50 Fun Facts About The Devil

The word 'devil' comes from the Greek diábolos, which means what?

Latin borrowed it as diabolus, the Old English turned that into dēofol, and Middle English shortened it to devel.

The Hebrew word śāṭān was originally a common noun meaning what?

It came from a verb meaning to obstruct or oppose, and was applied to human opponents as readily as heavenly ones.

Which religion was the first to develop a demonology headed by a supreme spirit of evil?

Its founder argued evil was a principle entirely separate from God, the first known dualistic cosmology.

In the religion founded by Zarathustra, what is the 'destructive spirit' called?

In Middle Persian the same figure is Ahriman, who is limited to space and time and will be defeated at the end of the world.

Zarathustra urged his followers to abandon the devas and worship which god alone?

Spirits of the older belief systems that did not align with the new sole deity were recast as demons.

The Zoroastrian destructive spirit is blamed for toads and which other creature?

Everything evil or painful in creation is his doing, while his opponent creates only what is good.

The prophet Mani founded Manichaeism in the third century under which dynasty's rule?

Its doctrine of Two Principles and Three Moments held that good and evil were once separate, are now mixed, and will be separated again forever.

In a German folktale, the devil builds a bridge for the first soul to cross. What do people send over first?

The story swaps the deceived giants of older pagan tales for a devil, a pattern common from the 4th to 12th centuries.

The dualist Cathars were destroyed by the Catholic Church in which campaign?

Most of what is known about them survives only in the writings of the critics who wiped them out.

Which 1215 gathering affirmed the devil was created good but turned evil by his own will?

A few University of Paris theologians argued the opposite in 1241, that God created the devil without his own decision.

In a Balkan creation story, God meets a goose on the eternal ocean. What is the goose's name?

The goose claims to be 'the god of gods', fetches mud from the sea floor, and later tries to assault God and is thrown into the abyss.

In a Siberian Tatar myth, God and his first creation take the form of which birds?

The second bird, identified with Erlik Khan, turns against God and is punished with his own kingdom in the underworld.

Which Buddhist figure tempts the Buddha with a celestial army and a vision of beautiful maidens?

Unlike Satan, he is not a rebel against a good creator but a symbol of conditioned existence itself, resisted through enlightenment.

Which creature from the Garden of Eden is traditionally identified with the Devil?

Revelation's dragon is explicitly 'called the devil, or Satan', and that identification was read back onto Genesis 3.

The 'rising star' cast down for trying to ascend to the gods comes from which culture's myth?

The passage in Isaiah 14 became the basis for the name Lucifer, Latin for the morning star.

In which biblical book does Satan wager that a righteous man loves God only because he is blessed?

Satan destroys the man's family, health, servants and flocks, yet he refuses to condemn God.

In the temptation of Christ, what does the devil offer Jesus?

Because Jesus does not dispute the offer, some read the passage as implying the gospel writers believed the kingdoms really were his to give.

According to John 13:2, the Devil entered which disciple before a betrayal?

Luke 22:3 tells the same story, and John 8 goes further, calling the Pharisees 'offspring of the devil'.

Accused of casting out demons by the devil's power, how did Jesus reply?

The exchange appears in all three synoptic gospels, and the phrase later became a staple of political speechmaking.

The First Epistle of Peter compares the prowling devil to which animal?

The verse, 1 Peter 5:8, describes him 'looking for someone to devour'.

In 2 Corinthians, Paul warns that Satan often disguises himself as what?

The Epistle to the Hebrews adds that he holds the power of death but is defeated through the death of Jesus.

In the Book of Revelation, the dragon 'called the devil, or Satan' wages war against whom?

The dragon falls, and its resemblance to Leviathan links it back to the Old Testament's chaos monsters.

Where does Dante's Inferno place the Devil?

The placement follows Neoplatonic thinking: the Devil is the point most remote from God, to which all sin is drawn.

Martin Luther's list of devils includes Asmodeus, who first appears in which scripture?

Luther thought greater devils incited heresy and unbelief while lesser ones handled greed and fornication.

