Has there been a paradigm shift in the `image' of devil?
score:4
Yes, there has been an evolution in thinking about the nature of the devil. Jeffrey B. Russell says, in The Prince of Darkness, page 37, that in Job, Satan is already a personality with the function of accusing, opposing, and harming human beings. He is not yet the principle of evil, for he is still one of the heavenly court and does nothing without God's consent and command. Here, Satan works as the shadow, the dark side of God, the destructive power wielded by God only reluctantly. It is Satan himself who as mal'ak goes down to the earth and torments Job. In the somewhat later, apocryphal Book of Jubilees the evil mal'ak has become Mastema, prince of evil spirits and virtually independent of the Lord. He tempts, accuses, destroys and punishes humans, taking onto himself all the evil characteristics Russell says were once ascribed to God.
Many modern Christians see Lucifer as a second name for Satan, and Russell says (page 43) the earliest Christian text making the equation of Lucifer with Satan is Against Marcion (2.10), by Tertullian. On page 63, Russell says it was Justin who established the connection between the Devil and the serpent of Eden, accepted by Christians forever after.
Russell explains that in the early Middle Ages, the monastic tendency to emphasise the Devil's power was balanced by the opposite tendency of folklore and legend to make Satan seem ridiculous and impotent. This was a natural psychological reaction against the terrors of the monastic view. The more threatening Satan's power, the more comedy was needed to tame him and relieve the threat. Giving the devil an absurd name was a popular antidote to the terror he struck. A host of popular nicknames followed through time, including Old Horny, Old Hairy, Black Bogey, Lusty Dick, Dickon, or Dickens, Gentleman Jack, the Good Fellow, Old Nick, and Old Scratch, with comparable names in other languages. The pagan god Pan was feared for his association with the wilderness and for his sexuality, so Pan's horns, hooves, shaggy fur, and outsized phallus became part of the Christian image of Satan. Even today, as we think of Satan's evil powers, we can also think of his horns and hooves.
The Reformation did not introduce a sudden change in the belief in the Devil. To Luther, the devil was a real, living power, a concrete personality, and he used to characterise him as the good Lord's hangman, and the instrument of his anger and punishment. He believed God needs the Devil for a servant and utilises his malignity for the procreation of the good.
Martin Luther saw no place for comedy in the understanding of Satan. Russell says Luther came to the conclusion that the Devil, against his will, always does God's work. All evils come from both the Devil and God, but the Devil wills the evil in them and God wills the good that comes out of them. “God incites the Devil to evil, but he does not do evil himself.”
The Catholic catechism (2851) takes a somewhat different view than Martin Luther, saying that Satan, the Evil One, is the personification of evil, and opposes God. We can compare this to Satan's role in the Book of Job, where he talks to God about ways of testing Job to prove whether Job was really as righteous as he believed himself to be.
More post
- 📝 How did Augustine of Hippo feel about Jerome's Latin translation of the Bible (the Vulgate)?
- 📝 What is the purpose of minor basilicas?
- 📝 What happens to Lutherans who become Catholic?
- 📝 Parable of weeds - where did the enemy get seeds from?
- 📝 What are the beliefs and practices of Evangelicals regarding ecumenism?
- 📝 Does Catholicism teach that Trinity is reflected in Man?
- 📝 What do Christian Scientists mean when they say death is an illusion?
- 📝 What is the official Roman Catholic opinion on Swedenborg?
- 📝 Efforts and motivation on sanctification
- 📝 Is Jeremiah 10:2-5 referring to a Christmas Tree?
- 📝 Did God give Moses visions of History and the Tabernacle on Mount Sinai?
- 📝 End of the world "calculations"
- 📝 How to identify a Catholic 'order' from initials that follow a nun or priest's name?
- 📝 In the Church of England, can one accept communion without being confimed?
- 📝 In what sense is Jesus understood to be "the only begotten son of God" in LDS teaching?
- 📝 Is there a Christian perspective on the matter of "delusion"?
- 📝 How do superiors in a convent deal with the religious who are selective in the choice of food?
- 📝 Why do many who believe that “all are born sinful” hold that “none are born gay or trans”?
- 📝 Are there any Biblical allusions to St. Raphael or Uriel outside of Tobit?
- 📝 Do Southern Baptist traditionalists agree with the Arminian view of prevenient grace?
- 📝 Are Matthew, Mark and Luke the same book in different version?
- 📝 What evidence does the LDS church forward for the claim that the Garden of Eden was in Missouri?
- 📝 Were all Nephilim evil?
- 📝 If an asteroid obliterated Planet Earth, could that be interpreted as God's "Second Flood"?
- 📝 Are there cases of popular atheists who used to publicly defend atheism (via debates, books, etc.) but eventually ended up converting to Christianity?
- 📝 Is there, or was there, a Christian denomination that believes, or believed, that Jesus Christ was "just a normal human"?
- 📝 Can anybody identify from which order these nuns are?
- 📝 Are there any other agreed-upon definitions of "free will" within mainstream Christianity?
- 📝 Can an early date for the certain Pauline epistles and a late date for Luke-Acts be reconciled?
- 📝 Jesus' power going out
Source: stackoverflow.com
Search Posts
Related post
- 📝 Has there been a paradigm shift in the `image' of devil?
- 📝 Has there ever been an exorcism conducted by the Mormon Church?
- 📝 Has there been any explanation given on the murder of Joan of Arc?
- 📝 Has there ever been a saint who has had their sainthood revoked due to falsification of their life details or the miracles leading to canonization?
- 📝 Has there been a shift in Christian metaphysics from a unitary cosmos to a binary one?
- 📝 Is there a study that has been done showing the transformational power of the Holy Spirit in people's lives?
- 📝 Has there been any discussion in the Catholic Church about whether hand sanitizer profanes the Host?
- 📝 Has there ever been a successful Catholic Christian rock or pop band since the Singing Nun?
- 📝 Has there been an official pronouncement by the Catholic Church regarding the Gospel of Thomas?
- 📝 Was there a paradigm shift in Jesus' interaction with women between the beginning and end of his public life
- 📝 How can we trust the Bible after it has been translated to another language?
- 📝 Has a pope ever been corrected publicly by a non-cleric in the presence of cardinals because of the unclear wording of a papal document?
- 📝 If the Bible has been changed over the years, can we still trust it?
- 📝 What evidence is there that the Apostle Paul had been a member of the Sanhedrin?
- 📝 Into how many languages has the Bible been translated?
- 📝 Has the impact of a practitioner's theological framework on pastoral counseling methodology been studied?
- 📝 How has apostolic succession been "unbroken" in the wake of depositions, antipopes, immorality, and simony?
- 📝 How long has the church been observing Lent?
- 📝 Could there have been a pragmatic purpose for the OT legal dietary restrictions?
- 📝 Has the prohibition against construction and veneration of statues and images been abrogated?
- 📝 Has the notion of "legitimacy" been abandoned in the Catholic Church?
- 📝 Into how many languages has the Book of Mormon been translated?
- 📝 Has the gospel been "preached to all nations"?
- 📝 How many languages has the King James Version been translated into?
- 📝 Has the term "born again" always been synonymous with baptism with the Christians of the Early Church?
- 📝 Have there been any attempt in Christianity to draw a set of rules or principles on how the Bible must be interpreted?
- 📝 What is the basis for arguing that the gospel has already been preached to "all nations"?
- 📝 What record is there of a canon of Scripture having been set at the First Ecumenical Council?
- 📝 Has Peter Lombard ever been venerated in the Catholic Church?
- 📝 Why has the phrase "from the ousia of the Father" been omitted from the Nicene Creed?