Devil
The Devil is the personification of evil as conceived in various cultures and religious traditions. He is seen as the objectification of a hostile and destructive force.
The history of this concept is intertwined with theology, mythology, psychiatry, art and literature, but developing independently within each of the traditions. Historically in many contexts and cultures it is given different names — Satan, Lucifer, Beelzebub, Mephistopheles, Luzbel, Baphomet — attributes and representations. The definition of what a devil is is directly related to each culture.
Etymology
The word comes from the Latin Diabolus. This in turn was borrowed from the Greek διάβολος diábolos, "slanderer". slander" originating from διά diá " through" and βάλλειν bállein "throw" probably similar to Sanskrit gurate, "he raises up".
One version posits that the word «devil» would derive from the Proto-Indo-European language *deiwos, an adjective meaning 'heavenly' or 'resplendent', a pre-Indo-European derivation of the root *diw ('to shine'), relative mainly to the daytime sky. Another remote possibility is the root *diiv ('play').[citation needed]
Use in Spanish
The first time the word diabolo appears in Spanish is in the 10th century Glossas Emilianenses in a marginal gloss that reads: "Elo tercero diabolo . 4;. In the following centuries of the Middle Ages diabolo/devil had more widespread use than its synonym demon, although Gonzalo de Berceo used it with the meaning of genie or mischievous spirit and inferior divinity. It is precisely Berceo who recounts at the beginning of the 13th century the Greek legend of Theophilus in the form of a Jewish cleric who, in order to reach a higher ecclesiastical degree, makes a pact with Satan —who receives the qualifications of "false angel", &# 34;subtle adversary", "mortal enemy", "cative beast" and "maestro savidor"—although the Virgin Mary intervenes and seizes the paper that Teófilo had signed. References to the diabolo/devil appear in the Book of Apolonio, in the Book of Good Love of the Archpriest of Hita —which is also included in the legend of Teófilo— and in the Conde Lucanor of the infante don Juan Manuel.
Names and representations
The most common or well-known names by which the devil is named in the Bible are: Lucifer, Satan, Belial, Samael,[citation required], «ancient serpent», «great dragon», «the black god», «the god of this century» and «the father of lies». In the Dominican Republic and the rest of Latin America, some synonyms have been adopted such as: Diale, Diantre, Diache or Mandinga. In Mexico this character is popularly known as "chamuco".
He is the one who creates and directs the Beast (imperial power structure). The number of the devil, considered the Mark of the Beast, is six hundred and sixty-six (666) and for others it is six hundred and sixteen (616).
Equivalence in other religions
In other cultures and religious beliefs, they also have certain concepts of an evil being or various evil beings, unlike Christianity, Judaism and Islam that the Devil is known as a fallen angel or a demon, in other cultures was known as evil gods and cast out of heaven. According to the legends of other cultures, these gods of evil rebelled against a God or Goddess of creation or various creator gods. Coincidental case as it happens in the biblical stories.
For example in Buddhism, he is known as Mara, who tried to prevent Buddha Siddharta Gautama from reaching enlightenment and destroying the Ego.
In Zoroastrianism, it is known as Angra Mainyu, being the representation of evil, and not necessarily a god or an entity as such.
Regarding Hinduism, in the West it is usually associated with the figure of Yama or Yama, the god of death, the lord of the spirits of the dead and guardian of the underworld; however Yama is not a demonic entity, being rather the "equivalent" of Hindu demons the Asuras.
In pre-Columbian cultures, for example in the Inca culture, the Supay is an ambivalent figure, defined by syncretism, who has been assimilated to the Devil of Christian culture, but who is also worshiped as lord of the depths or Salamanca. Unlike what happens with the Christian Devil, "the indigenous did not repudiate the Supay but feared him, invoked him and worshiped him to prevent him from harming him".
However, there is a legend regarding Lake Titicaca, as being the fall of the human being into sin and that has a certain similarity with the biblical account of Genesis as being the temptation of Adam and Eve.
