Latest / Theology Made Podcast / The Saint Who Invented the Devil We Know

Transcript

The Saint Who Invented the Devil We Know · Theology Made Podcast

• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Theology Made Podcast.
• 0:08
  I'm Jordan,
• 0:09
  and today we're going to look at the saint who invented the
• 0:12
  devil we know.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: If I asked you to picture the devil, what would you see?
• 0:20
  Horns,
• 0:21
  red skin,
• 0:22
  pointed tail,
• 0:23
  a pitchfork in one hand,
• 0:25
  a grin like he just told a dirty joke.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: But that's not the picture in history.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: Before the Middle Ages, Satan didn't look like that.
• 0:32
  He didn't have horns,
• 0:33
  there was no tail,
• 0:34
  and there was thankfully no red tights.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: The devil you know today,
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: he's less a biblical figure and more a medieval invention,
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: shaped by monks,
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: molded by artists,
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: and paraded through city streets by actors in heavy costumes.
• 0:49
  This is the story of how one saint's imagination and centuries
• 0:52
  of creative
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: borrowing gave the devil his face.
• 0:55
  In early Christian art,
• 0:56
  in the first and second centuries,
• 0:58
  the devil was a shapeshifter.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: He wasn't the fixed figure we know today,
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: but a fluid,
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: unsettling presence that could take on many forms.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: In the third century catacombs in Rome,
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: he appeared as a serpent,
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: which is a deliberate nod to Genesis 3,
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: where the tempter's power is subtle,
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: coiled,
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: and whispered rather than roared.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: And these underground frescoes,
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: painted by persecuted believers,
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: weren't concerned with horns or tails.
• 1:23
  They were focused on the story,
• 1:25
  the act of deception,
• 1:26
  more than on giving evil a permanent face.
• 1:29
  And by the 6th century,
• 1:31
  the Rabbulah Gospels from Syria offered a very different
• 1:33
  portrayal.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: Here,
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: Satan is shown as a dark,
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: winged angel,
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: a fallen figure still bearing the remnants of celestial glory.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: His beauty is shadowed, his wings now a reminder of what he once was.
• 1:46
  And this image was drawn from Ezekiel 28's lament over the
• 1:49
  anointed cherub and
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: Isaiah 14,
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: the fallen morning star.
• 1:55
  It was blending biblical poetry with the Eastern Church's
• 1:57
  visual imagination.
• 1:59
  And in the shimmering Byzantine mosaics of places like Ravenna
• 2:02
  and Constantinople,
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: the devil sometimes looked,
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: well,
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: human.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it was twisted, angular, kind of a monstrous hybrid, right?
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: Claws, fangs, and strange animal features, but still sort of human-ish.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: And there wasn't a single costume.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: Each artist,
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: they shaped him to match the theological mood of the scene,
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: a deceiver,
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: a destroyer,
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: a corrupting presence,
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: a tempter.
• 2:25
  And part of this variety is because the Bible itself gives no
• 2:28
  fixed image of Satan.
• 2:30
  The term Satan in Hebrew is a title,
• 2:32
  and it simply means accuser or adversary.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_00: In Job,
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_00: the Satan is a courtroom prosecutor,
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: a spiritual attorney arguing that human righteousness is an illusion.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: it's actually unlikely that that really is the devil as we know today.
• 2:45
  In Matthew 4,
• 2:46
  he's a tempter,
• 2:47
  persuasive,
• 2:48
  persistent,
• 2:49
  wielding scripture itself as a weapon.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: In 1 Peter 5, he's compared to a roaring lion.
• 2:54
  That's danger personified,
• 2:55
  but also a predator who hunts by patience and opportunity.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: In Revelation 20,
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: he's the deceiver of nations,
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: a global saboteur,
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: chained and released at key moments in the cosmic story.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: For the early church,
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: the point wasn't to agree on what the devil looked like,
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: but to understand what he did.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: Evil wasn't a mask or a color scheme.
