HC1315

1
HC1315

• The Devil

2
Anchor Passage

• Deuteronomy 328 8 When the Most High divided
  the nations, when he separated the sons of Adam,
  he set the bounds of the nations according to the
  number of the angels of God (LXX).

3
Anchor Passage

• Mark 51-9 NRS They came to the other side of
  the sea, to the country of the Gerasenes. 2 And
  when he had stepped out of the boat, immediately
  a man out of the tombs with an unclean spirit met
  him. 3 He lived among the tombs and no one
  could restrain him any more, even with a chain
  4 for he had often been restrained with shackles
  and chains, but the chains he wrenched apart, and
  the shackles he broke in pieces and no one had
  the strength to subdue him. 5 Night and day
  among the tombs and on the mountains he was
  always howling and bruising himself with stones.
  6 When he saw Jesus from a distance, he ran and
  bowed down before him 7 and he shouted at the
  top of his voice, "What have you to do with me,
  Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I adjure you by
  God, do not torment me." 8 For he had said to
  him, "Come out of the man, you unclean spirit!"
  9 Then Jesus asked him, "What is your name?" He
  replied, "My name is Legion for we are many."

4

• In the New Testament this dark backgroundthe
  existence of a power of darkness. . .is integral
  to the story of Jesus Christ. Nullus diabolus
  nullus redemptorthis thesis can scarcely be
  denied.
• Emil Brunner, The Christian Doctrine of
  Creation and Redemption, 134

5
That the World may Know Ray Vander Laan
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Anchor Passages

• Jude 16 6 And the angels who did not keep
  their own position, but left their proper
  dwelling, he has kept in eternal chains in
  deepest darkness for the judgment of the great
  Day.
• 2 Peter 24 4 For if God did not spare the
  angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell1
  and committed them to chains2 of deepest darkness
  to be kept until the judgment

7
Anchor Passages

• Psalm 826-8 6 I say, "You are gods, children of
  the Most High, all of you 7 nevertheless, you
  shall die like mortals, and fall like any
  prince."1 8 Rise up, O God, judge the earth for
  all the nations belong to you!
• Isaiah 1412-15 12 How you are fallen from
  heaven, O Day Star, son of Dawn! How you are cut
  down to the ground, you who laid the nations low!
  13 You said in your heart, "I will ascend to
  heaven I will raise my throne above the stars of
  God I will sit on the mount of assembly on the
  heights of Zaphon1 14 I will ascend to the tops
  of the clouds, I will make myself like the Most
  High." 15 But you are brought down to Sheol, to
  the depths of the Pit.

8
Anchor Passages

• Wisdom 2.24 but through the devil's envy death
  entered the world, and those who belong to his
  company experience it.
• Revelation 129 9 The great dragon was thrown
  down, that ancient serpent, who is called the
  Devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world
  -- he was thrown down to the earth, and his
  angels were thrown down with him.

9
Anchor PassagePrincipal adversary of Christ

• Matthew 41-11 Then Jesus was led up by the
  Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the
  devil. 2 He fasted forty days and forty nights,
  and afterwards he was famished. 3 The tempter
  came and said to him, "If you are the Son of God,
  command these stones to become loaves of bread."
  4 But he answered, "It is written, 'One does not
  live by bread alone, but by every word that comes
  from the mouth of God.'" 5 Then the devil took
  him to the holy city and placed him on the
  pinnacle of the temple, 6 saying to him, "If you
  are the Son of God, throw yourself down for it
  is written, 'He will command his angels
  concerning you,' and 'On their hands they will
  bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot
  against a stone.'" 7 Jesus said to him, "Again
  it is written, 'Do not put the Lord your God to
  the test.'" 8 Again, the devil took him to a
  very high mountain and showed him all the
  kingdoms of the world and their splendor 9 and
  he said to him, "All these I will give you, if
  you will fall down and worship me." 10 Jesus
  said to him, "Away with you, Satan! for it is
  written, 'Worship the Lord your God, and serve
  only him.'" 11 Then the devil left him, and
  suddenly angels came and waited on him.

10
Justin Martyr 100-165

• The serpent is Satan (Wis. 2.24 Rev. 12.9). It
  is in the wilderness as Jesus begins his
  ministry. The devil puts him to the test (Mt.
  4.1). . .
• What is the origin of this contrary will? Justin
  Martyr (100-165 A.D.), the first to discuss the
  problem of evil in theological terms,1 locates
  the source of the most significant opposition to
  God in the primeval history when the mysterious
  sons of God (bene ha elohim) who mate with the
  daughters of the earth (Gen. 6.1-4). 1 Jeffrey
  Burton Russell, Satan The Early Christian
  Tradition (Ithaca and London Cornell University
  Press, 1981) 63.

