Satanism Today - An Encyclopedia of Religion, Folklore and Popular ...

Bosch, Hieronymus 31
make mischief with the residents. They are said to
delight in tormenting small children by stealing
their food and by almost suffocating them at night,
which is where we derive the vague notions that we
pass on to our children in threats about how “the
bogeyman will get you if you don’t watch out.”
For Further Reading:
Briggs, Katharine. An Encyclopedia of Fairies. New
York: Pantheon, 1976.
McCoy, Edwin. A Witch’s Guide to Faery Folk. St.
Paul, MN: Llewellyn, 1994.
Book of Jubilees
The Book of Jubilees is an apocryphal work
composed during the so-called intertestamental
period. According to this book, the angels were
created on the first day of creation: “On the first day
He created the heavens which are above and the
earth and the waters and all the spirits which serve
before Him—the angels of the presence, and the
angels of sanctification, and the angels of the spirits
of the winds, and the angels of the spirit of clouds,
and of darkness, [and so forth]”(Giovetti 1993, 19.).
Among other contents, the Book of Jubilees
repeats the central angel tale in the Book of Enoch
in which a group of angels mate with mortal
females. They then fell from grace and became
devils after leaving their heavenly abode. The Book
of Jubilees adds that God sent the Flood to destroy
the race of sinful giants who were the offspring of
these unnatural unions.
See also Enoch; Judaism
For Further Reading:
Giovetti, Paola. Angels. The Role of Celestial
Guardians and Beings of Light. Transl. Toby
McCormick. 1989. York Beach, ME: Samuel
Wiser, 1993.
Prophet, Elizabeth Clare. Forbidden Mysteries of
Enoch: Fallen Angels and the Origins of Evil. 1983.
Livingston, MT: Summit University Press, 1992.
Bosch, Hieronymus
As a result of the complicated messages of his art,
Bosch has often been described as a worshiper of
Satan, as well as a devout Catholic, a psychotic
madman, a naïve humorist, and a religious
fanatic. Even though little is known about his life,
it is presumed that the popular, moralizing literature
and other beliefs of his time influenced
Bosch’s symbolism.
The paintings of the Flemish artist Hieronymus
Bosch (Hertogenbosch 1450–1516),
reflect his obsession with man’s sin and damnation.
The world portrayed by the artist is populated
by a multitude of symbols from astrology,
sorcery, and alchemy, and strange forms that are
often composed of dislocated elements of real
beings. Each detail of his paintings contains an
allusion to a symbolic significance within the
whole, which can be considered a kind of allegory
illustrating the opposite guises of Christian life:
sin and attachment to earthly pleasures on one
hand, and the force of faith against evil on the
other. Bosch’s themes, however, reveal his
pessimism about man’s redemption after life, and
hell is usually portrayed as a common condition of
the world in which man lives.
The great themes of Bosch’s work, such as the
snares of the Devil and the soul’s perpetual exposure
to the wiles of evil, already appear in the paintings
attributed to his youthful period, which
include: the Crucifixion (Brussels, Coll. Franchomme),
containing the theme later developed by
the painter’s scenes from the Passion; the Seven
Deadly Sins (Madrid, Prado), in which the circle
symbolizes the world and the three concentric
circles with the seven sins represent the divine eye
with Christ as the pupil; and the Conjurer (St.
Germain-en-Laye, Museum), an image of the
credulity that leads to heresy, with the first reference
to the tarot cards and astrology. The famous great
triptychs, the Hay Wain (Madrid, Prado), the
Garden of Delights (Madrid, Prado), and The
Temptation of St. Anthony (Lisbon, Museo National
de Arte Antiga), belong to the period 1485–1505.
In the Hay Wain, Bosch illustrates an old
Flemish proverb: “The world is a mountain of hay;
each one grabs what he can.” The central panel of
the triptych shows a large hay wagon surrounded
from all stations of life. The Demon, who assumes
human, animal, and vegetable forms, gives a fictitious
value to the goods and pleasures of life on
the earth and leads the procession of humanity
from the garden of heaven, situated on the left
wing, toward hell, on the right wing.