From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A Pact with the Devil or Faustian Pact is a widespread cultural meme, most familiar in the legend of Faust and the figure of Mephistopheles but an element in many folktales. In the Aarne-Thompson typological catalogue, it lies in category AT 756B – "The devil's contract".

According to traditional Christian belief in witchcraft, the pact is between a person and Satan or any other demon (or demons), in which the person trades, or attempts to trade, his or her soul in exchange for diabolical favours. Those favours vary by the tale, but tend to include the obvious: youth, knowledge, wealth, power. It was also believed that some persons made this type of pact just as a sign of recognising the Devil as their master, in exchange for nothing.

The bargain is always a dangerous one, for the price of the Fiend's service is the wagerer's soul. The tale may have a moralizing end, with eternal damnation for the foolhardy venturer. Conversely it may have a comic twist, in which a wily peasant outwits the Devil, characteristically on a technical point.

Among the credulous, any apparently superhuman achievement might be credited to a pact with the Devil, from the numerous bridges named the Devil's Bridge throughout Europe to the superb violin technique of Niccolo Paganini.

Contents 1 Overview 2 Theophilus, servant of two masters 3 Alleged diabolical pacts in history 4 Diabolical pacts in fiction 5 Diabolical pacts in film 6 Diabolical pacts in music 7 Diabolical pacts in television 8 See also 9 Notes 10 External links

It was usually thought that the person who had made a pact also promised the demon to kill children or consecrate them to the Devil at the moment of birth (many midwives were accused of this, due to the number of children that died at birth in the Middle Age and Renaissance), take part on Sabbaths, have sexual relations with demons, and sometimes engender children from an incubus, or succubus in the case of men.

The pact can be oral or written. An oral pact is made by means of invocations, conjurations, or rituals to attract the demon; once the conjurer thinks the demon is present, he/she asks for the wanted favour and offers his/her soul in exchange, and no evidence is left of the pact; but according to some witch trials and inquisitions that were performed, even the oral pact left evidence, namely the diabolical mark, an indelible mark that could be used as a proof to determine that the pact was made. A written pact consists of the same forms of attracting the demon, but includes a written act, usually signed with the conjurer's blood (although sometimes was also alleged that the whole act had to be written with blood, meanwhile some demonologists defended the idea of using red ink instead of blood and others suggested the use of animal blood instead of human blood).

These acts were presented often as a proof of diabolical pacts, though critics claim there is no proof of whether they were authentic, written by insane persons believing they were actually dealing with a demon or just were fake acts presented by the tribunals of the Inquisition. Usually the acts included strange characters that were said to be the signature of a demon, and each one had his own signature or seal. Books like The Lesser Key of Solomon (also known as Lemegeton Clavicula Salomonis) give a detailed list of these signs, known as seal of the demons.

According to demonology, there is a specific month, day of the week, and hour to call each demon, so the invocation for a pact has to be done at the right time. Also, as each demon has a specific function, a certain demon is invoked depending on what the conjurer is going to ask.

The predecessor of Faustus in Christian mythology is Theophilus ("love God") the unhappy and despairing cleric, disappointed in his worldly career by his bishop, who sells his soul to the Devil but is redeemed by the Virgin Mary.^[1] His story appears in a Greek version of the sixth century written by a "Eutychianus" who claims to have been a member of the household in question. A ninth-century Miraculum Sancte Marie de Theophilo penitente inserts a Jew as intermediary with diabolus, his "patron", providing the prototype of a closely-linked series in the Latin literature of the West.^[2] In the tenth century, the poet nun Hroswitha of Gandersheim adapted the text of Paulus Diaconis for a narrative poem that elaborates Theophilus' essential goodness and internalizes the forces of Good and Evil, in which the Jew is magus, a necromancer. As in her model, Theophilus receives back his contract from the Virgin, displays it to the congregation, and soon dies. A long poem on the subject by Gautier de Coincy (1177/8–1236), entitled Comment Theophilus vint a pénitence provided material for a thirteenth-century play by Rutebeuf, where Theophilus is the central pivot in a frieze of five characters, the Virgin and the Bishop flanking him on the side of Good, the Jew and the Devil on the side of Evil.

A notorious case of a diabolical pact was the one that cost Urbain Grandier his life. One of the acts was redacted in Latin; the other is written in abbreviated, backwards Latin (which is readable when reversed), and signed by several "demons", one of them Satan, whose name was clearly written "Satanas" (see the article on Urbain Grandier for the original pact).

• Gilles de Rais (executed)
• Robert Johnson

The Malleus Maleficarum has plenty of allusions to these pacts, especially concerning women. It was considered that all witches and warlocks had made a pact with some demon, especially with Satan.

In many variants of the Aarne-Thompson type 361, of which Bearskin is an instance, the hero escapes, but the devil still comes off the better: the heroine's sisters have killed themselves, and he has gained two souls instead of one.

The Marvel Comics character Ghost Rider made a pact with the demon Mephisto (possibly retconned to Satan) to cure his adoptive father's terminal cancer.

"The Devil's Hands are Idle Playthings", the final episode of the fourth season of the animated series Futurama, features a pact with the (Robot) Devil, with the comic variation that it's the Robot Devil who regrets the deal and seeks to undo it.

The story of Theophilus of Adana, a saint who made a deal with the devil, predates the Faust legend and is a likely partial inspiration.

The compact between human hubris and diabolical intelligence raises the old tale to its cultural peak in Goethe's Faust.

• The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus, by Christopher Marlowe.
• Faust, by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.
• Mefistofele, opera by Arrigo Boito.
• Faust, opera by Charles Gounod.
• The Devil and Daniel Webster, short story by Steven Vincent Benét.
• Pan Twardowski, poem by Adam Mickiewicz
• Gimmicks Three, by Isaac Asimov
• That Hell-Bound Train, by Robert Bloch
• Damn Yankees, musical theatre production and film by George Abbott and Stanley Donen

• Bedazzled (1967 film)
• Rosemary's Baby (1968 film)
• Angel Heart (1987 film)
• Bedazzled (2000 film)

• Niccolò Paganini, Italian violinist, who may not have started the rumour but played along with it.
• Tommy Johnson, blues musician, who claimed to have met with Satan at the crossroads and signed over his soul to play the blues
• Robert Johnson, blues musician, who likely cribbed the same story from Tommy Johnson
• Devil Went Down to Georgia by The Charlie Daniels Band, a song about a fiddle contest between the Devil and boy named Johnny from Georgia.
• Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny, In an effort to save the world and pay the overdue rent on Kage's apartment, Jables challenges the Devil to a Rock-off with Kage's soul on the line
• Titties and beer, In this song Frank Zappa agrees to give his soul to the devil in exchange for the devil returning some beer cans and a girl with big breasts that he stole from Zappa. When played live, Zappa sings his parts while the drummer Terry Bozzio sings the devil's lines.
• Deal with the Devil (album)

• The Collector (TV series), about a former monk who sold his soul to the Devil in the 1300s to save the woman he loved from The Plague. When his 10-year (standard length) deal was up, he became a soul collector for The Devil, collecting the souls of others who had sold theirs. In present-day times, he is still collecting souls, but attempts to find his clients' "redemption" from their Diabolic pacts.

• In The Simpsons episode Treehouse of Horror IV, Homer makes a pact with the devil for a donut.

• Osculum infame
• Devil's Bridge

• The Smith outwits the Devil: a Norwegian folktale