Halloween is almost here, the time of year when we take perverse delight in getting the hell scared out of us, and what better way to get the hell scared out of us than by a creature from Hell? Of course, I'm talking about the Devil, a.k.a., Satan, Lucifer, the Prince of Darkness, Mephistopheles, Beelzebub, Belial, Old Nick, Old Scratch, the Evil One, the Arch Fiend, the Serpent, and the Antichrist.
Did I leave a name out? Oh, yes. Blair:
Scary, huh? But is it fair? Can there be another side to the Devil? Can Satan be misunderstood?
John Cleese offers this perspective:
So you might want to consider chipping in a few dollars. It will do your soul some good. Assuming it hasn't already been sold.
I think I was 17 when I saw The Exorcist and it was quite some movie. I thought the priest, Damien Karras, was attractive but now looking at his photos, I cannot see why. I am sure there was someone in the film who excited me.
ReplyDeleteAndrew, Jason Miller, who played Father Damien, to my eyes now looks older (though far from homely) in that film than I remember him being the first time I saw it sometime in the 1970s. I recalled a man in his 20s (in fact, the actor was 34) whereas he looks like he's craggily over 40. I wonder if the reason I thought he was so young was because he was the younger priest to Max Von Sydow's older priest (Sydow was 44 when the film was made, and he REALLY looks older than that, though that might have just been makeup.) Incidentally, it wasn't the first Von Sydow played an exorcist. I believe he drove out a demon or two in 1965's THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD.
DeleteGetting back to Jason Miller, in addition to being an actor he was a playwright, best known for THAT CHAMPIONSHIP SEASON.
Who can resist that impassioned plea from John Cleese? I am happy to make a contribution on the condition that I can send a few miserable sinners along with the cash. My mind is racing, the selection overwhelming!
ReplyDeleteDavid, I can think of a few sinners in Washington D.C, who are busy trying to establish Hell on Earth.
DeleteHello Kirk, A while ago when I worked in an office, there was a very nice young woman who became visibly upset when I used the appellation "Old Nick" referring to the devil. It turned out that she revered the memory of her late father, who was named Nicholas, presumably "nick"-named Nick, and had somehow never heard the term Old Nick. I just tried to look up the origin of the term, but without luck, just the usual internet and AI nonsense.
ReplyDelete--Jim
Jim, you can make it up to her at Christmas time. After all, I believe there's a saint named Nick.
DeleteYup it's nearly here isn't it! Ahh John Cleese, a fine and funny man indeed. A lot of good and clever comedy from back in those days. Apparently his real surname is Cheese!
ReplyDeleteHaha the way things are just now, that's scary enough isn't it? We don't need demons and ghouls and zombies, as they are already here ;-)
That's right, Ananka. Humans don't need monsters. They do enough scary things on their own.
DeleteI've never seen that John Cleese clip before -- hilarious!
ReplyDeleteDebra, seeing that it's in black-and-white, I think the clip is from some show Cleese was on before Monty Python.
DeleteShoot! I can’t find my copy of the Radio Times!
ReplyDeleteMitchell, I think it's gone digital.
DeleteJohn Cleese is hilarious 😂 I loved The Ministry of Silly Walks sketch and the Britcom Fawlty Towers.
ReplyDeleteLinda, did you hear that Prunella Scales, who played Cleese's wife Sybil on Fawlty Towers, just died? She was 93.
DeleteHi Kirk,
ReplyDeleteIt might interest you to know that satan is originally a Hebrew angel of God that acted as an accuser (literal translation) or prosecutor, arguing the negative on one's sins. It's a long story about a mistranlation of the word Lucifer being attributed to the same being Satan.
What we regard today as the devil owes so much to the Greek mythology and Zoroastrianism, which creeped into Dante's inferno. The New Testament was written in the language by people who had a Greek education of the classics like Plato.
I thought that might interest you.
I might write a lengthy blog post about the ways in which Christianity is a strange mish-mash of ideas that come from earlier traditions.
Thank you, Liam. I know the concept of the Devil and its' various synonyms have changed over time, and some of those synonyms didn't start out as synonyms at all. In order to humorously set up both videos, I needed the most widespread perceptions of the subject matter, historically accurate or not.
DeleteIf you do write that post on Christianity, I'll surely take the time to read it.