ILLUSTRATES Andre Toma
THIS ARTICLE IS PART OF THE COVER REPORT THE UNIVERSE OF ANGELS AND DEMONS. CHECK OUT THE OTHER PARTS:
+ How is the hierarchy of Catholic angels?
+ How was Lucifer expelled from paradise and turned into Satan?
+ 6 stories of people who had contact with the devil
+ According to demonology, who are the seven leaders of hell?
The Devil is only mentioned with more emphasis in the Bible five times: in the temptations of Eve, Job and Christ, in the final apocalypse and in his “fall”. Therefore, the Bible says little about the appearance of the devil. The image we have of him was created during the expansion of Christianity, assimilating traces of other myths.
1) FACE
There are few descriptions of the devil in the Bible. Everything that Christians considered “evil” was associated with him over the centuries. For example: the goatee and dark skin were inherited from the Muslim Arabs. They were the “enemies” during the Crusades – Christian military movements that stretched from the 11th to the 13th century to conquer the Holy Land. Already the ugly face came from the Egyptian god Bes, who had a scary frown to scare away evil spirits.
2) HAIR
He is sometimes depicted with “rebel” hair. Some academics suggest that this visu was “copied” from the disheveled and dirty hair of the barbarians who invaded Rome from the 4th century onwards. Or even from the Greek god Apollo (considered a pagan idol after the consolidation of Christianity). The hair would represent the wild and bestial nature of the demo.
3) INVERTED PENTAGRAM
The pentagram appears in various cultures throughout history and was even revered by early Christians as a symbol of the five wounds of Jesus. In the 1940s, it became associated with the new religion Wicca. But after occultist Anton LaVey founded the Church of Satan in 1966 and reversed the pentagram, it became an inseparable synonym for the horned one.
4) WINGS
A possible explanation for the wings is in the New Testament: the book of Revelation associates “evil” with a dragon (but does not confirm that the animal is Satan). Another likely origin is in Chinese mythology, whose depictions of dragons were first seen by Christian missionaries in the 16th century. The divine Comedyby Dante Alighieri, which depicts Satan with six wings and eyes.
5) TRIDENT
The trident featured extensively in Renaissance paintings. It is possible that it was “borrowed” from Poseidon, Greek god of the seas, who, in turn, would have been influenced by the triple rays of the Babylonian god Adad, from around 2000 BC Another theory is that it is not a trident, but rather a forked hook, an instrument of torture from the time of the Inquisition.
6) GOAT FEET
The goat’s feet and horns that we know today came from the Greek god Pan. That’s because this deity practiced orgies, and Satan was associated with the use of sex as a way to make men fall into temptation. And also because Pan inhabited wild environments – and, for the Church, these places were the favorites of evil spirits.
7) REPRESENTATION
Studies by historian Henry Ansgar Kelly of the University of California show that in the original text of the Bible, the devil was a type of advocate for God. His role was to persecute and accuse sinners. He only became a “villain” because the Church needed a representation of ultimate evil, as opposed to the goodness of God.
CONSULTANCY Volney Berkenbrock, Doctor of Theology from the University of Bonn, Germany, and Graduate Professor in Religious Science at the Federal University of Juiz de Fora, and Gary E. Gilley, Doctor of Theology from the University of Cambridge
SOURCES Book Satan – A Biographyby Henry Ansgar Kelly, documentariesSatan, Prince of Darkness It is Gates to Hell and academic thesisSpeak of the Devil: A Brief Look at the History and Origins of Iconography of the Devil from Antiquity to the Renaissanceby Eric Williams