Legend has it that Lake Titicaca was a fertile valley populated by people who lived happily in peace and harmony. They lacked nothing, the land was rich and provided them with everything they needed. On this earth neither death, nor hatred, nor ambition was known. The Apus, the gods of the mountains, protected these human beings. They did not forbid them more than a single condition: that no one should climb to the top of the mountains where the Sacred Fire burned.
For a long time, these people who inhabited the valley did not think of violating this order of the gods. But Supay, an evil spirit condemned to live in the dark, could not bear to see these people living so peacefully in the valley. He managed to divide men by sowing discord. He asked them to test his courage, to challenge the creator god, Viracocha, to find the Sacred Fire at the top of the mountains.
Then one fine day, at dawn, these people disobeyed and began to climb the top of the mountains, although halfway they were surprised by the Apus.
They understood that the men had disobeyed and decided to exterminate them. Thousands of pumas came out of their caves and devoured these people and they begged the Supay for help. But he remained insensitive to his pleas.
Seeing that, Inti, the god of the Sun or Viracocha, began to cry. His tears were so abundant, until they formed a deluge and that in forty days they flooded the valley.
Only a man and a woman made it to safety on a reed boat. When the sun shone again, the man and the woman did not believe they saw before their eyes, under the blue and pure sky, they were in the middle of an immense lake. In the middle of those waters floated and the pumas that were drowned and transformed into stone statues.
In Andean cultures, such as in the Departments of Oruro and Potosí in Bolivia, miners know him as the uncle of the mine. He is represented with the image of the devil, influence of colonialism and the imposition of Christianity. According to his beliefs, he is the guardian of the mines and his image is venerated by the miners with offerings similar to the saints, although nothing to do with satanic rituals. According to the faith of the miners towards their uncle, it is so that they do not lack their wealth.
The chicua in the Amazonian plain of Peru, according to Amazonian mythology, is considered an evil “devil” sent by some malero sorcerer, or one of these sorcerers who seeks revenge on someone. When it sings near a house, people wonder who that damned bird has come looking for.
In the Mayan culture, the Ajawab or the "lords of the underworld" stand out as those who govern the Xibalbá, known as the underworld. Mainly because of the description of it in the Popol Vuh (Pop wuj, in k'iche'), whose translation would be "Council Book" or "Community Book", discovered in the period after the Spanish conquest in the 18th century, translated into Latin by Fray Francisco Ximénez from a Catholic perspective. Hence, it refers to Xibalbá with much similarity to the christian hell.
However the concept of "evil" it is explicitly depicted in the characteristics of other beings in Mayan mythology, such as Wuqub Qak'ix and his family, or through flaws in the personalities of the first created humans. Xib'alb'a is not then hell, since it represents death and disease, seen as part of existence and not as punishment. It is more accurate to refer to Xib'alb'a as the underworld.
In the Aztec culture Kisín stands out, according to this cosmology, the hell governed by Kisín is actually a kind of purgatory for most people who die: however women who die in childbirth or soldiers killed in battle they should not go through there, and instead the suicides are relegated to remain there for all eternity.
The ancient Maya envisioned it as a skeleton with drooping eyes. His opponent was the god of maize and vegetation, called Ah Mun or Hun-Hunahpu who is often shown with an ear of maize growing on his head.
For the Lacandones, Kisín is "an angry character, who kicks the base of the great ceiba tree when he is in a bad mood, causing earthquakes."
To current popular culture, Kisín has remained a character who lives underground and to whom earthquakes are attributed.
The Guanches, ancient aborigines of the island of Tenerife in the Canary Islands, Spain, singled out Guayota or Guaiota as the main evil entity of their mythology according to the first historians of the Canary Islands.
A modern literary legend, recently popularized but not based on traditional historical sources, tells of a confrontation between Guayota and the supreme god Achamán. Guayota had imprisoned the sun god Magec inside Mount Teide, plunging the whole world into darkness. The Guanches asked Achamán for mercy, who after a fierce fight managed to defeat Guayota, free Magec and plug the crater with Guayota inside.
