Christian teaching about the Devil

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Lucifer, by Guillaume Geefs (Cathedral of St. Paul, Liège, Belgium)

In mainstream Christianity, the Devil is named Satan, sometimes Lucifer. He is a fallen angel who rebelled against God. He is often identified as the serpent in the Garden of Eden, whose persuasions led to original sin and the need for Jesus Christ's redemption. He is also identified as the Accuser of Job, the tempter of the Gospels, and the dragon in the Book of Revelation, though the bible using many different names and showing no actual co-relation. Traditionally, Christians have understood the Devil to be the author of lies and promoter of evil, however he can go no further than the word of God allows. ref> however, often view the devil metaphorically. Much of the popular history of the Devil is not biblical; instead, it is a post-medieval Christian reading of the scriptures influenced by medieval and pre-medieval Christian popular mythology.

[edit] Characteristics of the Devil

Teachings about the Devil vary, depending on the local folklore. Still, the characteristics present in the Bible are present in each depiction.

[edit] The Devil as rebel

According to the gospels of Matthew (chapter 4) and Luke (chapter 4), the Devil tempted Jesus at the beginning of his ministry. After Jesus fasted forty days in the wilderness, the Devil approached Jesus with offers of stones turned to bread, rulership over the kingdoms of the Earth (but with subservience to the Devil himself), and spectacular protection from physical harm. Satan uses the Scripture of the Old Testament to solidify his arguments. This would indicate Satan's full knowledge of all of Scripture, and a use of that knowledge to tempt and deceive man (Mat 4). Jesus refused all three temptations, rebuking Satan with His own knowledge of Scripture (Mat 4).

Christianity holds several different views on Christ's role in defeating Satan. Some emphasize Christ's death and resurrection as sealing Satan's fate, so that the Devil is already defeated though not banished. Others emphasize the Devil's final judgment when Christ returns, at which time the terror and deceit of Satan will have no more effect on the world. This is because mankind will face final judgment, and the earth will be purged or cleansed with fire. Satan will be bound to the lake of fire (Rev 20) with the Beast, the false prophet, and all those whose names are not in the Book of Life. There will no longer be any way for Satan to have an impact on mankind.

[edit] Possession by the Devil

The Devil, as well as his demons, are portrayed as able to possess and control humans. The Roman Catholic Church occasionally performs exorcisms, and some Evangelicals do so regularly. Demons can also possess household objects, especially electrical appliances: according to Vatican exorcist Gabriele Amorth, "Demons occupy a house and appear in electrical goods. ... [I]t is normal for domestic appliances to be involved and for demons [to] make their presence known via electricity."^[1]

[edit] The Devil and black magic

Since the Middle Ages, the Devil has been described as granting spells and magic powers to sorcerers and witches. The Bible refers to the Devil and to sorcerers but never depicts them as related. The Old Testament says that practitioners of black magic should be put to death, since practitioners prayed to Satan against Christianity. (Exodus 22:18).

[edit] History of the Devil in Christianity

[edit] The Devil in the Old Testament

In some Christians' views, the Devil's first appearance in the Old Testament is as the serpent in the Garden of Eden that appears in the story of Adam and Eve eating the fruit (traditionally idenitified as an apple, though not identified as such in the Bible) of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. In God's rebuke to the serpent, he tells it "And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel." (Genesis 3:14-15)

Christian scriptures identify the serpent with the Devil. The deuterocanonical Book of Wisdom says, "But by the envy of the devil, death entered the world, and they who are in his possession experience it." (Wisdom 2:24) Satan is explicitly identified later on with the serpent in Eden, in Revelation 12:9: "This great dragon--the ancient serpent called the Devil, or Satan, the one deceiving the whole world--was thrown down to the earth with all his angels."

When identified with the term, "Satan" (from Hebrew שָׂטָן, Adversary), the Devil also appears in the heavenly court to challenge Job, with God's permission. This seems to be Satan's primary role- to use whatever guiles he may to cause humans to sin, and ultimately cause them to get sent to hell.

Some Christian concepts of the Devil include Lucifer, which traditionally gives a name to the Devil. The name, Lucifer, is translated from the Latin, meaning loosely, "Light Giver" (analogous to the Greek, Phosphorus) and is also used symbolically to mean the "Morning Star", (i.e. Venus), which held some significant meanings for Babylonians as mentioned in Isaiah 14:12. Lucifer actually references Satan before he fell, while he was yet uncorrupted, but powerful and glorious, and an angel of God.

