Things People Get Wrong About The Devil

Even a kid can tell you what the Devil looks like: he's red, with horns, a pointed tail, a pitchfork, a cape, probably a mustache and a little goatee, cloven hooves, and so on. It probably won't surprise you at this point that this image bears no relation whatsoever to the Devil of the Bible. In fact, the Bible never gives a physical description of the Devil at any point. This causes a problem for artists who want to depict Satan for religious illustrations. As Fast Company explains, artists who wanted to portray the Devil — notable among them including Hieronymous Bosch and Albrecht Dürer — had to pull from other sources to decide what a demon and the Prince of Demons looked like, most prominently Greek mythology. As a result, Satan and other biblical demons end up taking on elements of satyrs and fauns, such as cloven hooves, goat legs, and little horns. Satan's pitchfork is likely derived from the trident of the pagan god Poseidon.

Using the goatish figure of Pan and his satyrs as a starting point, medieval artists developed Satan into a bestial figure covered with horns, fur, and eventually scars, boils, and other deformities so that you end up with a figure like the famous illustration from the Codex Gigas. Sometimes also he has faces all over his body, or worse, his butt is also a face.

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