title: Blake Bortles

text: During Week 3, Bortles made his NFL debut when he came in relief of Chad Henne in the second half of a 44–17 blowout loss to the Indianapolis Colts. He went on to complete 14-of-24 passes for 223 yards, two touchdowns, and two interceptions. Following the game, head coach Gus Bradley named Bortles the starter going forward. In the next game, Bortles made his first NFL start against the San Diego Chargers. He ended the game 29-of-37 for 253 yards, one touchdown, and two interceptions in a 33–14 road loss. His 78.4 percent completion percentage set a record for a rookie quarterback's first start. Two weeks later against the Tennessee Titans, he produced 336 yards on 32-of-46 passes (three franchise rookie records), but the Jaguars lost 14–16 due to a blocked field goal. During Week 13 against the New York Giants, Bortles threw for 194 yards, with one touchdown and no interceptions and 68 rushing yards in the Jaguars' largest comeback win in franchise history. They narrowly won 25–24 after trailing by 21 points. Three weeks later, he led the Jaguars to a "Thursday Night Football" 21–13 victory over the Titans. He completed 13 of 26 passes for a touchdown and no interceptions along with 50 rushing yards.


title: Blake Bortles

text: Bortles established himself as a dual-threat quarterback in his rookie season by rushing for 20 or more yards seven times in 2014, second only to Russell Wilson of the Seattle Seahawks. However, he also led the NFL and set franchise records in taking 55 sacks for 345 yards lost, and compiled a 3–10 record as a starter.


title: Blake Bortles

text: Bortles, after having a strong preseason in his second year, started the 2015 season slow with a touchdown and two interceptions in the season-opening 20–9 loss to the Carolina Panthers. In the next game, he led the Jaguars on a comeback drive against the Miami Dolphins to seal their first victory of the season. Bortles threw for 273 yards and two touchdowns with no interceptions. During Week 5 against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Bortles threw for a then-career-high four touchdowns for 303 yards along with 21 rushing yards. However, this was not enough as the Jaguars lost 38–31. During Week 13, he broke the Jaguars single game record with five touchdown passes in a 42–39 road loss to the Tennessee Titans.


title: Blake Bortles

text: The Jaguars finished with a 5–11 record in 2015, and Bortles again led the league in sacks taken (51) and interceptions thrown (18). However, the season was also a success for the second-year quarterback in many ways. Bortles set the Jaguars single-season franchise records for passing touchdowns (35), passing yards, (4,428), pass completions (355), and pass attempts (606). His 90-yard touchdown throw to Allen Robinson in Week 16 was the longest in the NFL that year. His passer rating was above 80 in eleven games, and he threw a touchdown pass in the Jaguars' first 15 games of 2015, a franchise record. After throwing no touchdowns in the regular season finale, he shared second place with Eli Manning, Cam Newton, and Carson Palmer, behind only Tom Brady's 36. He was also seventh in the NFL in passing yards with 4,428, behind Drew Brees, Philip Rivers, Brady, Palmer, Matt Ryan, and Manning. He was ranked 56th by his fellow players on the NFL Top 100 Players of 2016.


title: Blake Bortles

text: Bortles compiled a disappointing 3–13 record for the 2016 Jaguars, amid considerable turnover in the organization. During a nine-game losing streak, offensive coordinator Greg Olson was replaced by Nathaniel Hackett in Week 8, and head coach Gus Bradley by Doug Marrone in Week 16. The following week, Bortles caught his first career reception from wide receiver Marqise Lee on a 20-yard trick play that netted a touchdown and led to a Christmas Eve 38–17 victory over the Tennessee Titans. It was his only game with a passer rating of over 100 in 2016 (compared to five in 2015).


title: Blake Bortles

text: Bortles finished the 2016 season with 3,905 yards passing and a 58.9 completion percentage, 23 touchdown passes, 16 interceptions (4th in the NFL), but just 34 sacks, and five 300+ yard games (7th in the NFL). Following the season, he stated that he had suffered from a Grade 1 right AC joint sprain in Week 8, and suffered from wrist tendinitis in the latter part of the season, which could explain his regression.


title: Blake Bortles

text: On August 26, he was named the starting quarterback to begin the regular season after a competition with Chad Henne.


title: Blake Bortles

text: Through the first 11 games of the season, Bortles was relatively inconsistent. He had an excellent Week 3 with four passing touchdowns and no interceptions for a 128.2 rating in a 44–7 victory over the Baltimore Ravens in London. He broke 300 yards passing just once in Week 7 with 330 passing yards, one passing touchdown and no interceptions for a 124.7 rating against the Indianapolis Colts. Excluding these games, Bortles averaged 185.6 yards per game, no games of either 300+ yards or 100+ rating, and had seven touchdowns and eight interceptions in those nine games. Through 12 weeks, out of the 20 eleven-game starters, Bortles was 17th in yardage and touchdowns, and 18th in rating. However, he had a 100+ rating in the next three consecutive games, compiling 8 touchdowns and 0 interceptions, and 300+ yards in three of the next four games.


title: Blake Bortles

text: During Week 15 against the Houston Texans, Bortles finished with 326 passing yards and three passing touchdowns as the Jaguars won, 45–7, helping the team clinch their first playoff berth in 10 years. In the next game against the San Francisco 49ers, Bortles finished with a season-best 382 passing yards, two passing touchdowns, and three interceptions as the Jaguars lost on the road by a score of 44–33. Despite the loss, the Jaguars clinched the AFC South due to the Titans losing to the Los Angeles Rams. Bortles finished the regular season with 3,687 passing yards, 21 touchdowns to 13 interceptions, and an 84.7 quarterback rating (21st of 35 players with at least 200 attempts).


title: Blake Bortles

text: After finishing 10–6, the Jaguars made the playoffs as the No. 3 seed in the 2017 AFC Playoffs. In the , the Jaguars defeated the Buffalo Bills by a score of 10–3 in Bortles's first playoff game. He completed 12 of 23 passes for 87 yards and a touchdown.He also had a game-high 88 yards rushing on 10 carries. He joined Michael Vick (2004) as the only quarterbacks with more rushing than passing yards in a postseason game since the 1970 merger, and the 75 net passing yards was the lowest by a winning postseason quarterback since Joe Flacco in the 2009 postseason. Due to his poor passing performance against the Bills, Bortles received heavy criticism from analysts and even other players in the league. When confronted about these criticisms, Bortles stated that he "couldn't care less" and even said, "There's people who think LeBron James sucks, so if that happens, I’m sure there will always be people who always think I suck." However, Bortles bounced back in the , leading the Jaguars to beat the heavily favored Pittsburgh Steelers on the road by a score of 45–42. Bortles completed 14 of 26 passes for 214 yards and a touchdown to stifle a Steelers comeback. This would be Jacksonville's first game appearance since 1999, but they lost to the New England Patriots on the road by a score of 24–20 after spoiling a 20–10 lead in the fourth quarter. Bortles finished the game completing 23 of 36 passes for 293 yards and a touchdown. He finished the playoffs completing 57.6% of his passes for 594 yards, three touchdowns, and no interceptions. He also rushed for 121 yards.


title: Blake Bortles

text: On February 24, 2018, Bortles signed a three-year, $54 million contract to stay with the Jaguars through the 2020 season.


title: Blake Bortles

text: Bortles and the Jaguars had a 3–1 start to the season. Between sub-200-yard games in Week 1 and Week 3, Bortles faced the New England Patriots in 97-degree heat and finished with 377 passing yards, four touchdowns, and an interception in the 31–20 victory. In Week 4, he passed for 388 yards in a 31–12 win over the Jets. In the next game, he recorded a career-high 430 passing yards and a touchdown against the Kansas City Chiefs. However, he also threw four interceptions and took five sacks in the 30–14 road loss. The following week against the Dallas Cowboys, Bortles threw for 149 yards, a touchdown, and an interception to Jeff Heath in triple coverage in a 40–7 road loss. During Week 7 against the Houston Texans, he lost a fumble on the opening possessions of each half. Bortles was benched for Cody Kessler after he lost the second fumble, finishing the day with a career-low 61 yards on 12 attempts. At the time, the Jaguars had the league's second-best defense but had lost three games in a row; Bortles was tied for second-worst in the league with four sub-200-yard passing games, third-worst with eight interceptions, and seventh-worst with five fumbles.


title: Blake Bortles

text: Nevertheless, head coach Doug Marrone elected to leave Bortles as the starter for the Week 8 matchup in London against the Philadelphia Eagles. He fumbled the opening snap, but played through a shoulder injury to finish with 286 yards and a touchdown. He led the Jaguars on three straight scoring drives late in the game to draw within six points before completing just two of his last nine passes in the 18–24 loss. After a Week 9 bye, the Jaguars went on the road to face the Indianapolis Colts. Bortles finished the game with 320 yards and two touchdowns. He completed 10 of 11 passes for two scoring drives to open the second half, and a drive to the 23-yard line in the waning moments of the 4th quarter before a Rashad Greene fumble allowed the Colts to kneel out the clock and preserve a 29–26 victory. In the next game, Bortles completed 10 of 18 passes for a career-fourth-worst 104 yards in a 20–16 loss to the Steelers. The following week, he completed 12 of 23 passes for 127 yards and a touchdown with two interceptions in a 21–24 road loss to the Buffalo Bills.


title: Blake Bortles

text: The next day, Jaguars head coach Doug Marrone announced that Bortles would be benched in favor of Cody Kessler for the Week 13 matchup against the Colts. He was then 30th of 34 qualified quarterbacks in completion percentage, quarterback rating, and yards-per-attempt, and second-worst only to Oakland's Derek Carr with eight losses. In Week 16 against the Miami Dolphins, Bortles entered the game in relief of a struggling Kessler in the late second quarter, was promptly sacked on third down, benched, then reentered the game in the late third quarter where he completed five of six passes for 39 yards and rushed four times for 26 yards to help lead the Jaguars to a 17–7 victory. Bortles started the season finale against the Texans, but was ineffective with just 107 yards and an interception on 28 attempts. On the season, in Bortles' 13 appearances for the Jaguars, he compiled a 4–9 record, and was 22nd of 25 players with at least 13 appearances in completion percentage (60.3%), yards (2,718), yards per game (209.1), touchdowns (13), and 23rd in passer rating (79.8); his 11 interceptions ranked 15th. His 357 rushing yards was sixth among quarterbacks.