Representations in images
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The image of the Devil has been depicted in various ways. So far the most popular symbol is a beast (with a tail, horns and goat's feet) with a pitchfork in its hand. Others have reproduced it with the figure of a goat, like the male goat, although distorted. The goat represented the divine-looking Greek god Pan. After the Inquisition, Christian culture associated it with Satan.
It has been associated with different animals, such as the ram, the pig, the crow, the toad, the wolf, the rat, the dragon, the snake and even with a white shark, all images distorted by some superstitions based on to comparisons.
The ram has both characteristics in Christian culture, because of its horns it embodies the Devil but it is also the lamb of God that symbolizes peace.
The pig is considered an unclean mammal and represents one of the seven deadly sins: gluttony.
The raven is a bird of bad omen (predicts and gives bad luck) due to its black plumage, its hoarse cry and its necrophagy. According to some superstitions, when a person died, he took his soul to a dark world. In the Bible there are several passages in which it plays a beneficial role: in the first, Noah releases a raven to check the receding of the waters after the flood. In the second, they are sent by God to support the prophet Elijah in a supernatural way. It is written in the first book of Kings in which it is narrated that the ravens brought him food (bread and meat) twice a day by God's order when he had to hide by the Queritsi stream. For the Mayan and Eskimo cultures, it embodied a sacred animal.
In Christian culture, the toad represented sin and death and, as a demon, could be incarnated. However, in the Aymara culture of the Andes, to date it is considered sacred and good fortune.
In medieval times, the wolf symbolized the incarnation of evil and darkness, although in the Greco-Roman tradition it was one of the ways of representing the god Zeus, considered a sacred and divine animal for other gods such as Mars and Apollo. An example: the wolf that nursed and protected Romulus and Remus.
The case of the monkey was associated with low instincts, sensuality and vices. In contrast, in Indian culture it was one of the avatars of the famous god Shiva of a sacred nature.
From the Middle Ages began the belief that the Devil was incarnated in a black cat. He was the pet preferred by witches, which is why he represented witchcraft. To this day, there is a superstition that if someone crosses a black cat on the road, they will have a day of bad luck. In one of the paintings, the goddess Bastet is depicted with the head of a black cat. However, this feline did not always represent evil; In ancient Egypt, regardless of the color cats had, they were considered sacred and divine, as well as protectors against evil spirits.
The Rottweiler dog breed, originally from Germany, embodied the Devil for its black and fiery yellow color during the Middle Ages. He was killed for that reason. He became popular in 1976 with the horror movie The Prophecy because he was the faithful companion of the Antichrist. The Catholic Church declared San Roque the patron saint of all dogs regardless of race.
In dreams the rat means the face of demons or witchcraft; On the contrary, in India it is considered a sacred animal that represents the vehicle of the god Ganesh.
Christians inherited the Hebrew idea of the dragon. It appears in the Apocalypse of the Apostle John and in other traditions. From the Middle Ages, in art it represents sin and when it appears under the feet of saints and martyrs it manifests the triumph of faith and the Christian kingdoms over the devil. The legend of Saint George and the dragon clearly shows this meaning. In medieval symbolism the idea of fighting dragons served to strengthen the motivation of Christian kingdoms. They represented apostasy, heresy and treason but also anger and envy and foreshadowed great calamities. Several times they signified decadence and oppression, although they also served as symbols for independence, leadership and strength. You can see in some paintings the representation of the Archangel Saint Michael fighting with the Dragon. For some ancient tribes in Europe and the Far East, the dragon was and is considered a sacred animal with a divine appearance and guardian of treasures, it is even associated with wisdom and fortune.
The snake is inspired by Genesis (first book of the Bible). It represents sin, temptation and lies, based on the temptation of Adam and Eve. The image of the Virgin Mary stepping on a snake has been painted. Within the Judeo-Christian culture there are also certain contradictions. The serpent has been associated with the sacred and miraculous looking staff of Moses. In the Far East, the snake is a sign of wisdom and energy, it is a sacred, divine animal and protector against negative energies. For example, the god Shiva in Indian culture is also represented in the form of a snake, especially a cobra.
