was removed from its classical context in the writings of the [[Romantics]] of the 18th century and connected with their ideals of a pastoral England. This, along with the general public's increasing lack of familiarity of [[Greek mythology]] at the time led to the figure of Pan becoming generalised as a 'horned god', and applying connotations to the character, such as benevolence that were not evident in the original Greek myths which in turn gave rise to the popular acceptance of Murray's hypothetical horned god of the witches.<ref name=triumph/>

{{Main|Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches#Influence on Wicca and Stregheria}}
[[File:Lucifer Liege Luc Viatour.jpg|thumb|276x276px|[[Lucifer]] ''([[Le génie du mal]])'' by [[Guillaume Geefs]] (Cathedral of St. Paul, [[Liège]], Belgium)]]
The reception of ''Aradia'' amongst Neopagans has not been entirely positive. Clifton suggests that modern claims of revealing an Italian pagan witchcraft tradition, for example those of [[Leo Martello]] and [[Raven Grimassi]], must be "match[ed] against", and compared with the claims in ''Aradia''. He further suggests that a lack of comfort with ''Aradia'' may be due to an "insecurity" within Neopaganism about the movement's claim to authenticity as a religious revival.<ref name="Clifton">
{{Cite book
|title=The Paganism reader
|publisher=Routledge
|first=Chas
|last=Clifton
|author2=Harvey, Graham
|year=2004
|isbn=0-415-30353-2}}
</ref>{{rp|61}}

Valiente offers another explanation for the negative reaction of some neopagans; that the identification of [[Lucifer]] as the god of the witches in ''Aradia'' was "too strong meat" for Wiccans who were used to the gentler, romantic paganism of Gerald Gardner and were especially quick to reject any relationship between witchcraft and [[Satanism]].<ref name="Valiente61">{{Cite book |title=The Rebirth of Witchcraft |publisher=Robert Hale Ltd |first=Doreen |last=Valiente |year=2007 |isbn=978-0-7090-8369-6 }} Quoted in
* {{Cite book |last=Clifton |first=Chas |author2=Harvey, Graham |year=2004 |title=The Paganism Reader |publisher=Routledge |isbn=0-415-30353-2 |page=61}}</ref>

{{main|Witch-cult hypothesis#Post-Murray}}
In 1985 Classical historian [[Georg Luck]], in his ''Arcana Mundi: Magic and the Occult in the Greek and Roman Worlds'', theorised that the origins of the Witch-cult may have appeared in late antiquity as a faith primarily designed to worship the Horned God, stemming from the merging of [[Cernunnos]], a horned god of the Celts, with the Greco-Roman [[Pan (god)|Pan]]/[[Faunus]],<ref name="LuckArcana" /> a combination of gods which he posits created a new deity, around which the remaining [[pagan]]s, those refusing to convert to Christianity, rallied and that this deity provided the prototype for later Christian conceptions of the [[Devil]], and his worshippers were cast by the Church as witches.<ref name="LuckArcana" />