Where did the idea of a devil with horns come from?

Answer 1

We've all seen pictures of Satan portrayed as a hoofed creature, red in color.. with little horns on his head.



But this description is not Biblical. The hoofed being we usually see is actually closer to that of "Pan" from Greek mythology.

Perhaps Satan wants this image of himself to be used, because of its absurdity. Knowing that the day would come when God and the Devil would both be dismissed as "mythical"

Revelation 12:3 speaks of the red horned dragon. This is not Satan himself, but a reference to him from where these physical attributes possibly originate.


Revelation 12:3 (KJV)
And there appeared another wonder in heaven; and behold a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads.
The Book of "Ezekiel" tells us what Lucifer really looked like before he sinned.

Lucifer was a being "of perfect beauty". He was covered in every precious stone. He had pendants and jewels of gold...

Lucifer was beautiful before he sinned. An expression of Gods own beauty and power. But like man, Lucifer’s very nature changed when he sinned. His (Lucifer’s) physical appearance may have as well.

Answer 2

The Horned God is a modern syncretic term used amongst Wiccan-influenced Neopagans, which unites numerous male nature gods out of such widely-dispersed and historically unconnected mythologies as the Celtic Cernunnos, the Welsh Caerwiden, the English Herne the Hunter, the Hindu Pashupati, the Greek Pan and the satyrs, and even the Paleolithic cave painting "the Sorcerer" in the Cave of the Three Brothers in France.

A number of related British folk figures have been incorporated as well: Puck, Robin Goodfellow, and the Green Man.

The idea that all such horned images were of deities and that they represented manifestations of a single Horned God, and that Christianity had attempted to suppress his worship by associating him with Satan, developed in the fashionable 19th-century Occultist circles of England and France. Eliphas Levi's famous illustration (right) of Baphomet in his Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie (1855) accompanied the first suggestions to this effect. Levi's image of "Baphomet" is reflected in most depictions of the Devil made since. Symbolism is drawn from the Diable card of the 17th and 18th century Tarot of Marseille: the bat-winged, horned and hoofed figure with female breasts, perched upon a globe; Levi added the caduceus of Mercury at his groin, moved the flaming torch to crown his head and had him gesture towards lunar crescents above and below.

Answer 3

Christian demons and satan are frequently described as having horns and the lower extremities of a goat. This is pretty much the description of Pan (Greek) and Faunus (Roman) pagan gods. Christians made their great evil one look like this to help show the pagans of the country side (back when christendom was new) that the gods that they were worshiping were actually their devil. - It was a tool used to convert pagans.

Answer 4

Truly and obviously it came from the true gods. The gods the christian church does not want you to trust or know. They make a mockery of my god by calling him a devil. When in fact he and the goddess are the true gods. The christian church has been lying and cheating there way through history. The concept of the devil is clearly one of the most sickening lies they have told though. I certainly am not scared of a boogey man who wants my soul. But as my pagan god has horns as so many creatures in nature, after all the god and goddess are nature, and the christian church doesn't want you to know the true gods they lie and tell you that the pagan gods are the one who is called Satan.

Answer 5

Pagan and Greek Gods, probably Pan, although many of their mythical creatures had horns.
The Christians and other religions need a devil, so they devised a reward, with Heaven, and punishment using Hell. Just to keep the worshipers in line.
Then they had to have someone in charge, so they invented a Satan, Devil, to take care of the flock that wouldn't obey the rules.
And of course Heaven, with St, Peter and the Golden Gates to welcome you in.
Islam, gives you forty virgins so they say, but that's for men, the ladies, well they are just chattel, so who cares, for them it seems.

Answer 6

I've heard that it came from an old Pagan God. Supposedly that's where the Christians came up with the idea for their devil because if you believed in Paganism they felt you were a witch and thus evil...Or something like that! :D

Answer 7

Rev 13:11 And I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth; and he had two horns like a lamb, and he spake as a dragon.

Answer 8

Dante's Inferno.

Answer 9

Possibly from Baphomet - an ancient Pagan God of fertility who had horns. goatee, female breast, hairy arn, a cadeusces for a penis, and the legs of a jackal. Dismissed by most Pagans and Wiccans, Baphomet remains an ominous charachature of the blind side of Paganism.

Answer 10

The idea of what the devil looked like came from the pagans god of harvest, nature, ect, ect....It was one of the tactics the christians used to destroy the pagan religion.