The white shark manifests for some evil and terror in the waters, even giving it a meaning as the demon of the sea. For example, in the movie Jaws, it became popular as a horror genre and with the intention of causing fear and panic in viewers, considering it an evil fish. On the other hand, the natives or indigenous peoples of Polynesia, to date, consider them sacred animals and the incarnation of gods and the souls of loved ones. According to their beliefs, when these appear near the shore of the beaches, their visit is considered a protection against negative energies.
In other cases, the image of the Devil within Christian culture has been represented simply as an angel fallen from heaven. An example of this is the monument of the Fallen Angel fountain in Madrid. He is also reproduced simply as a man with different physical traits and a cruel or evil psychological attitude.
The devil in different religions
Judaism
In Judaism there is no clear concept about the personification of this character, unlike religions such as Christianity or Islam. In Hebrew, the biblical word ha-Satan means 'the adversary' or 'the obstacle', or also 'the accuser' (recognizing that the god Yahveh is seen as the ultimate judge).
The concept of the devil is taken directly from the Book of Job. In this story, ha-Satan is not a proper name, but the title of an angel subservient to Yahveh; he is the chief prosecutor of the divine court. In Judaism, ha-Satan does no harm, it indicates to Yahveh the evil inclinations and actions of humanity. In essence, ha-Satan has no power as long as humans don't do bad things and God doesn't give him permission. The book of Job recounts that after Yahveh points out Job's piety, ha-Satan asks him for permission to test Job's faith. Job being a just man is afflicted with the loss of his family, his property, and later, his health, but he remains faithful to Yahveh. As a conclusion to this book, God appears like a whirlwind, explaining to those present that divine justice is inscrutable. In the epilogue, Job's possessions are restored and he gets a second family to "replace" his family. to the first, who died.
In the Torah, this persecutor is mentioned several times. An important moment occurs in the incident of the golden calf. The persecutor is responsible for the evil inclination (yetser harah), of all men. In the Torah, he is responsible for the Hebrews building an idol (golden calf) while Moses was on top of Mount Sinai receiving the Torah from Yahveh.. In the Book of Chronicles, the persecutor incites David to take an illegitimate census. In fact, the books of Isaiah, Job, Ecclesiastes and Deuteronomy have passages in which the god Yahveh is shown as the creator of good and evil in the world.
Christianity
According to Christianity, the Devil, also known as Lucifer or Luzbel, is an evil preternatural being who tempts men (a devil). In the New Testament he is identified with the Hebrew Satan of the Book of Job (1:6-8), with the Devil of the Gospel of Matthew > (4:8-10), with the serpent of Genesis (3:1-5) and with the great dragon of Apocalypse (12:9), all as a single character.
Due to the amalgamation of traditions that converge in its construction, its doctrinal meaning is somewhat confusing. In the Book of Job (1:6) the Devil is part of the "sons of God", an expression that comes from the Canaanite mythology of Ugarit. This name was used in the Old Testament to designate the angels or divine emissaries, entities that have a large part of their origin in contact with other religions such as Zoroastrianism and with pagan parallels in Egyptian, Assyro-Babylonian (4th to 1st millennia BC) and Greco-Roman cults. in late Jewish writings (last two centuries before the common era) God is confronted with Satan, since divinity is considered incapable of producing human evils. In this sense, the liberal theologian Uta Ranke-Heinemann considers this belief in the devil as the cause of evil a superstition, although it would fulfill a function: "Man has invented the devil to exonerate himself."
Christian doctrine holds that God is the source and lord of all things, while Satan is a creature, a fallen angel submitted to God and cannot act except with God's permission.
Baha'iism
In the Baha'i faith there is no belief in the existence of a malevolent, superhuman entity such as a devil or satan. However, these terms appear in Baha'i sacred writings, where they are used as metaphors for the lower nature of man. Human beings are considered to have free will and therefore can turn towards God and develop spiritual qualities or turn away from God and immerse themselves in their egocentric desires. Individuals who follow the ego's temptations and do not develop spiritual virtues are often described by the word satanic. Baha'i writings also state that the devil is a metaphor for the "insistent self" or "lower self", which is an egotistical inclination within each individual. Those who follow the lower nature of him are also described as followers of the "Evil One".
