This Is Why The Codex Gigas Was Banned (The Devil’s Bible)

This Is Why The Codex Gigas Was Banned (The Devil’s Bible)

Do you know there is a book so massive it takes two people to lift a manuscript so mysterious and filled with eerie legends that it is said to contain the very knowledge of how to open the gates of hell itself known as the Devil’s Bible the Codex gigas is a medieval wonder that holds an infamous secret that has troubled scholars and believers for centuries today we are going to uncover the chilling history and secrets behind the Devil’s Bible the year was 1648 a war had been going on for 30 years death and destruction were all over the land and people were getting tired of fighting during the last battle of the 30 Years War the Swedish army invaded and looted the City of Prague taking everything of value amongst the things stolen was a book the size of a CRT TV this book was called Codex gigas which just means Giant Book in Latin and it was given such name because of its size in such it is the largest surviving medieval manuscript in the world this thing is 36 inches long 20 inches wide and a little less than 9 inches thick coming together to weigh 165 pounds the manuscript contains over 305 sheets of vellum and it is made from 160 donkey skins that means the pages cover a total area of roughly 1,500 feet Romanesque monasteries often made very large illuminated Bibles but the Codex gigas pages are so big that they stand out from the rest but the size despite record-breaking and impressive isn’t why this book was banned this book was banned because of one image this image a whole page of 36 inches long is dedicated to the drawing of what looks like the devil which is also why the book is widely known as the Devil’s Bible this image is enough reason to ban the Codex gigas from being accepted into the Christian faith while every Bible talks of Satan and his evil ways no book has taken it upon itself to draw a picture of the devil let alone dedicate a full large page to it it’s a just case for exclusion the book is believed to have been written in the early 1300s in the

Benedictine Monastery of podis in Bohemia which is now a part of the Czech Republic one of the reasons this book is really large is because the manuscript has a lot of well-known books in it all written in Latin including the whole Vulgate Bible from Genesis to Revelation this book also includes Josephus’s Antiquities of the Jews and debello Udo the chronica Borum Chronicle of cosmus of Prague and two books by Constantine the African medical books a calendar and I kid you not a formula to practice magic the Codex gigas also includes medical and scientific information and the complete encyclopedia of St Isidor of Seville for some of us who don’t know St Isidor of Seville wrote numerous books including a dictionary an encyclopedia a history of Goths and a history of the world beginning with creation he is the last scholar of the ancient world and the patron of the internet this is the very man the idea of the internet is modeled from and his whole book is in the Codex gigas which should tell you how extensive this book is basically this was the internet of the 16th century any useful information you need could be found in the Codex gigas according to legend the Codex is said to have been written by Herman a Benedictine monk who lived in the 1300s near the town of truden this name is actually signed in the Codex gigas as hermanus incluses the name of the monk is written as hermanus which means Herman and the Latin word incluses can mean either punishment or voluntary isolation according to the story Herman broke his vows to be a monk and was punished by being walled up alive basically being cut off from seeing another human being for the rest of his life Herman begged for his life that he would create and finish a book that has all the information on Earth and that will rival any other book of information and bring fame to the monastery these conditions put forward by Herman were pleasing to the monks so they agreed to free him only when he finished a book of such magnitude plus this would have taken so many years to complete so either way he would still be locked up providing a win-win situation for the monks but this this is according to a legend or a story which means there are many versions of this story in a different version of the story Herman was locked up and left to die of thirst or hunger as punishment for his sins but after pleading with the abbot to create the book he was given one year to finish the work and if he did he would not only be forgiven but he would be set free back then there was this old medieval belief that it was possible to atone for your sins by just copying holy texts which is why he proposed copying texts as punishment as the end of the year drew near Herman realized that he couldn’t do it a castle filled with monks couldn’t do it how much more just one man he was sorry for his sins but he knew they wouldn’t listen breaking a monastic vow was a serious offense back then in such many small details in the Codex gigas point to a possible guilt lurking behind the author’s mind among the pages of the manuscript is also a long list of sinful confessions this text differs from the rest of the