• Genesis 61-4 When people began to multiply on
  the face of the ground, and daughters were born
  to them, 2 the sons of God bene ha-elohim saw
  that they were fair and they took wives for
  themselves of all that they chose. 3 Then the
  LORD said, "My spirit shall not abide in mortals
  forever, for they are flesh their days shall be
  one hundred twenty years." 4 The Nephilim were
  on the earth in those days-- and also afterward--
  when the sons of God went in to the daughters of
  humans, who bore children to them. These were the
  heroes that were of old, warriors of renown.

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• This strange passagebizarre by our standardswas
  of enormous interest to the early Fathers. Justin
  interprets the bene ha elohim to be rebellious
  angels who disobeyed the divine command to
  protect humanity and instead transgressed this
  appointment. . .captivated by love of women, and
  begat children who are those that are called
  demons. These afterwards subdued the human race
  to themselves. . .by teaching them to offer
  sacrifices, and incense, and libations, of which
  things they stood in need after they were
  enslaved by lustful passions.1 These same
  demons inspired poets and mythologists to
  create idols such as Neptune and Pluto.2
  Socrates attacked these pagan legends by true
  reason and examination in order to deliver men
  from the demons. For his efforts, he was called
  an atheist and a profane person and was put to
  death. Socrates witnessed to the Word, the Logos
  Himself who fights demonic religion whenever it
  arises. This Logos took shape, and became man,
  and was called Jesus Christ. Christians in
  obedience to Him. . .not only deny that they who
  did such things as these are gods, but assert
  that they are wicked and impious demons, whose
  actions will not bear comparison with those even
  of men desirous of virtue.3 Christians and
  Socratesalong with all those who stand for
  reasonshare the same mission spiritual warfare
  against the demons. This warfare between the
  forces of reason and the forces of evil is the
  meaning of history.
• 1 Second Apology, 5 in Robert Alexander and
  James Donaldson, eds. The Ante-Nicene Fathers,
  vol. I (New York Charles Scribners, 1908) 190.
  Recall that the demonic religions of Baal and
  Molech and the like, all of which demanded the
  sacrifice of sons and daughters, wrecked havoc in
  the time of the Judges (Judg. 2.11-19 Ps. 106.
  37-39) and brought down both the Kingdom of
  Israel (2 Kgs. 7.7-17) and the Kingdom of Judah
  (Jer. 32.30-35).
• 2 Ibid.
• 3 First Apology, 5 in Ibid., 164.

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Justin, First Apology, 5

• For the truth shall be spoken since of old
  these evil demons, effecting apparitions of
  themselves, both defiled women and corrupted
  boys, and showed such fearful sights to men, that
  those who did not use their reason in judging of
  the actions that were done, were struck with
  terror and being carried away by fear, and not
  knowing that these were demons, they called them
  gods, and gave to each the name which each of the
  demons chose for himself. And when Socrates
  endeavoured, by true reason and examination, to
  bring these things to light, and deliver men from
  the demons, then the demons themselves, by means
  of men who rejoiced in iniquity, compassed his
  death, as an atheist and a profane person, on the
  charge that "he was introducing new divinities"
  and in our case they display a similar activity.
  For not only among the Greeks did reason (Logos)
  prevail to condemn these things through Socrates,
  but also among the Barbarians were they condemned
  by Reason (or the Word, the Logos) Himself, who
  took shape, and became man, and was called Jesus
  Christ and in obedience to Him, we not only deny
  that they who did such things as these are gods,
  but assert that they are wicked and impious
  demons, whose actions will not bear comparison
  with those even of men desirous of virtue.

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Justin, Second Apology 5

• CHAPTER V -- HOW THE ANGELS TRANSGRESSED.
• . God, when He had made the whole world, and
  subjected things earthly to man, and arranged the
  heavenly elements for the increase of fruits and
  rotation of the seasons, and appointed this
  divine law--for these things also He evidently
  made for man--committed the care of men and of
  all things under heaven to angels whom He
  appointed over them. But the angels transgressed
  this appointment. and were captivated by love of
  women, and begat children who are those that are
  called demons and besides, they afterwards
  subdued the human race to themselves, partly by
  magical writings, and partly by fears and the
  punishments they occasioned, and partly by
  teaching them to offer sacrifices, and incense,
  and libations, of which things they stood in need
  after they were enslaved by lustful passions and
  among men they sowed murders, wars, adulteries,
  intemperate deeds, and all wickedness. Whence
  also the poets and mythologists, not knowing that
  it was the angels and those demons who had been
  begotten by them that did these things to men,
  and women, and cities, and nations, which they
  related, ascribed them to god himself, and to
  those who were accounted to be his very
  offspring, and to the offspring of those who were
  called his brothers, Neptune and Pluto, and to
  the children again of these their offspring. For
  whatever name each of the angels had given to
  himself and his children, by that name they
  called them.

