Symbols and symbolism in Christian demonology
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Christian demonology has associated demons and symbols, attributing a variety of them to these entities.
In general, the most important demons are said to have a signature or seal, which is personal and generally used by them to sign the acts of the diabolical pacts. But those seals can also be used as a protection against them by a conjurer when summoning demons. Some grimoires like The Great Book of Saint Cyprian, Le Dragon Rouge and The Lesser Key of Solomon provide these seals.
The Devil in particular has been popularly symbolised as various animals, including the serpent, the goat and the dragon.
Inspired by the Book of Revelation 13:18 the number 666 (the Number of the second Beast) was attributed to the Antichrist and to the Devil. In early Christian times, there were also used three letters instead of three numbers: FFF; F is the sixth letter of the Latin alphabet, and early Christians named the weekdays with the first seven letters of the alphabet to avoid
The trident or pitchfork is another symbol of the Devil, sometimes drawn with a line crossing the lower part of the handle to combine the inverted crucifix. This symbol may derive from Hinduism, in which it is the symbol of Shiva; his trident is sometimes depicted with a crossed stabiliser that forms the same figure.
[edit] Inversion of Spiritual Symbols
The pentagram, which has been used with various meanings in many cultures (including Christianity, in which it denoted the five wounds of Christ), is sometimes considered a diabolical sign when inverted (pointing downward). Such a symbol may appear with or without a surrounding circle, and sometimes contains the head of a male goat, with the horns fitting into the upper points of the star, the ears into the side points, the beard into the lowest one, and the face into the central pentagon. If the star depicting a goat includes five Hebrew letters inside the circle it is not a diabolical symbol, since the purpose then becomes to constrain and protect against the demon.[citation needed] It has to be noted that the diabolical pentagram does not derive from the Pythagorean one but from the Babylonian and Celtic.[citation needed] Ancient Babylonians used to represent some deities with the right hand upward and the left downward, meaning respectively life and death, creation and destruction, good and evil, et cetera;[citation needed] this practice is still upheld by many modern Hindus.[citation needed] Thus, the pentagram with a point downward was associated with the Devil (remember that for Christian theology all Pagan deities are demons and hence their symbols diabolical). The Celts had a representation of a pentagram (without the surrounding circle) that was said was the footstep of a ghost or a witch with one leg of a goat instead of human;[citation needed] the belief in the "witch's foot" lasted for centuries in Christian folklore.
An inverted (upside-down) cross or crucifix has also been considered a symbol of both the Devil and the Antichrist. This is a late symbol, and was probably derived from the same origins as the inverted pentagram. The inverted cross is also a symbol of Saint Peter.
[edit] Demons and colors
Christian demonology has assigned colors to Satan: red and black.
According to this,[citation needed] the diabolical pact had to be written with blood (human or animal) or red ink, and it was believed that books on black magic were written with a red ink which colour was so intense that blinded any person that was not familiar to that art.[citation needed]
Satan and other demons were often depicted as black men, and/or riding a black horse, and dressed in black or red. It was said that black animals were sacrificed to them. When demons appeared in the shape of animals, generally they were black.
Nonetheless, sometimes demons were depicted riding pale horses, perhaps due to a folkloric tradition that associated the pale horse with Death, one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse. Demons have also been depicted riding all manner of animals and objects, and dressed in different ways.
The association with red and black possibly derives from the idea of the red fire of Hell, a place of darkness.[citation needed] The association with red might be due[citation needed] to an exegesis of the Book of Revelation 12:3-9, referring to a red dragon compared with Satan. Black, the colour of darkness, might also be due[citation needed] to many allusions to Hell in Matthew's Gospel.
Many representations of the Devil depict him with red skin.
Nicholas Remy cited Pythagoras as having mentioned black as the colour of evil, and thus the animals or other things sacrificed or offered to the Devil had to be black.
[edit] Demons and food
Although demons, being spiritual beings, do not need food, according to Christian demonology, demons and especially the Devil have been believed to hate salt, and thus it was claimed by the Christian church that no food was served with salt during witches' sabbaths. Bread, if not made with rye, and oil, were also said to be prohibited.
This is possibly explained[citation needed] in the fact that salt is a natural preservative and antiseptic, which has long been used as a purifying agent in folk magic.[citation needed] In some Christian rituals of baptism, especially in Catholicism, salt is put on the lips of the child during the ceremony of the baptism as a symbol of wisdom. The dislike for bread might be explained[citation needed] by the fact that it represents the body of Jesus for Christians and is transubstantiated into his flesh during the Mass.
Nevertheless, wine is the Christian symbol that during the mass is transubstantiated into the blood of Jesus and there is no common belief that demons dislike wine. Some demons are said to be able to turn blood into wine and vice versa (some of them are mentioned in the Ars Goetia of the Lemegeton and in Pseudomonarchia Daemonum). At some period it was believed that offering bread and wine to a demon was an invitation to him to stay in that house and to possess that person; of course this could be without knowing that the incomer was a demon, so it was common not to offer those things to any foreigner.
It was believed[citation needed] that during the Sabbath the Devil could extract wine from certain plants, especially by making a cut in the trunk of a tree, and mixed it with his blood (maybe the like of demons for wine is due to this belief). This was probably due to the fact that Christian demonologists believed that during the witches' sabbath a Black Mass was celebrated with a parody of the communion.
Oil is another Christian symbol, being the substance with which Jesus was consecrated as Christ (from Greek 'Christos', anointed), and there are also demons that can turn blood into oil and so on, named in the same grimoires above-mentioned.
It was believed[citation needed] that during the witches' Sabbath whenever Satan was presiding, he and his most important attendants ate human flesh.
