Christians once more commonly used the pentagram to represent the five wounds of Jesus,[1][2] and it also has associations within Freemasonry.
[edit] Religious symbolism
[edit] Christianity The pentagram was used as a Christian symbol for the five senses,[10] and if the letters S, A, L, V, and S are inscribed in the points, it can be taken as a symbol of health (from Latin salus).[citation needed]
Medieval Christians believed it to symbolise the five wounds of Christ. The pentagram was believed to protect against witches and demons.[11]
The pentagram figured in a heavily symbolic Arthurian romance[11]: it appears on the shield of Sir Gawain in the 14th century poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. As the poet explains, the five points of the star each have five meanings: they represent the five senses, the five fingers, the five wounds of Christ,[12] the five joys that Mary had of Jesus (the Annunciation, the Nativity, the Resurrection, the Ascension, and the Assumption), and the five virtues of knighthood which Gawain hopes to embody: noble generosity, fellowship, purity, courtesy, and compassion.
Probably due to misinterpretation of symbols used by ceremonial magicians, it later became associated with Satanism and subsequently rejected by most of Christianity sometime in the twentieth century.[11]
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has traditionally used pentagrams and five-pointed stars in Temple architecture, particularly the Nauvoo Illinois Temple[13] and the Salt Lake Temple. These symbols derived from traditional morning star pentagrams that are no longer commonly used in mainstream Christianity.[14]
[edit] Judaism
The pentagram was the official seal of the city of Jerusalem for a time.[11]