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Fall of Israel

• 2 Kings 177-17 7 This occurred because the
  people of Israel had sinned against the LORD
  their God, who had brought them up out of the
  land of Egypt from under the hand of Pharaoh king
  of Egypt. They had worshiped other gods 8 and
  walked in the customs of the nations whom the
  LORD drove out before the people of Israel, and
  in the customs that the kings of Israel had
  introduced.1 9 The people of Israel secretly did
  things that were not right against the LORD their
  God. They built for themselves high places at all
  their towns, from watchtower to fortified city
  10 they set up for themselves pillars and sacred
  poles1 on every high hill and under every green
  tree 11 there they made offerings on all the
  high places, as the nations did whom the LORD
  carried away before them. They did wicked things,
  provoking the LORD to anger 12 they served
  idols, of which the LORD had said to them, "You
  shall not do this." 13 Yet the LORD warned
  Israel and Judah by every prophet and every seer,
  saying, "Turn from your evil ways and keep my
  commandments and my statutes, in accordance with
  all the law that I commanded your ancestors and
  that I sent to you by my servants the prophets."
  14 They would not listen but were stubborn, as
  their ancestors had been, who did not believe in
  the LORD their God. 15 They despised his
  statutes, and his covenant that he made with
  their ancestors, and the warnings that he gave
  them. They went after false idols and became
  false they followed the nations that were around
  them, concerning whom the LORD had commanded them
  that they should not do as they did. 16 They
  rejected all the commandments of the LORD their
  God and made for themselves cast images of two
  calves they made a sacred pole,1 worshiped all
  the host of heaven, and served Baal. 17 They
  made their sons and their daughters pass through
  fire they used divination and augury and they
  sold themselves to do evil in the sight of the
  LORD, provoking him to anger.

15
Fall of Judah

• Jeremiah 3230-35 30 For the people of Israel
  and the people of Judah have done nothing but
  evil in my sight from their youth the people of
  Israel have done nothing but provoke me to anger
  by the work of their hands, says the LORD. 31
  This city has aroused my anger and wrath, from
  the day it was built until this day, so that I
  will remove it from my sight 32 because of all
  the evil of the people of Israel and the people
  of Judah that they did to provoke me to anger --
  they, their kings and their officials, their
  priests and their prophets, the citizens of Judah
  and the inhabitants of Jerusalem. 33 They have
  turned their backs to me, not their faces though
  I have taught them persistently, they would not
  listen and accept correction. 34 They set up
  their abominations in the house that bears my
  name, and defiled it. 35 They built the high
  places of Baal in the valley of the son of
  Hinnom, to offer up their sons and daughters to
  Molech, though I did not command them, nor did it
  enter my mind that they should do this
  abomination, causing Judah to sin.

16

• Psalm 10637-42 37 They sacrificed their sons
  and their daughters to the demons 38 they
  poured out innocent blood, the blood of their
  sons and daughters, whom they sacrificed to the
  idols of Canaan and the land was polluted with
  blood. 39 Thus they became unclean by their
  acts, and prostituted themselves in their doings.
  40 Then the anger of the LORD was kindled
  against his people, and he abhorred his heritage
  41 he gave them into the hand of the nations, so
  that those who hated them ruled over them. 42
  Their enemies oppressed them, and they were
  brought into subjection under their power.

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Didache

• The Second Commandment of the Teaching Do not
  commit murder do not commit adultery do not
  corrupt boys do not fornicate do not steal
  do not practice magic do not go in for sorcery
  do not murder a child by abortion or kill a
  new-born infant. . .
• Richardson, 172

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Satan in the New TestamentPrince (archon) of
the world (kosmos), space(aeros), and time
(ageaion)

• 1 John 519 19 We know that we are God's
  children, and that the whole world lies under the
  power of the evil one.John 1231 31 Now is the
  judgment of this world now the ruler of this
  world will be driven out. Ephesians 21 You were
  dead through the trespasses and sins 2 in which
  you once lived, following the course of this
  world, following the ruler of the power of the
  air, the spirit that is now at work among those
  who are disobedient. 1 Corinthians 26 6 Yet
  among the mature we do speak wisdom, though it is
  not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this
  age, who are doomed to perish.

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Lord of matter and flesh

• Ephesians 23 3 All of us once lived among them
  in the passions of our flesh, following the
  desires of flesh and senses, and we were by
  nature children of wrath, like everyone else.

20
Seeks to pervert humanity in the age post
Christum exaltatum, having enormous powers

• as Tempter 1 Thessalonians 35 5 For this
  reason, when I could bear it no longer, I sent to
  find out about your faith I was afraid that
  somehow the tempter had tempted you and that our
  labor had been in vain.
• Liar and murderer John 844 44 You are from
  your father the devil, and you choose to do your
  father's desires. He was a murderer from the
  beginning and does not stand in the truth,
  because there is no truth in him. When he lies,
  he speaks according to his own nature, for he is
  a liar and the father of lies.

