Friday, June 3, 2016
The ‘Devil’s Bible’ Continues To Invoke Fascination, Fear Hundreds Of Years After It Was Written
ITS name means “Giant Book” in Latin but the Codex Gigas is more commonly known as “The Devil’s Bible”.
The 13th century leatherbound tome is believed to be the world’s largest surviving medieval manuscript and is kept in a vault at the National Library of Sweden.
At 89cm tall and 49cm wide, it’s the size of a small child and takes two people to shift its 75kg bulk.
Within its mysterious pages, across 310 leaves of parchment, is a complete version of the Vulgate Bible, which later became the Catholic Church’s official Latin translation.
But it’s the dark story of its creation that continues to fuel public fascination, hundreds of years after it was written by a doomed Benedictine monk in a dark Bohemian monastery.
According to legend, the monk had been sentenced to death — by being walled-up alive — for the crime of breaking his vows.
Terrified and desperate to avoid the horrible penalty, he came up with an extraordinary idea that would save his life.
The monk proposed to write a book that would not only glorify the monastery but contain all human knowledge. And he would do it in a single night. The order agreed to the deal.
That evening, as midnight drew closer, the monk realised he would not be able to complete the book on his own.
He got on his hands and knees and bowed down in prayer. Instead of addressing to God, though, he cast his eyes “downward, towards the fallen angel Lucifer, offering his soul in exchange for a finished book”.
This is what happened next, according to the National Library of Sweden: “The dark prince heard the monk’s prayer and gladly accepted his offer; with a snap of his clawed fingers, the massive text was done.
“The monk added the full-page portrait of the Devil as a token of his gratitude. Other versions (of the story) suggest that Lucifer himself signed his work by adding the self-portrait.”
The portrait, striking colour illustration of the Devil, can be found on page 577.
The infamy of the drawing detracts from the rest of the book’s contents, which are equally — if not more — remarkable.
The Devil’s Bible is an encyclopaedia of medieval know-how, obtaining material for teaching medicine and magic. There are two spells with specific instructions on how to identify and catch a thief and a how-to for exorcising demons or evils from people and objects. Possession by demons was commonly thought during medieval times to be the cause of many illnesses. The church had specific rituals to exorcise evil by casting demons out of an afflicted person’s body.
There are lists of various alphabets and complete versions of both Old Testament and New Testament as well as a collection of secular works.
Tests carried out on the handwriting have indicated that it was indeed written by a single hand. Whether or not that hand was “powered” by Lucifer will remain the stuff of legends.
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