The Devil: Perceptions of Evil from Antiquity to Primitive Christianity

Synopsis

"evil―the infliction of pain upon sentient beings―is one of the most long-standing and serious problems of human existence. Frequently and in many cultures evil has been personified. This book is a history of the personification of evil, which for the sake of clarity i have called 'the devil. ' i am a medievalist, but when i began some years ago to work with the concept of the devil in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, i came to see that i could not understand the medieval devil except in terms of its historical antecedents.