Codex gigas it was kind of clear that the monk was begging for forgiveness across five entire pages describing his every sin in detail Bible scholars and avid readers will know what I mean especially from the book of Psalms where one chapter can be about happiness and the next about sorrow or guilt but despite his best he was just one man given an almost impossible task time was running out for the monk there was only one option left and it went against his beliefs and faith but not wanting to die when his time was up he did the unthinkable he made contact with the devil and agreed upon a deal with his soul in exchange for help and the superhuman ability to complete the Codex the devil agreed to this deal but with a condition of his own there has to be a page dedicated to an image of him in it the monk agreed to the deal and when his time was up he submitted a complete book to a confused and shocked abbot due to the conditions of their deal the monk was set free page 577 became the infamous page with the drawing and that skyrocketed the book’s name all over the world the picture shows a horned monster with red horns a green face a forked tongue and clawed arms outstretched the doubling of tongues evokes negative associations with serpents which have fork tongues a metaphoric reference to dishonest human beings at first this sounds like a story cooked up to add a bit of intrigue and mystery to the book but when you hear other mysteries surrounding it you see that it’s more than just a story even the Bible is a collection of books written by different authors but how does one person write a book this large with over 600 pages in it all by themselves we know this book was written by one person because the handwriting analysis showed that it was the same from beginning to end the National Library of Sweden gave us some perspective on this huge project according to them if the monk worked for 6 hours a day and wrote 6 days a week this means that the manuscript could have taken about 5 years to complete which doesn’t sound hard but if the scribe was a monk performing other monk duties that is saying he wasn’t walled in as the legend says he might only have been able to work for about 3 hours a day and this means that the manuscript could have taken 10 years to write as the scribe may also have ruled the lines to guide the writing which was a thing back then to prevent people from messing up the book with their personal opinions or controversies if he followed the rule it would probably have taken several hours to rule one leaf this extends the period it took to complete the manuscript

The scribe also decorated the manuscript so this all means that the manuscript probably took at least 20 to 30 years to finish which just happens to correspond with the 30 Year War so they are saying they agree the book was written by one person but it took the person 20 to 30 years to write it and not one year or one night as told in the legends now all this analysis makes sense but this is where it all gets a bit wonky and why I don’t take this criticism seriously analysis of the handwriting in the codec shows that the text is so similar that it’s as if the person who wrote it never aged got sick or even just had a change in mood it’s almost as if they wrote the whole thing in a very short space of time there is a reason why we update our records like every 10 years we change subconsciously or consciously the way we do things write maybe eat changes even our very DNA changes as we age don’t get me wrong these changes are not large and obvious but it’s there so when checking the Codex gigas those changes no matter how little were not found at all it was as the vigor that the writer used to start the book was still very much present all the way to the end which is just unexplainable the book has huge capital letters that are printed in red ink and disproportionately enlarged to be about five to six lines tall they are put in the margins where they aren’t as important as other textual breaks like the beginning of verses which are made bigger and stand out with yellowish ink that goes around the letter shapes this mouthful of a design was all personal just like how Stan Lee has exceler and how Spock has the signature line of live long and prosper this was the writer’s personal way of writing and beautifying the book and it was consistent throughout the entire 600 plus pages of the Codex gigas so could the legend be true did he really make a deal that granted him such ability it also doesn’t help matters that 10 pages were stolen from the book I don’t mean destroyed or burnt by natural causes I mean someone with bad intentions actually ripped out 10 pages of the book some people believe these pages had information about hell like how to open a gate to hell or how to effectively reach the devil and it was stolen by a Satanist to keep such information out basically creating members only access to the stolen page in fact the next page that had words on it contained writings describing certain magical spells and demonic conjurations which added more fuel to this theory in such in some cases when you trace the origins and the journey of the Codex gigas it starts to look like this book is cursed the

Benedictine Abbey in Bohemia is said to be the very first place the book was created but the monastery later fell into money problems this was once a place where the entire area of bohemia was wealthy so wealthy that it attracted merchants from afar and now they were so poor they were so broke that the monks had no choice but to sell the Codex gigas which was their most valuable asset the book was bought by the Benedictine Monastery in bnov at that time it didn’t take long and the monastery with the book fell under some misfortune and was wrecked during the havoc of the Hite revolution the medieval text stayed in bnov until 1593 when the monastery gave it as a loan to Rudolph 2 the Holy Roman Emperor but the Codex gigas never made it back to the monastery the emperor himself was not spared from the curse of the book he went mad with the book in his possession becoming obsessed with occultic practices so much so that he became paranoid which started affecting his rule it didn’t take long for the emperor’s family to decide to remove him from power which they did successfully and 9 months later the emperor died but that wasn’t the last of the curse 6 years later the 30-year war started and that’s when the Swedish took hold of the book now the book is in Sweden in the royal castle of Stockholm and one night out of nowhere the castle catches fire everywhere was burning the head librarian told his men to save as many valuable books as they could just before the fire reached the royal library a weird instruction but understandable you see the Swedish love their books their spoils of war were just more books which they used to gain knowledge and educate themselves Queen Christina herself was the one who took the Codex Giga in the first place she was highly cultured and passionate fully interested in learning her court was filled with eminent foreign writers and scholars for her wit and learning all Europe called her the manura of the north so to summarize the Swedish do not joke with their books and their education the only option left to save all the books from the ensuing fire was to throw them out the windows which is what they did the Codex gigas was part of the book’s throne and to date no one knows what started the fire as a result of not being in the right place the head fire watcher and his two men were given the death penalty currently it’s at the National Library of Sweden and even right there strange things have happened in 1858 a guard at the National Library of Sweden fell asleep and got stuck in the library all night but when he woke up he saw something that could not be explained all the books according to him came down from their shelves and walked all the way to where the Codex gigas was and started dancing around the book the Codex gigas joined the dance in the middle it would have been slated to be a lie or his mind playing tricks only that when they found the guard the next morning he went mad after explaining and from that day on had to be admitted to an asylum and it wasn’t just him that spoke of these things in 1870 August strinberg a librarian at the royal castle where the book was being held claimed to hear strange voices coming from the Codex gigas when you look at the history of the Codex gigas from its inception to its very present you can’t help but wonder if it’s true that it is cursed and if it’s true that would mean everything in this story including the deal with the devil is true despite being full of mysteries I am sorry to say that the