21
Cause of death

• Wisdom 223-24 23 for God created us for
  incorruption, and made us in the image of his own
  eternity, 24 but through the devil's envy death
  entered the world, and those who belong to his
  company experience it.
• Hebrews 214 14 Since, therefore, the children
  share flesh and blood, he himself likewise shared
  the same things, so that through death he might
  destroy the one who has the power of death, that
  is, the devil,

22
Hurts people physically

• Luke 1311-16 11 And just then there appeared a
  woman with a spirit that had crippled her for
  eighteen years. She was bent over and was quite
  unable to stand up straight. 12 When Jesus saw
  her, he called her over and said, "Woman, you are
  set free from your ailment." 13 When he laid his
  hands on her, immediately she stood up straight
  and began praising God. 14 But the leader of the
  synagogue, indignant because Jesus had cured on
  the sabbath, kept saying to the crowd, "There are
  six days on which work ought to be done come on
  those days and be cured, and not on the sabbath
  day." 15 But the Lord answered him and said,
  "You hypocrites! Does not each of you on the
  sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the
  manger, and lead it away to give it water? 16
  And ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham
  whom Satan bound for eighteen long years, be set
  free from this bondage on the sabbath day?"

23
Sorcery and idolatry

• Acts 138-10 8 But the magician Elymas (for
  that is the translation of his name) opposed them
  and tried to turn the proconsul away from the
  faith. 9 But Saul, also known as Paul, filled
  with the Holy Spirit, looked intently at him 10
  and said, "You son of the devil, you enemy of all
  righteousness, full of all deceit and villainy,
  will you not stop making crooked the straight
  paths of the Lord?

24
Obstructs the mission of Christ

• 1 Thessalonians 218 18 For we wanted to come to
  you-- certainly I, Paul, wanted to again and
  again-- but Satan blocked our way.

25
Attacks by possession

• Mark 57-8 7 and he shouted at the top of his
  voice, "What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son
  of the Most High God? I adjure you by God, do not
  torment me." 8 For he had said to him, "Come out
  of the man, you unclean spirit!"

26
Can enter a persons heart

• Luke 223 3 Then Satan entered into Judas called
  Iscariot, who was one of the twelve

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Leader of a host

• Revelation 127-9 7 And war broke out in
  heaven Michael and his angels fought against the
  dragon. The dragon and his angels fought back, 8
  but they were defeated, and there was no longer
  any place for them in heaven. 9 The great dragon
  was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is
  called the Devil and Satan, the deceiver of the
  whole world-- he was thrown down to the earth,
  and his angels were thrown down with him.

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Spiritual Warfare

• Colossians 26-8 6 As you therefore have
  received Christ Jesus the Lord, continue to live
  your lives1 in him, 7 rooted and built up in him
  and established in the faith, just as you were
  taught, abounding in thanksgiving. 8 See to it
  that no one takes you captive through philosophy
  and empty deceit, according to human tradition,
  according to the elemental spirits of the
  universe,1 and not according to Christ. . . 20 If
  with Christ you died to the elemental spirits of
  the universe,1 why do you live as if you still
  belonged to the world?
• 1 Corinthians 26-8 6 Yet among the mature we
  do speak wisdom, though it is not a wisdom of
  this age or of the rulers of this age, who are
  doomed to perish. 7 But we speak God's wisdom,
  secret and hidden, which God decreed before the
  ages for our glory. 8 None of the rulers of this
  age understood this for if they had, they would
  not have crucified the Lord of glory.
• Galatians 43 3 So with us while we were
  minors, we were enslaved to the elemental
  spirits1 of the world.
• Galatians 49 9 Now, however, that you have
  come to know God, or rather to be known by God,
  how can you turn back again to the weak and
  beggarly elemental spirits?1 How can you want to
  be enslaved to them again?
• Ephesians 612 12 For we are not contending
  against flesh and blood, but against the
  principalities, against the powers, against the
  world rulers of this present darkness, against
  the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly
  places.
• Romans 838-39 38 For I am convinced that
  neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers,
  nor things present, nor things to come, nor
  powers, 39 nor height, nor depth, nor anything
  else in all creation, will be able to separate us
  from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

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Irenaeus (2nd century)

• Justin identifies the origin of spiritual warfare
  in disordered passion. St. Irenaeus (2nd century
  A.D.) locates it in the freedom of the will.
  Angels and humanity are endowed with the gift of
  freedom to choose good or evil. Liberum arbitrium
  means there is no coercion with God. Obedience
  to God is voluntary, not compulsory so that
  those who had yielded obedience might justly
  possess what is good, given indeed by God, but
  preserved by themselves.1 It is inevitable
  that in freedom there will be those who turn from
  God and choose what is evil. The presence of evil
  in the world is thus a function of freedom. Evil
  is entailed by the excellence of creation, not
  its deficiency.
• 1 Irenaeus, Against the Heresies IV, 37, 1 in
  Richardson., 518.

