Description
Book SynopsisThis 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 civilizations.
Trade ReviewAll readers... will be enriched and stimulated by this honestly presented biography of the Evil One. The Devil, in religious myth, personal vision, and mystical reality, offers invaluable material for reflection and meditation.
* Studia Mystica *
Russell is not only a conscientious historian, anxious to examine in texts, myths, legends, art and literature the persistence and transformation of a particular idea. He is also an introspective essayist who acknowledges his own continuing struggle to understand the nature and source of evil.
-- Robert Coles * New York Times Book Review *
This fascinating story of 'the Devil' explores the concept and personification of evil (defined as 'the infliction of pain on sentient beings') from its ancient beginnings into New Testament times.
* Seventeenth Century News *
This is a serious work by a first-rate medievalist who has turned his eyes to antiquity in order to elucidate the sources of man's experience of the evil one. The result is scholarly, readable, and comprehensive.... Russell's notations are copious and impressive, attesting to the vast amount of research that has gone into this study. The text is richly illustrated with some fifty well-chosen plates.... An exceptionally lucid study and a major contribution to the field.
* Review of Books and Religion *
Table of ContentsPreface
1. The Question of Evil
2. In Search of the Devil
3. The Devil East and West
4. Evil in the Classical World
5. Hebrew Personifications of Evil
6. The Devil in the New Testament
7. The Face of the Devil
Selected Bibliography
Index