title: Blake Bortles

text: Bortles was released by the Jaguars on March 13, 2019, after the team signed quarterback Nick Foles. Over his five years with the Jaguars, Bortles led the league in interceptions (75 in 75 games, a league-leading 13 of which were returned for touchdowns) and second among quarterbacks in fumbles (46) to Russell Wilson.


title: Blake Bortles

text: On March 18, 2019, Bortles signed a one-year contract with the Los Angeles Rams to be Jared Goff's backup.


title: Blake Bortles

text: Bortles played three snaps of a Week 7 blowout of the Atlanta Falcons with a 20-point lead late in the fourth quarter. Five days prior, Bortles was reunited with his former Jaguars teammate Jalen Ramsey in a trade that sent Ramsey to the Rams in exchange for first round picks in 2020 and 2021, as well as a fourth round pick in 2021. In his second appearance, a Week 10 loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers, Bortles appeared in only one play, a third down with two yards to go; the team did not pick up the third down conversion. Bortles' third and final appearance of the season came in a week 13 blowout victory over the Arizona Cardinals. Bortles saw action in a seven-play drive and completed his first pass of the season.


title: Blake Bortles

text: On September 24, 2020, Bortles was signed by the Denver Broncos after an injury to starter Drew Lock. Bortles was released by the Broncos on October 17, 2020, after Lock recovered from his shoulder injury. Bortles was re-signed to Denver's practice squad two days later. On November 28, 2020, Bortles was placed on the practice squad/COVID-19 list after coming in close contact with Jeff Driskel, who tested positive for the virus. Bortles and the other three quarterbacks on the Broncos roster were fined by the team for violating COVID-19 protocols. He was restored to the practice squad on December 1.


title: Blake Bortles

text: On December 29, 2020, Bortles was signed by the Los Angeles Rams off the Broncos' practice squad following an injury to starter Jared Goff.


title: Blake Bortles

text: On May 24, 2021, Bortles signed a one-year deal with the Green Bay Packers worth $1 million. He was released on July 27, 2021. On November 4, 2021, Bortles was re-signed to the Packers practice squad as the backup for Jordan Love after starter Aaron Rodgers was unavailable for Week 9 due to a COVID-19 diagnosis. On November 6, 2021, he was elevated to the active roster, for a game against the Kansas City Chiefs. He was released on November 15.


title: Blake Bortles

text: On December 24, 2021, Bortles was signed by the New Orleans Saints to back up rookie quarterback Ian Book after starter Jameis Winston tore his ACL in week 8. His backup Taysom Hill and Taysom's backup Trevor Siemian both contracted COVID-19. On January 6, 2022, Bortles was placed on the Saints COVID-19 protocol list and was inactive for their Week 18 matchup against the Atlanta Falcons. He signed a reserve/future contract with the Saints on January 12, 2022. On April 5, the Saints waived Bortles, who had asked to be released from his contract following the team's decision to sign Andy Dalton.


title: Blake Bortles

text: Bortles is the son of Rob and Suzy Bortles. Rob was a wrestler and football player in high school; Suzy played high school softball. Bortles' brother, Colby, was a third baseman with the Ole Miss baseball team, and was drafted in the 22nd round of the 2017 MLB Draft by the Detroit Tigers. Colby now coaches baseball at Charleston Southern University. Bortles was the subject of a long-running gag on the TV comedy The Good Place, where a former Jacksonville resident continues his fandom of the Jaguars–and Bortles in particular–into the afterlife.


title: Dance music

text: Dance music is music composed specifically to facilitate or accompany dancing. It can be either a whole musical piece or part of a larger musical arrangement. In terms of performance, the major categories are live dance music and recorded dance music. While there exist attestations of the combination of dance and music in ancient times (for example Ancient Greek vases sometimes show dancers accompanied by musicians), the earliest Western dance music that we can still reproduce with a degree of certainty are old fashioned dances. In the Baroque period, the major dance styles were noble court dances (see Baroque dance). In the classical music era, the minuet was frequently used as a third movement, although in this context it would not accompany any dancing. The waltz also arose later in the classical era. Both remained part of the romantic music period, which also saw the rise of various other nationalistic dance forms like the barcarolle, mazurka, ecossaise, ballade and polonaise.


title: Dance music

text: Modern popular dance music initially emerged from late 19th century's Western ballroom and social dance music. During the early 20th century, ballroom dancing gained popularity among the working class who attended public dance halls. Dance music became enormously popular during the 1920s. In the 1930s, called the Swing era, Swing music was the popular dance music in America. In the 1950s, rock and roll became the popular dance music. The late 1960s saw the rise of soul and R&B music. Dominican and Cuban New Yorkers created the popular salsa dance in the late 1960s which stemmed from the Latin music genre of salsa. The rise of disco in the early 1970s led to dance music becoming popular with the public. By the late 1970s, electronic dance music was developing. This music, made using electronics, is a style of popular music commonly played in nightclubs, radio stations, shows and raves. Many subgenres of electronic dance music have evolved.


title: Dance music

text: Folk dance music is music accompanying traditional dance and may be contrasted with historical/classical, and popular/commercial dance music. An example of folk dance music in the United States is the old-time music played at square dances and contra dances.


title: Dance music

text: While there exist attestations of the combination of dance and music in ancient times (for example Ancient Greek vases sometimes show dancers accompanied by musicians), the earliest Western dance music that we can still reproduce with a degree of certainty are the surviving medieval dances such as carols and the Estampie. The earliest of these surviving dances are almost as old as Western staff-based music notation.


title: Dance music

text: The Renaissance dance music was written for instruments such as the lute, viol, tabor, pipe, and the sackbut.


title: Dance music

text: In the Baroque period, the major dance styles were noble court dances (see Baroque dance). Examples of dances include the French courante, sarabande, minuet and gigue. Collections of dances were often collected together as dance suites.


title: Dance music

text: In the classical music era, the minuet was frequently used as a third movement in four-movement non-vocal works such as sonatas, string quartets, and symphonies, although in this context it would not accompany any dancing. The waltz also arose later in the classical era, as the minuet evolved into the scherzo (literally, "joke"; a faster-paced minuet).


title: Dance music

text: Both remained part of the romantic music period, which also saw the rise of various other nationalistic dance forms like the barcarolle, mazurka and polonaise. Also in the romantic music era, the growth and development of ballet extended the composition of dance music to a new height. Frequently, dance music was a part of opera.


title: Dance music

text: Modern popular dance music initially emerged from late 19th century's Western ballroom and social dance music.


title: Dance music

text: Dance music works often bear the name of the corresponding dance, e.g. waltzes, the tango, the bolero, the can-can, minuets, salsa, various kinds of jigs and the breakdown. Other dance forms include contradance, the merengue (Dominican Republic), and the cha-cha-cha. Often it is difficult to know whether the name of the music came first or the name of the dance.


title: Dance music

text: Ballads are commonly chosen for slow-dance routines. However ballads have been commonly deemed the opposite of dance music in terms of their tempo. Originally, the ballad was a type of dance as well (hence the name "ballad", from the same root as "ballroom" and "ballet"). Ballads are still danced on the Faeroe Islands.


title: Dance music

text: "Dansband" ("Dance band") is a term in Swedish for bands who play a kind of popular music, "dansbandsmusik" ("Dance band music"), to partner dance to. These terms came into use around 1970, and before that, many of the bands were classified as "pop groups". This type of music is mostly popular in the Nordic countries.


title: Dance music

text: Disco is a genre of dance music containing elements of funk, soul, pop, and salsa. It was most popular during the mid to late 1970s, though it has had brief resurgences afterwards. It inspired the electronic dance music genre.


title: Dance music

text: By 1981, a new form of dance music was developing. This music, made using electronics, is a style of popular music commonly played in dance music nightclubs, radio stations, shows and raves. During its gradual decline in the late 1970s, disco became influenced by electronic musical instruments such as synthesizers. The first notable fully synthesized disco hit was "I Feel Love" by Giorgio Moroder and Pete Bellotte with lyrics by Donna Summer. Looping, sampling and segueing as found in disco continued to be used as creative techniques within trance music, techno music and especially house music.


title: Dance music

text: Electronic dance music experienced a boom in the late 1980s. In the UK, this manifested itself in the dance element of Tony Wilson's Haçienda scene (in Manchester) and London clubs like Delirium, The Trip, and Shoom. The scene rapidly expanded to the Summer Of Love in Ibiza, which became the European capital of house and trance.


title: Dance music

text: Many music genres that made use of electronic instruments developed into contemporary styles mainly due to the MIDI protocol, which enabled computers, synthesizers, sound cards, samplers, and drum machines to interact with each other and achieve the full synchronization of sounds. Electronic dance music is typically composed using synthesizers and computers, and rarely has any physical instruments. Instead, this is replaced by analogue and digital electronic sounds, with a 4/4 beat. Many producers of this kind of music however, such as Darren Tate and MJ Cole, were trained in classical music before they moved into the electronic medium.


title: Dance music

text: Associated with dance music are usually commercial tracks that may not easily be categorized, such as "The Power" by Snap!, "No Limit" by 2 Unlimited, "Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now)" by C+C Music Factory, and the Beatmasters' "Rok da House" but the term "dance music" is applied to many forms of electronic music, both commercial and non-commercial.


title: Dance music

text: Some of the most popular upbeat genres include house, techno, drum & bass, jungle, hardcore, electronica, industrial, breakbeat, trance, psychedelic trance, UK garage and electro. There are also much slower styles, such as downtempo, chillout and nu jazz.


title: Dance music

text: Many subgenres of electronic dance music have evolved. Subgenres of house include acid house, electro house, hard house, funky house, deep house, tribal house, hip house, tech house and US garage. Subgenres of drum & bass include techstep, hardstep, jump-up, intelligent D&B/atmospheric D&B, liquid funk, sambass, drumfunk, neurofunk and ragga jungle. Subgenres of other styles include progressive breaks, booty bass, Goa trance, hard trance, hardstyle, minimal techno, gabber techno, breakcore, broken beat, trip hop, folktronica and glitch. Speed garage, breakstep, 2-step, bassline, grime, UK funky, future garage and the reggae-inspired dubstep are all subgenres of UK garage.


title: Dance music

text: During the early 20th century, ballroom dancing gained popularity among the working class who attended public dance halls.


