Devil
or SATAN, names applied in the New Testament and in Christian theology to the supreme impersonation of evil, considered as possessing an objective existence outside of man, and placed at the head of a host of inferior evil spirits, whose continual occupation is to thwart the good purpose of God and the progress of His kingdom in the hearts of men. It seems certain that this conception was foreign to the early Jewish mind, with its strong grasp of the monotheistic idea in the person of the supreme Jehovah. It is Jehovah Himself who hardens Pharaoh's heart, and sends a lying spirit among the prophets of Ahab, and it is He who is considered as the sole source of all power, the sender of pestilence and death as well as blessings. In the exegesis of later days the serpent that tempted Eve in Eden, and the "Old Serpent" of the Apocalypse, were alike identified with Satan, though this interpretation certainly gains no support from the story in Genesis, where the temp tempter is as yet hardly more than a mere animal, though one of a family almost everywhere specially associated with evil.
It is significant that the name Satan occurs but five times in the Old Testament: thrice in Job, where he represents himself among the "sons of God" (Beni Elohim) before the Lord.
The Jews had also their demonology like all primitive peoples, as may be seen in the seirim (satyrs, lit. "he-goats") and the shedim, both rendered by "devils" in the authorized version, and perhaps also in the Azazel of Leviticus xvi.; but it was not till later that a special angel became differentiated from DEVIL his brethren in the heavenly court, with the special function of the accuser of men, like the personification of a guilty conscience. In the vision of Zechariah we find him considered formally as the accuser of Israel. Undoubtedly also this conception had already become greatly modified during the period of exile by contact with Persian dualism. Of course such a conception as Ahriman, the almost on equal terms of Ormuzd, was completely foreign to Jewish monothe- ism, yet the Jewish Satan grew greatly almost on equal terms of Ormuzd, was completely foreign to Jewish monotheism, yet the Jewish Satan grew greatly both in definiteness and in power under his shadow, and henceforth it is from him directly that moral and physical his shadow, and henceforth it is from him d directly that moral and physical harm toward men proceeds.
Persian influence appears most plainly in the apocryphal books of Tobit and Baruch, but the growth of the conception of the devil is seen also in the translation of the LXX., which renders his name by diabolos, thus emphasizing and perpetuating his special function as the ac- cuser. Now also he becomes located in his gloomy kingdom of hell, and is at- Now also he becomes located in cuser. his gloomy kingdom of hell, and is attended by troops of inferior fiends. He wages warfare on mankind by inflicting physical and moral evil, and is considered as the agent by whose means man fell from his original state of innocence.
In the New Testament the conception of the personality of the devil and of a kingdom of demons holds its ground, but the whole subject is here treated with a kind of spiritual reserve, in a teaching that emphasizes our own hearts and their inward temptations as the source of our evil thoughts and deeds, and connects nature of man.
The passages which moral evil inseparably with the earthly nature of man. The passages which Peter ii: 4; Jude 6) occur in scriptures of subordinate canonical rank; Jesus nowhere defines concretely the function of the devil; and the few positive statements about him that "he was a murbeginderer from the beginning, and stood not the devil; and the few positive state- ments about him-that "he was a murning" (John iii: 8), scarcely furnish a sufficient foundation for a complete doctrine on this subject. Yet the impressive manner in which it is dwelt on by our Lord and His apostles shows that it is a necessary part of Christian teaching.
The early theologians were more literal and less spiritual in their concepmanner in which it is dwelt on by our Lord and His apostles shows that it is a necessary part of Christian teaching. institutions came to identify the kingdom of the devil in a particular manner with polytheism and the persecution they suffered under the Roman em empire.
Thus the devil again became a kind of rival of God, wholly unequal but yet DEVIL formidable. The early Christians considered the gods of heathenism as indeed conquered by Christ, but yet not rendered wholly powerless, for as degraded demons and with intent to deceive they uttered oracles, and were present at sacrifices, inhaling the sacrifiand filled with every horror the imaginacial incense an idea in perfect harmony with the growing materialistic conception of the devils, and of hell their residence, a place blazing with eternal fire, tion could suggest.
Exaggerated ideas of the devil's dangerous power prevailed throughout the of the universe generated saints natu- Dark and Middle Ages, whose deep, melancholy faith and fantastic theory was an involuntary exercise of the poetic their own hearts and of their own time rally on the one hand and witches and sorcerers as naturally on the other. It them. Throughout the Middle Ages the faculty, through which the thoughts of plays a principal became spirits, which they saw around devil was an absorbing idea, and the indeed he principally represented the constant familiarity with him often brought with it a penalty of contempt.
In the old religious pla part was usually assigned to him, and comic element, as may still be seen in the pastorales of the Basques.
The decadence of belief in the active external power of the devil was mainly due to the indirect effect of the Reformation and the progress of science. present than to Luther, but nevertheless it was mainly the movement he insphere of the abstract and augurated that has driven the enemy back into the s To no man was the devil evermore au the ideal. In later generations the sense rors of the devil; but it cannot be said that with it has also disappeared a genuine religious spirit. The Christian man in the conscious weakness of his struggle against indwelling sin feels that he has no need to conjure up for himus weakness of his genuine religious spirit. The Christian of the supernatural has steadily deman in the conscious cayed, and with it almost all the tererous inclinations of his own heart. Kant (in 1793) defined the devil as the erous inclinations of his own heart. struggle against indwelling sin feels that he has no need to conjure up for him- Kant (in 1793) defined the devil as the personification of "radical evil." Schleiermacher held that symbolic reference to the devil might fitly hav have a place in Christian discourse, but denied the pos- sibility of his real existence, and in this he has been followed by Schenkel, Bieder- Julius Müller, Martensen, and Dorner, mann, Lipsius, Pfleiderer, and others.
On the other hand the orthodox view is maintained more or less definitely by Julius Müller, Martensen, and Dorner, who hold that though the doctrine can- DEVILFISH not be completely constructed, it yet forms part of a consistent whole, and is of importance for the Christian as distinguished from the heathen and Jewish conception of evil, as well as for the Christian life.