Who was the first Anabaptist to suggest, around 1540, that the Devil was only an allegory?

The view found a small but persistent following in the Netherlands.

Which 20th-century theologian taught that Christians must reject belief in a literal devil?

He saw it as part of formulating an authentic faith for the modern world.

Some Gnostic texts call the creator of the material world by which devil's name from Jewish writings?

The Apocryphon of John and On the Origin of the World demonize the creator as an inferior impostor deity.

What is the proper name of the devil in Islam?

Shaitan is the broader term for forces of evil; the proper name refers to one specific being.

According to the Quran, the Islamic devil is 'one of the' what?

The term can cover all sorts of invisible beings, which is why scholars long debated whether he was an angel.

Out of pride, the Islamic devil refused to prostrate before whom?

He was condemned to Hell but granted his request to lead humanity astray, knowing the righteous would resist.

What is the Arabic term for the devil's whispering into human minds?

It is compared to the Jewish idea of the yetzer hara, the inner inclination toward evil.

In Muslim folk belief, devils are said to be created from what?

They are also held to be hermaphrodites able to procreate without a mate.

In the Book of Jubilees, which evil angel takes over actions once attributed to Yahweh?

He can act only with God's permission and succeeds only against non-Jewish nations.

In the Book of Enoch, who leads the rebel angels?

The book also describes a whole class of angels called satans, who act as God's executioners rather than rebels.

In Mandaean mythology, who is the queen of the World of Darkness?

She gives birth to Ur, a ferocious dragon identified with Leviathan, and together they create the planets and zodiac.

Spinoza argued the devil cannot exist because, as God's opposite, he would consist of what?

He added that human anger, hate and envy explain themselves without a devil, so Occam's razor dismisses him.

Kant illustrated near-devilish malice with a merchant who bought and destroyed a rival's what?

Even that act, Kant argued, carried a flicker of sensual satisfaction, so no human can act purely for evil's sake.

Among Western countries, belief in the devil is most common in which one?

Belief is higher among regular churchgoers, conservatives and older people, but has declined in recent decades.

Early Christians equated the Devil with which Greek god, as leader of the pagan spirits?

The Greek daimons became Christian demons, and by the fourth century most Christians assumed pagans worshipped them.

Beelzebub is occasionally known by what title?

Jewish scholars read the title as a deliberate mockery, likening Baal's followers to flies around a dung heap.

The name Beelzebub derives from a god worshipped in which Philistine city?

In the Books of Kings, the injured King Ahaziah sends messengers there and is condemned by Elijah for consulting the wrong god.

Among the seven princes of Hell, Beelzebub represents which deadly sin?

Sources also attach envy to him; the 16th-century occultist Johann Weyer even had him leading a successful revolt against the Devil.

Mephistopheles originated as the chief devil in which legend?

The legend grew around a real German alchemist, Johann Georg Faust, whose story first appeared in a 1587 chapbook.

Which German writer coined and popularised the spelling 'Mephistopheles'?

The earlier chapbooks called him Mephostophiles; in Goethe's two-part drama he is cold-hearted, humorous and ironic.

Which Elizabethan playwright wrote the 1604 play about the doctor who sells his soul?

His devil is written more as a regretful fallen angel than a familiar demon, lamenting his separation from God.

In which Shakespeare play is the name Mephistopheles hurled as an insult?

It appears in Act 1, Scene 1, with one character effectively calling another a devil.

One proposed Greek meaning of the name Mephistopheles is 'not loving' what?

Rival etymologies read it as 'not a friend of' the doctor himself, or link it to mephitic, poisonous vapours from caverns and pools.

Arrigo Boito's 1868 opera about Mephistopheles is titled what?

Liszt's Mephisto Waltzes and Klaus Mann's novel Mephisto also put the demon, not the doctor, in the title.

In the 1725 chapbook, the doctor summons the devil in a wood outside which town?

The devil arrives in the form of a greyfriar, a far humbler guise than later stage versions.

Followers of which religion may not even utter the word for the devil?

Yazidis hold that evil does not exist as an entity and are also forbidden to speak of anything related to Hell.