Codex gigas or the Devil’s Bible is not actually the Devil’s Bible there is nothing satanic associated with the book the only reason this book is called the Devil’s Bible is because of that one image of the devil once you remove the image you’ll see that this book is most likely another book collaborating with the millions and millions of stories told in the Bible it is not in any way connected with Satanism the crazy thing is that right beside the image of the devil is the image of heaven but no one seems to talk about that probably because it’s not controversial enough Heaven is shown as a series of houses and towers there are also towers that stick out from the walls and the heavenly city is surrounded by two bigger buildings this image was probably meant to inspire the ideas of hope and salvation and contrast with the evil nature of the devil taken together the devil’s portrait and the city were meant to be a reflection of what would await you if you lived a good or bad life there is a text about penance before the heavenly city and an exorcist text after the devil’s image so that’s like saying to get to heaven all you had to do was confess your sins and ask for forgiveness and if you choose the other pill of living a bad life well here is an exorcist text to save you hopefully they are not too late at least I think that was what the monk had in mind when drawing these pictures and I kind of agree with this theory because the Codex gigas only has two pictures that take up a whole page the devil and the heavenly city unfortunately the story the writer was hoping to pass across using these two contrasting images was lost and twisted to make it seem like it was the work of the devil plus no one actually knows what the devil looks like he comes in different shapes and sizes in genesis it was in the form of a snake and not to praise the devil but according to the Bible the devil was actually one of the most beautiful beings God created so I think if there ever was a portrait of him he might prefer to use one that rivals the

Mona Lisa as for the missing 10 pages that are attributed to Satanism it’s believed those pages are actually from the rule of St Benedict the pages were known to be missing after the wildfire in 1697 that almost burned down the royal castle of Stockholm prior to the fire the book was still intact giving rise to the possibility that the pages could have somehow been damaged now some people think that it’s almost impossible for the entire rules of a monastery to fit into just 10 pages and this was just a lie to cover up the true content of the missing pages which as I said before is satanic I understand their train of thought but they forget to account for the book’s gigantic size if 600 pages were enough to house complete editions of more than seven different books I think 10 pages would be more than enough for just simple rules and regulations in such other pages are missing from the book like the beginning of the book of Genesis but I guess it wasn’t controversial enough and that’s why most people are not talking about it now as for the book getting banned it’s not as simple as it sounds it’s not banned it’s just not regarded as a Bible per se it’s more like an encyclopedia of some sort created to just copy important information that’s why there are simple things like the calendar the history of the state it was written in and even the alphabet in there it’s like one of those books you buy that have collections of different stories that’s exactly how the Codex gigas is so by that standard it is understandable why the Codex gigas wasn’t included as a Canon for the Christian faith and contrary to conspiracy theories the Codex gigas is not hidden for only a select few to access you can walk into the National Library of Sweden and see the book for yourself just like how you can easily subscribe to our channel for more intriguing videos like this lastly there were no curses just unfortunate events that happened at different times in history certainly the Codex gigas was not responsible for starting the 30-year war and when the monastery was ransacked during the Hite revolution the book was not there it was with the emperor the fire that burned the royal library happened years after the death of the emperor and even after the 30-year war I am sorry to burst your bubbles but the Codex gigas is just another masterpiece of historical documentation of the 13th century devoted to God and Christianity and nothing weird or satanic