title: Dance music

text: Dance music became enormously popular during the 1920s. Nightclubs were frequented by large numbers of people at which a form of jazz, which was characterized by fancy orchestras with strings instruments and complex arrangements, became the standard music at clubs. A particularly popular dance was the fox-trot. At the time this music was simply called jazz, although today people refer to it as "white jazz" or big band.


title: Dance music

text: "Genres": Swing music, Western swing. Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman and Glenn Miller gained swing jazz hit.


title: Dance music

text: In 1952, the television show "American Bandstand" switched to a format where teenagers dance along as records are played. "American Bandstand" continued to be shown until 1989. Since the late 1950s, disc jockeys (commonly known as DJs) played recorded music at nightclubs.


title: Dance music

text: In 1960, Chubby Checker released his song "The Twist" setting off a dance craze. The late 1960s saw the rise of soul and R&B music which used lavish orchestral arrangements.


title: Dance music

text: In 1970, the television show "Soul Train" premiered featuring famous soul artists who would play or lipsync their hits while the audience danced along. Early 70s, Kool and the Gang, Ohio Players, B.T. Express were popular funk bands. By the mid-1970s, disco had become one of the main genres featured. In 1974, "Billboard" added a Disco Action chart of top hits to its other charts (see List of "Billboard" number one dance club songs). Donna Summer, the Bee Gees, the Village People and Gloria Gaynor gained pop hits. Disco was characterized by the use of real orchestral instruments, such as strings, which had largely been abandoned during the 1950s because of rock music. In contrast to the 1920s, however, the use of live orchestras in night clubs was extremely rare due to its expense. The disco craze reached its peak in the late 1970s when the word "disco" became synonymous with "dance music" and nightclubs were referred to as "discos".


title: Dance music

text: "Genres": Funk, urban contemporary, hip hop, new jack swing, boogie, house, New wave, Dark wave, Italo disco, Euro disco, post-disco, synthpop, dance-pop, dance-rock, acid house, hip house, techno, freestyle, Miami bass, bounce, electro, hi-NRG, EBM, cosmic disco, Balearic beat, new beat Ambient House The Bar-Kays, Con Funk Shun, Cameo, One Way, Dazz Band, Lakeside and the Gap Band presented funk music.


title: Dance music

text: "Genres": New jack swing, contemporary R&B, dancehall, hip hop, G-funk, Miami bass, House, Italo dance, Italo house, Eurodance, Europop, hip house, electro, electroclash, progressive house, French house, techno, minimal techno, trance, alternative dance, drum and bass, jungle, big beat, breakbeat, breakbeat hardcore, rave, hardcore, happy hardcore, speed garage, UK garage, soca, reggaeton, psytrance, Goa trance Deep House Nu-Disco


title: Dance music

text: "Genres": Trance, electropop, dance-pop, snap, crunk, dancehall, reggaeton, dance-punk, nu-disco, electro house, minimal techno, dubstep, grime, bassline, UK funky, contemporary R&B, hip hop, drum and bass, progressive house, hardstyle, funky house


title: Dance music

text: "Genres": Electropop, synthpop, glitchpop, hip house, nu-disco, new wave, new rave, trance, house, hi-NRG, hard NRG, dance-pop, electro-industrial, deep house, drum and bass, dubstep, techstep, liquid funk, electro house, glitch house, progressive house, breakbeat, hardstyle, dubstyle, drumstep, hip hop, ghetto house, Jersey club, trap, drill, moombahton, moombahcore, dancehall, tropical house, UK garage, Europop, hyperpop


title: Dance music

text: The Dance/Mix Show Airplay chart tracks the most popular tracks played by radio stations using a "dance music" format. Modern dance music is typically a core component of the rhythmic adult contemporary and rhythmic contemporary formats, and an occasional component of the contemporary hit radio format in the case of dance songs which chart.


title: Dance music

text: Mixshows are radio programmes which feature a sequence of dance music tracks where each track's outro is mixed into the intro of the next.


title: Devil in Christianity

text: In Christianity, the Devil is the personification of evil, who rebelled against God in an attempt to become equal to God himself. He is depicted as a fallen angel, who was expelled from Heaven at the beginning of time, before God created the material world, and is in constant opposition to God. The devil is identified with several figures in the Bible including the serpent in the Garden of Eden, Lucifer, Satan, the tempter of the Gospels, Leviathan, and the dragon in the Book of Revelation.


title: Devil in Christianity

text: Early scholars discussed the role of the devil. Scholars influenced by neoplatonic cosmology, like Origen and Pseudo-Dionysius, portrayed the devil as representing deficiency and emptiness, the entity most remote from the divine. According to Augustine of Hippo, the realm of the devil is not nothingness, but an inferior realm standing in opposition to God. The standard Medieval depiction of the devil goes back to Gregory the Great. He integrated the devil, as the first creation of God, into the Christian angelic hierarchy as the highest of the angels (either a cherub or a seraph) who fell far, into the depths of hell, and became the leader of demons.


title: Devil in Christianity

text: Since the early Reformation period, the devil was imagined as an increasingly powerful entity, with not only a lack of goodness but also a conscious will against God, his word, and his creation. Simultaneously, some reformists interpreted the devil as a mere metaphor for human's inclination to sin and so downgraded the importance of the devil. While the devil played no significant role for most scholars in the Modern Era, he became important again in contemporary Christianity.


title: Devil in Christianity

text: At various times in history, some people such as the Cathars and the Bogomiles, as well as theologians like Marcion and Valentinus, believed that the devil was involved in creating the world. Today these views are not part of mainstream Christianity.


title: Devil in Christianity

text: The Hebrew term () was originally a common noun meaning "accuser" or "adversary" that was applicable to both human and heavenly adversaries. The term is derived from a verb meaning primarily "to obstruct, oppose". Throughout the Hebrew Bible, it refers most frequently to ordinary human adversaries. However, 1 Samuel 29:4; 2 Samuel 19:22; 1 Kings 5:4; 1 Kings 11:14, 23, 25; Psalms 109:6 and Numbers 22:22, 32 use the same term to refer to the angel of the Lord. This concept of a heavenly being as an adversary to humans evolved into the personified evil of "a being with agency" called "the Satan" 18 times in Job 1–2 and Zechariah 3.


title: Devil in Christianity

text: Both Hebrew and Greek have definite articles that are used to differentiate between common and proper nouns, but they are used in opposite ways: in Hebrew, the article designates a common noun, whereas in Greek, the article signals an individual's name (a proper noun). For example, in the Hebrew book of Job, one of the angels is referred to as a satan, "an adversary", but in the Greek Septuagint, which was used by the early Christians, whenever "the Satan" () appears with a definite article, it specifically refers to the individual known as the heavenly accuser whose personal name is Satan. In some cases it is unclear which is intended.


title: Devil in Christianity

text: Henry A. Kelly says that "almost all modern translators and interpreters" of 1 Chronicles 21:1 (in which satan occurs without the definite article) agree the verse contains "the proper name of a specific being appointed to the office of adversary". Thomas Farrar writes that "In all three cases, satan was translated in the Septuagint as "diabolos", and in the case of Job and Zechariah, with "ho diabolos" ("the" accuser; "the" slanderer). In all three of these passages there is general agreement among Old Testament scholars that the referent of the word satan is an angelic being".


title: Devil in Christianity

text: In the early rabbinic literature, Satan is never referred to as "the Evil one, the Enemy, belial, Mastema or Beelzebul". No Talmudic source depicts Satan as a rebel against God or as a fallen angel or predicts his end. Ancient Jewish text depicts Satan as an agent of God, a spy, a stool-pigeon, a prosecutor of mankind and even a hangman. He descends to earth to test men's virtue and lead them astray, then rises to Heaven to accuse them.


title: Devil in Christianity

text: In the Book of Job, Job is a righteous man favored by God. Job 1:6–8 describes the "sons of God" () presenting themselves before God. "Sons of God" is a description of 'angels' as supernatural heavenly beings, "ministers of Yahweh, able under His direction to intervene in the affairs of men, enjoying a closer union with Yahweh than is the lot of men. They appear in the earliest books of the Old Testament as well as in the later... They appear in prophetical and sapiential literature as well as in the historical books ; they appear in the primitive history and in the most recent history... they usually appear in the Old Testament in the capacity of God's agents to men; otherwise they appear as the heavenly court of Yahweh. They are sent to men to communicate God's message, to destroy, to save, to help, to punish. ...The angels are in complete submission to the will of God... Whenever they appear among men, it is to execute the will of Yahweh."


title: Devil in Christianity

text: God asks one of them where he has been. Satan replies that he has been roaming around the earth. God asks, "Have you considered My servant Job?" Satan thinks Job only loves God because he has been blessed, so he requests that God test the sincerity of Job's love for God through suffering, expecting Job to abandon his faith. God consents; Satan destroys Job's family, health, servants and flocks, yet Job refuses to condemn God. At the end, God returned to Job twice what he had lost. This is one of the two Old Testament passages, along with Zechariah 3, where the Hebrew (the Adversary) becomes the Greek (the Slanderer) in the Greek Septuagint used by the early Christian church.


title: Devil in Christianity

text: A "satan" is involved in King David's census and Christian teachings about this "satan" varies, just as the pre-exilic account of 2 Samuel and the later account of 1 Chronicles present differing perspectives:


title: Devil in Christianity

text: According to some teachings, this term refers to a human being, who bears the title "satan" while others argue that it indeed refers to a heavenly supernatural agent, an angel. Since the "satan" is sent by the will of God, his function resembles less the devilish enemy of God. Even if it is accepted that this "satan" refers to a supernatural agent, it is not necessarily implied this is "the" Satan. However, since the role of the figure is identical to that of the devil, viz. leading David into sin, most commentators and translators agree that David's "satan" is to be identified with Satan and the Devil.


title: Devil in Christianity

text: Zechariah's vision of recently deceased Joshua the High Priest depicts a dispute in the heavenly throne room between Satan and the Angel of the Lord (Zechariah 3:1–2). The scene describes Joshua the High Priest dressed in filthy rags, representing the nation of Judah and its sins, on trial with God as the judge and Satan standing as the prosecutor. Yahweh rebukes Satan and orders that Joshua be given clean clothes, representing God's forgiveness of Judah's sins. Goulder (1998) views the vision as related to opposition from Sanballat the Horonite. Again, Satan acts in accordance with God's will. The text implies he functions both as God's accuser and as his executioner.


title: Devil in Christianity

text: Some parts of the Bible, which do not originally refer to an evil spirit or Satan, have been retroactively interpreted as references to the devil.