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St. Augustine (354-430)

• St. Augustine makes the same type of argument as
  Irenaeus. The gift of creation is freedom of the
  will. Freedom of the will engenders the will to
  undo. The result is conflict. But Augustine goes
  further by contending that this conflict is so
  essential to the nature of creation that creation
  itself must be understood as warfare. The state
  of nature thus is a state of war. Scripture seems
  to point to this truth, however obscurely, as it
  witnesses to a great primeval calamity when war
  broke out in heaven (Rev. 12.7) and God did not
  spare the angels when they sinned, but cast them
  into hell and committed them to chains of deepest
  darkness (2 Pet. 2.4 see Jude 6 Mt. 25.41).

31

• Augustine seeks to ground this obscure biblical
  witness theologically in an interpretation of
  Genesis 1.3 God said, Let there be light and
  there was light. He acknowledges that his
  interpretation is a matter of speculation
  because, the matter is so profound that it may
  give rise to many interpretations.1 Augustine
  asserts that the original conflict of creation
  was entailed by the creation of light. When God
  said Let there be light it could only be at the
  expense of darkness. Augustine understands light
  versus darkness not as the dialectic of abstract
  categories, but as the clash of spiritual beings.
  The light brings forth the angels created by
  God, bestowed with the gift of freedom able to
  obey, thus giving meaning to light or to rebel,
  thus giving meaning to darkness. Freedom means
  that angels have intelligence, the power of
  choice, the capability to change in an
  environment without coercion.2 These
  attributes allow the angels to desire God and
  serve him willingly. This is why the light is
  good. These same attributes permit other angels
  to choose darkness. But choosing darkness
  ultimately serves Gods plan for it brings about
  a greater good God foreknew that some of the
  angels, in their pride, would wish to be
  self-sufficient for their own felicity, and hence
  would forsake their true good yet he did not
  deprive them of their power, judging it an act of
  greater power and greater goodness to bring good
  even out of evil than to exclude the existence of
  evil.3 Good out of evil is what Christ
  accomplishes. Christ is the light of the world
  (Jn.9.5).
• 1 St. Augustine, City of God, tr. Henry
  Bettenson (London Penguin Books, 1972) 467 (XI,
  32). See Bernhard Lohse, Zu Augustins
  Engellehre, Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte,
  70 (1959) 278-291.
• 2 Ibid., 468f. (XI, 33).
• 3 Ibid., 1022 (XXII, 1).

32

• What is one to do with this language of scripture
  and church tradition regarding Satan, demons,
  obedient and rebellious angels? Karl Barth
  (1886-1968) warns against succumbing to the far
  too interesting mythology of the ancients that
  can make of the devil a fetish. If we fall for
  this, we ourselves might become just a little or
  more than a little demonic.1 On the other
  hand, there is the danger of following the far
  too uninteresting demythologization of the
  moderns which can lead humanity to think it can
  tackle its lesser and greater problems with a
  little morality and medicine and psychology and
  aesthetics, with progressive politics or
  occasionally a philosophy.2 This is an
  illusion. Emil Brunner (1889-1966) agrees. Each
  generation must learn anew that the Christian
  Faith is bound to admit the existence of a sinful
  supernatural power and that human sin cannot be
  reduced to psychology, habit, or vice.3
• In the figure of Satan, we are obviously dealing
  with myth and imagery but it is myth and imagery
  so deeply woven into the fabric of the Bible and
  theology that it cannot be easily dismissed. 1
  Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, III/3, tr. G.W.
  Bromily and R.J. Ehrlich (Edinburgh T T Clark,
  1961) 369. 519.
• 2 Ibid., 369, 526.
• 3 Emil Brunner, The Christian Doctrine of
  Creation and Redemption, tr. Olive Wyon
  (Philadelphia Westminster Press, 1962) 140.

33
Formulations

• Sunderlying structures of the mind
• Eevent
• Pperception
• Pnbank of perceptions
• Fgeneral formulation
• Cconstellation of formulations
• Ttradition

• S e p
• Pn F
• Fn C
• C T

34
Principle The Devil is the Many and not the One
(Dogmatic Formulations)

• Mark 51-9 They came to the other side of the
  sea, to the country of the Gerasenes. 2 And when
  he had come out of the boat, there met him out of
  the tombs a man with an unclean spirit, 3 who
  lived among the tombs and no one could bind him
  any more, even with a chain 4 for he had often
  been bound with fetters and chains, but the
  chains he wrenched apart, and the fetters he
  broke in pieces and no one had the strength to
  subdue him. 5 Night and day among the tombs and
  on the mountains he was always crying out, and
  bruising himself with stones. 6 And when he saw
  Jesus from afar, he ran and worshiped him 7 and
  crying out with a loud voice, he said, "What have
  you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High
  God? I adjure you by God, do not torment me." 8
  For he had said to him, "Come out of the man, you
  unclean spirit!" 9 And Jesus asked him, "What is
  your name?" He replied, "My name is Legion for
  we are many."

