A gigantic Devil's Bible has been found in Czech republic with mysterious paintings referring to Lucifer
The Codex Gigas is the largest surviving medieval manuscript in the world.
At
nearly nine inches (22cm) thick and 36 inches (92cm) tall, the book is
so large that it is said to have required more than 160 animal skins to
complete.
But it's not just its size that has surprised historians.
Inside is a menacing full-page colour image of the Devil, leading many to believe the pages themselves are cursed.
The
mysterious manuscript is today housed within the National Library of
Sweden in Stockholm and nicknamed 'the Devil's Bible'. The text requires
at least two people to lift its 165lbs (74kg) of leather binding and
vellum pages.
But how it was created is still unknown.
Legend
has it that a monk from the Middle Ages was sentenced to being walled
up alive for breaking his monastic vows. To avoid punishment, the monk
promised to write, in a single night, a book containing all human
knowledge.
Lucifer
agreed and signed the work by adding a self-portrait of himself. In the
colourful image, he is placed against an empty landscape framed by two
large towers.
According
to a report by National Geographic several years ago, handwriting
analysis by palaeographer Michael Gullick at the National Library of
Sweden indicated that one scribe did compose the entire manuscript.
As
well as handwriting, a signature within the text – 'hermann inclusis' –
points to the fact there was likely to have only been a single author.
The
ink is also made from crushed insect nests, and Gullick claims it is
highly unlikely one scribe would use different types of ink.
Meanwhile,
tests to recreate the calligraphy of the Devil's Bible suggest it would
take five years of non-stop writing to create it, according to a report
in The Line Up.
'Clearly,
the author of this massive tome was possessed by something to create
such a masterwork. Whether it was the power of light or darkness, is
lost to time,' the report claims.
The Codex Gigas contains five long texts along with the complete Bible.
The
book begins with the Old Testament, and it is followed by two works by
Flavius Josephus who lived in the first century AD. It ends with the New
Testament and the last of the long works is a Chronicle of Bohemia by
Cosmas from Prague.
Some
researchers believe the legend of the punished monk comes from a
misunderstanding in the signature of the book which reads Hermanus
inclusus. That single Latin word 'inclusus' was thought to signify a
horrific punishment, but the word's true meaning is closer to 'recluse'.
This
means the signature could have been made by a solitary monk who chose
to shut out the outside world and dedicate his life to the Codex Gigas.
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