title: Devil in Christianity

text: Genesis 3 mentions the serpent in the Garden of Eden, which tempts Adam and Eve into eating the forbidden fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thus causing their expulsion from the Garden. God rebukes the serpent, stating: "I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will strike your head, and you will strike his heel" (Genesis 3:14–15). Although the Book of Genesis never mentions Satan, Christians have traditionally interpreted the serpent in the Garden of Eden as the devil due to Revelation 12:9, which describes the devil as "that ancient serpent called the Devil, or Satan, the one deceiving the whole world; was thrown down to the earth with all his angels." This chapter is used not only to explain the fall of mankind but also to remind the reader of the enmity between Satan and humanity. It is further interpreted as a prophecy regarding Jesus' victory over the devil, with reference to the child of a woman, striking the head of the serpent.


title: Devil in Christianity

text: The idea of fallen angels was familiar in pre-Christian Hebrew thought from the Book of the Watchers, according to which angels who impregnated human women were cast out of heaven. The Babylonian/Hebrew myth of a rising star, as the embodiment of a heavenly being who is thrown down for his attempt to ascend into the higher planes of the gods, is also found in the Bible, (Isaiah 14:12–15) was accepted by early Christians, and interpreted as a fallen angel.


title: Devil in Christianity

text: Aquila of Sinope derives the word , the Hebrew name for the morning star, from the verb (to lament). This derivation was adopted as a proper name for an angel who laments the loss of his former beauty. The Christian church fathers—for example Saint Jerome, in his Vulgate—translated this as "Lucifer". The equation of Lucifer with the fallen angel probably occurred in 1st-century Palestinian Judaism. The church fathers brought the fallen lightbringer Lucifer into connection with the devil on the basis of a saying of Jesus in the Gospel of Luke (10.18 EU): "I saw Satan fall from heaven like lightning."


title: Devil in Christianity

text: In his work and in a homily on Book XII, the Christian scholar Origen compared the morning star Eosphorus-Lucifer with the devil. According to Origen, Helal-Eosphorus-Lucifer fell into the abyss as a heavenly spirit after he tried to equate himself with God. Cyprian , Jerome , Ambrosius , and a few other church fathers essentially subscribed to this view. They viewed this earthly overthrow of a pagan king of Babylon as a clear indication of the heavenly overthrow of Satan. In contrast, the church fathers Hieronymus, Cyrillus of Alexandria (412–444), and Eusebius saw in Isaiah's prophecy only the mystifying end of a Babylonian king.


title: Devil in Christianity

text: This description is used to establish major characteristics of the devil: that he was created good as a high ranking angel, that he lived in Eden, and that he turned evil on his own accord. The Church Fathers argued that, therefore, God is not to be blamed for evil but rather the devil's abuse of his free will.


title: Devil in Christianity

text: In the Old Testament, the term (), with the broader meaning of "worthlessness" denotes those who work against God or at least against God's order. In Deuteronomy 13:14 those who tempt people into worshiping something other than Yahweh are related to . In 1 Samuel 2:12, the sons of Eli are called for not recognizing Yahweh and violating sacrifice rituals. In Psalm 18:4 and Psalm 41:8, appears in the context of death and disease. In the Old Testament, both "Satan" and make it difficult for men to live in harmony with God's will. is thus another template for the later conception of the devil. On the one hand, both Satan and cause hardship for humans, but while opposes God, represents chaos and death, and stands outside of God's cosmos, Satan, on the other hand, accuses what opposes God. Satan punishes what stands for. Unlike Satan, is not an independent entity, but an abstraction.


title: Devil in Christianity

text: Although not part of the canonical Bible, intertestamental writings shaped the early Christian worldview and influenced the interpretation of the Biblical texts. Until the third century, Christians still referred to these stories to explain the origin of evil in the world. Accordingly, evil entered the world by apostate angels, who lusted after women and taught sin to mankind. The Book of Enoch and the Book of Jubilees are still accepted as canonical by the Ethiopian Church. Many Church Fathers accepted their views about fallen angels, though they excluded Satan from these angels. Satan instead, fell after tempting Eve in the Garden of Eden. Satan was being used as a proper name in the apocryphal Jewish writings such as the Book of Jubilees 10:11; 23:29; 50:5, the Testament of Job, and The Assumption of Moses which are contemporary to the writing of the New Testament.


title: Devil in Christianity

text: The Book of Enoch, estimated to date from about 300–200 BC, to 100 BC, tells of a group of angels called the Watchers. The Watchers fell in love with human women and descended to earth to have intercourse with them, resulting in giant offspring. On earth, these fallen angels further teach the secrets of heaven like warcraft, blacksmithing, and sorcery. There is no specific devilish leader, as the fallen angels act independently after they descend to earth, but eminent among these angels are Shemyaza and Azazel. Only Azazel is rebuked by the prophet Enoch himself for instructing illicit arts, as stated in 1 Enoch 13:1. According to 1 Enoch 10:6, God sent the archangel Raphael to chain Azazel in the desert "Dudael" as punishment.


title: Devil in Christianity

text: Satan, on the other hand, appears as a leader of a class of angels. Satan is not among the fallen angels but rather a tormentor for both sinful men and sinful angels. The fallen angels are described as "having followed the way of Satan", implying that Satan led them into their sinful ways, but Satan and his angels are clearly in the service of God, akin to Satan in the Book of Job. Satan and his lesser "satans" act as God's executioners: they tempt into sin, accuse sinners for their misdeeds, and finally execute divine judgment as angels of punishment.


title: Devil in Christianity

text: The Book of Jubilees also identifies the ("sons of God") in Genesis 6 with the offspring of fallen angels, adhering to the Watcher myth known from the Book of Enoch. Throughout the book, another wicked angel called Mastema is prominent. Mastema asks God to spare a tenth of the demons and assign them under his domain so that he might prove humanity to be sinful and unworthy. Mastema is the first figure who unites the concept "Satan" and "Belial". Morally questionable actions ascribed to God in the Old Testament, like environmental disasters and tempting Abraham, are ascribed to Mastema instead, establishing a satanic character distant from the will of God in contrast to early Judaism. Still, the text implies that Mastema is a creature of God, although contravening his will. In the end times, he will be extinguished.


title: Devil in Christianity

text: The devil figures much more prominently in the New Testament and in Christian theology than in the Old Testament and Judaism. Religion scholar William Caldwell writes that "In the Old Testament we have seen that the figure of Satan is vague. ... In reaching the New Testament we are struck by the unitariness, clearness, and definiteness of the outline of Satan." The New Testament Greek word for the devil, "satanas", which occurs 38 times in 36 verses, is not actually a Greek word: it is transliterated from Aramaic, but is ultimately derived from Hebrew. Scholars agree that "Satan" is always a proper name in the New Testament. In Mark 1:13 "ho Satanas" is a proper name that identifies a particular being with a distinct personality.The figure whom Mark designates as the perpetrator of Jesus' Wilderness temptation, whether called Satan or one of a host of other names, was not an 'unknown quantity'. On the contrary, in Mark's time and in the thought world which Mark and his audience shared, Satan's identity and the activities characteristic of him were both well-defined and widely known.


title: Devil in Christianity

text: Although in later Christian theology, the devil and his fellow fallen angels are often merged into one category of demonic spirits, the devil is a unique entity throughout the New Testament. The devil is not only a tempter but perhaps rules over the kingdoms of earth. In the temptation of Christ (Matthew 4:8–9 and Luke 4:6–7), the devil offers all kingdoms of the earth to Jesus, implying they belong to him. Since Jesus does not dispute this offer, it may indicate that the authors of those gospels believed this to be true. This interpretation is, however, not shared by all, as Irenaeus argued that, since the devil was a liar since the beginning, he also lied here and that all kingdoms in fact belong to God, referring to Proverbs 21. This event is described in all three synoptic gospels, (Matthew 4:1–11, Mark 1:12–13 and Luke 4:1–13).


title: Devil in Christianity

text: Other adversaries of Jesus are ordinary humans although influence by the devil is suggested. John 8:40 speaks about the Pharisees as the "offspring of the devil". John 13:2 states that the devil entered Judas Iscariot before Judas' betrayal (Luke 22:3). In all three synoptic gospels (Matthew 9:22–29, Mark 3:22–30 and Luke 11:14–20), Jesus' critics accuse him of gaining his power to cast out demons from Beelzebub, the devil. In response, Jesus says that a house divided against itself will fall, and that there would be no reason for the devil to allow one to defeat the devil's works with his own power.


title: Devil in Christianity

text: The Epistle of Jude makes reference to an incident where the Archangel Michael argued with the devil over the body of Moses (Jude 1:9). According to the First Epistle of Peter, "Like a roaring lion your adversary the devil prowls around, looking for someone to devour" (1 Peter 5:8). The authors of the Second Epistle of Peter and the Epistle of Jude believe that God prepares judgment for the devil and his fellow fallen angels, who are bound in darkness until the Divine retribution.


title: Devil in Christianity

text: In the Epistle to the Romans, the inspirer of sin is also implied to be the author of death. The Epistle to the Hebrews speaks of the devil as the one who has the power of death but is defeated through the death of Jesus (Hebrews 2:14). In the Second Epistle to the Corinthians, Paul the Apostle warns that Satan is often disguised as an angel of light.


title: Devil in Christianity

text: The Book of Revelation describes a battle in heaven (Revelation 12:7–10) between a dragon/serpent "called the devil, or Satan" and the archangel Michael resulting in the dragon's fall. Here, the devil is described with features similar to primordial chaos monsters, like the Leviathan in the Old Testament. The identification of this serpent as Satan supports identification of the serpent in Genesis with the devil. Thomas Aquinas, Rupert of Deutz and Gregory the Great (among others) interpreted this battle as occurring after the devil sinned by aspiring to be independent of God. In consequence, Satan and the evil angels are hurled down from heaven by the good angels under leadership of Michael.


title: Devil in Christianity

text: Before Satan was cast down from heaven, he was accusing humans for their sins (Revelation 12:10). After 1,000 years, the devil would rise again, just to be defeated and cast into the Lake of Fire (Revelation 20:10). An angel of the abyss called Abaddon, mentioned in Revelation 9:11, is described as its ruler and is often thought of as the originator of sin and an instrument of punishment. For these reasons, Abaddon is also identified with the devil.


