#that's the devil

[synesindri]

the trouble with making The Devil into a character is that once you've done that now he's a character, not just the concept of evil. like he can still be the concept of evil but he's also part of your cast of characters once you've given him a personality and emotions and motivations and stuff. a character is a much less stable, much more shiftable thing to be than an idea is: an idea exerts influence; a character does that but also is influenced by other characters/ideas/circumstances etc. it's like how a monarch is both the figurehead of their country and just a person — they can be both, but a king is never going to be as stable of a symbol as like, idk, the name of the country or a flag or whatever because he's a changeable, inconsistent, thinking, feeling person

[synesindri]

There is a certain ambiguity inherent in the account of the Fall, which has troubled many readers through the ages. God says to Adam: ‘But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die’ (Gen. 2:17). The serpent says to Eve: ‘Ye shall not surely die’, and guarantees her that ‘the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil’ (Gen. 3:4–5). Taken at face value, it would seem that the serpent’s words come true after the couple have eaten the fruit: Adam and Eve do not die, at least not instantly, and their eyes are opened in accordance with the Tempter’s assurance. It might thus appear as if God has lied to man, while the serpent’s promise is kept. The serpent’s implied suggestion—that God’s prohibition stems from fear, envy, and despotic tendencies—may not seem so far-fetched. However, most readers will have been fully convinced of God’s benevolence beforehand, and historically this has made such a reading unreasonable (with the only prominent early exception appearing in the exegesis of certain Gnostic groups). Of course, things began to change when the rebellious attitudes of the Romantics and Enlightenment thinkers towards the Bible started spreading in the late eighteenth century. This new and subversive outlook made the serpent seem less self-evidently the villain of the story to some.

— Per Faxneld, Satanic Feminism: Lucifer as the Liberator of Woman in Nineteenth-Century Culture, ch2

[synesindri]

sooo many stories featuring the devil not as a personification of hell but as an actual character are about how satan/lucifer/whatever brings people freedom, for better or for worse. which like, that make sense, and it's true in stories that are pro-devil, anti-devil, and devil-neutral. so it's really interesting! that supernatural's lucifer does not represent that! not even on a surface level or in a complicated, twisted way (e.g. paradise lost's satan)! idk just thinking about it

[synesindri]

The foundations of systematic Christian diabology were laid by Augustine (354–430), who saw the Devil as an evil angel who continued his war against God after falling, who tempted Eve in the Garden of Eden, and who has tried ever since to make mankind stray from the righteous path. He was defined only by what he lacked (goodness, light), and, in spite of his hostility to God and man, in fact unwillingly served the interests of both through his actions (all ordained by divine providence).

— Per Faxneld, Satanic Feminism: Lucifer as the Liberator of Woman in Nineteenth-Century Culture, ch2

[synesindri]

“What a grotesque creation you men have made of Me!” he said—“As grotesque as your conception of God! With what trifling human attributes you have endowed me! Know you not that the changeless, yet ever-changing Essence of Immortal Life can take a million million shapes and yet remain unalterably the same? Were I as hideous as your Churches figure me,—could the eternal beauty with which all angels are endowed, ever change to such loathsomeness as haunts mankind’s distorted imaginations, perchance it would be well,—for none would make of me their comrade, and none would cherish me as friend! As fits each separate human nature, so seems my image,—for thus is my fate and punishment commanded."

— The Sorrows of Satan, Marie Corelli

[synesindri]

From Gabriel to Lucifer: A Cultural History of Angels, Valery Rees

[synesindri]

Satan s’amuse (‘Satan Amuses Himself’, 1907), a short film by the pioneering Spanish director Segundo de Chomón (1871–1929), ends with a woman pouring water on the titular figure and making him disappear, whereafter she (literally) picks up his mantle and herself becomes Satan.

— Per Faxneld, Satanic Feminism: Lucifer as the Liberator of Woman in Nineteenth-Century Culture (2014)