Devil, the

From the earliest times there has been belief in the Devil as a real presence. Dualistic or Manichean systems such as Zoroastrianism and Gnosticism regarded the world as a battleground between the forces of good and evil. In medieval iconography devils were omnipresent in Christian edifices, glaring down on the faithful from gargoyles and grotesque paintings. Although the Renaissance introduced a new spirit of skepticism, it paradoxically generated a revival of the medieval Faust legend, as well as works such as Reginald Scot’s The discoverie of witchcraft (1584), King James I’s Dæmonologie (1597), and Samuel Harsnett’s Declaration of Egregious Popishe Impostures (1603), a treatise on diabolism and an attack on the Jesuits. The Salem witch trials of 1692 were a gruesome continuation of the European Inquisition. Even in 1851, Herman Melville could articulate in Moby Dick the deeply disturbing metaphysical and religious view, by then a virtual blasphemy, of “That intangible malignity which has been from the beginning; to whose domination even the modern Christians ascribe one-half of the worlds” (chapter 41).

Consequently, the direct naming of the Devil, as with the deity, has been subject to severe taboos originating in notions of word magic. There has always been respect for diabolical power and a belief that an oath invoking the Devil could be binding if heartfelt. Historically, however, the situation was more complex: the name of the Devil was very current in medieval oaths, then became euphemized, distorted, or “minced” between the Puritan and Victorian periods, and reinstated in the twentieth century. By this time, with the secularization of society, the name had little impact.

Our modern term devil derives from Anglo-Saxon deofol , which in turn is rooted in Greek d?aßs?s?, “the slanderer, liar or false accuser,” the foundation of the notion of the Father of Lies. Although England was technically converted to Christianity in 597, Anglo-Saxon has many compounds, such as deofol craft for “witchcraft” or “devil worship,” deofol seocnesse for “devil sickness” or “possession by the devil,” and deofilisc , “devilish,” all of which seem to be literal. Fiend similarly derives from Anglo-Saxon feond , which had both the broad sense of “enemy” and the specific sense of the Fiend , called by Macbeth “the common enemy of man” (III ii 90), more traditionally, the Arch Enemy, the Evil One, and a host of biblical names, such as Satan, Beelzebub, and Lucifer.

Medieval oaths invoked the devil in specific curses that are very shocking to modern readers. One of the Towneley Plays, in which the devil is frequently invoked, contains the graphic curse: “The dwylle (devil) hang you high to drye” (175). Another typical instance occurs in Chaucer’s Friar’s Tale , a text fundamentally concerned with swearing:

“The feend,” quod he, “yow fecche, body and bones.”
(He said, “The devil take you, body and bones.”)
(l. 1544)

However, within the same period one finds similar oaths less easily understood, as in Chaucer’s Summoner’s Tale:

“Lat him go honge himself a devele way!”
(l. 2242)

The last phrase anticipates a feature common in modern swearing, in that an idiomatic use is taking over from a logical or literal meaning. (Modern equivalents would be a devil of a mess and so on, which cannot be explained in terms of traditional grammar.) Devil , sometimes reinforced to twenty devil , could be used as an intensifier in Middle English of “away”: Chaucer has a clearer instance in the oath “A twenty develewey the wynd him drive” (from the Legend of Good Women , l. 2177). In this kind of emotive and idiomatic use, the term was to have a large role to play in subsequent centuries.

Devil was used freely in the Elizabethan era in sermons, in folktales, especially in the drama, despite the censorship against the use of the name of God on the stage. Shakespeare uses it in a direct personal fashion of the villainous characters such as Aaron the Moor in Titus Andronicus (1592) and Iago in Othello (1604), as well as in Macbeth and Hamlet , which deal with profound spiritual and metaphysical matters. Marlowe’s Dr. Faustus (ca.1592) contains blasphemously shocking scenes in which the devil Mephostophilis is conjured up on the stage.

However, euphemisms were already starting to appear. The expression “I cannot tell what the dickens his name is,” still current in British English, first appears about 1598 in Shakespeare’s The Merry Wives of Windsor (III ii 19). It thus anticipates the name of Charles Dickens the author by three hundred years, and is still found in many phrases, such as who the dickens, the dickens of a mess , and so on. Although not really absorbed into American English, it survives in the Australian variety as plain dickon , an expression of disbelief or rejection. Both Dickens and dickon are abbreviations of Richard, but why this name should have been used as a euphemistic variant has never been explained.

As a result of the Puritan revolution (1644–1660) and the strict censorship it bred, many more euphemisms started to appear. We can gauge the radical change in attitude from this entry in the Diary of Samuel Pepys, who moved among a wide range of social circles and was by no means a prude: “My wife … used the word ‘devil’ which vexed me, and among other things I said I would not have her use that word” (May 21, 1663). One of the longest-lived euphemisms was deuce , in typical phrases such as what the deuce! and deuce take you! It became very fashionable in Restoration comedy, not as a genuine euphemism, but as a flippant evasion. Although Dr. Johnson condemned it as “a ludicrous word,” deuce became the standard euphemism through the eighteenth century to Victorian times.

Dr. Johnson’s contemporary, the slang lexicographer Francis Grose, recorded many idiomatic uses of devil , such as printer’s devil, devil’s daughter (a termagant), devil’s books (playing cards), and devilish , meaning “very,” which as he noted ironically “in the English vulgar language is made to agree with every quality of thing; as devilish bad, devilish good, devilish sick, devilish well … etc. etc.” By the Victorian era, however, the term was certainly becoming taboo in polite society. In R.H. Barham’s classic novel The Ingoldsby Legends (1837), there is this charming lecture: “Don’t use naughty words in the next place, and ne’er in your language adopt a bad habit of swearin’. Never say ‘Devil take me,’ or ‘shake me,’ or ‘bake me,’ or suchlike expressions. Remember Old Nick, to take folks at their word, is remarkably quick.” Robert Burns wrote a flippant “Address to the Deil” (1785), including many of the popular names:

O thou! Whatever title suit thee-
Auld Hornie, Stan, Nick or Clootie-

The formal euphemism tactfully introduced by Barham, namely Old Nick , is recorded from Restoration times, but is no longer generally current, together with related forms such as Old One, Old Podger, Old Scratch, Old Toast , and the more sinister and descriptive Old Split-Foot . The grander title of the Prince of Darkness dates from 1526.

In American parlance the Devil and his euphemistic variants have not had such a vigorous vituperative life. Despite the opposition of fundamentalists, the word is often used as a name of pride for sporting teams, such as the Red Devils, the Sun Devils, and so on. Devil is not current in Australian English as an oath, but the reduplicated form devil devil was taken into Aboriginal Pidgin over 150 years ago to mean “an evil spirit.”

Although there is a lingering respect for the linguistic power of the Prince of Darkness, the general semantic trend of the word, in common with most emotive religious vocabulary, has been loss of intensity. Given the alarming modern manifestations of mass evil in genocide, this is a surprising development. Similarly, diabolical has lost its literal force, demonize has been used in a secular sense since about 1888, while the cliché “fiendishly clever” means little more than “very cunning.” Idioms like “the luck of the devil” or “the devil is in the detail” show the same tendency.