The Devil Trivia
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50 free The Devil trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
The Devil is not one figure but dozens: the accuser in Job, the tempter in the Gospels, the dragon in Revelation, Iblis who refused to bow, the destructive spirit of Zoroastrianism, the goose on the primordial ocean, and the charming negotiator who bought Faust's soul. This quiz moves through the word's Greek origin, the first religion to invent a supreme evil spirit, the Bible's scattered references, the Quran's account, Jewish apocrypha, Mandaean and Balkan mythology, Beelzebub's Philistine roots, the Faust legend, and what Dante, Luther, Spinoza and Kant made of him. Every answer is explained, so you come away knowing where each idea came from.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01The word 'devil' comes from the Greek diábolos, which means what?
Slanderer
Slanderer: Greek-speaking Jews used the word to translate the Hebrew satan, which is how an everyday term for a false accuser became the Devil's own name.
Q 02The Hebrew word śāṭān was originally a common noun meaning what?
Adversary
Adversary: the word was first used of human enemies, and in the Book of Numbers even of an angel God sends to block Balaam's road.
Q 03Which religion was the first to develop a demonology headed by a supreme spirit of evil?
Zoroastrianism
Zoroastrianism treated evil as a separate principle that God did not create: its good god freely chooses good and a rival spirit chooses evil, the first known dualist cosmos.
Q 04In the religion founded by Zarathustra, what is the 'destructive spirit' called?
Angra Mainyu
Angra Mainyu, known afterwards as Ahriman, is no equal of the creator: he is bound to space and time, and the texts promise his destruction at the end of the world.
Q 05Zarathustra urged his followers to abandon the devas and worship which god alone?
Ahura Mazda
Ahura Mazda, the 'Wise Lord', was to be worshipped alone, and the older gods he displaced, the devas, were recast as demons serving the evil spirit.
Q 06In the Charlie Daniels Band's 1979 hit, the Devil goes down to which US state looking for a soul to steal?
Georgia
Georgia: he bets a golden fiddle against young Johnny's soul in a playing duel, and loses.
Q 07Which third-century Persian religion taught two eternal principles of good and evil and counted the young Augustine as a follower?
Manichaeism
Manichaeism held that the two were once apart, are now mingled and will be parted for ever; Augustine followed it as a young man, then wrote against it as a bishop.
Q 08In the Welsh legend of Devil's Bridge, an old woman cheats the Devil by throwing bread to lure which animal across first?
A dog
A dog chases the loaf, so the Devil, promised the first living thing to cross the bridge he built for her, gets no soul; Swiss tellings of the trick send a dog, a goat or a chamois.
Q 09The Catholic Church launched which crusade against the dualist Cathars of southern France in 1209?
The Albigensian Crusade
The Albigensian Crusade ravaged Languedoc for twenty years yet failed to stamp out the heresy; that was left to the Inquisition, set up in its wake.
Q 10Which 1215 gathering affirmed the devil was created good but turned evil by his own will?
The Fourth Lateran Council
The Fourth Lateran Council put it in its opening creed, then went on to order every Catholic to confess at least once a year.
Q 11The Rolling Stones' 'Sympathy for the Devil' was inspired by which Russian novel, in which Satan visits Moscow?
The Master and Margarita
The Master and Margarita had just appeared in English when Marianne Faithfull gave Mick Jagger a copy; Bulgakov's Devil turns up as a suave visitor called Professor Woland.
Q 12Legend says which Delta blues guitarist sold his soul to the Devil at a Mississippi crossroads?
Robert Johnson
Robert Johnson left town a guitarist who impressed nobody and came back a dazzling one, a change the tale of a bargain grew up to explain.
Q 13Which Buddhist figure tempts the Buddha with a celestial army and a vision of beautiful maidens?
Māra
Q 21In 2 Corinthians, Paul warns that Satan disguises himself as what?
An angel of light
An angel of light, Paul says, so it is no surprise that the rival preachers troubling Corinth, 'false apostles', pass themselves off as servants of righteousness.