In Eastern Orthodox Christianity, Satan is one of humanity's three enemies, along with sin and death (in some other forms of Christianity the other two enemies of mankind are "the world",^[2] and self (or the flesh), which is to be taken as man's natural tendency to sin). ^[3]

[edit] The Devil in the New Testament

The Devil depicted in The Temptation of Christ, by Ary Scheffer, 1854.

The Devil figures much more prominently in the New Testament and in Christian theology generally. The New Testament records numerous accounts of the Devil working against God and his plan.

The Temptation of Christ features the Devil, and is described in all three synoptic gospels, (Matthew 4:1-11, Mark 1:12-13, and Luke 4:1-13), although in Mark's gospel he is called Satan.

In all three synoptic gospels, (Matthew 9:22-29, Mark 3:22-30, and Luke 11:14-20), Jesus' critics accuse him of gaining his power to cast out demons from Baalzebub, the chief demon (often identified with Satan in mainstream Christendom). In response, Jesus says that a house divided against itself will fall, so, logically speaking, why would the Devil allow one to defeat the Devil's works with his own power? There are numerous incidences of demonic possession in the New Testament. Jesus encounters those who are possessed and casts out the evil spirit(s). The work of possession, though not explained in depth by the New Testament, is illustrated to have levels of severity. A person may have one demon or multiple demons inhabiting their body. Jesus encountered a man filled with numerous demons in Mark 5:1-20. For more information of demon possession, the best source is Jessie Penn-Lewis's "War On The Saints", which also includes dates and recorded examples of demon possession in recent history.

[edit] The Devil in Traditional Christianity

St. Michael's defeat of Satan.

In John Milton's epic poem Paradise Lost, the theme is further developed — Satan is believed to have been an archangel who turned against God before the creation of man. Prophecies in Isaiah 14^[4] and Ezekiel 28 are thought by some to be referring metaphorically to Satan, rather than to the king of Babylon. Babylon in Revelation is a symbol for an evil world, one of which Satan would be head in the Tribulational period of the end times.^{[citation needed]} According to this view, Satan waged war against God, his Creator, and was banished from Heaven because of this.

According to most Christian eschatology, Satan will wage a final war against Jesus, before being cast into Hell for "aeonios." ^[5] The Unification Church, a sect that deviates from mainstream Christianity, teaches that Satan will be restored in the last days and become a good angel again ^[6]. A few early Church Fathers are known to have prayed for Satan's eventual repentance^{[citation needed]}; it was not generally believed that this would happen. On the other hand, Dispensationalists teach that Jesus returns to earth before the Tribulational period to reclaim the righteous, dead and living, to meet Him in the air (known as the Rapture ^[7]. Many Fundamentalists believe that immediately following this, the Tribulational period will occur as prophesied in the book of Daniel, while others (especially Seventh-day Adventists) believe that immediately following Jesus' Second Coming, Satan will be bound on this Earth for a thousand years, after which he will be “loosed for a little season” ^[8]—this is when the battle of Armageddon (the final confrontation between good and evil) will be waged—and Satan and his followers will be destroyed once and for all, the Earth will be cleansed of all evil and there will be “a new Heaven and a new Earth” where sin will reign no more.^[9]

In the New Testament, Letter of Jude (Jude 1:9) the Archangel Michael is described arguing with the Devil over the body of Moses. This dispute is shown in the painting by Guido Reni called "St. Michael the Archangel" showing Satan being crushed underfoot.

[edit] Other views

[edit] Gnostics

In various Gnostic sects, Satan was praised as the giver of knowledge, sometimes with references to Lucifer, “the light-bringer.” Some claimed that the being imagined as God by Christians and Jews was in fact Satan, as a world as imperfect as ours could not be created by a perfect God. Non-Gnostic Christians typically explain the world's imperfection as the result of the Fall.

[edit] Middle Ages

The Devil on horseback. Nuremberg Chronicle (1493).

Particularly in the medieval period, Satan was often depicted as having horns and a goat's hindquarters. He has also been depicted as carrying a pitchfork, and with a forked tail. None of these images seem to be based on Biblical materials, as Satan's physical appearance is never described in the bible, Qur'an or any other religious text. Rather, this image is apparently based on pagan horned gods, such as Pan and Dionysus, common to many mythologies ^[10]. Pan in particular looks very much like the images of the medieval Satan. Some images are based on Baphomet, which is portrayed in Eliphas Lévi's 1854 Dogme et rituel de la haute magie (English translation Transcendental Magic, its Doctrine and Ritual)^[11]. Even some Satanists use Baphomet as the image of Satan in Satanic worship. Neo-pagans and others allege that this image was chosen specifically to discredit the Horned God of ancient paganism to convert people to the Christian faith.

