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101-589: Devla basically means "God". It cannot be confused with the English word Devil , because the word for "Devil" in Romani is Beng . Interestingly some villages in India are named "Devla", as example Devla, India . These Roma words existed in the Roma language centuries before any Roma adopted Christianity or Islam. That is, "Devla or Del" is a common noun meaning "a god". It is based on

202-420: A spiritual being ( Geistwesen ), having no relation to any form of sensual pleasure. It is necessarily required for the devil to be a spiritual being because if the devil were also a sensual being, it would be possible that the devil does evil to satisfy lower sensual desires, and does not act from the mind alone. The devil acts against morals, not to satisfy sensual lust, but solely for the sake of evil. As such,

303-529: A classical model as Botticelli does, personifications in art tend to be relatively static, and found together in sets, whether of statues decorating buildings or paintings, prints or media such as porcelain figures. Sometimes one or more virtues take on and invariably conquer vices. Other paintings by Botticelli are exceptions to such simple compositions, in particular his Primavera and The Birth of Venus , in both of which several figures form complex allegories. An unusually powerful single personification figure

404-478: A detailed description of a lost painting by Apelles (4th century BC) called the Calumny of Apelles , which some Renaissance painters followed, most famously Botticelli . This included eight personifications of virtues and vices: Hope, Repentance, Perfidy, Calumny, Fraud, Rancour, Ignorance, Suspicion, as well as two other figures. Platonism , which in some manifestations proposed systems involving numbers of spirits,

505-605: A dialogue between the author and "Lady Philosophy". Fortuna and the Wheel of Fortune were prominent and memorable in this, which helped to make the latter a favourite medieval trope. Both authors were Christians, and the origins in the pagan classical religions of the standard range of personifications had been left well behind. A medieval creation was the Four Daughters of God , a shortened group of virtues consisting of: Truth, Righteousness or Justice, Mercy, and Peace. There were also

606-596: A female personification is treated at some length, and makes speeches. The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse from the Book of Revelation can be regarded as personification figures, although the text does not specify what all personify. According to James J. Paxson in his book on the subject " all personification figures prior to the sixth century A.D. were ... female"; but major rivers have male personifications much earlier, and are more often male, which often extends to "Water" in

707-893: A god, but an evil angel. These writings commonly refer to the Creator of the material world as "a demiurgus " to distinguish him from the One true God . Some texts, such as the Apocryphon of John and On the Origin of the World , not only demonized the Creator God but also called him by the name of the devil in some Jewish writings, Samael . In the 12th century in Europe the Cathars , who were rooted in Gnosticism , dealt with

808-478: A good soul will be brought to Paradise by a Yayutshi sent by Ulgen. Some shamans also made sacrifices to Erlik, for gaining a higher rank in the Underworld, if they should be damned to Hell. According to Yazidism there is no entity that represents evil in opposition to God; such dualism is rejected by Yazidis, and evil is regarded as nonexistent. Yazidis adhere to strict monism and are prohibited from uttering

909-460: A male personification for the governing assembly of free citizens, and Boule , a female one for the ruling council. These appear in art but are often hard to identify if not labelled. Personification in the Bible is mostly limited to passing phrases which can probably be regarded as literary flourishes, with the important and much-discussed exception of Wisdom in the Book of Proverbs , 1–9, where

1010-508: A remarkable degree of continuity from late antiquity until the 18th century". Female personifications tend to outnumber male ones, at least until modern national personifications , many of which are male. Personifications are very common elements in allegory , and historians and theorists of personification complain that the two have been too often confused, or discussion of them dominated by allegory. Single images of personifications tend to be titled as an "allegory", arguably incorrectly. By

1111-523: A secondary deity, a demiurgus , who was god, in a sense, but not the supreme God; he was just, rigidly just, he had his good qualities, but he was not the good god, who was Father of Our Lord Jesus Christ. John Arendzen (1909) in the Catholic Encyclopedia (1913) mentions that Eusebius accused Apelles , the 2nd-century AD Gnostic, of considering the Inspirer of Old Testament prophecies to be not

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1212-440: A sensual joy or relief still accompanies the destruction of the tulip and therefore cannot be thought of solely as a violation of morality. Kant further argues that a (spiritual) devil would be a contradiction. If the devil would be defined by doing evil, the devil had no free choice in the first place. But if the devil had no free-choice, the devil could not have been held accountable for his actions, since he had no free will but

1313-515: A son of God and a brother to Christ. To explain this, they used the parable of the prodigal son, with Christ as the good son, and Lucifer as the son that strayed into evilness. The Catholic Church responded to dualism in AD 1215 in the Fourth Lateran Council , saying that God created everything from nothing, and the devil was good when he was created, but he made himself bad by his own free will. In