35
Formulations St. Augustine 66-78)

• God permits evil in the world
• Each individual must struggle to defeat demons in
  his or her soul
• Cosmos is incurable
• Pain is punishment
• Evil is lack of good
• Evil is the free will choice of sin free will
  choices have no causes
• Grace helps us to choose the good
• Grace obliges us to choose the good
• Angel an intelligent being who is free to choose
  Adam similarly free
• Christ did not die for fallen angels they cannot
  repent
• Confirms the tradition that demons are fallen
  angels not separate species
• God strengthened good angels by gratuitous act of
  grace
• Devil fell because of pride

36
2. World is an arena for the faithful to battle
evil angels and evil people who exist to impede
the work of Christ

• Early Christians understood spiritual warfare as
  the crucible in which their faith and witness
  were put to the test. In battle against evil the
  believer reaped the reward of salvation. This is
  why Ignatius of Antioch (ca. 35-107 A.D.) in a
  famous passage from his Letter to the Romans
  declares that he is eager to enter the arena and
  sacrifice his life for his faith. The arena,
  where Christian martyrs died for the sport of the
  masses, was the sand strewn field of combat in
  the amphitheater that not only provided
  entertainment for the masses, but also symbolized
  the centrality of warfare in Roman culture. To
  Christians the arena epitomized the true nature
  of the world. Satan is powerful in the arena. He
  blocks the way to Christ. In his letter Ignatius
  proclaims that he is willing to take up the
  challenge of the arena to gain Christ Come
  fire, cross, battling with wild beasts, wrenching
  of bones, mangling of limbs, crushing my whole
  body, cruel tortures of the devilonly let me get
  to Jesus Christ!1
• 1 Ignatius of Antioch, Letter to the Romans,
  5.3 in Cyril C. Richardson, ed. Early Christian
  Fathers (New York Touchstone, 1996) 105.

37
56. Second coming of Christ preceded by
Antichrist's final assault Antichrist is son of
the devil

• "And you ought, furthermore, to consider with the
  utmost deliberation, if by your labors, God
  working through you, it should occur that the
  Mother of churches should flourish anew to the
  worship of Christianity, whether, perchance, He
  may not wish other regions of the East to be
  restored to the faith against the approaching
  time of the Antichrist. For it is clear that
  Antichrist is to do battle not with the Jews, not
  with the Gentiles but, according to the
  etymology of his name, He will attack Christians.
  And if Antichrist finds there no Christians (just
  as at present when scarcely any dwell there), no
  one will be there to oppose him, or whom he may
  rightly overcome.
• Sermon of Urban II Version of Guibert de
  Nogent (Guibert, Abbot of Nogent, attended the
  Council of Clermont. His Historia quae dicitur
  Gesta Dei per Francos used both his own knowledge
  and other sources .)

38
St. Boniface 672-754
39
The Reformation symbol of Christs presence is
not the halo of the saint, but the hatred of the
Devil. Transforming Luther into the forerunner
of enlightenment means dismissing this warning of
the Devils growing superiority as a remnant of
the Dark Ages. But that would deprive Luthers
life of the experience of the Devils power,
which affected him as intensely as Christs. Take
away the Devil and we are left with the
Protestant citadel, the better self, the
conscience, which thus becomes the site of the
Last Judgment, where the believer confronted with
the laws of God, acknowledges that he is a sinner
and declares himself at the same time to be
righteous by virtue of Christs sacrifice. It is
precisely this conventional, conscience-oriented
morality that mans innermost self struggles to
fulfill, and that Luther, to the horror of all
well meaning, decent Christians, undermined. The
issue is not morality or immorality, it is God
and the Devil. . .The two great turning points of
the Reformation age, the Lutheran and the
Copernican, seem to have brought mankind nothing
but humiliation. First man is robbed of his power
over himself, and then he is pushed to the
periphery of creation. Oberman, Luther Man
between God and the Devil, p. 155
40
Devil not the subject of superstition(Formulation
s 92)

• Gabriel Biel (d. 1405) Mass Commentary to make
  the devil into God is a superstition worthy not
  of refutation but laughter. quoted Oberman, The
  Reformation Roots and Ramifications, p. 59.

• But if that is not enough for you, you Devil, I
  have also shit and pissed wipe your mouth on
  that and take a hearty bite.
• quoted in Oberman, Luther, p. 107

41
The Devil(Formulations 93-96)(Heiko Oberman,
The Reformation Roots and Raminfications, pp.
53-75)

• Doctor Consolarius
• Magister conscientiae
• Princeps mundi
• The spirit of despair

42
Spiritual Warfare

• Satan is his name, that is, adversary. He must
  obstruct and cause misfortune he cannot do
  otherwise. Moreover, he is the prince and god of
  this world, so that he has sufficient power to do
  so.
• LW 37,17

• The conflict between God and the Devil is
  basically a conflict between faith and unbelief
  in the human soul it is not a mythological
  conflict.
• Edgar Carlson, Reinterpretation of Luther, p.
  50.