Zoroastrianism
In Zoroastrianism, Angra Mainyu (Avesta), also Ahriman or Ariman (Persian اهريمن, Ahriman), whose name means "tormenting spirit" he is the chief of all evil, since "he has introduced limitation, stain, disease in the splendid creation of Ahura Mazda."
In the Bible
Etymology
To refer to this supernatural being, the Hebrew Bible uses the term Satan ('prosecutor in a trial' and, derived from here, 'adversary') with which it refers to the accuser of men before God and the one who incites evil. With this meaning it appears, for example, in Job 1:8-12.
In the 3rd century B.C. C., with the redaction of the Bible of the Seventy, the Greek translators of the Old Testament substituted the Hebrew Satan for the Greek Diabolos (Διάβολος), which means 'accuser' or 'slanderer', a noun that comes from the verb diaballein ('slander, defame') and this in turn from the roots dia ('through') and ballein ('to throw'). The New Testament explains the origin of the Devil as one of Yahweh's angels who became evil (John 8:44). It is inferred that he is a spirit creature of the Angelic family of Yahweh God (Job 1:6 ). According to ancient manuscripts (such as the Latin Vulgate Bible of Saint Jerome), his real name in heaven was Luzbell and his name was changed to Satan (adversary) for being against God, because of the desire for the worship that all intelligent creatures surrendered to the Creator (Matthew 4:9).
Description
The text from Isaiah (Is. 14:12-15) seems to refer to this story. The last verse of this text shows that this account applies to a man (proverbs against the king of Babylon), although it is indirectly directed at Satan (see Isaiah 14:4). The story speaks of his ambition to reach beyond the stars of God, in the Bible the kings of Israel (and later of Jerusalem) of the lineage of David descended from Jacob are usually referred to as 'stars' (Numbers 24: 17).
Another text addresses this issue, and is found in Ezekiel 28:12-19, where a warning is professed about the king of Tyre; which describes very well the origin of the Devil or "Lucifer" (Light carrier). It also speaks that at a certain moment in history, "forever shall cease to be," implying Yahweh's victory over the Devil (Jeremiah 51:44; Haggai 2:6,7).
A third message with similar characteristics is found in Ezekiel 31:1-18. There a message is addressed to the king of Egypt (again with a double message: to the human monarch and at the same time to Satan).
The apostle Peter indicated that the Devil is like a roaring lion that tries to devour those who are ignorant (First Peter 5:8). The book of Revelation also describes the devil as a wrathful being who knows he has a short time left, and that he was cast down to the earth, according to Revelation 12:12.
God as the Devil
Some religious authors throughout history have proposed the notion that the God narrated in the Bible is himself the Devil. Their argument is based on the fact that the biblical God is a divine force that causes suffering, death and destruction and that tempts or leads humanity to commit violence and genocide.
These writings refer to this God variously as "a demiurges", "an evil angel", "the devil god", " the Prince of Darkness", "the source of all evil", "the Devil", Martin Luther "a demon" 34;, "a cruel, wrathful and warlike tyrant", "Satan" and "the first beast of the book of Revelation".
Many of the authors criticize only God described in the Tanakh, in contrast to the "true god" that they claim to see in the New Testament. However, other authors apply their condemnation to the Abrahamic god that joins Judaism, Christianity and Islam.
The authors assert their criticism by referring to certain Biblical passages describing divine actions that they say are evil or diabolical. Many of the authors have been severely punished for their writing, and their followers have been murdered.
The 18th-century Anglo-American philosopher Thomas Paine wrote in The Age of Reason that "every time we read of the bawdy stories, the voluptuous corruption, the cruel and torturous executions, the relentless vengeance, which more than half the Bible is filled with, it would be more consistent for us to call it the word of a demon, rather than the Word of God."