• 3:14
  It was active,
• 3:15
  an intelligent force that corrupted,
• 3:17
  accused,
• 3:18
  tempted,
• 3:19
  and lied.
• 3:20
  Meaning,
• 3:21
  the early church,
• 3:22
  they feared his work far more than his wardrobe.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: By the late 4th century,
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: the deserts of Egypt,
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: Palestine,
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: and Syria were home to a new kind of Christian,
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: the monk.
• 3:31
  They lived in caves,
• 3:33
  crude huts,
• 3:33
  or isolated cells,
• 3:35
  seeking a life stripped of distraction.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: But far from escaping the battle,
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: they believed they had moved to the front line of a war you couldn't see.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: These monks began describing spiritual warfare in almost cinematic terms.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: One of the earliest and most influential voices was Leverius Ponticus.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: Drawing from years in the desert,
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: He catalogued eight evil thoughts that attacked believers,
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: and they were not abstract temptations,
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: they were personified enemies.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: Gluttony that whispered about food during fasting hours.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: Lust that painted vivid mental pictures in the mind's eye.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: Vainglory that dangled visions of reputation and applause.
• 4:13
  He described them like assailants testing the monastery gates,
• 4:16
  looking for weaknesses.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: And then came John Cassian,
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: a monk,
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: theologian,
• 4:20
  and bridged between the Eastern Desert tradition and the
• 4:23
  growing monastic movement
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: in the West.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: And his institutes and conferences became spiritual classics,
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: copied and read in monasteries for centuries.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: Cassian wrote about temptation as a strategic siege.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: Demons were not chaotic, they were disciplined.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: They studied the believers' habits,
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: leaned into and learned the weak points,
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: and attacked at opportune times.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: He would describe them as cunning generals,
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: directing skirmishes,
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: and patient hunters willing to stalk for days or years.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: This wasn't the devil of vague superstition.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_00: Cassian made him personal.
• 4:55
  A thinking adversary who sets traps,
• 4:57
  changed tactics,
• 4:58
  and adapted like a master strategist.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: What Cassian didn't do was give the enemy goat legs or horns.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: But in making him a character with intellect,
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: intent,
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: and malice,
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: he gave later generations something priceless.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: Permission to imagine.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: to paint,
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: carve,
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: dramatize,
• 5:19
  and costume the enemy in ways that could communicate his danger
• 5:22
  to the illiterate
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_00: and the learned alike.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: And his influence stretched through medieval monasticism,
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: especially in Benedictine circles,
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: where his works were read alongside scripture.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_00: So this was fertile soil, ready for artists.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: and preachers to grow a devil the world could see.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: The leap from concept to costume began in the 10th to 12th centuries,
• 5:44
  a period when Christian Europe was visually reimagining almost
• 5:48
  every part of its
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: theology.
• 5:49
  An artist needed a visual shorthand for evil that could be
• 5:52
  instantly recognized
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: even by the illiterate.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: And they found it ready-made in the leftover imagery of pagan mythology.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: For the Greek world came Pan, horned, goat-legged, and wild-eyed.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: In ancient art,
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: Pan roamed the hills playing his reed pipes,
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: a god of fertility,
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: lust,
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: and chaos.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: His appearance was the perfect embodiment of untamed, dangerous appetite.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: And then from Roman culture came the faun and the sedar.
• 6:16
  Mischievous woodland spirits with goat legs and human torsos
• 6:19
  often painted in the
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_00: company of wine,
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: revelry...
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: These figures were already morally suspect in the Christian imagination.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: They represented a world outside of God's order.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: And by fusing these traits with the theological identity of the devil,
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: medieval artists created an instantly recognizable villain.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: Horned, signaling bestial power and rebellion.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: Cloven-hooved, making him not fully human, alien to God's design.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: Hairy and wild, the opposite of order.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: Cultivated world of Christian virtue.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: And the message was visual and immediate.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: This is the enemy of your soul.