title: Devil in Christianity

text: The concept of fallen angels is of pre-Christian origin. Fallen angels appear in writings such as the Book of Enoch, the Book of Jubilees and arguably in Genesis 6:1–4. Christian tradition and theology interpreted the myth about a rising star, thrown into the underworld, originally told about a Babylonian king (Isaiah 14:12) as also referring to a fallen angel. The devil is generally identified with Satan, the accuser in the Book of Job. Only rarely are Satan and the devil depicted as separate entities.


title: Devil in Christianity

text: Much of the lore of the devil is not biblical. It stems from post-medieval Christian expansions on the scriptures influenced by medieval and pre-medieval popular mythology. In the Middle Ages there was a great deal of adaptation of biblical material, in the vernacular languages, that often employed additional literary forms like drama to convey important ideas to an audience unable to read the Latin for themselves. They sometimes expanded the biblical text with additions, explanatory developments or omissions. The Bible has silences: questions it does not address. For example, in the Bible, the fruit Adam and Eve ate is not defined; the apple is part of folklore. Medieval Europe was well equipped to explain the silences of the Bible. In addition to the use of world history and the expansion of Biblical books, additional vehicles for the adornment of Biblical tales were popular sagas, legends, and fairy tales. These provided elaborate views of a dualistic creation where the Devil vies with God, and creates disagreeable imitations of God's creatures like lice, apes, and women. The Devil in certain Russian tales had to intrigue his way on board the Ark in order to keep from drowning. The ability of the Devil, in folk-tale, to appear in any animal form, to change form, or to become invisible, all such powers while nowhere mentioned in the Bible itself, have been assigned to the devil by medieval ecclesiasticism without dispute.


title: Devil in Christianity

text: Maximus the Confessor argued that the purpose of the devil is to teach humans how to distinguish between virtue and sin. Since, according to Christian teachings, the devil was cast out of the heavenly presence (unlike the Jewish Satan, who still functions as an accuser angel at service of God), Maximus explained how the devil could still talk to God, as told in the Book of Job, despite being banished. He argues that, as God is omnipresent within the cosmos, Satan was in God's presence when he uttered his accusation towards Job without being in the heavens. Only after the Day of Judgement, when the rest of the cosmos reunites with God, the devil, his demons, and all whose who cling to evil and unreality will exclude themselves eternally from God and suffer from this separation.


title: Devil in Christianity

text: Christians have understood the devil as the personification of evil, the author of lies and the promoter of evil, and as a metaphor of human evil. However, the devil can go no further than God, or human freedom, allows, resulting in the problem of evil. Christian scholars have offered three main theodicies of why a good God might need to allow evil in the world. These are based on the free will of humankind, a self-limiting God, and the observation that suffering has "soul-making" value. Christian theologians do not blame evil solely on the devil, as this creates a kind of Manichean dualism that, nevertheless, still has popular support.


title: Devil in Christianity

text: Origen was probably the first author to use "Lucifer" as a proper name for the devil. In his work and in a homily on Book XII, he compared the morning star Eosphorus-Lucifer—probably based on the Life of Adam and Eve—with the devil or Satan. Origen took the view that Helal-Eosphorus-Lucifer, originally mistaken for Phaeton, fell into the abyss as a heavenly spirit after he tried to equate himself with God. Cyprian (around 400), Ambrosius (around 340–397) and a few other church fathers essentially subscribed to this view which was borrowed from a Hellenistic myth.


title: Devil in Christianity

text: According to Origen, God created rational creatures first then the material world. The rational creatures are divided into angels and humans, both endowed with free will, and the material world is a result of their choices. The world, also inhabited by the devil and his angels, manifests all kinds of destruction and suffering too. Origen opposed the Valentinian view that suffering in the world is beyond God's grasp, and the devil is an independent actor. Therefore, the devil is only able to pursue evil as long as God allows. Evil has no ontological reality, but is defined by deficits or a lack of existence, in Origen's cosmology. Therefore, the devil is considered most remote from the presence of God, and those who adhere to the devil's will follow the devil's removal from God's presence.


title: Devil in Christianity

text: Origen has been accused by Christians of teaching salvation for the devil. However, in defense of Origen, scholars have argued apocatastasis for the devil is based on a misinterpretation of his universalism. Accordingly, it is not the devil, as the principle of evil, the personification of death and sin, but the angel, who introduced them in the first place, who will be restored after this angel abandons his evil will.


title: Devil in Christianity

text: Augustine of Hippo's work, (5th century), and his subsequent work "On Free Will" became major influences in Western demonology into the Middle Ages and even into the Reformation era, influencing notable Reformation theologians such as John Calvin and Martin Luther. For Augustine, the rebellion of Satan was the first and final cause of evil; thus, he rejected earlier teachings about Satan having fallen when the world was already created. In his , he describes two cities () distinct from and opposed to each other like light and darkness. The "earthly city" is influenced by the sin of the devil and is inhabited by wicked men and demons (fallen angels) who are led by the devil. On the other hand, the "heavenly city" is inhabited by righteous men and the angels led by God. Although his ontological division into two different kingdoms shows a resemblance to Manichean dualism, Augustine differs in regard to the origin and power of evil. He argues that evil came first into existence by the free will of the devil and has no independent ontological existence. Augustine always emphasized the sovereignty of God over the devil who can only operate within his God-given framework.


title: Devil in Christianity

text: Augustine wrote that angels sinned under differing circumstances than humans did, resulting in different consequences for their actions. Human sins are the result of circumstances an individual may or may not be responsible for, such as original sin. The person is responsible for their decisions, but not the environment or conditions in which their decisions are made. The angels who became demons had lived in Heaven; their environment was grounded and surrounded by the divine; they should have loved God more than themselves, but they delighted in their own power, and loved themselves more, sinning "spontaneously". Because they sinned "through their own initiative, without being tempted or persuaded by anyone else, they cannot repent and be saved through the intervention of another. Hence they are eternally fixed in their self-love (De lib. arb. 3.10.29–31)". Since the sin of the devil is intrinsic to his nature, Augustine argues that the devil must have turned evil immediately after his creation. Thus the devil's attempt to take God's throne is not an assault on the gates of heaven, but a turn to solipsism in which the devil becomes God in his world.


title: Devil in Christianity

text: Further, Augustine rejects the idea that envy could have been the first sin (as some early Christians believed, evident from sources like Cave of Treasures in which Satan has fallen because he envies humans and refused to prostrate himself before Adam), since pride ("loving yourself more than others and God") must precede envy ("hatred for the happiness of others"). Such sins are described as removal from God's presence. The devil's sin does not give evil a positive value, since evil is, according to Augustinian theodicy, merely a byproduct of creation. The spirits have all been created in the love of God, but the devil valued himself more, thereby abandoning his position for a lower good. Less clear is Augustine about the reason for the devil's choosing to abandon God's love. In some works, he argued that it is God's grace that gives the angels a deeper understanding of God's nature and the order of the cosmos. Illuminated by God-given grace, they became incapable of feeling any desire for sin. The other angels, however, are not blessed with grace and act sinfully.


title: Devil in Christianity

text: Anselm of Canterbury describes the reason for the devil's fall in his ("On the Devil's Fall"). Breaking with Augustine's diabology, he absolved God from pre-determinism and causing the devil to sin. Like earlier theologians, Anselm explained evil as "nothingness", or something people can merely ascribe to something to negate its existence that has no substance in itself. God gave the devil free will, but has not caused the devil to sin by creating the condition to abuse this gift. Anselm invokes the idea of grace, bestowed upon the angels. According to Anselm, grace was also offered to Lucifer, but the devil willingly refused to receive the gift from God. Anselm argues further that all rational creatures strive for good, since it is the definition of good to be desired by rational creatures, so Lucifer's wish to become equal to God is actually in accordance with God's plan. The devil deviates from God's plans when he wishes to become equal to God by his own efforts without relying on God's grace.


title: Devil in Christianity

text: Anselm also played an important role in shifting Christian theology further away from the "ransom theory of atonement", the belief that Jesus' crucifixion was a ransom paid to Satan, in favor of the "satisfaction theory". According to this view, humanity sinned by violating the cosmic harmony God created. To restore this harmony, humanity needed to pay something they did not owe to God. But since humans could not pay the price, God had to send Jesus, who is both God and human, to sacrifice himself. The devil does not play an important role in this theory of atonement any longer. In Anselm's theology, the devil features more as an example of the abuse of free will than as a significant actor in the cosmos. He is not necessary to explain either the fall or the salvation of humanity.


title: Devil in Christianity

text: The notion of fallen angels already existed, but had no unified narrative in Pre-Christian times. In 1 Enoch, Azazel and his host of angels came to earth in human shape and taught forbidden arts resulting in sin. In the Apocalypse of Abraham, Azazel is described with his own (Magnificence), a term usually used for the Divine in apocalyptic literature, already indicating the devil as anti-thesis of God, with the devil's kingdom on earth and God's kingdom in heaven. In the Life of Adam and Eve, Satan was cast out of heaven for his refusal to prostrate himself before man, likely the most common explanation for Satan's fall in Proto-orthodox Christianity.


title: Devil in Christianity

text: Christianity, however, depicted the fall of angels as an event prior to the creation of humans. The devil becomes considered a rebel against God, by claiming divinity for himself; he is allowed to have temporary power over the world. Thus, in prior depictions of the fallen angels, the evil angel's misdemeanor is directed downwards (to man on earth) while, with Christianity, the devil's sin is directed upwards (to God). Although the devil is considered to be inherently evil, influential Christian scholars, like Augustine and Anselm of Canterbury, agree that the devil had been created good but, at some point, had freely chosen evil, resulting in his fall.


title: Devil in Christianity

text: In early Christianity, some movements postulated a distinction between the "God of Law", creator of the world and the God of Jesus Christ. Such positions were held by Marcion, Valentinus, the Basilides and Ophites, who denied the Old Testamental deity to be the true God, arguing that the descriptions of the Jewish deity are blasphemous for God. They were opposed by those like Irenaeus, Tertullian and Origen who argued that the deity presented by Jesus and the God of Jews are the same, and who, in turn, accused such movements as blaspheming against God by asserting a power higher than the Creator. As evident from Origen's "On the First Principles", those who denied the Old Testamental deity to be the true God argued that God can only be good and cannot be subject to inferior emotions like anger and jealousy. Instead, they accused him of self-deification, thus identifying him with Lucifer (), the opponent of Jesus and ruler of the world.