43
Health

• In all grave illnesses the Devil is present as
  the author and cause. . .and he is the author
  of death.
• LW 54, 53

44
Marriage

• At first everything goes all right, so that, as
  the saying goes, they are ready to eat each other
  up for love. The Devil comes along to create
  boredom in you, to rob you of your desire in this
  direction, and to excite it unduly in another
  direction.
• LW 21, 89

45
Scripture

• When we wish to deal with Scripture, Satan
  stirs up so much dissension and quarreling over
  it that we lose our interest in it and become
  reluctant to trust it.
• LW37, 17

46
Law/Gospel

• It is the supreme art of the Devil that he can
  make the law out of the gospel.
• LW54, 106

47
Murder

• The Devil incites the Cainites against their
  brother, just as Christ declares in John 8.44
  that the Devil was a murderer from the beginning.
• LW 1, 322
• John 844 You are from your father the devil,
  and you choose to do your father's desires. He
  was a murderer from the beginning and does not
  stand in the truth, because there is no truth in
  him. When he lies, he speaks according to his own
  nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies.

48
Daily Matters

• The Devil comes at unsuitable places and times,
  as in the choir during songs of praise to God, or
  at night when one ought to sleep, in order to
  ruin the head. Or elsewhere, when other things
  are being done in common, so that he hinders
  these things or sees that they are done with less
  dedication.
• LW 10, 348f.

49
Politics and Religion

• The Devil never stops cooking and brewing these
  two kingdoms into each other. In the Devils name
  the secular leaders always want to be Christs
  masters and teach Him how He should run His
  church and His spiritual government. Similarly,
  the false clerics and schismatic spirits want to
  be the masters, though not in Gods name, and to
  teach people how to organize the secular
  government. Thus the Devil is very busy on both
  sides, and he has much to do.
• LW 13, 194

50
Pope

• apostle of the Devil
• AntiChrist himself
• Against the Roman Papacy, An Institution of the
  Devil. LW 41, 263-376

51
Anfechtung

• Personal affliction that is an assault from
  death, the devil, the world, and hell combined.
• A Mighty Fortress
• Luther embraces the ancient tradition of
  spiritual warfare in the imagery of his most
  famous hymn. His intent is Christological. The
  power that Satan has over us on the battlefield
  of the world is beyond our resources to defend or
  counter. We have no place to go but the Lord.
  Like Ignatius, Luther sees the purpose of combat
  to gain salvation in Christ
• Did we in our own strength confide
• Our striving would be losing
• Were not the right man on our side,
• The man of Gods own choosing.
• Dost ask who that may be?
• Christ Jesus it is he
• Lord Sabaoth his Name,
• From age to age the same,
• And he must win the battle.

52
Witch Craze

• Albigensians
• Spanish Inquisition 1479 against Marranos,
  Moriscos and Protestants
• Torture allowed 1552
• Salem Witch Trial 1692

53
Friedrich Schleiermacher 1768-1834

• The idea of the Devil, as developed among us, is
  so unstable that we cannot expect anyone to be
  convinced of its truth besides, our Church has
  never made doctrinal use of the idea.
• . . .the fairly frequent idea that the devil is
  the instrument of God in the punishment of the
  wicked, is inconsistent with his antagonism to
  the divine purpose.
• The Christian Faith, 161,163

54
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 1749-1832

• I am the spirit that negates
• And rightly so, for all that comes to be
• Deserves to perish wretchedly. . .
• I am part of the part that once was everything,
• Part of the darkness which gave birth to light,
• That haughty light which envies mother night
• Her ancient rank and place and would be king
• Yet it does not succeed. . .
• Faust, I/1339. . .1353
• The reeling whirl I seek, the most painful
  excess,
• Enamored hate and quickening distress.
• Cured from the craving to know all, my mind
• Shall not henceforth be closed to any pain,
• And what is portioned out to all mankind, I shall
  enjoy deep in my self, contain
• Within my spirit, summit and abyss
• Pile on my breast their agony and bliss,
• And thus let my own self grow into theirs,
  unfettered
• Till as they are, at last I, too, am shattered.
• 1766-75

55

• Auch hier geschieht, was längst geschah,
• Denn Naboths Weinberg, war schon da,
• (Regum I, 21)
• Here, too, occurs what long occurred
• Of Naboths vineyard you have heard.
• (I Kings 21)

56
Emil Brunner 1889-1966

• On the contrary, it is just because our
  generation has experienced such diabolical
  wickedness that many people have abandoned their
  former enlightened objection to the existence of
  a power of darkness and are now prepared to
  believe in Satan as represented in the Bible.
• Creation and Redemption, p. 135

57
Karl Barth 1886-1968

• They are. As we cannot deny the peculiar
  existence of nothingness, we cannot deny their
  existence. They are null and void, but they are
  not nothing. They are, but only in their own way
  they are, but improperly. . .
• Church Dogmatics III/3. 523.

