Seven Heads, Ten Horns: The History of the Devil

Lightning strikes twice in one week. It's a short solo episode from Klaus about Athanasius of Alexandria, how the devil might live in the air, and how Christian theology conceptualizes both the human body of Jesus and the airy bodies of demons as instruments of the Lord. Sources: Athanasius, On the Incarnation of the Word Athanasius, Life of Antony Gay Byron, Symbolic Blackness and Ethnic Diff...

The episode that celebrates one year of 7H10H! Then we discusses how the Trinity happened, some influential theologians from Cappadocia, the devil as heretic, the devil as a man-eating Leviathan, Jesus as a fishhook, and God as the devil's therapist. Sources: Gregory of Nyssa’s Great Catechism: chapters XX-XXVI Gregory of Nyssa, On the Soul and the Resurrection Nicholas P. Costas “The Last Tem...

"We are their bodies," one monk admitted. This week Klaus and Travis examine the practical knowledge the first generations of Christian monks developed for identifying and combatting their demons and the devil himself. Sources: Life of Ant(h)ony by Athanasius David Brakke, Demons and the Making of the Monk : Spiritual Combat in Early Christianity (Also check ProQuest.) John Cassian, Instit...

Klaus and Travis think through the ways ancient understandings of race and ethnicity mattered for group formation in early Christianity. They also see how anti-Blackness and anti-Judaism bring this all back to the Devil.  Special thanks to Michael Motia for his input on this episode! Check out his new book on Gregory of Nyssa, Imitations of Infinity . Follow us @7heads10hornspod on Insta, @heads_t...

Epi 6 focuses on one of the most brilliant, misunderstood, and maligned theologians of Church history, Origen of Alexandria, and his provocative ideas about the origin (so many bad puns coming) of the devil and the possibility that everyone, including said devil, will be saved at the end of time. Follow us on Twitter @heads_ten Email: 7h10hpod@gmail.com Sources for this week; Origen online: https:...

This episode Travis and Klaus discuss the new book by Catherine Keller, Facing Apocalypse , and talk through the way this contemporary theologian interprets the book of Revelation in the midst of Covid 19, climate change, capitalism, and other catastrophes, while resisting the kind of interpretation ("Y2K was foreseen in the Bible!") that conservatives keep using Revelation for. Keller arg...

This episode represents our first guest contribution to the pod. Stefano walks us through the use of the devil's interval in Baroque classical music and from there ventures into diabolic form and content in blues, jazz, Satanist-adjacent classic rock, not to mention Snoop Dogg. Connect with Stefano on Instagram @stefrozental10 and the pod itself @heads_ten on Twitter. Email us at 7h10hpod@gmai...

This week K&T discuss that 2nd-3rd-century church father who never made it as a saint, Tertullian, and his extremely paranoid diabology.  **Warning,** extreme Northeastern USA / SE. Pennsylvanian pronunciation of the word “water” (= wodr ) when Klaus starts talking about baptism. Sensitive listeners should be advised.   Follow us, @heads_ten, on Twitter   Write us: 7h10hpod@gmail.com Sources...

Klaus and Travis discuss the role of the devil in the early 3rd-century martyrdom/passion narrative of Perpetua and Felicity. Sources : The Passion of Perpetua and Felicity , trans/ed. Thomas J. Heffernan, Oxford University Press Online version: https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/source/perpetua.asp L. Stephanie Cobb, "Suicide by Gladiator? The Acts of Perpetua and Felicitas in its North African...

"I saw Lil Nas X's Air Max 97s dropping like lightning." Clearly we had no choice on this Devil podcast but to put out our thoughts and feelings about the recent Lil Nas X scandal/marketing extravaganza/moral panic. Sources: Lil Nas X, "Montero" video Heather White, "Lil Nas X's 'Satan Shoes' trolled some Christians. But 'Montero' is about more than that...

This week Travis and Klaus discuss Gnosticism and try to make sense of the confusing religious landscape of the 2nd century CE. In the course of their conversation, they explore yet another re-imagining of the book of Genesis, the role of demons in the creation of the world & humanity, and consider how Gnostic demonology helps us think about the problem of evil in Christianity. Sources: The Gn...

This week we return to the scene of the crime from our first episode—the Garden of Eden—to make sense of why Christian theologians got so obsessed with Adam and Eve and why this matters for understanding the Devil. Our main source is Irenaeus, a 2nd century theologian who wrote a very long book about why everyone else was wrong, Against Heresies.  Our intro music is by Yung Koolade Our transition...