1414-574: A strong element of liberty, perhaps culminating in the Statue of Liberty . The long poem Liberty by the Scottish James Thomson (1734), is a lengthy monologue spoken by the " Goddess of Liberty ", describing her travels through the ancient world, and then English and British history, before the resolution of the Glorious Revolution of 1688 confirms her position there. Thomson also wrote

1515-436: A tulip seller who was in possession of a rare tulip, but when he learned that another seller had the same tulip, he bought it from him and then destroyed it instead of keeping it for himself. If he had acted according to his sensual urges, the seller would have kept the tulip for himself to make a profit, but not have destroyed it. Nevertheless, the destruction of the tulip cannot be completely absolved from sensual impulses, since

1616-441: A variety of definitions for the meaning of "devil", supported by a range of citations: "Devil" may refer to Satan, the supreme spirit of evil, or one of Satan's emissaries or demons that populate Hell, or to one of the spirits that possess a demoniac person; "devil" may refer to one of the "malignant deities" feared and worshiped by "heathen people", a demon, a malignant being of superhuman powers; figuratively "devil" may be applied to

1717-669: A wicked person, or playfully to a rogue or rascal, or in empathy often accompanied by the word "poor" to a person—"poor devil". In the Baháʼí Faith , a malevolent, superhuman entity such as a devil or satan is not believed to exist. However, these terms do appear in the Baháʼí writings, where they are used as metaphors for the lower nature of man. Human beings are seen to have free will , and are thus able to turn towards God and develop spiritual qualities or turn away from God and become immersed in their self-centered desires. Individuals who follow

1818-449: Is Ahriman . They are in eternal struggle and neither is all-powerful, especially Angra Mainyu is limited to space and time: in the end of time, he will be finally defeated. While Ahura Mazda creates what is good, Angra Mainyu is responsible for every evil and suffering in the world, such as toads and scorpions. Iranian Zoroastrians also considered the Daeva as devil creature, because of this in

1919-586: Is also used in the New Testament as a synonym for the devil. A corrupted version, "Belzeboub", appears in The Divine Comedy ( Inferno XXXIV). In other, non-mainstream, Christian beliefs (e.g. the beliefs of the Christadelphians ) the word "satan" in the Bible is not regarded as referring to a supernatural, personal being but to any 'adversary' and figuratively refers to human sin and temptation. In

2020-467: Is depicted in Melencolia I (1514) an engraving by Albrecht Dürer . Venus, Cupid, Folly and Time ( c.  1545 ) by Agnolo Bronzino has five personifications, apart from Venus and Cupid. In all these cases, the meaning of the work remains uncertain, despite intensive academic discussion, and even the identity of the figures continues to be argued over. Around 300 BC, Demetrius of Phalerum

2121-516: Is good, the evil in the world must be part of God's plan. Actually, God allowed the devil to seduce humanity. Evil and suffering are regarded as a test or a chance to prove confidence in God. Some philosophers and mystics emphasized Iblis himself as a role model of confidence in God. Because God ordered the angels to prostrate themselves, Iblis was forced to choose between God's command and God's will (not to praise someone other than God). He successfully passed

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2222-511: Is in stark contrast to Islamists, such as Osama bin Laden , who justifies his violence against the infidels by contrary assertions. While in classical hadiths , devils ( shayāṭīn ) and jinn are responsible for ritual impurity, many Salafis substitute local demons by an omnipresent threat through the Devil himself. Only through remembrance of God and ritual purity, the devil can be kept away. As such,

2323-602: Is inherently evil. The One true God is remote, beyond the material universe; therefore, this universe must be governed by an inferior imposter deity. This deity was identified with the deity of the Old Testament by some sects, such as the Sethians and the Marcions . Tertullian accuses Marcion of Sinope , that he [held that] the Old Testament was a scandal to the faithful … and … accounted for it by postulating [that Jehovah was]

2424-456: Is not necessarily seen as opposed to God. The devil activates the selfish desires of the psyche, leading the human astray from the Divine. Thus, it is the I that is regarded as evil, and both Iblis and Pharao are present as symbols for uttering "I" in ones own behavior. Therefore, it is recommended to use the term I as little as possible. It is only God who has the right to say "I", since it

2525-440: Is only God who is self-subsistent. Uttering "I" is therefore a way to compare oneself to God, regarded as shirk . Many Salafi strands emphasize a dualistic worldview between believers and unbelievers, The unbelievers are considered to be under the domain of the Devil and are the enemies of the faithful. The former are credited with tempting the latter to sin and away from God's path. The Devil will ultimately be defeated by

