Word: devilment
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...When the Devil comes up in conversation, modern Christians have a tendency to tuck up their skirts and scurry to the shelter of safer doctrinal topics like the brotherhood of man or the Sermon on the Mount. In a book called Satan (Sheed & Ward; $5.50), newly published in the U.S., a group of scholars under the editorship of Father Bruno de Jesus-Marie, a French Carmelite, have made a frontal attack on the question of what the Devil is and what he should mean to a Christian...
...idea of an Evil Being is as basic as belief in a supreme God. Devils were a keystone of belief among the Aztecs, the Assyrians and the ancient Chinese. In the Buddhist scriptures, the Devil Mara appears at the head of an army of demons with "bodies of flame . .. with the skin of oxen, asses, boars . . . spitting snake venom-and swallowing balls of fire...
...meticulously described as a giant with three heads (colored red, yellow and black respectively). In the hands of Milton and Goethe, he became successively a tragic hero and a debonair, reasonable-seeming man of the world. At 20th century masquerade parties and in subway headache ads, the Devil generally wears a red union suit and wields a large pitchfork...
True to this idea, early Christian art portrayed the Devil as a fine-looking angel, with only a slightly dark coloring to suggest his fall from grace. The reason for this characterization: "True Christianity's . . . refusal to give a positive character to evil...
...modern times, Catholics and Protestants generally kept up a lively acquaintance with the Devil. The 16th century Catechism of St. Peter Canisius mentions the Devil more often than it mentions Christ. Martin Luther thought of Satan as a very personal antagonist-one real enough to hurl an inkpot at, as legend...