Satan is Both Hooved and Hung Like a Horse

Here’s something I didn’t know about Old Bendy, ye olde Monarch of Hell, Mr. Horny Horns. Apparently there’s one feature that’s omitted from most modern depictions of Satan: his massive boner.

I was listening to the Slate Explainer podcast which takes us smoothly from the UN General Assembly to the pits of H-E-double hockey sticks.

Slate contributor Daniel Engber cites the Councils of Toledo, 30-odd synods held over three centuries in Spain (not, as we heathens might expect, the Ohio birthplace of Corporal Maxwell Klinger). In 447 AD, one such Council gave the modern world the first official description of the Lord of the Lower Depths:

A large black monstrous apparition with horns on his head, cloven hoofs – or one cloven hoof – ass’s ears, hair, claws, fiery eyes, terrible teeth, an immense phallus, and a sulphurous smell.

That quote comes from a WWF page on the, uh, demonization of the poor, unsuspecting bull.

Pre-Christian pagan religions were all about the phalli (here’s an academic paper on the subject), so it’s no surprise that church elders would ascribe a mountainous manhood to (oh well I never) Mephistopheles. There’s a famous 5th century Greek play, for example, where the male characters wore big phalli as part of their costumes.