2626-447: Is performed. This Romani -related article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . This religion -related article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Devil A devil is the mythical personification of evil as it is conceived in various cultures and religious traditions. It is seen as the objectification of a hostile and destructive force. Jeffrey Burton Russell states that

2727-431: Is portrayed as a large, ferocious dragon or snake and is considered the king of the World of Darkness. Together they rule the underworld and create the seven planets and twelve zodiac constellations . Also found in the underworld is Krun , the greatest of the five Mandaean Lords of the underworld. He dwells in the lowest depths of creation and his epithet is the 'mountain of flesh'. Prominent infernal beings found in

2828-715: Is the first writer on rhetoric to describe prosopopoeia, which was already a well-established device in rhetoric and literature, from Homer onwards. Quintilian 's lengthy Institutio Oratoria gives a comprehensive account, and a taxonomy of common personifications; no more comprehensive account was written until after the Renaissance. The main Renaissance humanists to deal with the subject at length were Erasmus in his De copia and Petrus Mosellanus in Tabulae de schematibus et tropis , who were copied by other writers throughout

2929-440: Is the representation of a thing or abstraction as a person. It is, in other words, considered an embodiment or an incarnation. In the arts , many things are commonly personified. These include numerous types of places, especially cities, countries , and continents , elements of the natural world such as the trees or four seasons , four elements , four cardinal winds , five senses , and abstractions such as virtues, especially

3030-502: The Gospel of the Secret Supper , Lucifer, just as in prior Gnostic systems, appears as a demiurge, who created the material world. In Islam, the principle of evil is expressed by two terms referring to the same entity: Shaitan (meaning astray , distant or devil ) and Iblis . Iblis is the proper name of the devil representing the characteristics of evil. Iblis is mentioned in

3131-503: The Book of Wisdom , the devil is represented as the one who brought death into the world. The Second Book of Enoch contains references to a Watcher called Satanael, describing him as the prince of the Grigori who was cast out of heaven and an evil spirit who knew the difference between what was "righteous" and "sinful". In the Book of Jubilees , Satan rules over a host of angels. Mastema , who induced God to test Abraham through

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3232-484: The Four Elements . The predominance of females is at least partly because Latin grammar gives nouns for abstractions the female gender. Pairs of winged victories decorated the spandrels of Roman triumphal arches and similar spaces, and ancient Roman coinage was an especially rich source of images, many carrying their name, which was helpful for medieval and Renaissance antiquarians. Sets of tyches representing

3333-640: The Lake of Fire . He is described as hating all humanity (or more accurately all creation), opposing God, spreading lies and wreaking havoc on their souls. In the Bible , the devil is identified as "the dragon" and "the old serpent" in the Book of Revelation, as "the prince of this world" in the Gospel of John ; "the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience" in the Epistle to

3434-847: The Middle English devel , from the Old English dēofol , that in turn represents an early Germanic borrowing of the Latin diabolus . This in turn was borrowed from the Greek διάβολος diábolos , "slanderer", from διαβάλλειν diabállein , "to slander" from διά diá , "across, through" and βάλλειν bállein , "to hurl", probably akin to the Sanskrit gurate , "he lifts up". In his book The Devil: Perceptions of Evil from Antiquity to Primitive Christianity , Jeffrey Burton Russell discusses various meanings and difficulties that are encountered when using

3535-520: The Palazzo Pubblico of Siena . In the Allegory of Bad Government Tyranny is enthroned, with Avarice, Pride, and Vainglory above him. Beside him on the magistrate's bench sit Cruelty, Deceit, Fraud, Fury, Division, and War, while Justice lies tightly bound below. The so-called Mantegna Tarocchi ( c.  1465 –75) are sets of fifty educational cards depicting personifications of social classes,

3636-619: The Quranic narrative about the creation of humanity. When God created Adam , he ordered the angels to prostrate themselves before him. Out of pride, Iblis refused and claimed to be superior to Adam. Therefore, pride but also envy became a sign of "unbelief" in Islam. Thereafter, Iblis was condemned to Hell, but God granted him a request to lead humanity astray, knowing the righteous would resist Iblis' attempts to misguide them. In Islam, both good and evil are ultimately created by God. But since God's will

