Name ▲▼ | Origin ▲▼ | Description ▲▼ |
---|---|---|
Angel name "Angels of Vengeance" | Greek | Twelve angels among the first formed at Creation, although according to official Catholic doctrine, all angels were formed simultaneously. Only five are mentioned by name: Saten'el, Michael, Uriel, Rappheal and Nathan'el. |
Goddess name "Ayizan" | Haiti | Aka Grande Ai-Zan, Aizan, or Ayizan Velekete. Goddess who protects the market place and commerce. She is a root loa, åśśociated with Vodoun rites of initiation (called kanzo). She is syncretised with the Catholic Saint Clare, her symbol is the palm frond, she drinks no alcohol, and is the wife of Loko Atisou. Haiti |
God name "Blinded Angel" | Catholic | The devil Satan. According to Pope John Paul II the devil exists in perpetual darkness because he has blinded himself to the light and beauty of God. Catholic |
"Devil's Advocate" | Christian | In the Catholic Church when a name is suggested for canonisation, some person is appointed to oppose the proposition, and is expected to give reasons why it should not take place. This person is technically called Advocatus Diaboli. Having said his say, the conclave decides the question. |
God name "Docetes" | Christian | An early Christian sect, which maintained that Jesus Christ was only God, and that His visible form was merely a phantom; that the crucifixion and resurrection were illusions. Most of the followers were burnt by the Catholic Church. |
"Immaculate Conception" | Roman | The dogma that the Virgin Mary was conceived without Original sin. This dogma was first broached by St. Bernard, and was stoutly maintained by Duns Scotus and his disciples, but was not received by the Roman Catholic Church as an article of faith till 1854. |
Ghost name "Limbus Patrum" | Roman | The half-way house between earth and heaven, where the patriarchs and prophets, after death, await the coming of Messiah. According to the Roman Catholic notion, this is the "hell," or hades, into which Jesus Christ descended after He gave up the ghost on the cross. |
"Man of Sin" | Roman | The Roman Catholics say the Man of Sin is Antichrist. The Puritans applied the term to the Pope of Rome; the Fifth-Monarchy men to Cromwell; many modern theologians apply it to that "wicked one" (identical with the "last horn" of Dan. vii.) who is to immediately precede the second advent. |
"Nick" | Scandinavian | A water-wraith or kelpie. There are nicks in sea, lake, river, and waterfall. Both Catholic and Protestant clergy have laboured to stir up an aversion to these beings. They are sometimes represented as half-child, half-horse, the hoofs being reversed, and sometimes as old men sitting on rocks wringing the water from their hair. This kelpie must not be confounded with the nix. Scandinavian |
Goddess name "Pachamama" | Inca | A dragoness fertility goddess who presided over planting and harvesting. She caused earthquakes. After conquest by Catholic Spain her image was replaced by the Virgin Mary. Inca |
"Paradise of Fools" | Roman | The Hindus, Mahometans, Scandinavians, and Roman Catholics have devised a place between Paradise and "Purgatory" to get rid of a theological difficulty. If there is no sin without intention, then infants and idiots cannot commit sin, and if they die cannot be consigned to the purgatory of evil-doers; but, not being believers or good-doers, they cannot be placed with the saints. The Roman Catholics place them in the Paradise of infants and the Paradise of Fools. |
"Queen of Heaven" | Egyptian | With the ancient Phoenicians was Astarte; Greeks, Hera; Romans, Juno; Trivia, Hecate, Diana, the Egyptian Isis, etc., were all so called; but with the Roman Catholics it is the Virgin Mary. |
"Umbanda" | Afro-Brazilian | Afro-Brazilian religion that blends African traditions with Roman Catholicism, |