title: Devil in Christianity

text: However, not all dualistic movements equated the Creator with the devil. In Valentinianism, the Creator is merely ignorant, but not evil, trying to fashion the world as good as he can, but lacking the proper power to maintain its goodness. Irenaeus writes in "Against Heresies" that, according to the Valentinian cosmological system, Satan was the left-hand ruler, but actually superior to the Creator, because he would consist of spirit, while the Creator of inferior matter.


title: Devil in Christianity

text: Byzantine understanding of the devil derived mostly from the church fathers of the first five centuries. Due to the focus on monasticism, mysticism and negative theology, which were more unifying than Western traditions, the devil played only a marginal role in Byzantine theology. Within such monistic cosmology, evil was considered as a deficiency having no real ontological existence. Thus the devil became the entity most remote from God, as described by Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite.


title: Devil in Christianity

text: John Climacus detailed the traps of the devil in his monastic treatise "The Ladder of Paradise". The first trap of the devil and his demons is to prevent people from performing good actions. In the second, one performs good but not in accordance with God's will. In the third, one becomes proud of one's good actions. Only by recognizing that all the good that one can perform comes from God can the last and most dangerous trap be avoided.


title: Devil in Christianity

text: John of Damascus, whose works also affected Western scholastic traditions, provided a rebuttal to Dualistic cosmology. Against dualistic religions like Manichaeism, he argued that, if the devil was a principle independent from God and there are two principles, they must be in complete opposition. But if they exist, according to John, they both share the trait of existence, resulting in only one principle (of existence) again. Influenced by John the Evangelist, he further emphasized the metaphors of "light" for good and "darkness" for evil. Like darkness, deprivation of good results in one's becoming non-existent and darker.


title: Devil in Christianity

text: Byzantine theology does not consider the devil as redeemable. Since the devil is a spirit, the devil and his angels cannot have a change in their will, just as humans turned into spirits after death are not able to change their attitude either.


title: Devil in Christianity

text: Although the teachings of Augustine, who rejected the Enochian writings and associated the devil with pride instead of envy, are usually considered to be the most fundamental depictions of the devil in medieval Christianity, some concepts like regarding evil as the mere absence of good, were far too subtle to be embraced by most theologians during the Early Middle Ages. They sought a more concrete image of evil to represent spiritual struggle and pain, so the devil became more of a concrete entity. From the 4th through the 12th centuries, Christian ideas combined with European pagan beliefs, creating a vivid folklore about the devil and introducing new elements. Although theologians usually conflated demons, "satans" and the devil, medieval demonology fairly consistently distinguished between Lucifer, the fallen angel fixed in hell, and the mobile Satan executing his will.


title: Devil in Christianity

text: Teutonic gods were often considered demons or even the devil. In the , Odin is explicitly described as another form of the devil, whom the pagans worshiped and to whom they sacrificed. Everything sacred to pagans or the foreign deities was usually perceived as sacred for the devil and feared by Christians. Many pagan nature spirits like dwarfs and elves became seen as demons, although a difference remained between monsters and demons. The monsters, regarded as distorted humans, probably without souls, were created so that people might be grateful to God that they did not suffer in such a state; they ranked above demons in existence and still claimed a small degree of beauty and goodness as they had not turned away from God.


title: Devil in Christianity

text: It was widely accepted that people could make a deal with the devil by which the devil would attempt to catch the soul of a human. Often, the human would have to renounce faith in Christ. But the devil could easily be tricked by courage and common sense and therefore often remained as a comic relief character in folkloric stories. In many German folktales, the devil replaces the role of a deceived giant, known from pagan tales. For example, the devil builds a bridge in exchange for the first passing being's soul, then people let a dog pass the bridge first and the devil is cheated.


title: Devil in Christianity

text: Pope Gregory the Great's doctrines about the devil became widely accepted during the Medieval period and, combined with Augustine's view, became the standard account of the devil. Gregory described the devil as the first creation of God. He was a cherub and leader of the angels (contrary to the Byzantine writer Pseudo-Dionysius, who did not place the devil among the angelic hierarchy). Gregory and Augustine agreed with the idea that the devil fell because of his own will; nevertheless, God held ultimate control over the cosmos. To support his argument, Gregory paraphrases parts of the Old Testament according to which God sends an evil spirit. However, the devils' will is indeed unjust; God merely diverts the evil deeds to justice. For Gregory, the devil is thus also the tempter. The tempter incites, but it is the human will that consents to sin. The devil is only responsible for the first stage of sinning.


title: Devil in Christianity

text: The revival of dualism in the 12th century by Catharism deeply influenced Christian perceptions on the devil. What is known of the Cathars largely comes in what is preserved by the critics in the Catholic Church which later destroyed them in the Albigensian Crusade. Alain de Lille, , accused the Cathars of believing in two gods, one of light and one of darkness. Durand de Huesca, responding to a Cathar tract indicates that they regarded the physical world as the creation of Satan. A former Italian Cathar turned Dominican, Sacchoni in 1250 testified to the Inquisition that his former co-religionists believed that the devil made the world and everything in it.


title: Devil in Christianity

text: Catharism probably roots in Bogomilism, founded by Theophilos in the 10th century, who in turn owed many ideas to the earlier Paulicians in Armenia and the Near East and had strong impact on the history of the Balkans. Their true origin probably lies within earlier sects such as Nestorianism, Marcionism and Borboritism, who all share the notion of a docetic Jesus. Like these earlier movements, Bogomilites agree upon a dualism between body and soul, matter and spirit, and a struggle between good and evil. Rejecting most of the Old Testament, they opposed the established Catholic Church whose deity they considered to be the devil. Among the Cathars, there have been both an absolute dualism (shared with Bogomilites and early Christian Gnosticism) and mitigated dualism as part of their own interpretation.


title: Devil in Christianity

text: Mitigated dualists are closer to Christianity, regarding Lucifer as an angel created (through emanation, since by rejecting the Old Testament, they rejected creation ex nihilo) by God, with Lucifer falling because of his own will. On the other hand, absolute dualists regard Lucifer as the eternal principle of evil, not part of God's creation. Lucifer forced the good souls into bodily shape, and imprisoned them in his kingdom. Following the absolute dualism, neither the souls of the heavenly realm nor the devil and his demons have free will but merely follow their nature, thus rejecting the Christian notion of sin.


title: Devil in Christianity

text: The Catholic church reacted to spreading dualism in the Fourth Council of the Lateran (1215), by affirming that God created everything from nothing; that the devil and his demons were created good, but turned evil by their own will; that humans yielded to the devil's temptations, thus falling into sin; and that, after Resurrection, evil people will suffer along with the devil, while good people enjoy eternity with Christ. Only a few theologians from the University of Paris, in 1241, proposed the contrary assertion, that God created the devil evil and without his own decision.


title: Devil in Christianity

text: After the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, parts of Bogomil Dualism remained in Balkan folklore concerning creation: before God created the world, he meets a goose on the eternal ocean. The name of the Goose is reportedly "Satanael" and it claims to be a god. When God asks Satanael who he is, the devil answers "the god of gods". God requests that the devil then dive to the bottom of the sea to carry some mud, and from this mud, they fashioned the world. God created his angels, and the devil created his demons. Later, the devil tries to assault god but is thrown into the abyss. He remains lurking on the creation of God and planning another attack on heaven. This myth shares some resemblance with Pre-Islamic Turkic creation myths as well as Bogomilite thoughts.


title: Devil in Christianity

text: From the beginning of the early modern period (around the 1400s), Christians started to imagine the devil as an increasingly powerful entity, constantly leading people into falsehood. Jews, witches, heretics and people affected by leprosy were often associated with the devil. The , a popular and extensive work on witch-hunting, was written in 1486. Protestants and the Catholic Church began to accuse each other of teaching false doctrines and unwittingly falling for the traps of the devil. Both Catholics and Protestants reformed Christian society by shifting their major ethical concerns from avoiding the "seven deadly sins" to observing the "Ten Commandments". Thus disloyalty to God, which was seen as disloyalty to the church, and idolatry became the greatest sins, making the devil increasingly dangerous. Some reform movements and early humanists often rejected the concept of a personal devil. For example, Voltaire dismissed belief in the devil as superstition.


title: Devil in Christianity

text: Martin Luther taught that the devil was real, personal and powerful. Evil was not a deficit of good, but the presumptuous will against God, his word and his creation. He also affirmed the reality of witchcraft caused by the devil. However, he denied the reality of witches' flight and metamorphoses, regarded as imagination instead. The devil could also possess someone. He opined that the possessed might feel the devil in himself, as a believer feels the Holy Spirit in his body. In his , Luther lists several hosts of greater and lesser devils. Greater devils would incite to greater sins, like unbelief and heresy, while lesser devils to minor sins like greed and fornication. Among these devils also appears Asmodeus known from the Book of Tobit. These anthropomorphic devils are used as stylistic devices for his audience, although Luther regards them as different manifestations of one spirit (i.e. the devil).


title: Devil in Christianity

text: Calvin taught the traditional view of the devil as a fallen angel. Calvin repeats the simile of Saint Augustine: "Man is like a horse, with either God or the Devil as rider." In interrogation of Servetus who had said that all creation was part of God, Calvin asked: "what of the Devil?" Servetus responded that "all things are a part and portion of God".


title: Devil in Christianity

text: Protestants regarded the teachings of the Catholic Church as undermined by Satan's agency, since they were seen as having replaced the teachings of the Bible with invented customs. Unlike heretics and witches, Protestants saw Catholics as following Satan unconsciously. By abandoning the ceremonial rituals and intercession upheld by the Catholic Church, reformers emphasized individual resistance against the temptations of the devil. Among Luther's teachings to ward off the devil was a recommendation of music since "the Devil cannot stand gaiety."


title: Devil in Christianity

text: David Joris was the first of the Anabaptists to suggest the devil was only an allegory (); this view found a small but persistent following in the Netherlands. The devil as a fallen angel symbolized Adam's fall from God's grace and Satan represented a power within man.


title: Devil in Christianity

text: Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) used the devil as a metaphor. The devil, Satan and similar figures mentioned throughout the Bible, refer in his work "Leviathan" to offices or qualities but not individual beings.


title: Devil in Christianity

text: However, these views remained very much a minority view at this time. Daniel Defoe in his "The Political History of the Devil" (1726) describes such views as a form of "practical atheism". Defoe wrote "those who believe there is a God, [...] acknowledge the debt of homage which mankind owes [...] to nature, and to believe the existence of the Devil is a like debt to reason".