3737-741: The Sanskrit word deva , related to the Latin words deus ("god") and divinus ("godly, godlike"), Greek Zeus , Lithuanian Dievas and the name for the sky god *Dyēus present throughout Indo-European religions and cultures. After the Yugoslav Wars , some Roma of different groups, like the Arlije and Gurbeti , created their own ethnic religion , based on their folk beliefs of their old Romani folklore , but there are few believers, their holy days are named Djisatedimi . Rites like infant baptism ( bona ) and religious male circumcision ( sunet bijav ) maintained from Christianity and Islam and

3838-455: The Shahnameh , it is mentioned as both Ahriman Div ( Persian : اهریمن دیو , romanized :  Ahriman Div ) as a devil. A non-published manuscript of Spinoza 's Ethics contained a chapter (Chapter XXI) on the devil, where Spinoza examined whether the devil may exist or not. He defines the devil as an entity which is contrary to God. However, if the devil is the opposite of God,

3939-407: The sacrifice of Isaac , is identical with Satan in both name and nature. The Book of Enoch contains references to Sathariel , thought also to be Sataniel and Satan'el . The similar spellings mirror that of his angelic brethren Michael , Raphael , Uriel , and Gabriel , previous to his expulsion from Heaven. Gnostic and Gnostic-influenced religions postulate the idea that the material world

4040-457: The seven virtues , made up of the four classical cardinal virtues of prudence , justice , temperance and courage (or fortitude), these going back to Plato 's Republic , with the three theological virtues of faith , hope and charity . The seven deadly sins were their counterparts. The major works of Middle English literature had many personification characters, and often formed what are called "personification allegories" where

4141-430: The 16th century. From the late 16th century theoretical writers such as Karel van Mander in his Schilder-boeck (1604) began to treat personification in terms of the visual arts . At the same time the emblem book , describing and illustrating emblematic images that were largely personifications, became enormously popular, both with intellectuals and artists and craftsmen looking for motifs. The most famous of these

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4242-426: The 1870s, but now has some actual Hindu temples . Personification is found very widely in classical literature, art and drama, as well as the treatment of personifications as relatively minor deities, or the rather variable category of daemons . In classical Athens, every geographical division of the state for local government purposes had a personified deity which received some cultic attention, as well as Demos ,

4343-432: The 18th century, and such "complaints only grow louder in the nineteenth century". According to Andrew Escobedo, there is now "an unstated scholarly consensus" that "personification is a kind of frozen or hollow version of literal characters", which "depletes the fiction". Personifications, often in sets, frequently appear in medieval art , often illustrating or following literary works. The virtues and vices were probably

4444-594: The Devil becomes an increasinly powerful entity who is believed to interfer with both personal and political life. For example, many Salafis blame the Devil for Western emancipation . Yahweh , the god in pre-exilic Judaism , created both good and evil, as stated in Isaiah 45:7: "I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things." The devil does not exist in Jewish scriptures. However,

4545-527: The Ephesians ; and "the god of this world" in 2 Corinthians 4:4. He is also identified as the tempter of the Gospels . Satan is traditionally identified as the serpent who convinced Eve to eat the forbidden fruit ; thus, Satan has often been depicted as a serpent. Beelzebub is originally the name of a Philistine god (more specifically a certain type of Baal , from Ba‘al Zebûb , lit. "Lord of Flies") but

4646-539: The French Roman de la Rose (13th century). The English mystery plays and the later morality plays have many personifications as characters, alongside their biblical figures. Frau Minne , the spirit of courtly love in German medieval literature, had equivalents in other vernaculars. In Italian literature Petrach 's Triomphi , finished in 1374, is based around a procession of personifications carried on "cars", as

4747-414: The Jewish idea of the devil as yetzer hara . On the other hand, Shaitan refers unilaterally to forces of evil, including the devil Iblis who causes mischief. Shaitan is also linked to humans' psychological nature, appearing in dreams, causing anger, or interrupting the mental preparation for prayer. Furthermore, the term Shaitan also refers to beings who follow the evil suggestions of Iblis. Also,

4848-524: The Limits of Reason Alone , Immanuel Kant uses the devil as the personification of maximum moral reprehensibility. Deviating from the common Christian idea, Kant does not locate the morally reprehensible in sensual urges. Since evil has to be intelligible , only when the sensual is consciously placed above the moral obligation can something be regarded as morally evil. Thus, to be evil, the devil must be able to comprehend morality but consciously reject it, and, as

4949-557: The Sufi idea of seeing "Many as One" and considering the creation in its essence as the Absolute, leads to the idea of the dissolution of any dualism between the ego substance and the "external" substantial objects. The rebellion against God, mentioned in the Quran, takes place on the level of the psyche that must be trained and disciplined for its union with the spirit that is pure. Since psyche drives