• 6:54
  And one of the earliest surviving examples of the full hybrid
• 6:58
  is found in the Hortis.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: Delicious run.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: Illustrated compendium compiled by the Abbas Herod of Landsberg.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_00: In Alsace.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: In it,
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: the devil appears as a horned,
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: clawed creature,
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: part man,
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: part beast,
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: presiding over the torments of the damned.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: This was no vague shadow.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: It was a fully realized character,
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_00: drawn in colors and lines,
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_00: bold enough to be understood,
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_00: without a single word of text.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: The red skin...
• 7:26
  we associate with the devil today came later,
• 7:28
  solidifying in the Gothic period.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_00: It was tied to two convergent ideas.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: First,
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_00: hellfire imagery from apocalyptic preaching,
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: where the devil ruled over a kingdom of flame.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: And then second,
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: Gothic art symbolism,
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: the use of red for danger,
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: sin,
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: and blood,
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_00: a visual warning that then was burned into the medieval imagination.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_00: And by the close of the 12th century,
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_00: the devil had moved from this abstract adversary to a costumed,
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_00: codified character.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_00: A face and form that could be carried into cathedrals,
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: carved into stone,
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: painted on walls,
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: and paraded through the streets in trauma.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_00: The real branding of the devil didn't happen in...
• 8:07
  monastery scriptoria or in the quiet turning of illuminated
• 8:10
  pages it actually
• 8:12
  happened in the streets from the 12th to the 16th century towns
• 8:16
  and cities across
• 8:17
  europe they hosted mystery plays these were massive public
• 8:20
  performances of biblical
• 8:22
  stories stage in marketplaces and open squares they were part
• 8:26
  religious education
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: part community spectacle
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_00: And guilds,
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: churches,
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: and even local governments sponsored them,
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_00: transforming entire towns into open-air theaters.
• 8:35
  And for a largely illiterate population,
• 8:39
  these plays were the Bible in 3D.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_00: Noah's Ark would roll past on a cart.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: Angels would descend from mechanical heaven rigs.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_00: The crucifixion would unfold in the town square.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: And somewhere in almost every cycle, the devil would make his entrance.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: Stage directions from the Chester Mystery Plays,
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_00: one of the best preserved English cycles,
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_00: call for a foul devil in horrible array,
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_00: wielding a fork.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: It wasn't subtle.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: Costumes featured horns,
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_00: tails,
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_00: fur,
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_00: grotesque leather or papier-mâché mass,
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: and claws exaggerated for effect.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes the mass had hinged jaws that snapped open and shut.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_00: The pitchfork,
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_00: which became one of the devil's most enduring props,
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: was probably borrowed from Neptune's trident in classical imagery.
• 9:16
  On stage,
• 9:17
  it served a double duty,
• 9:18
  a weapon for jabbing sinners,
• 9:19
  and a comic device.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_00: for poking fellow actors or chasing townsfolks through the crowd.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_00: And these devils didn't just glow where they performed.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_00: They shouted insults at the audience,
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_00: they taunted saints,
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_00: and engaged in slapstick with demons and fools.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: In the French mystery to them,
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_00: the devil enters with swagger,
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_00: mocking Adam and Eve before the fall.
• 9:40
  In German,
• 9:40
  devils scurry around in chaos,
• 9:42
  tripping over each other and mock incompetence.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: Audience loved the mix of menace and humor.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_00: The devil could terrify,
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_00: looming over the crowd with a booming voice and monstrous form,
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: but he could also make them laugh,
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: slipping on stage props,
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: or losing a battle of wits to a quick-thinking angel.