Q 22In the Book of Revelation, the dragon 'called the devil, or Satan' wages war against whom?
The archangel Michael
The archangel Michael and his angels win the war in heaven; the dragon is hurled down to earth, where it turns on a woman who has just given birth.
Q 23Where does Dante's Inferno place the Devil?
At the bottom of hell
Māra also disputes the Buddha's right to sit beneath the tree, and the Buddha answers by touching the ground, calling the earth itself as his witness.
Q 14Which creature in the Book of Genesis is traditionally identified with the Devil?
The serpent
The serpent is never called the Devil in Genesis itself; later readers made the link, and the Book of Revelation speaks of 'the old serpent, he who is called the devil and Satan'.
Q 15A taunt in the Book of Isaiah about a fallen 'morning star' gave Christian tradition which name for the Devil?
Lucifer
Lucifer is simply the Latin Bible's word for the morning star; the verse was aimed at a king of Babylon and only afterwards read as the Devil's own plunge from heaven.
Q 16In which biblical book does Satan wager that a righteous man loves God only because he is blessed?
Job
Job: here 'the satan' is a member of God's own court who cannot touch the man without permission, more a prosecutor than a rebel.
Q 17In the temptation of Christ, what does the devil offer Jesus?
All the kingdoms of the earth
All the kingdoms of the earth, shown from a very high mountain, are his price for a single act of worship; Jesus refuses with a line from Deuteronomy.
Q 18The Gospels of Luke and John both say that Satan 'entered into' which disciple?
Judas Iscariot
Judas Iscariot: Luke places it before he goes to bargain with the chief priests, John at the supper itself, the moment he takes the bread.
Q 19How did Jesus answer the charge of casting out demons by Beelzebub?
A house divided against itself will fall
A house divided against itself will fall, he said: Satan would hardly help tear down his own kingdom. Lincoln borrowed the image in 1858 to warn about a nation split over slavery.
Q 20The First Epistle of Peter compares the prowling devil to which animal?
A roaring lion
A roaring lion 'seeking whom he may devour' is the image in 1 Peter 5:8, which tells believers to stay sober and watchful and to stand firm against him.
At the bottom of hell, Dante's Devil is no ruler of flames but a three-faced giant frozen to the waist in ice, chewing a traitor in each mouth.
Q 24Asmodeus, the demon who kills a bride's seven husbands on their wedding nights, first appears in which ancient Jewish book?
Tobit
Tobit tells how the angel Raphael has young Tobias burn a fish's heart and liver, and the smoke drives Asmodeus all the way to Egypt.
Q 25In the Catholic Church, the official nicknamed the 'devil's advocate' argued against what?
Declaring someone a saint
Declaring someone a saint: the Promoter of the Faith dug up every flaw in a candidate's life and miracles, a post set up in 1587 and cut back by John Paul II in 1983.
Q 26In which C. S. Lewis book does a senior devil coach his nephew Wormwood in the art of temptation?
The Screwtape Letters
The Screwtape Letters runs to 31 letters from the bureaucracy of Hell, and the pupil fails: his human 'patient' dies in the Blitz and slips away to Heaven.
Q 27Some Gnostic texts call the creator of the material world by which devil's name from Jewish writings?
Samael
Samael, 'god of the blind', is what a voice from above calls the creator after he boasts that he alone is God, a rebuke for his ignorance.
Q 28The Quran often calls the devil Shaitan, but what is his personal name there?
Iblis
Iblis is no rival god in the Quran: cast out for his pride, he asks for a reprieve until Judgment Day and is granted it, free until then to tempt humankind.
Q 29According to the Quran, the Islamic devil is 'one of the' what?
Jinn
Jinn: the verse names his kind in the same breath as his disobedience, yet he had been standing among the angels, and scholars argued for centuries over which he really was.
Q 30Out of pride, the Islamic devil refused to prostrate before whom?
Adam
Adam was made of clay and he of fire, the devil argued, so bowing was beneath him; for that pride he was cast out of heaven.