The medieval Cathars identified the devil with the demiurge of older gnostic and Neoplatonic tradition. Earlier sects believed the Old Testament Yahweh was, in fact, the devil, based partially on ethical interpretations of the Bible and partially on the beliefs of earlier gnostic sects (such as the Valentinians) who regarded the god of the Old Testament as evil or as an imperfect Demiurge. Early Gnostics called the Demiurge Yao, the Aramaic cognate to the Tetragrammaton, YHWH (Yahweh). Moreover, modern research into Ugaritic texts revealed that the names of the Jewish god were the same as earlier gods worshipped in the same region; Yahweh is cognate to Ugaritic Yaw who was the Semitic deity of chaos, evil, and world domination.

[edit] As a sympathetic character

Satan, from Gustave Doré's illustations for Paradise Lost.

The epic poem by John Milton, Paradise Lost, has a stylized depiction of the devil that influenced C. S. Lewis (The Screwtape Letters and Space Trilogy), and the J. R. R. Tolkien characters Morgoth and Sauron. Satan acts much like a protagonist of the first half of the story, styling himself as an ambitious underdog rebelling against Heaven. He becomes less sympathetic in the second half as the snake that tempts Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.

Both Faust and The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus feature the demon known as Mephistopheles, (also spelled Mephistophilius), who is summoned by Faust to sell his soul for a limited number of years of pleasure. Mephistopheles often shows regret and remorse for rebelling against God. In one famous scene from Faustus, Mephistopheles tells Faust that he cannot leave Hell. When Faust tells him that he seems to be free of Hell at that moment, the devil responds with "Why this is hell, nor am I out of it./ Think’st thou that I, who saw the face of God,/And tasted the eternal joys of heaven,/ Am not tormented with ten thousand hells/ In being deprived of everlasting bliss?" Rather than glorifying the Devil, he is shown as a sad figure.

[edit] Modern biblical scholarship

Scholars regard current Christian views of the Devil as combining beliefs from various times and places. They generally see the serpent in the Garden of Eden, Lucifer, and Satan as unrelated entities, the serpent merely a snake, Lucifer a misinterpreted reference to the morning star, and Satan a member of Yahweh's court. Jews adopted the idea of a "prince of darkness" from Zoroastrianism while in captivity in Babylon. This concept was then read into Old Testament texts. The Devil as an evil being on a cosmic scale doesn't appear in the Bible until the New Testament. This concept then continued to develop as Christianity itself grew and developed.

[edit] Names of the Devil in Christianity

[edit] Old and New Testament names

Originally, only the epithet of "the satan" ("the adversary") was used to denote the character in the Hebrew deity's court that later became known as "the Devil." (The term "satan" was also used to designate human enemies of the Hebrews that Yahweh raised against them.) The article was lost and this title became a proper name: Satan. There is no unambiguous reference to the Devil in the Torah, the Prophets, or the Writings.

Zechariah 3:1 has been erroneously interpreted by some to mean Satan, "the Devil", but such is not the case. The Hebrew Bible views ha-satan as an angel ministering to the desires of God, acting as Chief Prosecutor.

• Azazel: Leviticus 16:8 "And Aaron shall cast lots over the two goats, one lot for the LORD and the other lot for Azazel." Also, Leviticus 16:10 Leviticus 16:26

• Satan: Luke 10:18 "I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven." See also Matthew 4:10 Matthew 12:26 Mark 4:15 Luke 22:31 Acts 26:18 1Corinthians 5:5 2Corinthians 11:14 1Thessalonians 2:18 1Timothy 5:15 Revelation 3:9 Revelation 20:2

• The Tempter: Matthew 4:3--"And when the tempter came to him." Also, 1Thessalonians 3:5

• In Matthew 10:25, Matthew 12:24, Mark 3:22, and openly in Luke 11:18-19 there is an implied connection between Satan and Beelzebub (originally a Semitic deity called Baal, and referred to as Baal-zebul, meaning lord of princes) Beelzebub (lit. Lord of the Flies) has now come to be analogous to Satan.

• The Wicked One: Matthew 13:19--"Then cometh the wicked one." Matthew 6:13, 1 John 5:19. This title suggests that Satan is one who is wicked himself. Abrahamic religions generally regarded sin as a physical manifestation of opposition to God, and therefore evil; dissent only comes from the topic of 'where does sin come from?'

• In John 12:31 and John 14:30 Satan is called Prince of this World (Rex Mundi); this became a nickname for him.

