Telico a dit:
psm a dit:
Lion a dit:
why the old?
doesn't the devil has his own big spot in that book??
nope. the devil is an invention of the 13th century...
Hi psm, can you explain please ? Thanks.
I'll try
The subject is a rather long one tho...
You are aware of the fact, that the roman catholic church is a construct, right? It is a mix of many pagan religions put together under Constantine the last emperor of rome and first pope of the holy roman catholic church. The main flavor of the religion was christian, because a mayor part of roman citizens at that time were followers of one of many forms of christianity (there were a whole lot of different interpretations, sects, ideas and believes surrounding a fellow defined as jesus christ - which is a title btw, not a name)
the catholic church was constructed in the 4th century. the roman empire, which was the original roman empire, now was under rule of a theocracy. to keep control over whole of europe, the RCC gave the feudal lords (which were originally pagan) more power, support and much more, if they would convert to Christianity (the arthus saga is about exactly this transition from pagan to catholic structures in england)
The political power of the church came to its peak in the middle ages, around 11-12th century. but with it, came a lot of unrest too. (england, the middle east, templars etc...) and those that suffered most, were the peasants. they had to pay taxes not only to their lords, but also to the church, which took a tenth of whatever you made (called tithe).
The peasants soon did not want to pay that much, struggling with life as it was, they were not bothered about promised afterlife. they lived in the "here & now" and with tax and the tithe it was almost impossible to make a decent living. Since the landlord controlled their material/physical life and the church the spiritual/soul, a lot decided not to pay the church anymore. Uprisings happened, monasteries burnt and so on. To enforce the power over the people, church invented two things: Inquisition and the devil.
The inquisition was the undoubted executive arm of god on earth, that would punish sinners, heretics and the enemies of the church in this life, the devil would do the same in the afterlife. suddenly it was not "do good and get into heaven" but it was also "do bad and go to hell" and not paying the tithe was a bad thing.
The figure of the devil was composed from many pagan believes. The horned image comes from baphomet/pan/cernunnos, which also describts the personality and basic principles - Baphomet (which, if we want to believe some hermetic ideas can be traced back to babylon) was the "free sprit", who, in greek mythology was a symbol of the hedonistic nature, and cernnunos, the celtic guardian of the underworld. Set, hades and all those other figures also fit well. The name Satan is derived from the name Shaitan, who is the guard of the portal to paradise of Allah. He would be the one, that measures whether your life was good or bad. he would be the one who would choose if you would be allowed into the paradise (traditional islam does not state what would happen if not, but you might say, nothing. that all of life's burden was all you would ever experience, while those that enter the paradise would enjoy afterlife).
Since at that time, also the angelic tradition was developed and Lux Luzifer, the only one who ever questioned gods decision was made the anti-christ, the devil. to make clear, that no one is allowed to question god and therefore church, which is gods voice on earth.
truth is, that lux luzifer (The Lightbearer - Bringer of Light/Enlightenment)just quit his job and left. he never fought against god. all that was an invention of the middle ages, the whole angelic background (not angles as such, just the whole social structure and many of the stories surrounding them).
The whole devil thing is a simple propaganda and control mechanism. something that was easily usable to declare someone as an enemy to god. and it was used by the inquisition to justify more then 50.000 killings (there was never any clarification on how many there were really, but its likely to go into a tenfold of that number) in europe alone...
Later the church abducted the works of Dante (Divine Comedy) and used it as a "depiction" of hell, by using "Inferno" and "Purgatory" (two of the three parts). That book actually was more of a psychonautic trip-diary then anything else and described the personal journey through hell and purgatory until he reached heaven (possibly his view of enlightenment).
hope this helps