The Devil in Cats

In medieval Europe a cat was the devil. Certain church fathers (in particular pope Gregory IX) spread fear and hatred of cats by claiming that the devil incarnate appeared in the guise of a black cat. This black puss, appearing from out of the forest, or from under a shed, slinking in the sun, lolling, seducing you with its green eyes, had all of the seductive power of Lucifer, tempting you from the path of Christian righteousness. A demonic power or other-worldlyness is so obvious in cats that it is probably the case that there would be no demon of the imagination, nor any devil, without their being cats first. While a dog is as familiar and stupid as any clown and faithful to orthodoxy (Fido), the cat is heretical to society and fundamentally strange. Their fangs, retractable claws, supreme athleticism and stealth—seeming to appear or disappear at will—their nine-lives, their ability to pass through worlds, their nighttime prowls, their relaxation, their deep and affectionate purring and the loud sadomasochism of their sex all make the cat more devilish than the devil, unholy, ultimately indifferent to humanity, the perfect killer. At times I feel that I cannot, properly speaking, even think of a cat—let alone, by god, a tiger. The cat gives me cognitive estrangement; its existence scrambles some basic formula of the world. “When the stars threw down their spears / and water’d heaven with their tears,” Blake says, as if the entire cosmos also could not think of a cat. Medieval Christians found this unthinkability unacceptable, and enjoying to burn their enemies at the stake, they also enjoyed burning cats. Typical entertainment of the 13th century was to tie up a dozen cats in a net and lower them into a fire. Looking in the serene slit eyes of a cat now I feel I can still see the heat of those burning cats; the house cat has had its share of hell.