• In 2 Corinthians 6:15 the Devil is referred as Belial. "What agreement does Christ have with Belial?" Also, in the Old Testament, rebellious people and nonbelievers are sometimes called 'sons of Belial'. See also Deuteronomy 13:13 Judges 20:13 1Samuel 2:12 2Samuel 23:6 1Kings 21:10 2Chronicles 13:7

• In 2 Corinthians 4:4 the Devil is called "the god of this world"

• Peter 5:8--"Your Adversary the devil." By adversary is meant one who takes a stand against another. In the Christian worldview, Satan is the adversary of both God and the believers.

• The Devil, diabolos: This name is ascribed to Satan at least 33 times in the Christian scriptures and indicates that Satan is an accuser or slanderer (Revelation 12:9).

• The Dragon or The Old Serpent: These epithets are used extensively in the Book of Revelation.

There are some who erroneously claim that the word 'devil' is from 'd'evil' -'of evil.' Some also believe that because the word 'evil' itself is 'live' spelt backward, the word originated through the nature of evil being "against living things," or the antithesis of life itself. Both claims are false, as the words are etymologically derived from pre-existing languages.

[edit] Further development

When the Bible was translated into Latin (the Vulgate), the name Lucifer appeared as a translation of "Morning Star", or the planet Venus, in Isaiah 14:12. Isaiah 14:1-23 is a passage largely concerned with the plight of Babylon, and its king is referred to as "morning star, son of the dawn". This is because the Babylonian king was considered to be of godly status and of symbolic divine parentage (Bel and Ishtar, associated with the planet Venus).

While this information is available to scholars today via translated Babylonian cuneiform text taken from clay tablets, it was not as readily available at the time of the Latin translation of the Bible. Thus, early Christian tradition interpreted the passage as a reference to the moment Satan was thrown from Heaven. Lucifer became another name for Satan and has remained so due to Christian dogma and popular tradition.

The Hebrew Bible word which was later translated to "Lucifer" in English is הילל (transliterated HYLL). Though this word, Heilel, has come to be translated as "morning-star" from the Septuagint's translation of the Scriptures, the letter ה in Hebrew often indicates singularity, much as the English "the," in which case the translation would be ה "the" ילל "yell," or "the wailing yell."

Later, for unknown reasons, Christian demonologists appeared to designate "Satan", "Lucifer", and "Beelzebub" as different entities, each with a different rank in the hellish hierarchy. One hypothesis is that this might have been an attempt to establish a hellish trinity with the same person, akin to the Christian Trinity of Father, Son and the Holy Spirit, but most demonologists do not carry this view.

[edit] In Christian tradition

Christian tradition differs from that of Christian demonology in that Satan, Lucifer, Leviathan and Beelzebub all are names that refer to "the Devil", and Prince of this World, The Beast and Dragon (and rarely Serpent or The Old Serpent) use to be elliptic forms to refer to him. The Enemy, The Evil One and The Tempter are other elliptic forms to name the Devil. Belial is held by many to be another name for the Devil. Christian demonology, in contrast, does not have several nicknames for Satan.

It should be noted that the name Mephistopheles is used by some people to refer to the Devil, but it is a mere folkloric custom, and has nothing to do with Christian demonology and Christian tradition. Prince of Darkness and Lord of Darkness are also folkloric names, although they tend to be incorporated to Christian tradition.

[edit] Disputes

[edit] Is the Devil in Hell?

The belief that Satan is in Hell has its roots in Christian literature rather than in the Bible. The Bible states that he still roams heaven and earth.^[12] It also states that Satan appeared with other angels "before the Lord," presumably in heaven. When God asked Satan where he had been, Satan replied, "From roaming through the earth and going back and forth in it". 1 Peter 5:8 declares, "Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour".

Passages such as these suggest that Satan is not in Hell, and likely prowls the earth seeking to destroy the lives of human beings.

[edit] How could an angel commit sin and rebel against God?

Thomas Aquinas, in his Summa Theologiae, said:

"An angel or any other rational creature considered in his own nature, can sin; and to whatever creature it belongs not to sin, such creature has it as a gift of grace, and not from the condition of nature. The reason of this is, because sinning is nothing else than a deviation from that rectitude which an act ought to have; whether we speak of sin in nature, art, or morals. That act alone, the rule of which is the very virtue of the agent, can never fall short of rectitude. Were the craftsman's hand the rule itself engraving, he could not engrave the wood otherwise than rightly; but if the rightness of engraving be judged by another rule, then the engraving may be right or faulty."

[edit] In fiction and popular culture

Main articles: Satan in literature and Satan in popular culture

[edit] References