Back in action with Season 2, Klaus and Travis discuss the mysterious and often acerbic Justin Martyr, the 2nd century philosopher and Christian apologist, whose understanding of devils and demons fits in with a larger project of differentiating Christians from Romans and Jews. What could go wrong? Sources discussed: Justin Martyr's writings: https://archive.org/details/writingsofjustin00justu...

Travis takes us to Hell for the first time since we discussed Milton's Paradise Lost in episode 5. He discusses the Gospel of Nicodemus B, another apocryphal gospel, in which Jesus leads a prison break out of Hell and we get a bizarre dialogue between Satan and Hades, the personification of Hell. Remember to rate, review, & subscribe and we'll be back before too long to begin our secon...

Statues gone wild! Sinister, nameless old men! The Devil's favor shown toward a city of cannibals! This episode focuses an example of New Testament apocrypha, AKA, scripture that didn't make the final draft of the Bible, called The Acts of Andrew and Matthias in the City of the Cannibals. You can read a translation of that text here: https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0820.htm

This week Klaus and Travis discuss the experience of trying to make sense of the Book of Revelation over the past 2 episodes, its links to modern apocalyptic Christian Fundamentalism, and Revelation- reverberations in the January 6 MAGA coup.

This week Travis guides us to safety through the second half of the Book of Revelation. We meet various monsters and learn the diabolical secret of the "mark of the Beast." Travis delves into the misogynistic language of sexual impurity that appears throughout Revelation and determines its biblical sources and rhetorical purposes. Finally, he poses the important question of why things are...

This is part 1 of 3 projected episodes on the Book of Revelation. This week we skip to the end of the New Testament to see what the end of the world is like and the role the Devil plays in it. We meet the prophet/seer John and hear about his very strange trip to the heavenly throne room. Along the way we encounter all kinds of monsters including a monstrous lamb, scorpion-tailed locusts, and a cer...

This week we look at the gospel that is different from all the rest, especially when it comes to the Devil: The Gospel of John. We discuss the way the Devil appears in this text, its demonization of Jews or "Judaeans," whether or not John was part of a sectarian community, the possible influence of the Dead Sea Scrolls on John, and Pontius Pilate as the personification of Christian ambival...

This week we slide head-first into the New Testament (AKA "the Christian Bible") and puzzle over its oldest sources, the letters of St. Paul. Travis and Klaus discuss the myriad ways Paul thinks about evil: powers & principalities, sin, death, fallen angels, and Satan himself. Find us on Twitter: @klaus_yoder & @realtravis_tea And Instagram ! Check out the sources we use to make th...

This week 7H10H addresses the big question on everyone's mind: did Jewish and Christian apocalyptic theologians get their best ideas from ancient Iran when it comes to the Devil and cosmic war? Shout out and thanks to Ernest J. Mitchell and Prods Oktor Skjaervø for help with sources this week. Talk to us: 7h10hpod@gmail.com Check out our sources: https://7h10hpod.blogspot.com/2020/11/works-con...

On offer this week: a short overview of the demonology of the Dead Sea Scrolls. This week Klaus gets into the history of the community that produced the Dead Sea Scrolls and introduces some of the malevolent entities that dwell in those ancient documents. Email the pod with questions and comments at 7h10hpod@gmail.com We're gradually posting the books and articles we use to make the pod. Check...

What happens when angels patrolling the newly-created world get a little too randy and start behaving recklessly? This episode marks our transition to a more chronological attempt at narrating the history of the Devil. We start with an important set of stories about the origins of demons that takes root around the interpretation and retelling of a rather cryptic moment in the book of Genesis, chap...

This week's episode centers on the demonic as a conceptual and cultural tool for imposing or resisting power structures. Demonization has a complicated history in Christianity: it justifies the suppression of many aspects of pre-Christian Roman civilization, provides a key rationale for early-modern European colonization, but also enables a contemporary Womanist critique of white supremacy. Ju...

This week on the pod we cover the history of Halloween as it is practiced in the USA and intersects with the history of the Devil. A really useful source for this week's material is Nicholas Rogers' Halloween : From Pagan Ritual to Party Night.  Email us with questions and comments at 7h10hpod@gmail.com