Satan, the beast crunching sinners’ bones in his subterranean lair. Lucifer, the fallen angel raging against the established order. Mephistopheles, the trickster striking deals with unsuspecting humans.
These three divergent devils are all based on Satan of the Old Testament, an angelic member of God’s court who torments Job in the Book of Job. But unlike any of these literary devils, the Satan of the Bible was a relatively minor character, with scant information about his deeds or appearance. So how did he become the ultimate antagonist, with so many different forms?
In the New Testament, Satan saw a little more action: tempting Jesus, using demons to possess people, and finally appearing as a giant dragon who is cast into hell. This last image particularly inspired medieval artists and writers, who depicted a scaled, shaggy-furred creature with overgrown toenails. In Michael Pacher’s painting of St. Augustine and the Devil, the devil appears as an upright lizard— with a second miniature face glinting on his rear and.
The epitome of these monster Satans appeared in Italian poet Dante Alighieri’s “Inferno.” Encased in the ninth circle of hell, Dante’s Satan is a three-headed, bat-winged behemoth who feasts on sinners. But he’s also an object of pity: powerless as the panicked beating of his wings only encases him further in ice. The poem’s protagonist escapes from hell by clambering over Satan’s body, and feels both disgust and sympathy for the trapped beast— prompting the reader to consider the pain of doing evil.
By the Renaissance, the devil started to assume a more human form. Artists painted him as a man with cloven hooves and curling horns inspired by Pan, the Greek god of the wild. In his 1667 masterpiece “Paradise Lost,” English poet John Milton depicted the devil as Lucifer, an angel who started a rebellion on the grounds that God is too powerful. Kicked out of heaven, this charismatic rebel becomes Satan, and declares that he’d rather rule in hell than serve in heaven.
Milton’s take inspired numerous depictions of Lucifer as an ambiguous figure, rather than a purely evil one. Milton’s Lucifer later became an iconic character for the Romantics of the 1800s, who saw him as a hero who defied higher power in pursuit of essential truths, with tragic consequences.
Meanwhile, in the German legend of Doctor Faust, which dates to the 16th century, we get a look at what happens when the devil comes to Earth. Faust, a dissatisfied scholar, pledges his soul to the devil in exchange for bottomless pleasure. With the help of the devil’s messenger Mephistopheles, Faust quickly seizes women, power, and money— only to fall into the eternal fires of hell.
Later versions of the story show Mephistopheles in different lights. In Christopher Marlowe's account, a cynical Doctor Faustus is happy to strike a deal with Mephistopheles. In Johann Wolfgang van Goethe’s version, Mephistopheles tricks Faust into a grisly deal. Today, a Faustian bargain refers to a trade that sacrifices integrity for short-term gains.
In stagings of Goethe’s play, Mephistopheles appeared in red tights and cape. This version of the devil was often played as a charming trickster— one that eventually paraded through comic books, advertising, and film in his red suit.
These three takes on the devil are just the tip of the iceberg: the devil continues to stalk the public imagination to this day, tempting artists of all kinds to render him according to new and fantastical visions.
