Drawing on an impressive array of sources from popular religion, art, literature, and drama, as well as from scholastic philosophy, mystical theology, homiletics, and hagiography, Russell provides a detailed treatment of Christian diabology in the Middle Ages.
This lively and learned book traces the history of the concept of evil and its personification as the Devil from ancient times to the period of the New Testament and across cultures and...
From rocking in chairs, to singing lullabies, to driving nowhere underneath the moonlight, this is a story to remind parents of the precious magic made in the late hours of the night with their little night owls.
Satan is both a revealing study of the compelling figure of the Devil and an imaginative and persuasive inquiry into the forces that shape a concept and ensure its survival.
While recounting how past generations have personified evil, Jeffrey Burton Russell deepens our understanding of the ways in which people have dealt with the enduring problem of radical evil.
Drawing comparisons between modern sorcery and that of the ancient world, the book shows how the European witch craze in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries developed out of a combination of ancient sorcery and medieval Christian heresy, paganism, folklore, scholastic theology, and inquisitorial trials. Whether the diabolical witchcraft for which men and women went to the stake ever existed is open to question. What matters more is that it was believed to exist by intellectuals and peasants alike.
An authoritative and concise history of witchcraft from the ancient world up to the present day.
