Darkness and the Devil Behind Me by Persia Walker

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 the figure in the Abrahamic religions.

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 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 the term devil. 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'. The Modern English word devil derives from the Middle English devel, from the Old English dēofol, that in turn represents an early Germanic borrowing of the Latin diabolus. While depictions of the devil are usually taken seriously, there are times when it is treated less seriously when, for example, devil figures are used in advertising and on candy wrappers. It occurs historically in many contexts and cultures, and is given many different names- Satan, Lucifer, Beelzebub, Mephistopheles, Iblis-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 history of these perspectives intertwines with theology, mythology, psychiatry, art, and literature developing independently within each of the traditions. : 23Įach tradition, culture, and religion with a devil in its mythos offers a different lens on manifestations of evil. Jeffrey Burton Russell states that 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), and 4) a symbol of human evil. It is seen as the objectification of a hostile and destructive force. A fresco detail from the Rila Monastery, in which demons are depicted as having grotesque faces and bodiesĪ devil is the personification of evil as it is conceived in various cultures and religious traditions.

Darkness and the Devil Behind Me by Persia Walker