The Truth About: The Devil’s Bible
Considered One of the Wonders of the Medieval Age, Did Satan Inspire the Codex Gigas?
Weighing 165 pounds and measuring 36 inches in length, the immense Codex Gigas (simply, Giant Book) is the largest medieval illuminated manuscript in existence. While glorious as an artefact of medieval religion, legends say that a single monk sold his soul to Satan to write it in just one night. As payment, the Devil demanded his image be placed into the book, creating a single page that has terrified many who have seen it.
Created in the early 1200s, the Codex Gigas or “Devil’s Bible” as it has become commonly known, is the work of monks at the Benedictine Podlažice monastery at Chrast in the Czech Republic, then Bohemia. The book contains the complete Old and New Testament of the Christian Bible alongside some secular works, all in Latin. These works, located between the two testaments and include Antiquities of the Jews, Etymologiae, an etymological encyclopaedia compiled by Isidore of Seville and various medical texts.
Bound in leather-covered wood, the Codex Gigas is ornate, with metal fittings and illuminations in red…
