Belial, procurator infernalis ali kdo je v resnici kriv

Jacobus da Teramo, an excellent lawyer and high-ranking person in the ecclesiastical hierarchy, is known for a number of prominent scholarly works, but he also wrote (ca. 1382) a narration known under various titles: Consolatio peccatorum, seu Processus Luciferi contra Jesum Christum, Liber Belial, and Processus Luciferu contra Iesum coram Iudice Salomone. This is a lawsuit between Lucifer and Christ, in which Devil sues Christ for having trespassed by descending into Hell and taking many souls with him. At the first trial, Moses speaks for Christ and Belial for Lucifer, and in the second Aristotle and Isaiah defend Christ, while Lucifer is defended by Emperor Augustus and Jeremiah. In both trials, the decision is in favor of Christ, but in the second trial the Devil is granted the right to take possession of the bodies and souls of the damned at the Last Judgment. This work was very popular and is still known in many manuscript copies and printed editions. The theme of a trial in extraterrestrial territory performed by famous historical and literary persons was very popular in medieval Europe, and several authors used the motif of a lawsuit involving the Devil and Christ. Da Teramo’s text was translated into German, and it gained broad audiences. He described well the persons and sequences of scenes familiar to him from the courts; his strong descriptions placed the persons in the realm of satire because these descriptions do not lack irony and some psychological teasing. It is also an allegory of the order of the world, presented in a didactic and moralizing tone. It is interesting to realize that, half a century before da Teramo’s Belial, a poem of 2,438 verses was composed in the parish of Vellach, Austria (Sln. Koroška Bela), yet another proof that this theme was also largely known in Carniola and Carinthia. Moreover, several examples of comparable texts are preserved from Slovenian medieval monasteries