Pact with the devil
A devil's pact or devil's alliance is a trade alliance between the devil and a person, the devil is promised a human soul in exchange for wealth, power, talent, magical powers or similar gifts. Such a pact is the subject of many popular sagas and legends . The motif is also taken up several times in literature.
In the course of the early modern witch persecution , the pact with the devil (or with demons, especially as an incubus or with demons), was derived from biblical and other sources, and was also called by Augustine by Thomas Aquinas ( Summa Theol. II, Qu. 96, a 2). Succubus ) according to the Christian demonology of the time (" witch doctrine") regarded as the origin of the powers of a witch . The covenant with the devil can be concluded extensively with all the celebrations or just through a simple agreement. A pact is a bond for a long time, this includes making a being serviceable by making promises and working for it in the hereafter - i.e. after death. The spirit serves the magician for this for a certain time. After his death, the magician enters the sphere of the spirit in order to fulfill his obligations there. Often times, the consideration is a kind of gift for a following.
In a figurative sense, a pact with the devil is also spoken of when a person enters into alliances with people or powers that actually conflict with his goal and his ideals in order to achieve a goal. The picture is particularly popular in columnar commentaries on politics and current affairs.
Examples from literature and society
- The medieval game of Theophilus is probably based on a Greek legend.
- The most famous pact with the devil is probably the one that, according to legend, was concluded between Johann Georg Faust and the devil. This achieved literary world fame through Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's (1749–1832) two-part drama Faust ( Faust I , Faust II ) (1790/1797/1833) and through Thomas Mann's parable of Germany, the novel Doctor Faustus .
- A similar example can be found in the novel Das Bildnis des Dorian Gray , in which the protagonist, Dorian Gray, sells his soul to the devil so that the portrait ages for him in his place. In this way, the protagonist gains eternal youth.
- In Honoré de Balzac's fantastic novel The Chagrin Leather , the protagonist Raphaël de Valentin makes such a pact by purchasing the magical piece of donkey leather. This leather can fulfill his wishes. However, the leather loses size with every wish, which determines the remaining lifetime of the person making it.
- Another famous literary example of a pact with the devil takes place in Mikhail Bulgakov's novel The Master and Margarita , in which the protagonist makes a pact.
- There is a legend about the Swiss Devil's Bridge that the devil built the original bridge as part of a pact with the residents and demanded the soul of the first person to cross the bridge.
- There is also a legend about the construction of the Stone Bridge in Regensburg , which implies that the bridge builder had entered into a pact with the devil in order to be able to complete the bridge in front of the Regensburg Cathedral . In this case the devil is said to have even demanded the first three souls to cross the bridge.
- Similarly, the construction of the cathedral goes to the Aachen Dombausage to Aachen back to a pact with the devil. Accordingly, the devil helped the Aacheners with the construction with the promise of the first soul to enter the cathedral. But that would have been none other than the soul of the bishop consecrating the church . However, the Aacheners outwitted the devil by driving a she-wolf into the cathedral, which can still be seen today as a bronze statue, but actually in the form of a she-bear. The bronze pine cone , which can also be seen there , juxtaposed with the sculpture of the she-wolf (she-bear), symbolizes the animal's soul stolen from the animal, which the devil, enraged in rage, threw to the ground. Thereupon he tore off his thumb when the dome gate slammed, which can be felt in the lock of the door today. Those who get their thumbs out will be rewarded with a golden dress. The Aachener Lousberg was also created according to the Lousberg legend due to devilish influence, because the devil wanted to cover the city with a huge sandbag in revenge for the ruse, but only got as far as Aachen and was deceived by a cunning market woman.
- Part of the myth surrounding several musicians, especially the violinist Niccolò Paganini ("devil's violinist ") and the blues musicians Tommy Johnson and Robert Johnson, is that they made a pact with the devil for their talent.
- In Adelbert von Chamisso's fairy tale, Peter Schlemihl's wondrous story , the focus is on a young man, Peter Schlemihl, who sells his shadow to the devil for eternal wealth. Later he wants to exchange it for Schlemihl's soul.
- In the 1630s, on the initiative of Cardinal Richelieu , a witch trial was brought against Urbain Grandier , a Catholic priest and pastor of the Sainte Croix church in Loudun, in the diocese of Poitiers , on the matter of the so-called Devils of Loudun . The nuns of the Convent of the Ursulines of Loudun accused the priest Urbain of making a pact with the devil and of being bewitched by him.
- Neil Postman postulated that every technological change is a faustian bargain : technology gives and technology takes - and not always to the same extent. Sometimes a new technology creates more than it destroys. Sometimes it destroys more than it creates. However, it never remains one-sided.
- In 1998 the art group monochrom staged the action We buy souls , a new form of the neoliberal devil's pact: They offered passers-by in downtown Vienna the opportunity to sell their souls to the group. The aim was then to sell the souls to third parties for a profit. In this context, the soul calls monochrome “virtual capital”.
literature
- Almut Neumann: Treaties and pacts with the devil. Ancient and medieval presentations in the "Malleus maleficarum" . Röhrig Universitätsverlag, St. Ingbert 1997, ISBN 978-3-86110-123-9 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Michael Siefener: The devil as a contractual partner .
- ^ Emmy Rosenfeld: Friedrich Spee von Langenfeld. A voice in the desert. Walter de Gruyter & Co., Berlin 1958 (= sources and research on the linguistic and cultural history of the Germanic peoples. New series, 2), pp. 256–270 ( Belief in the devil's phenomena and the crime of sorcery ); here: p. 260 f.
- ^ Cf. Walter Maas, Pit Siebigs: Der Aachener Dom. Schnell & Steiner, Regensburg 2013, ISBN 978-3-7954-2445-9 , pp. 29-30.
- ↑ lecture "Informing Ourselves to Death" at the "Society for computer science" in Stuttgart. October 11, 1990, archived from the original on October 20, 2011 ; Retrieved October 20, 2013 .