5050-465: The World of Darkness include lilith , nalai ( vampire ), niuli ( hobgoblin ), latabi (devil), gadalta ( ghost ), satani ( Satan ) and various other demons and evil spirits. In Manichaeism , God and the devil are two unrelated principles. God created good and inhabits the realm of light, while the devil (also called the prince of darkness ) created evil and inhabits the kingdom of darkness. The contemporary world came into existence, when

5151-415: The action going, and when the medieval versifier went out on one fine spring morning and lay down on a grassy bank, one of these ladies rarely failed to appear to him in his sleep and to explain her own nature to him in any number of lines". Personification as an artistic device is easier to discuss when belief in the personification as an actual spiritual being has died down; this seems to have happened in

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5252-452: The ancient Graeco-Roman world, probably even before Christianisation . In other cultures, especially Hinduism and Buddhism , many personification figures still retain their religious significance, which is why they are not covered here. For example, Bharat Mata was devised as a Hindu goddess figure to act as a national personification by intellectuals in the Indian independence movement from

5353-509: The arrival of Christianity , now as symbolic personifications stripped of religious significance. An exception was the winged goddess of victory, Victoria / Nike , who developed into the visualisation of the Christian angel. Generally, personifications lack much in the way of narrative myths , although classical myth at least gave many of them parents among the major Olympian deities . The iconography of several personifications "maintained

5454-494: The artistic practice of it has greatly declined. Among a number of key works, The Allegory of Love: A Study in Medieval Tradition ( 1936 ), by C. S. Lewis was an exploration of courtly love in medieval and Renaissance literature. The classical repertoire of virtues, seasons, cities and so forth supplied the majority of subjects until the 19th century, but some new personifications became required. The 16th century saw

5555-411: The body, flesh is not the obstacle to humans but rather an unawareness that allows the impulsive forces to cause rebellion against God on the level of the psyche. Yet it is not a dualism between body, psyche and spirit, since the spirit embraces both psyche and corporeal aspects of humanity. Since the world is held to be the mirror in which God's attributes are reflected, participation in worldly affairs

5656-529: The devil as an independent force of evil besides God. After the apocalyptic period , references to Satan in the Tanakh are thought to be allegorical . In Mandaean mythology , Ruha fell apart from the World of Light and became the queen of the World of Darkness , also referred to as Sheol . She is considered evil and a liar, sorcerer and seductress. She gives birth to Ur , also referred to as Leviathan . He

5757-421: The devil is blamed for could be explained without the proposal of a devil. Thus, the devil does not have any explanatory power and should be dismissed ( Occam's razor ). Regarding evil through free choice, Spinoza asks how it can be that Adam would have chosen sin over his own well-being. Theology traditionally responds to this by asserting it is the devil who tempts humans into sin, but who would have tempted

5858-400: The devil is unselfish, for he does not benefit from his evil deeds. However, Kant denies that a human being could ever be completely devilish. Kant admits that there are devilish vices (ingratitude, envy, and malicious joy), i.e., vices that do not bring any personal advantage, but a person can never be completely a devil. In his Lecture on Moral Philosophy (1774/75) Kant gives an example of

5959-538: The devil is usually referred to as Satan . This is because Christian beliefs in Satan are inspired directly by the dominant view of Second Temple Judaism (recorded in the Enochian books ), as expressed/practiced by Jesus , and with some minor variations. Some modern Christians consider the devil to be an angel who, along with one-third of the angelic host (the demons), rebelled against God and has consequently been condemned to

6060-520: The devil or Satan is a fallen angel who is the primary opponent of God . Some Christians also considered the Roman and Greek deities to be devils. Christianity describes Satan as a fallen angel who terrorizes the world through evil, is opposed to truth , and shall be condemned, together with the fallen angels who follow him, to eternal fire at the Last Judgment . In mainstream Christianity ,

6161-491: The devil would consist of Nothingness, which does not exist. In a paper called On Devils , he writes that we can a priori find out that such a thing cannot exist. Because the duration of a thing results in its degree of perfection, and the more essence a thing possess the more lasting it is, and since the devil has no perfection at all, it is impossible for the devil to be an existing thing. Evil or immoral behaviour in humans, such as anger, hate, envy, and all things for which

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6262-433: The devil? According to Spinoza, a rational being, such as the devil must have been, could not choose his own damnation. The devil must have known his sin would lead to doom, thus the devil was not knowing, or the devil did not know his sin will lead to doom, thus the devil would not have been a rational being. Spinoza deducts a strict determinism in which moral agency as a free choice, cannot exist. In Religion Within