title: Devil in Christianity

text: With the increasing influence of positivism, scientism and nihilism in the modern era, both the concept of God and the devil have become less relevant for many. However, Gallup has reported that "Regardless of political belief, religious inclination, education, or region, most Americans believe that the devil exists."


title: Devil in Christianity

text: Many Christian theologians have interpreted the devil within its original cultural context as a symbol of psychological forces. Many dropped the concept of the devil as an unnecessary assumption: the devil does not add much to solving the problem of evil since, whether or not the angels sinned before men, the question remains how evil entered the world in the first place.


title: Devil in Christianity

text: Rudolf Bultmann taught that Christians need to reject belief in a literal devil as part of formulating an authentic faith in today's world.


title: Devil in Christianity

text: In contrast, the works of writers like Jeffrey Burton Russell retain the belief in a literal personal fallen being of some kind. Russell argues that theologians who reject a literal devil (like Bultmann) overlook the fact that the devil is part and parcel of the New Testament from its origins.


title: Devil in Christianity

text: Christian theologian Karl Barth describes the devil neither as a person nor as a merely psychological force but as nature opposing good. He includes the devil in his threefold cosmology: there is God, God's creation, and "nothingness". "Nothingness" is not absence of existence, but a plane of existence in which God withdraws his creative power. It is depicted as chaos opposing real being, distorting the structure of the cosmos and gaining influence over humanity. In contrast to dualism, Barth argued that opposition to reality entails reality, so that the existence of the devil depends on the existence of God and is not an independent principle.


title: Devil in Christianity

text: While the Catholic Church has not paid much attention to the devil in the modern period, some contemporary Catholic teachings have begun to re-emphasize the devil.


title: Devil in Christianity

text: Pope Paul VI expressed concern about the influence of the devil in 1972, stating that: "Satan's smoke has made its way into the Temple of God through some crack". However, John Paul II viewed the defeat of Satan as inevitable.


title: Devil in Christianity

text: Pope Francis brought renewed focus on the devil in the early 2010s, stating, among many other pronouncements, that "The devil is intelligent, he knows more theology than all the theologians together." Journalist Cindy Wooden commented on the pervasiveness of the devil in Pope Francis' teachings, noting that Francis believes that the devil is real. During a morning homily in the chapel of the Domus Sanctae Marthae, in 2013, the pontiff said:


title: Devil in Christianity

text: In 2019, Arturo Sosa, superior general of the Society of Jesus, said that Satan is a symbol, the personification of evil, but not a person and not a "personal reality"; four months later, he said that the devil is real, and his power is a malevolent force.


title: Devil in Christianity

text: Liberal Christianity often views the devil metaphorically and figuratively. The devil is seen as representing human sin and temptation, and any human system in opposition to God. Early Unitarians and Dissenters like Nathaniel Lardner, Richard Mead, Hugh Farmer, William Ashdowne and John Simpson, and John Epps taught that the miraculous healings of the Bible were real, but that the devil was an allegory, and demons just the medical language of the day. Such views are taught today by Christadelphians and the Church of the Blessed Hope. Unitarians and Christadelphians who reject the Trinity, immortality of the soul and the divinity of Christ, also reject belief in a personified evil.


title: Devil in Christianity

text: Charismatic movements regard the devil as a personal and real character, rejecting the increasingly metaphorical and historical reinterpretation of the devil in the modern period as unbiblical and contrary to the life of Jesus. People who surrender to the kingdom of the devil are in danger of becoming possessed by his demons.


title: Devil in Christianity

text: The Catechism of the Catholic Church states that the Church regards the Devil as being created as a good angel by God, and by his and his fellow fallen angels' free will, fell out of God's grace. Satan is not an infinitely powerful being. Although he is an angel, and thus pure spirit, he is considered a creature nonetheless. Satan's actions are permitted by divine providence. Catholicism rejects Apocatastasis, the reconciliation with God suggested by the Church Father Origen.


title: Devil in Christianity

text: A number of prayers and practices against the Devil exist within Catholic Church tradition. The Lord's Prayer includes a petition for being delivered "from the evil one", but a number of other specific prayers also exist.


title: Devil in Christianity

text: The Prayer to Saint Michael specifically asks for Catholics to be defended "against the wickedness and snares of the Devil." Given that some of the messages from Our Lady of Fatima have been linked by the Holy See to the "end times", some Catholic authors have concluded that the angel referred to within the Fatima messages is Michael the Archangel, who defeats the Devil in the War in Heaven. Timothy Tindal-Robertson takes the position that the Consecration of Russia was a step in the eventual defeat of Satan by the Archangel Michael.


title: Devil in Christianity

text: The process of exorcism is used within the Catholic Church against the Devil and demonic possession. According to The Catechism of the Catholic Church, "Jesus performed exorcisms and from him the Church has received the power and office of exorcising". Gabriele Amorth, the chief exorcist of the Diocese of Rome, warned against ignoring Satan, saying, "Whoever denies Satan also denies sin and no longer understands the actions of Christ".


title: Devil in Christianity

text: The Catholic Church views the battle against the Devil as ongoing. During a 24 May 1987 visit to the Sanctuary of Saint Michael the Archangel, Pope John Paul II said:


title: Devil in Christianity

text: In Eastern Orthodoxy, the devil is an integral part of Christian cosmology. The existence of the devil is taken seriously and is not subject to question. According to Eastern Orthodox Christian tradition, there are three enemies of humanity: Death, sin and Satan. In contrast to Western Christianity, sin is not viewed as a deliberate choice but as a universal and inescapable weakness. Sin is turning from God towards oneself, a form of egoism and ungratefulness, leading away from God towards death and nothingness. Lucifer invented sin, resulting in death, and introduced it first to the angels, who have been created before the material world, and then to humanity. Lucifer, considered a former radiant archangel, lost his light after his fall and became the dark "Satan" (the enemy).


title: Devil in Christianity

text: Eastern Orthodoxy maintains that God did not create death, but that it was forged by the devil through deviance from the righteous way (a love of God and gratitude). In a sense, it was a place where God was not, for he could not die, yet it was an inescapable prison for all humanity until the Christ. Before Christ's resurrection, it could be said that humanity had a reason to fear the devil, as he was a creature that could separate mankind from God and source of life — for God could not enter hell, and humanity could not escape it.


title: Devil in Christianity

text: Once in Hades, the Orthodox hold that Christ — being good and just — granted life and resurrection to all who wanted to follow him. As a result, the devil has been overthrown and is no longer able to hold humanity. With the prison despoiled, the devil only has power over whose who freely choose him and sin.


title: Devil in Christianity

text: Evangelical Protestants agree that Satan is a real, created being entirely given over to evil and that evil is whatever opposes God or is not willed by God. Evangelicals emphasize the power and involvement of Satan in history in varying degrees; some virtually ignore Satan and others revel in speculation about spiritual warfare against that personal power of darkness. According to Soergel, Martin Luther avoided "an extensive treatment of the angels' place in heavenly hierarchy or in Christian theology." Modern Protestants continue in a similar way, since it is thought as neither useful nor necessary to know.


title: Devil in Christianity

text: Jehovah's Witnesses believe that Satan was originally a perfect angel who developed feelings of self-importance and craved worship that belonged to God. Satan persuaded Adam and Eve to obey him rather than God, raising the issue—often referred to as a "controversy"—of whether people, having been granted free will, would obey God under both temptation and persecution. The issue is said to be whether God can rightfully claim to be sovereign of the universe. Instead of destroying Satan, God decided to test the loyalty of the rest of humankind and to prove to the rest of creation that Satan was a liar. Jehovah's Witnesses believe that Satan is God's chief adversary and the invisible ruler of the world. They believe that demons were originally angels who rebelled against God and took Satan's side in the controversy.


title: Devil in Christianity

text: Jehovah's Witnesses do not believe that Satan lives in Hell or that he has been given responsibility to punish the wicked. Satan and his demons are said to have been cast down from Heaven to Earth in 1914, marking the beginning of the "last days". Witnesses believe that Satan and his demons influence individuals, organizations and nations, and that they are the cause of human suffering. At Armageddon, Satan is to be bound for 1,000 years, and then given a brief opportunity to mislead perfect humanity before being destroyed.


title: Devil in Christianity

text: In Mormonism, the devil is a real being, a literal spirit son of God who once had angelic authority, but rebelled and fell prior to the creation of the Earth in a pre-mortal life. At that time, he persuaded a third part of the spirit children of God to rebel with him. This was in opposition to the plan of salvation championed by Jehovah (Jesus Christ). Now the devil tries to persuade mankind into doing evil (). Mankind can overcome this through faith in Jesus Christ and obedience to the Gospel.


title: Devil in Christianity

text: Latter-Day Saints traditionally regard Lucifer as the pre-mortal name of the devil. Mormon theology teaches that in a heavenly council, Lucifer rebelled against the plan of God the Father and was subsequently cast out. Mormon scripture reads:


title: Devil in Christianity

text: After becoming Satan by his fall, Lucifer "goeth up and down, to and fro in the earth, seeking to destroy the souls of men" (). Mormons consider Isaiah 14:12 to be referring to both the king of the Babylonians and the devil.


title: Devil in Christianity

text: The devil might either be a cherub or a seraph. Christian writers were often undecided from which order of the angels the devil fell. While the devil is identified with the cherub in Ezekiel 28:13–15, this conflicts with the view that the devil was among the highest angels, who are, according to Pseudo-Dionysius, the seraphim. Thomas Aquinas quotes Gregory the Great who stated that Satan "surpassed [the angels] all in glory". Arguing that the higher an angel stood the more likely he was to become guilty of pride, the devil would be a seraph. But Aquinas held sin incompatible with the fiery love characteristic of a seraph, but possible for a cherub, whose primary characteristic is fallible knowledge. He concludes, in line with Ezekiel, that the devil was the most knowledgeable of the angels, a cherub.


title: Devil in Christianity

text: Christianity is undecided whether the devil fell immediately into hell or if he is given respite until the Day of Judgment. Several Christian authors, among them Dante Alighieri and John Milton, have depicted the devil as resident in Hell. This is in contrast to parts of the Bible that describe the devil as traveling about the earth, like Job 1:6–7 and 1 Peter 5:8, discussed above. On the other hand, 2 Peter 2:4 speaks of sinning angels chained in hell. At least according to Revelation 20:10, the devil is thrown into the Lake of Fire and Sulfur. Theologians disagree whether the devil roams the air of the earth or fell underground into hell, yet both views agree that the devil will be in hell after Judgment Day.


