Concordat with Satan is one of the oldest myths and the most popular literary plots. What are the conditions and consequences of the transaction?
Tears and blood
Of the folklore works, the most ancient is the tale of a blacksmith who made an agreement with demonic power. This plot is no less than six millennia. The most famous of the legends is the story of Theophilus of Adana (Theophilus of Cilicia). Among the author's works, let us first of all recall Goethe's Faust and Wilde's Portrait of Dorian Gray.
The idea of conspiracy with Satan as an element of any witchcraft was officially proclaimed by the University of Paris in 1398. The well-known Latin term maleficium (evil deed, crime) comes from maleficia (enchantment, witchcraft). It was believed that the payment for the recognition and help of the devil is the human soul. In exchange for a soul, you can gain power, wealth, talent, and even immortality. And visual evidence of such an agreement is special diabolical marks, irreparable marks of evil.
Tompkins Harrison Matteson. Trial of the Witch, 1853.
Inquisitorial trials of witches describe ways to expose wizards. So, according to legend, the place marked by Satan on the body is insensitive to pain. In addition to physical torture, speech was practiced - for example, the "test of tears". A woman suspected of witchcraft was read a passage from the Bible - and if she did not shed tears, then her connection with the devil was considered proven. Another verbal way to identify a witch is to make you read the prayer "Our Father" in one breath and without hesitation.
Ominous signs of human cooperation with the Prince of Darkness, known as "devilish signatures", were recorded in magical manuals and collections of spells, collectively called grimoires or grimoria (Latin grimoire, Old French grammaire - grammar). The most famous are "Key of Solomon", "Grimoire of Honorius", "True Grimoire", "Heptameron, or Magic Elements". The grimoire allegedly possessed the properties of a living creature that must be fed with blood. Only the owner could read it - no one else could open the pages, or the text on them was not visible, or the crimson color of the sheets burned the eyes.
Promotional video:
Instructions before going to the Sabbath, 1880.
Talent pay
Fantasies about a pact with the devil were often a manifestation of mental illness. Among the textbook examples of modern times is the story of the mentally ill Austrian artist Christoph Heizmann. In 1669, he signed the concordat literally as follows: "I, Christoph Heitzmann, give myself to Satan to be his own blood son and belong to him both in body and soul for nine years."
A few years later, Heizman illustrated this document with a pictorial triptych as a votive gift (Latin votum - vow), a special dedication to his "master". On the left is depicted Satan in the guise of a respectable burgher, with whom the artist signs the act of selling the soul. On the right is shown the appearance of a dragon-like devil a year later, with the requirement to seal the contract with blood, not ink. In the center, the Virgin Mary compels Satan with an exorcism to return the second pact.
Christoph Heizmann, The Pact with the Devil, 1677-1678.
Creative superpowers were often explained by the deal with the devil. This legend was perhaps the most tenacious among the musicians. Thus, persistent rumors circulated that the virtuoso skill of Antonio Stradivari, Giuseppe Tartini, Niccolo Paganini was not without satanic intervention. One of Tartini's chamber works was called "The Devil's Trill" or "The Devil's Sonata". According to the musician himself, once in a dream he dreamed of Satan, who played this sonata and demanded to give his soul.
Louis-Leopold Boilly. Dream of Tartini, 1824.
Renounced and God-marked
In Russia, a variety of deals with demons and a special kind of blasphemy were considered the so-called. "Renounced scriptures" - witchcraft conspiracies with mention of Christian shrines. In investigative cases and court records, they were often called so - blasphemous speeches, and their authors and distributors are blasphemous sorcerers. Such texts were at times frightening and at times comical.
Popular in the 1760s, the Serpukhov peasant-witch doctor Pyotr Yakovlev, “when someone has something at the secret oud of nevstanikh,” poured water into a basin and uttered the magic words over it: “Far away, far away in an open field stands the throne of Christ, and in that throne Most Pure Mother of God . They say it helped.
The practice of burning them and replacing them with handwritten copies in investigative cases eloquently testifies to the attitude towards the "renounced scriptures". They did this not only because the conspiracy was material evidence of guilt. It was tacitly believed that even an unused original denigrates the Lord and is capable of defiling judges as an act of intercourse between a person and the devil. The original, left for any reason, was kept with extreme caution, guided by a strict prescription: "Store the letter concerning magic in the judge's chamber with a seal, so as not to give further temptation to the occasion."
Particularly curious are the "hand-made" letters of God - contracts with the devil for the sake of the location of the authorities, the acquisition of fame, success in love affairs. The authors of such letters were called blasphemous blasphemers, and among the people, they were simply markers, renunciates. Some stories are drawn to adventure novels.
In 1733, a young monk of the Sarov Hermitage, Georgy Zvarykin, appeared at the Moscow Synodal Office, guilty of a criminal renunciation of the faith. The monk reported that a certain blind old man directed him to a strange "German" Weitz, who supposedly could make people "be kind." The monk found this muddy gentleman and received from him a thousand ducats in a bag with a silver lock. The lord also promised to fulfill all his desires, but with the condition: to renounce the Orthodox faith. Without giving the hapless visitor a chance to come to his senses, Weitz tore off his pectoral cross and made him say the terrible words: "I deny Christ and repentance, and I am ready to follow Satan and do his will." Then he ordered to draw the same on paper and sign with his own blood.
Francesco Maria Guazzo. Treaty with the Devil, 1626.
In 1751, there was a loud investigation about the apostasy of the military furrier Pyotr Krylov, who wrote a letter of God for the sake of wealth. It was led by a well-known at that time a figurant of several "witchcraft", the Nizhny Novgorod sorcerer Andrey Timofeev, nicknamed Perdun. The sorcerer led his naive victim into an empty tavern, pulled out an inkwell and a sheet of paper from his pocket. Having written down the renunciation, he pulled out a needle from the collar of the caftan, pierced Krylov's little finger of his left hand and ordered to sign the text with blood.
However, the procedure did not help, and the stubborn Krylov turned to his colleague Smolin for help. He recognized what he had written as a mistake, made Krylov roll out four more renouncements, sign three of them in blood again, and throw one into the whirlpool. Then, they say, the demons will finally "appear and bring money in the image of a man." At the same time, Krylov did not at all consider himself an apostate. At night he prayed in front of the icons and read the Psalter in fear of demons, and in the morning he went to the priest for help.
After another five years, corporal Nikolai Serebryakov, who had taken a drink, had a demonic "hostile force", seduced and persuaded him to give his soul. Without thinking twice, the corporal wrote two letters of honor. "O generous and great prince Sataniel, according to the subscription given from me to you for the services, although I was taken on guard, I fell before your feet, I tearfully ask you to send your loyal slaves to me …" It is written as if I was submitting paper to the office. After that, should we be surprised at Gogol's manner of portraying officials with features of demons?
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The contract between man and the devil is a cultural and historical illustration of the fact that an appeal to the inhabitants of hell is by no means always a denial of holiness, but rather a kind of "anti-method" of cognizing sacredness. Morally mistaken or consciously striving for evil, a person tries, on the one hand, to comprehend the sacred, on the other, to "test the strength" and "check for authenticity" religious foundations.
Author: Julia Shcherbinina