6363-475: The different conceptions of the devil can be summed up as 1) a principle of evil independent from God , 2) an aspect of God, 3) a created being turning evil (a fallen angel ) or 4) a symbol of human evil. Each tradition, culture, and religion with a devil in its mythos offers a different lens on manifestations of evil. The history of these perspectives intertwines with theology, mythology, psychiatry, art, and literature, developing independently within each of

6464-513: The fifth and seventeenth centuries". Late antique philosophical books that made heavy use of personification and were especially influential in the Middle Ages included the Psychomachia of Prudentius (early 5th century), with an elaborate plot centered around battles between the virtues and vices, and The Consolation of Philosophy ( c.  524 ) by Boethius , which takes the form of

6565-549: The figure in the Abrahamic religions . In the Introduction to his book Satan: A Biography , Henry Ansgar Kelly discusses various considerations and meanings that he has encountered in using terms such as devil and Satan , etc. While not offering a general definition, he describes that in his book "whenever diabolos is used as the proper name of Satan", he signals it by using "small caps". The Oxford English Dictionary has

6666-400: The first human. He desired to create a human just as Ulgen did, thereupon Ulgen reacted by punishing Erlik, casting him into the Underworld where he becomes its ruler. According to Tengrism, there is no death, meaning that, when life comes to an end, it is merely a transition into the invisible world. As the ruler of Hell, Erlik enslaves the souls, who are damned to Hell. Further, he lurks on

6767-457: The four cardinal virtues and seven deadly sins , the nine Muses , or death . In many polytheistic early religions, deities had a strong element of personification, suggested by descriptions such as "god of". In ancient Greek religion , and the related ancient Roman religion , this was perhaps especially strong, in particular among the minor deities. Many such deities, such as the tyches or tutelary deities for major cities, survived

6868-398: The idea that Satan is an opponent of God and the implied struggle between God and the devil . Iblis might either be regarded as the most monotheistic or the greatest sinner , but remains only a creature of God. Iblis did not become an unbeliever due to his disobedience, but because of attributing injustice to God; that is, by asserting that the command to prostrate himself before Adam

6969-631: The influence of Zoroastrianism during the Achaemenid Empire introduced evil as a separate principle into the Jewish belief system, which gradually externalized the opposition until the Hebrew term satan developed into a specific type of supernatural entity, changing the monistic view of Judaism into a dualistic one. Later, Rabbinic Judaism rejected the Enochian books (written during the Second Temple period under Persian influence), which depicted

7070-554: The kingdom of darkness assaulted the kingdom of light and mingled with the spiritual world. At the end, the devil and his followers will be sealed forever and the kingdom of light and the kingdom of darkness will continue to co-exist eternally, never to commingle again. Hegemonius (4th century CE) accuses that the Persian prophet Mani , founder of the Manichaean sect in the 3rd century CE, identified Jehovah as "the devil god which created

7171-415: The late 20th century personification seemed largely out of fashion, but the semi-personificatory superhero figures of many comic book series came in the 21st century to dominate popular cinema in a number of superhero film franchises. According to Ernst Gombrich , "we tend to take it for granted rather than to ask questions about this extraordinary predominantly feminine population which greets us from

7272-461: The line taken by Irenaeus instead of the later Christian consensus that the devil did not rebel against God but against humanity. Further, although Iblis is generally regarded as a real bodily entity, he plays a less significant role as the personification of evil than in Christianity. Iblis is merely a tempter, notable for inciting humans into sin by whispering into humans minds (waswās), akin to

7373-654: The lyrics for Rule Britannia , and the two personifications were often combined as a personified "British Liberty", to whom a large monument was erected in the 1750s on his estate at Gibside by a Whig magnate . But, sometimes alongside these formal figures, a new type of national personification has arisen, typified by John Bull (1712) and Uncle Sam ( c.  1812 ). Both began as figures in more or less satirical literature but achieved their prominence when taken into political cartoons and other visual media. The post-revolutionary Marianne in France, official since 1792,

7474-401: The major cities of the empire were used in the decorative arts . Most imaginable virtues and virtually every Roman province was personified on coins at some point, the provinces often initially seated dejected as "CAPTA" ("taken") after its conquest, and later standing, creating images such as Britannia that were often revived in the Renaissance or later. Lucian (2nd century AD) records

7575-523: The most common, and the virtues appear in many large sculptural programmes, for example the exteriors of Chartres Cathedral and Amiens Cathedral . In painting, both virtues and vices are personified along the lowest zone of the walls of the Scrovegni Chapel by Giotto ( c.  1305 ), and are the main figures in Ambrogio Lorenzetti 's Allegory of Good and Bad Government (1338–39) in

