Devil

The Devil and the Pathology of History

The Birth of the Devil

The evil deity known as the Devil is not universal, but certain characteristics of his can be found in the gods of every religion. Some of these are iconographic similarities, others relate to the god's function within the mythos. To understand the emergence of the Devil as the personification of evil, it is necessary to consider the divine personages in world religions who prefigured him.

Most gods in so-called "primitive" religions are morally neutral manifestations of Ultimate Reality. In polytheistic systems, even the most powerful, "king" gods are subordinate to the single, impersonal divine principle. There is often little or no differentiation among the gods along the lines of good and evil; rather, each divinity is capable of either good or bad, as the moods takes him. This moral ambivalence explains the existence of good and evil without resorting to a heavenly schism, in which each individual god takes a character of good or evil. When these lines of demarcation were made, they were usually the result of political upheaval, as Margaret Murray explains:

The idea of dividing the Power Beyond into two, one good and one evil, belongs to an advanced and sophisticated religion. In the more primitive cults the deity is in himself the author of all, whether good or bad. The monotheism of early religions is very marked, each little settlement or group of settlements having its one deity, male or female, whose power was co-terminous with that of its worshippers. Polytheism appears to have arisen with the amalgamation of tribes, each with its own deity. When a tribe whose deity was male coalesced with a tribe whose deity was female, the union of the peoples was symbolized by the marriage of their gods. When by peaceful infiltration a new god ousted an old one, he was said to be the son of his predecessor. But when the invasion was warlike the conquering deity was invested with all good attributes while the god of the vanquished took a lower place and was regarded by the conquerors as the producer of evil, and was consequently often more feared than their own legitimate deity. In ancient Egypt the fall from the position of a high god to that of a "devil" is well exemplified in the god Setekh [Seth or Set], who in early times was as much a giver of all good as Osiris, but later was so execrated that, except in the city of his special cult, his name and image were rigorously destroyed.

Devil - God and His Partner

The position of the Devil in Jewish theology was not central; in time, he would come to be regarded as as mere metaphor for the evil inclination in the human soul. In essence, the Hebrew conception of evil reverted to the earlier Yahwistic doctrine of God as an ambivalent, mysterious unity. This was not so with orthodox Christianity. On the contrary, the opposition between Lord and Devil became a main focus for the Christian faith.

The saving mission of Jesus was at the core of the Christian religion. From what was humanity to be saved? None other than the Prince of Darkness. Without the threat of Satan, no Redeemer would be necessary. Christ's mission was to deliver the world from evil -- evil personified in the figure of Lucifer, source of all sin.

Thus the Devil was thrust into a position of extreme importance. His fall from Heaven was one of the key moments in the history of creation, for it was then that discord entered the cosmos. He fell of his own "free will" by committing the sins of pride and envy. Yet this "uncaused"; act occurred in the presence of the omnipotent Lord -- who knew in all eternity the actions of even so-called "free" beings. The blatant contradictions between free will and predetermination, and between the omnipotence and benevolence of God were never resolved.

Many attempts were made to isolate the good Lord from the evil present in his creation. Both philosophical and mythological approaches were taken; neither could produce a coherent picture of an all-powerful, all-good creator in a world filled with suffering.