58

• The affirmation of the demonic has nothing to do
  with a mythological or metaphysical affirmation
  of a world of spirits. . .Only in personalities
  does the demonic receive power, for there the
  form not only grows by nature, is not only
  imprinted on existence, but confronts existence
  by demanding something.
• Tillich, The Demonic The Interpretation of
  History, 85

59

• Form of being facts and inexhaustibility of
  being value belong together. Their unity in the
  depth of essential nature is the divine, their
  separation in existence, the relatively
  independent eruption of the abyss in things, is
  the demonic.
• Tillich, The Demonic, 84

60

• . . .a psychology of evil must be a religious
  psychology. By this I do not mean it must embrace
  a specific theology. I do mean however, that it
  must not only embrace valid insights from all
  religious traditions but must also recognize the
  reality of the supernatural. And, as I have
  said, it must be a science in submission to love
  and the sacredness of life. It cannot be a purely
  secular psychology.
• M. Scott Peck, People of the Lie, 45

61
Profile

• a particular variety of narcissism
• Peck, People of the Lie, 77

• Pronounced concern with public image
• Scapegoating
• Excessive intolerance to criticism
• Intellectual deviousness
• Narcissism, self-absorption, fear of criticism

62
Dante Alighieri1265-1321
63
Dantes Universe
64
Inferno Canto I

• When I had journeyed half of our lifes way,
• I found myself within a shadowed forest,
• For I had lost the path that does not stray.
• Ah, it is hard to speak of what it was,
• That savage forest, dense and difficult,
• Which even in recall renews my fear
• so bitterdeath is hardly more severe!
• But to retell the good discovered there,
• Ill also tell the other things I saw.

65
Canto V

• So I descended from the first enclosure
• Down to the second circle, that which girdles
• Less space but grief more great, that goads to
  weeping.
• There dreadful Minos stands, gnashing his
  teeth
• Examining the sins of those who enter,
• He judges and assigns as his tail twines.

66

• I mean that when the spirit born to evil
• Appears before him, it confesses all
• And he, the connoisseur of sin, can tell
• The depth of hell appropriate to it
• As many times as Minos wraps his tail
• Around himself, that marks the sinners level.

67

• I learned that those who undergo this torment
• Are damned because they sinned within the flesh,
• Subjecting reason to the rule of lust.

68

• No sooner had I heard my teacher Virgil name
• The ancient ladies and the knights, than pity
• Seized me, and I was like a man astray.

69
Francesca da Rimini and Paolo Malatesta

• One day to pass the time away, we read
• Of Lancelothow love had overcome him.
• We were alone, and we suspected nothing.
• And time and time again that reading led
• Our eyes to meet, and made our faces pale,
• And yet one point alone defeated us.
• When we had read how the desired smile
• Was kissed by one who was so true a lover,
• This one, who never shall be parted from me,
• While all his body trembled, kissed my mouth.

70

• And while one spirit said these words to me,
• The other wept, so thatbecause of pity
• I fainted, as if I had met my death.
• And then I fell as a dead body falls.

71
Evil

• The will to undo the infliction of pain upon
  sentient beings
• Jeffrey Burton Russell, The Devil, 11
• Evil is meaningless, senseless destruction. Evil
  destroys and does not build it rips and does not
  mend it cuts and it does not bind. It strives
  always and everywhere to annihilate, to turn to
  nothing. To take all being and render it nothing
  is the heart of evil. 23

72

• Not a single item in our trillion-dollar arsenal
  can compare with the genius of the suicide
  bomberthe breakthrough weapon of our time. Our
  intelligence systems cannot locate him, our
  arsenal cannot deter him, and, all too often, our
  soldiers cannot stop him before it is too late. A
  man of invincible convictioncall it delusion, if
  you willarmed with explosives stolen or
  purchased for a handful of soiled bills can have
  a strategic impact that staggers governments.
  Abetted by the global media, the suicide bomber
  is the wonder weapon of the age.
• The suicide bombers willingness to discard
  civilizations cherished rules for warfare gives
  him enormous strength. In the Cain-and-Abel
  conflicts of the 21st century, ruthlessness
  trumps technology. We refuse to comprehend the
  suicide bombers souleven though todays wars
  are contests of souls, and belief is our enemys
  ultimate order of battle. We write off the
  suicide bomber as a criminal, a wanton butcher, a
  terrorist. Yet, within his spiritual universe,
  hes more heroic than the American soldier who
  throws himself atop a grenade to spare his
  comrades He isnt merely protecting other men,
  but defending his god. The suicide bomber can
  justify any level of carnage because hes doing
  gods will. We agonize over a prisoners slapped
  face, while our enemies are lauded as heroes for
  killing innocent masses (even of fellow
  believers). We continue to narrow our view of
  warfares acceptable parameters even as our
  enemies amplify the concept of total war.
• Ralph Peters, The Counterrevolutionaries in
  Military Affairs, The Weekly Standard, 6
  February 2006, 19.