7676-615: The new personification of the Americas and made the four continents an appealing new set, four figures being better suited to many contexts than three. The 18th-century discovery of Australia was not so quickly followed by an addition to the set, if only for reasons of geometry; Australia is not included in the continents at the corners of the Albert Memorial (1860s). This does have a set of three-figure groups representing agriculture , commerce , engineering and manufacturing , typical of

7777-511: The pageants of Lyons , a major printing center, along with "Typosine", a new muse of printing. A large gilt-bronze statue by Evelyn Beatrice Longman , something of a specialist in "allegorical" statues, was commissioned by AT&T for the top of their New York headquarters. Since 1916 it has been titled at different times as the Genius of Telegraphy , Genius of Electricity , and since the 1930s Spirit of Communication . Shakespeare's spirit Ariel

7878-548: The planets and heavenly bodies, and also social classes. A new pair, once common on the portals of large churches, are Ecclesia and Synagoga . Death envisaged as a skeleton, often with a scythe and hour-glass , is a late medieval innovation, that became very common after the Black Death . However, it is rarely seen in funerary art "before the Counter-Reformation ". When not illustrating literary texts, or following

7979-462: The porches of cathedrals, crowds around our public monuments, marks our coins and our banknotes, and turns up in our cartoons and our posters; these females variously attired, of course, came to life on the medieval stage, they greeted the Prince on his entry into a city, they were invoked in innumerable speeches, they quarreled or embraced in endless epics where they struggled for the soul of the hero or set

8080-616: The power of God, but remains until then a serious threat for the believer. The notion of a substantial reality of evil (or a form of dualism between God and the Devil) has no precedence in the Quran or earlier Muslim traditions. Neither in the writings of ibn Sina, Ghazali, nor ibn Taimiyya, has evil any positive existence, but is described as the absence of good. Accordingly, infidelity among humans, civilizations, and empires are not described evil or devilish in Classical Islamic sources. This

8181-416: The principle of shaitan is in many ways a symbol of spiritual impurity, representing humans' own deficits, in contrast to a " true Muslim ", who is free from anger, lust and other devilish desires. In Muslim culture, devils are believed to be hermaphrodite creatures created from hell-fire, with one male and one female thigh, and able to procreate without a mate. It is generally believed that devils can harm

8282-455: The problem of evil, and developed ideas of dualism and demonology. The Cathars were seen as a serious potential challenge to the Catholic church of the time. The Cathars split into two camps. The first is absolute dualism, which held that evil was completely separate from the good God, and that God and the devil each had power. The second camp is mitigated dualism, which considers Lucifer to be

8383-515: The requirements for large public schemes of the period. A rather late example is the Alexander Hamilton U.S. Custom House in New York City (1901–07), which has large groups for the four continents by the entrance, and 12 figures personifying seafaring nations from history high on the facade. The invention of movable type printing saw Dame Imprimerie ("Lady Printing Press") introduced to

8484-400: The souls of humans through their whisperings. While whisperings tempt humans to sin, the devils might enter the hearth ( qalb ) of an individual. If the devils take over the soul of a person, this would render them aggressive or insane. In extreme cases, the alterings of the soul are believed to have effect on the body, matching its spiritual qualities. In contrast to Occidental philosophy,

8585-452: The souls of those humans living on Earth by causing death, disease and illnesses. At the time of birth, Erlik sends a Kormos to seize the soul of the newborn, following him for the rest of his life in an attempt to seize his soul by hampering, misguiding, and injuring him. When Erlik succeeds in destroying a human's body, the Kormos sent by Erlik will try take him down into the Underworld. However

8686-456: The temptations of the self and do not develop spiritual virtues are often described in the Baháʼí writings with the word satanic . The Baháʼí writings also state that the devil is a metaphor for the "insistent self" or "lower self", which is a self-serving inclination within each individual. Those who follow their lower nature are also described as followers of "the Evil One". In Christianity ,

8787-408: The term devil . He does not claim to define the word in a general sense, but he describes the limited use that he intends for the word in his book—limited in order to "minimize this difficulty" and "for the sake of clarity". In this book Russell uses the word devil as "the personification of evil found in a variety of cultures", as opposed to the word Satan , which he reserves specifically for

8888-456: The test, yet his disobedience caused his punishment and therefore suffering. However, he stays patient and is rewarded in the end. Muslims hold that the pre-Islamic jinn , tutelary deities , became subject under Islam to the judgment of God, and that those who did not submit to the law of God are devils . Although Iblis is often compared to the devil in Christian theology , Islam rejects