title: Devil in Christianity

text: If the devil is bound in hell, the question arises how he can still appear to people on earth. In some literature, the devil only sends his lesser demons or Satan to execute his will, while he remains chained in hell. Others assert that the devil is chained but takes his chains with him when he rises to the surface of the earth. Gregory the Great tried to resolve this conflict by stating that, no matter where the devil dwells spatially, separation from God itself is a state of hell. Bede states in his "Commentary on the Epistle of James (3.6)", no matter where the devil and his angels move, they carry the tormenting flames of hell with them, like a person with fever.


title: Devil in Christianity

text: He further divides angelic orders, as distinguished by Pseudo-Dionysius, into fallible and infallible based whether the Bible mentions them in relation to the demonic or not. He concludes that because seraphim (the highest order) and thrones (the third-highest) are never mentioned as devils, they are unable to sin. On the contrary, the Bible speaks about cherubim (the second-highest order) and powers (the sixth-highest) in relation to the devil. He concludes that attributes represented by the infallible angels, like charity, can only be good, while attributes represented by cherubim and powers can be both good and bad.


title: Devil in Christianity

text: Aquinas concludes that angels as intellectual creatures cannot succumb to bodily desires, they can sin as result of their mind-based will. The sins attributed to the devil include pride, envy, and even lust, for Lucifer loved himself more than everything else. Initially, after the angels realized their existence, they decided for or against dependence on God, and the good and evil angels were separated from each other after a short delay following their creation. Similarly, Peter Lombard writes in his "Sentences", angels were all created as good spirits, had a short interval of free-decision and some choose love and have thus been rewarded with grace by God, while others choose sin (pride or envy) and became demons.


title: Devil in Christianity

text: The earliest representation of the devil might be a mosaic in Basilica of Sant'Apollinare Nuovo in Ravenna from the 6th century, in the form of a blue angel. Blue and violet were common colors for the devil in the early Middle Ages, reflecting his body composed of the air below the heavens, considered to consist of thicker material than the ethereal fire of heavens the good angels are made from and thus colored red. The devil's first appearance as black rather than blue was in the 9th century. Only later did the devil became associated with the color red to reflect blood or the fires of hell.


title: Devil in Christianity

text: Before the 11th century, the devil was often shown in art as either a human or a black imp. The humanoid devil often wore white robes and feathered bird-like wings or appeared as an old man in a tunic. The imps were depicted as tiny misshapen creatures. When humanoid features were combined with monstrous ones during the 11th century, the imp's monstrosity gradually developed into the grotesque. Horns became a common motif starting in the 11th century. The devil was often depicted as naked wearing only loincloths, symbolizing sexuality and wildness.


title: Devil in Christianity

text: Particularly in the medieval period, the devil was often shown as having horns and a goat's hindquarters and with a tail. He was also depicted as carrying a pitchfork, the implement used in Hell to torment the damned, which derives in part from the trident of Poseidon. Goat-like images resemble the Ancient Greek Deity Pan. Pan in particular looks very much like the European devil in the late Middle Ages. It is unknown if these features are directly taken from Pan or whether Christians coincidentally devised an image similar to Pan. Depiction of the devil as a satyr-like creature is attested since the 11th century.


title: Devil in Christianity

text: Poets such as Geoffrey Chaucer associated the color green with the Devil, although in modern times the color is red.


title: Devil in Christianity

text: The portrayal of the devil in Dante Alighieri's "Inferno" reflects early Christian Neo-Platonic thought. Dante structures his cosmology morally; God is beyond heaven and the devil at the bottom of hell beneath the earth. Imprisoned in the middle of the earth, the devil becomes the center of the material and sinful world to which all sinfulness is drawn. In opposition to God, who is portrayed by Dante as a love and light, Lucifer is frozen and isolated in the last circle of hell. Almost motionless, more pathetic, foolish, and repulsive than terrifying, the devil represents evil in the sense of lacking substance. In accordance with Platonic/Christian tradition, his gigantic appearance indicates a lack of power, as pure matter was considered the farthest from God and closest to non-being.


title: Devil in Christianity

text: The devil is described as a huge fiend, whose buttocks are frozen in ice. He has three faces, chewing on the three traitors Judas, Cassius and Brutus. Lucifer himself is also accused of treason for turning against his Creator. Below each of his faces, Lucifer has a pair of bat-wings, another symbol of darkness.


title: Devil in Christianity

text: In John Milton's Renaissance epic poem "Paradise Lost", Satan is one of the main characters, perhaps an anti-hero. In line with Christian theology, Satan rebelled against God and was subsequently banished from heaven along with his fellow angels. Milton breaks with previous authors who portray Satan as a grotesque figure; instead, he becomes a persuasive and charismatic leader who, even in hell, convinced the other fallen angels to establish their own kingdom. It is unclear whether Satan is a hero turning against an unjust ruler (God) or a fool who leads himself and his followers into damnation in a futile attempt to become equal to God. Milton uses several pagan images to depict the demons, and Satan himself arguably resembles the ancient legendary hero Aeneas. Satan is less the devil as known from Christian theology than a morally ambivalent character with strengths and weaknesses, inspired by the Christian devil.


title: Exene Cervenka

text: Exene Cervenka (born Christene Lee Cervenka; February 1, 1956) is an American singer, artist, and poet. She is best known for her work as a singer in the California punk rock band X.


title: Exene Cervenka

text: The 21-year-old Cervenka met 23-year-old musician John Doe at a poetry workshop at the Beyond Baroque Foundation in Venice, California. Cervenka started working there.


title: Exene Cervenka

text: Billy Zoom (guitar) and John Doe (bass and vocals) founded X in 1977, with D.J. Bonebrake coming aboard as drummer. Doe asked Cervenka to join soon after as a co-lead vocalist, and the duo were also the band's primary songwriters. They released their debut album, "Los Angeles," in 1980 and, over the next six years, five more albums.


title: Exene Cervenka

text: In 1982, Cervenka published "Adulterers Anonymous", her first in a series of four books in collaboration with artist Lydia Lunch. She and Lunch also released a spoken word album, "Rude Hieroglyphics", in 1996 and toured in support of the project.


title: Exene Cervenka

text: From 1996 to 1999, John Roecker and Cervenka co-owned the Los Angeles store "You've Got Bad Taste." The store specialized in kitsch and various "off-color" novelties.


title: Exene Cervenka

text: In 1999, as Exene Červenková, she appeared in the cult video "Decoupage 2000: Return of the Goddess," along with guests Karen Black and the band L7. She gave a reading of her poem "They Must Be Angels," and appeared in an interview skit with "Decoupage 2000" hostess Summer Caprice.


title: Exene Cervenka

text: In 2005, Cervenka's journals and mixed media collages were exhibited in a one-person exhibition titled "America the Beautiful" at the Santa Monica Museum of Art. The exhibit was curated by Kristine McKenna and Michael Duncan. An expanded version of the exhibition traveled to DCKT Contemporary in New York in January 2006.


title: Exene Cervenka

text: Cervenka was married to John Doe from 1980 to 1985. She met her second husband Viggo Mortensen in 1986 on the set of the comedy "Salvation!", a parody of televangelism. Mortensen played her husband Jerome. They married on July 8, 1987. On January 28, 1988, Cervenka gave birth to a son, Henry Blake Mortensen. Mortensen and Cervenka lived in Idaho for three years. They separated in 1992, and were divorced in 1997.


title: Exene Cervenka

text: Cervenka married musician Jason Edge, who went on to play in her band Original Sinners. Edge and Cervenka are now divorced.


title: Exene Cervenka

text: Cervenka moved from Los Angeles to Jefferson City, Missouri, for four years, and then returned to Southern California. She now lives in Orange County.


title: Exene Cervenka

text: On June 2, 2009, Cervenka released a statement revealing that she had been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. Well before this diagnosis, she and X had actively supported Sweet Relief, a charity that aids uninsured artists. Sweet Relief was begun by musician Victoria Williams when she herself was diagnosed with MS. In 2011, Cervenka said she may have been misdiagnosed. However, Cervenka had to cancel a Spring 2011 tour due to problems associated with her MS. During a July 2015 interview, John Doe said that the multiple sclerosis diagnosis was a misdiagnosis, that Cervenka, after consulting with various doctors who were not able to diagnose her, is healthy.


title: Exene Cervenka

text: Cervenka, as a self-styled "conspiracy therapist," has provoked controversy on social media and on YouTube, under the name "Christine Notmyrealname," by advancing conspiracy theories including the view that the Isla Vista shootings were a hoax designed to bring about stricter gun control laws. After the backlash, she has issued an apology on her Facebook and Twitter accounts and her conspiracy related YouTube videos are no longer available for viewing. However, when pressed in interviews, Cervenka has insisted on a talking point of a "fake" news media, and has given tacit approval to what critics describe as fringe ideologies espoused on message boards and by then-President Donald Trump.


title: William Tyndale

text: William Tyndale (; sometimes spelled "Tynsdale", "Tindall", "Tindill", "Tyndall"; – ) was an English biblical scholar and linguist who became a leading figure in the Protestant Reformation in the years leading up to his execution. He is well known as a translator of the Bible into English, and was influenced by the works of prominent Protestant Reformers such as Martin Luther.


title: William Tyndale

text: Luther's translation of the Christian Bible into German appeared in 1522. Tyndale's translation was the first English Bible to draw directly from Hebrew and Greek texts, the first English translation to take advantage of the printing press, the first of the new English Bibles of the Reformation, and the first English translation to use "Jehovah" ("Iehouah") as God's name as preferred by English Protestant Reformers. It was taken to be a direct challenge to the hegemony both of the Catholic Church and of those laws of England maintaining the church's position. The work of Tyndale continued to play a key role in spreading Reformation ideas across the English-speaking world and eventually across the British Empire.


title: William Tyndale

text: Tyndale's translation of the Bible was used for subsequent English translations, including the Great Bible and the Bishops' Bible, authorized by the Church of England. In 1611, after seven years of work, the 47 scholars who produced the King James Version drew extensively from Tyndale's original work and other translations that descended from his. One estimate suggests that the New Testament in the King James Version is 83% Tyndale's words and the Old Testament 76%.