In the
beginning God created the heavens and the earth (Genesis 1:1). Before the
beginning God created Heaven and His angels. Before the beginning Lucifer was
an angel, the most beautiful of all and he fell. Thus creating Hell and its
demons in his fellow brethren who fell. The first mention of Lucifer in the
Christian Bible is only three chapters into the first book. The Devil has
always been a part of the Christian faith but in the middle ages Augustine “heightened
the Christian awareness of the devil’s powers so that they seemed second only
to those of God” (Kors and Peters 7). He gave the masses a reason to be scared
at night and he gave them a reason to turn towards the Church and seek refuge
both spiritually and with their pocket books. He was literally scaring the fear
of God into them claiming that “Satan commanded a host or army of subordinate
demons” (Kors and Peters 7). Which is not technically a lie according to the
Holy Bible. Another medieval folktale about Lucifer is that he had trained his minions
to “have sexual intercourse with human beings” (Kors and Peters 8) and
therefore creating a race of giants called Nephilim. The Nephilim were
creatures not only of great stature but also of great strength and life
longevity. Yet, to tempt a human being you would think that the demons would
look like the knurled and disgusting figures like they were painted. For
instance in Page’s book on page 37 there are three different images of demons
and all three show them as haunting beast-like creatures, not something or
someone who could seduce a human. So what I’m curious about is the true essence
of demons. We were taught as well as the people from the middle age to fear a
terrifying face, but if the Lord of Hell was condemned because he “became proud
on account of [his] beauty” (Ezekiel 28:17) what would the physical
manifestation of evil look like?
JenaLee, I really like your post, especially the last sentence which points to Ezekiel and how Lucifer's vanity caused his fall. This is so ironic, as you point out, because the paintings of Satan and demons are so grotesque. This really does warrant a moment's pause to wonder, if Satan is/was prideful of his beauty then would he truly match the images in common paintings, or even the picture in the Gigas Codex, who's tale of origin claims it was written by someone who had personally sold their soul to the devil. If this tale is true, would that individual not have a somewhat clear perception of Lucifer?
ReplyDeleteGreat question. There are countless times in which it has been uttered, "That is what evil looks like." In that context, it did not matter how much beauty (physically) they possessed or were surrounded by. The actions and results can be profoundly ugly and outweigh infinitely what is considered beauty. Physical manifestation of evil is subjective to culture and such, but universally, there is an undeniable vehemence of evil defined that demonstrates power over others in unthinkable ways that we have seen throughout history that continue to be written in unimaginable ways (genocide, serial killers, serial rapists, people that punch puppies, etc.). The contrived inspiration of said evil is just a veiled excuse to be that of which already resided in the heart. Additionally, we tag evil to an entity we preconceive as having an understanding of the world around them. Does evil not extend to the whole animal kingdom, to matter of which we haven't quite comprehended yet?
ReplyDeleteThanks, JenaLee for adding that commentary on the Devil and his origins. We will resume this conversation many times t/o the year. One thing that will be interesting is how we use Roper to provide a different view of what the Devil looked like, as determined by women's confessions. I think you will all be surprised!
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