8989-405: The traditions. It occurs historically in many contexts and cultures, and is given many different names— Satan (Judaism), Lucifer (Christianity), Beelzebub (Judeo-Christian), Mephistopheles (German), Iblis (Islam)—and attributes: it is portrayed as blue, black, or red; it is portrayed as having horns on its head, and without horns, and so on. The Modern English word devil derives from

9090-473: The waters and collect some mud. Erlik hid some inside his mouth to later create his own world. But when God commanded the Earth to expand, Erlik got troubled by the mud in his mouth. God aided Erlik to spit it out. The mud carried by Erlik gave place to the unpleasant areas of the world. Because of his sin, he was assigned to evil. In another variant, the creator-god is identified with Ulgen . Again, Erlik appears to be

9191-470: The whole work is an allegory, largely driven by personifications. These include Piers Plowman by William Langland ( c.  1370 –90), where most of the characters are clear personifications named as their qualities, and several works by Geoffrey Chaucer , such as The House of Fame (1379–80). However, Chaucer tends to take his personifications in the direction of being more complex characters and give them different names, as when he adapts part of

9292-475: The word "devil" and from speaking of anything related to Hell . Zoroastrianism probably introduced the first idea of the devil; a principle of evil independently existing apart from God. In Zoroastrianism, good and evil derive from two ultimately opposed forces. The force of good is called Ahura Mazda and the "destructive spirit" in the Avestan language is called Angra Mainyu . The Middle Persian equivalent

9393-535: The world" and said that "he who spoke with Moses, the Jews, and the priests … is the [Prince] of Darkness, … not the god of truth." Among the Tengristic myths of central Asia, Erlik refers to a devil-like figure as the ruler of Tamag (Hell), who was also the first human. According to one narrative, Erlik and God swam together over the primordial waters. When God was about to create the Earth, he sent Erlik to dive into

9494-516: Was naturally conducive to personification and allegory , and is an influence on the uses of it from classical times through various revivals up to the Baroque period. According to Andrew Escobedo, "literary personification marshalls inanimate things, such as passions, abstract ideas, and rivers, and makes them perform actions in the landscape of the narrative." He dates "the rise and fall of its [personification's] literary popularity" to "roughly, between

9595-574: Was adopted by the sculptor Eric Gill as a personification of broadcasting, and features in his sculptures on Broadcasting House in London (opened 1932). A number of national personifications stick to the old formulas, with a female in classical dress, carrying attributes suggesting power, wealth, or other virtues. Libertas , the Roman goddess of liberty , had been important under the Roman Republic , and

9696-517: Was becoming fashionable in courtly festivities; it was illustrated by many different artists. Dante has several personification characters, but prefers using real persons to represent most sins and virtues. In Elizabethan literature many of the characters in Edmund Spenser 's enormous epic The Faerie Queene , though given different names, are effectively personifications, especially of virtues. The Pilgrim's Progress (1678) by John Bunyan

9797-558: Was inappropriate. There is no reference to angelic revolt in the Quran and no mention of Iblis trying to take God's throne, and Iblis's sin could be forgiven at any time by God. According to the Quran, Iblis's disobedience was due to his disdain for humanity , a narrative already occurring in early New Testament apocrypha . As in Christianity, Iblis was once a pious creature of God but later cast out of Heaven due to his pride. However, to maintain God's absolute sovereignty, Islam matches

9898-531: Was only following his nature. Honorifics or styles of address used to indicate devil-figures. Opinion polls show that belief in the devil in Western countries is more common in the United States ... where it is more common among the religious, regular church goers, political conservatives, and the older and less well educated, ... but has declined in recent decades. Personification Personification

9999-509: Was somewhat uncomfortably co-opted by the empire; it was not seen as an innate right, but as granted to some under Roman law. She had appeared on the coins of the assassins of Julius Caesar , defenders of the Roman republic . The medieval republics, mostly in Italy, greatly valued their liberty, and often use the word, but produce very few direct personifications. With the rise of nationalism and new states, many nationalist personifications included

10100-451: Was the Iconologia of Cesare Ripa , first published unillustrated in 1593, but from 1603 published in many different illustrated editions, using different artists. This set at least the identifying attributes carried by many personifications until the 19th century. From the 20th century into the 21st, the past use of personification has received greatly increased critical attention, just as

10201-457: Was the last great personification allegory in English literature, from a strongly Protestant position (though see Thomson's Liberty below). A work like Shelley 's The Triumph of Life , unfinished at his death in 1822, which to many earlier writers would have called for personifications to be included, avoids them, as does most Romantic literature, apart from that of William Blake . Leading critics had begun to complain about personification in

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