Since the dawn of man and the primordial man, paganism and symbolism has been used in mythology. Early man, in an attempt to explain their own mythology to the people if there was no established language, would paint upon cave walls and explain the myths through the magic of paint. After a while, these symbols for pagan worship grew to more intricate symbols, such as a pentricate, a symbol used to represent the nature deities and the Roman Goddess Venus( Greek Aphrodite) since she is a personification of passion and the bondage between male and female (Which is quite explained in The Da Vinci Code to any interested in figuring out where I picked up that little tid bit). But unfortunately, during the era of the Church, these symbols were used to explain everything bad in Christianity, such as taking the deity Poseidon, and taking his trident, and making it a symbol of Lucifer( The true name of what has been known as The Devil, which I will explain further in the paragraph near this). The Chinese in their mythology used the symbol of Yin and Yang as the two colliding forces which were stuck in the Cosmic Egg at the beginning of time, along with Pan Ku, the Primordial Giant God/Demon. Pan Ku broke free with Yin and Yang from the egg, but immediately, the forces fought. Pan Ku kept them seperated, thus the symbol where black and white are swirling around each other, trying to combat each other. But it is wrongly interpretated as a constant martial arts symbol, when it is, but it has lost its true meaning. Pagans have became known as Satanic followers, because of the church. Pagans is a word used to refer to worshippers of Lucifer or Satan, or any other demonic or treachorous demon of the biblical accounts, when it is not. It is the worshippers of idol, symbols, being used as an appropriate subsitute of the deity that is being worshipped. Art, luckily, still protects these idols and symbols that the pagans managed to spirit away or the Churches kept despite of the refusal of the monotheistic religion that is within the Church, such as the mosaics of Poseidon, and also event the artist of the reign of the Church incarnated the souls of the pagan art into art like the Venus De Milo, or the Birth of Venus.

 

 Though my speciality is Mythology, I do have a slight expertise in the accounts of Judaism and Christianity. I studied into the concept of "The Devil", which has been mistakened as being the ruler of Hell, or as called in Dante's The Divine Comedy, the Inferno.  Devil, technically, is a term to refernce to the demons or fallen angels that fell during the battle between the Renegade Angels and God. The Ruler of the Abyss is Lucifer, who is commonly mistakened with Satan. Lucifer ( The Morning Star) was origininally one of the highest Angels in the eyes of God, but he grew tired of the rule of God and rebelled, taking some angels with him. He fought against God, but God's Archangel, Michael, led an army of Angels and defeated Lucifer, casting him and the Renegade Angels to the Inferno. Satan, on the other hand, was not a renegade angel. For he was the Angel of Judgement, who sometimes his objective for accomplishing a mission and that of God's were different. Satan went to the desert where Jesus wandered and three times tempted him to test God's faith, but Jesus' faith was as strong as god, and three times he denied Satan. Satan was not caste into the flames of the Abode of the Damned, but still wanders Heaven and Earth, but according to the text of St. John in the Book of Revelation of the account of Apocalypse, God shall caste Satan into the River of Sulfur in the Inferno. Many names describe all three, but they are also connected to the Apocalyptic King Anti-Christ. According to the Book of Revelations, when Israel has obtained its eternal goals, the Anti-Christ will be birthed and conquer the lands. For many years, his rule will be evil, but the Nazarene ( Jesus) will return to Earth, as he did many eons before, and fight against the Anti-Christ, eventually emerging victorious. The Anti-Christ is represented as one of the heads of the many-headed Dragon that comes out during Apocalypse. So Satan, Lucifer, and the Anti-Christ each have something in common, each challenged the reign of the all mighty, Satan testing the faith of both God and Jesus, Lucifer rebelling against heaven, and Anti-Christ fighting against Jesus. Well, hopefully, none shall ever succeed in there evil intentions as the prophets have predicted.