On this Wikipedia the devil’s food cake cookies links are at the top of the page across from the article title. Statue of the devil in the Žmuidzinavičius Museum or Devil’s Museum in Kaunas, Lithuania. 40 of the medieval French Apocalypse Tapestry, produced between 1377 and 1382.

A fresco detail from the Rila Monastery, in which demons are depicted as having grotesque faces and bodies. A devil is the personification of evil as it is conceived in various cultures and religious traditions. It is seen as the objectification of a hostile and destructive force. Each tradition, culture, and religion with a devil in its mythos offers a different lens on manifestations of evil. The history of these perspectives intertwines with theology, mythology, psychiatry, art, and literature developing independently within each of the traditions. In his book The Devil: Perceptions of Evil from Antiquity to Primitive Christianity, Jeffrey Burton Russell discusses various meanings and difficulties that are encountered when using the term devil. In the Introduction to his book Satan: A Biography, Henry Ansgar Kelly discusses various considerations and meanings that he has encountered in using terms such as devil and Satan, etc.

While not offering a general definition, he describes that in his book “whenever diabolos is used as the proper name of Satan”, he signals it by using “small caps”. In the Baháʼí Faith, a malevolent, superhuman entity such as a devil or satan is not believed to exist. These terms do, however, appear in the Baháʼí writings, where they are used as metaphors for the lower nature of man. In Christianity, evil is incarnate in the devil or Satan, a fallen angel who is the primary opponent of God.

In mainstream Christianity, the devil is usually referred to as Satan. The goat, ram and pig are consistently associated with the devil. Satan has often been depicted as a serpent. Isaiah 14:12 is a reference to a Babylonian king. New Testament as a synonym for the devil. Bible is not regarded as referring to a supernatural, personal being but to any ‘adversary’ and figuratively refers to human sin and temptation. In the Book of Wisdom, the devil is represented as the one who brought death into the world.

In the Book of Jubilees, Satan rules over a host of angels. Mastema, who induced God to test Abraham through the sacrifice of Isaac, is identical with Satan in both name and nature. A lion-faced deity found on a Gnostic gem in Bernard de Montfaucon’s L’antiquité expliquée et représentée en figures may be a depiction of the Demiurge. Gnostic and Gnostic-influenced religions postulate the idea that the material world is inherently evil. The One true God is remote, beyond the material universe, therefore this universe must be governed by an inferior imposter deity.

This deity was identified with the deity of the Old Testament by some sects, such as the Sethians and the Marcions. Father of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Eusebius accused Apelles, the 2nd-century AD Gnostic, of considering the Inspirer of Old Testament prophecies to be not a god, but an evil angel. In the 12th century in Europe the Cathars, who were rooted in Gnosticism, dealt with the problem of evil, and developed ideas of dualism and demonology. The Cathars were seen as a serious potential challenge to the Catholic church of the time. The Cathars split into two camps. Muslims hold that the pre-Islamic jinn, tutelary deities, became subject under Islam to the judgment of God, and that those who did not submit to the law of God are devils.

Although Iblis is often compared to the devil in Christian theology, Islam rejects the idea that Satan is an opponent of God and the implied struggle between God and the devil. As in Christianity, Iblis was once a pious creature of God but later cast out of Heaven due to his pride. However, to maintain God’s absolute sovereignty, Islam matches the line taken by Irenaeus instead of the later Christian consensus that the devil did not rebel against God but against humanity. On the other hand, Shaitan refers unilaterally to forces of evil, including the devil Iblis, then he causes mischief. Shaitan is also linked to humans psychological nature, appearing in dreams, causing anger or interrupting the mental preparation for prayer. In contrast to Occidental philosophy, the Sufi idea of seeing “Many as One”, and considering the creation in its essence as the Absolute, leads to the idea of the dissolution of any dualism between the ego substance and the “external” substantial objects.

Salafi strands of Islam commonly emphasize a dualistic worldview between the believers and the unbelievers, with the devil as the enemy of God’s path. Even though the devil will be finally defeated by God, he is a serious and dangerous opponent of humans. Yahweh, the god in pre-exilic Judaism, created both good and evil, as stated in Isaiah 45:7: “I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things. The devil does not exist in Jewish scriptures.

In Mandaean mythology, Ruha fell apart from the World of Light and became the queen of the World of Darkness, also referred to as Sheol. She gives birth to Ur, also referred to as Leviathan. He is portrayed as a large, ferocious dragon or snake and is considered the king of the World of Darkness. In Manichaeism, God and the devil are two unrelated principles.

According to one narrative, Erlik and God swam together over the primordial waters. When God was about to create the Earth, he send Erlik to dive into the waters and collect some mud. According to Tengrism, there is no death, meaning that, when life comes to an end, it is merely a transition into the invisible world. As the ruler of Hell, Erlik enslaves the souls, who are damned to Hell. Further, he lurks on the souls of those humans living on Earth by causing death, disease and illnesses.

Yazidis, and evil is regarded as nonexistent. In Zoroastrianism, good and evil derive from two ultimately opposed forces. Spinoza examined whether the devil may exist or not. He defines the devil as an entity which is contrary to God. However, if the devil is the opposite of God, the devil would consist of Nothingness, which does not exist.