Whether or not the Devil is real, his effects in the world are
August 17, 2024 1:10 AM   Subscribe

“The figure of Faust is—after Christ, Mary, and the Devil—the single most popular character in the history of Western Christian culture,” writes Jeffrey Burton Russell in his classic Mephistopheles: The Devil in the Modern World. And of those characters, Faust is the most fully human to us, in his arrogance and his failure, his negotiations and his capitulations, in the whole litany of abuse which the cankered soul is capable of inflicting upon itself. Russell’s contention is far from hyperbole, and amending the word “character” to “narrative,” I’d say that there are few archetypal scripts in our culture as essential as the legend of a man selling his soul to the Devil. from A Deal With the Devil: What the Age-Old Faustian Bargain Reveals About the Modern World

An excerpt from Devil's Contract: The History of the Faustian Bargain by Ed Simon
posted by chavenet (10 comments total) 12 users marked this as a favorite
 
sitting on the rafters in that basement that smelled of water and earth, the Weird Sisters and Macbeth were far less fascinating to me than what I couldn’t see, just somewhere on the dark edge of vision, beyond a ribbon of neon intended to let me know where the walls of the Rose had once been
posted by HearHere at 3:34 AM on August 17 [1 favorite]


“The figure of Faust is—after Christ, Mary, and the Devil—the single most popular character in the history of Western Christian culture,”

He's no Sherlock Holmes.
posted by biffa at 4:29 AM on August 17 [8 favorites]


"I rode a tank
Held a general's rank
When the blitzkrieg raged
And the bodies stank...
I shouted out "Who killed the Kennedys?"
When after all
It was you and me"
posted by DJZouke at 5:07 AM on August 17 [4 favorites]


Carl Jung once remarked that if you do not think evil is real then you have not heard of (or seen photos of) Buchenwald.
posted by DJZouke at 5:14 AM on August 17 [4 favorites]


reading this book atm
more here
posted by robbyrobs at 6:28 AM on August 17 [1 favorite]


Robert Johnson has entered the chat.
posted by thecincinnatikid at 8:40 AM on August 17 [3 favorites]


"Anybody who believes in the Devil IS the Devil."
-Rob Breszsny
posted by tspae at 10:24 AM on August 17 [4 favorites]


As a third-generation atheist, the concepts of sin, temptation, redemption, grace, etc., have never meant anything to me on a personal or visceral level.
I understand them intellectually, but have no direct experience to contrast them with, so stories like Faust et al don't resonate with me at all.
As a writer, this means there are certain plots and stories I never write, because it doesn't occur to me, not even as a subplot or background .
I have the same problem with, for example, sports and alcohol.
posted by signal at 12:20 PM on August 17 [1 favorite]


signal, if it might be helpful, i recommend Elaine Pagels' The Origin of Satan: How Christians Demonized Jews, Pagans and Heretics. she speaks of writing in the New Yorker:
When I read the Gospels now and I come across the figure of Satan, instead of gliding over it as part of the story, I see it as raising a sort of warning flag, and I think, Ah, what is this writer doing now? What is the clue? What group of people are we speaking about and who is saying this? I became really interested in the structure of who is being demonized and who is doing the demonizing. It’s a question of awareness...
posted by HearHere at 3:31 PM on August 17 [1 favorite]


You don't have to believe in the devil to believe evil exists. Frankly a shit load of folks who identify as christians have no problem doing evil, and as some of them have told me, it's ok for me, I'm christian and I'll be forgiven.
posted by evilDoug at 4:43 PM on August 17


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