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Wednesday 12 October | Saint of the Day: Bl. Carlos Acutis

SPIRITUALITY

Do spiders deserve their reputation as sinister

creatures?
DANTE,PURGATORIO

PD

Philip Kosloski - published on 07/10/17

Their role in Christian art should perhaps not be surprising

S piders have always caught the imagination of the world in a web of curiosity.
S However, throughout history their hard
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juicy eating habits have given them

Wednesday a more
12 October | Saint sinister
of the Day: Bl. reputation.
Carlos Acutis

The Greco-Roman world viewed spiders as a symbol of pride. This was due to a myth
surrounding Arachne the weaver and Athena. Arachne, boasting of her skill as a
weaver, challenged the goddess to a weaving contest. When Arachne won, Athena in
her rage turned Arachne into a spider. It is from this episode that we get the
word arachnid.

In the medieval period monks used spiders to represent evil. For example, spiders
were often seen in connection to the miser, who bleeds the poor in a similar way to
how the spider consumes the fluid out of its catch.

Spiders were also more generally seen as a representation of the Devil. A spider is
one who sets a trap for its prey with its web and so too does the Devil, setting traps of
temptation, always “seeking some one to devour” (1 Peter 5:8).

So the spider, even though we can now see their natural purpose more clearly, were
seen in the ancient world as evil, diabolical and to be avoided.

Read more: Dragons, unicorns, cynocephali: the favorite monsters of the

Middle Ages

Tags: ART

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