• 9:56
  And by the late Middle Ages,
• 9:57
  the theatrical devil was a fixture of public imagination.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: Horns, tails, pitchforks, and wild antics weren't just stage devices.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: They became the default mental image of evil in the Western world,
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_00: a picture that would persist for centuries.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_00: Major Tristar didn't just borrow the theatrical devil from the streets.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_00: It amplified it.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_00: Once the horns,
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: tails,
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: and claw made their way into church walls and manuscript pages,
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: they carried not just entertainment value,
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_00: but the theological weight.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_00: The devil's look was no longer just a prop.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_00: It became a sermon in stone and paint.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_00: Take the Otten Cathedral in Burgundy.
• 10:28
  In the last judgment scene,
• 10:29
  a horned Satan crouches at the scales,
• 10:31
  weighing human souls.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_00: His elongated, clawed fingers...
• 10:35
  pull the balance towards damnation while angels fight to tip it
• 10:39
  back every pilgrim
• 10:40
  entering the cathedral saw him there a reminder that evil was
• 10:43
  not abstract but
• 10:44
  watchful and cunning and in the hours of catherine of cleves
• 10:48
  one of the most richly
• 10:49
  illuminated books of hours ever made hell is imagined as a vast
• 10:52
  furnace devils
• 10:53
  painted in deep reds and smoky blacks prod the dam into flames
• 10:56
  with pitchforks the
• 10:57
  devils themselves are hybrids of the theatrical and the
• 11:00
  grotesque with bulging eyes
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_00: forked tongues and curling horns
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_00: These aren't anonymous monsters.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: They're individuals, each with its own twisted personality.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: And then came Hieronymus Bosch,
• 11:10
  the Dutch master whose paintings like The Last Judgment and The
• 11:12
  Garden of Earthly
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_00: Delights turned hell into a surreal,
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_00: almost cinematic nightmare.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: He filled his panels with horned grotesque and impossible hybrids,
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: fish-headed demons,
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_00: bird-legged torturers,
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_00: swollen bodies with human faces.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_00: His devils were not merely symbolic,
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_00: they were psychological portrayals of temptation and corruption,
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_00: bizarre as they might be.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_00: And by the Renaissance, this visual language was set in stone.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_00: Horns, hooves, tails, pitchforks.
• 11:38
  It was recognizable from Italy to England,
• 11:40
  and it wasn't confined to Catholic imagery.
• 11:42
  Protestant reformers embraced the same iconography in their
• 11:45
  woodcuts and pamphlets,
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: now using the devil to lampoon theological opponents.
• 11:50
  Catholic clergy were often drawn with horns and tails in
• 11:53
  Reformation propaganda.
• 11:55
  Protestants found themselves similarly caricatured in Catholic
• 11:58
  broadsheets.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_00: The devil,
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_00: he became a weapon in the war of images,
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_00: an instant,
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_00: understood accusation that needed no words.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_00: And by this point,
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_00: the devil of medieval theater,
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_00: cathedral sculptures,
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_00: manuscript illumination,
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: and polemical print was all the same.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: The shapeshifter of early Christian art had been replaced by a single,
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_00: locked-in brand,
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_00: the devil as we still picture today.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_00: And the image endured because it worked.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_00: It was memorable, even the illiterate knew it at a glance.
• 12:24
  Fearsome,
• 12:25
  grotesque enough to warn,
• 12:26
  and mockable in plays he was a clown as much as a villain.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_00: But there was also a theological risk.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_00: By making evil look like something obvious and external,
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: it was easier to miss the subtle internal reality,
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_00: the kind C.S.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_00: Lewis would later warn us about in the screw tape letters.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_00: From Cassian's writings to mystery plays,
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_00: pagan gods to cathedral carvings,
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: the devil's costume is a medieval creation.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_00: Part theology, part theater, part cultural recycling.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_00: And the devil you picture today isn't the one the Bible describes.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_00: It's the one the Middle Ages taught you to see.
• 12:55
  And perhaps that's the greatest trick of all,
• 12:57
  to make us think we'd recognize him if we saw him.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_00: when the real danger might look nothing like the costume.