Obviously, there’s no “factual” per se information on such a matter, but i am not looking for debatable personal opinions in this thread if i want a debate about it, I’ll post a GD thread.
Over the years I’ve heard a whole lot of different versions of what, exactly, the nature of the Devil is. Some specific questions I can think of off the top of my head
Is Satan the ruler of or punished in hell?
When did Lucifer rebel against God, what exactly happened during this rebellion, is there a canonical cause for this, is the canonical cause debated?
How many angels were in this rebellion, are they ruling demons in hell or punished in hell?
If Lucifer is bound and punished in hell how is he to be the cause of so many of society’s ills, seeing as how he’s burning in a lake of fire?
Any other information on the Xian conception, and possibly some asides in to, say, the Muslim, or Jewish conception of punishment or hell would be welcome as well.
(I’m aware at least that Jewish doctrine doesn’t address this issue too much, but if it does at all I’d like to know).
Most “canon” comes from Paradise Lost and Dante’s Inferno. The Old Testament just casts him as a critic and a prankster in the Garden of Eden, and IIRC, his only appearance in the New Testament was to tempt Christ, unsuccessfully.
Since Catholics (like myself) give about as much weight to tradition as to what’s actually in the Bible. Good thing, because Satan’s a terrific character, but not much of a Biblical figure.
The Old Testament makes no mention at all of Satan being in the Garden of Eden. Genesis just says that it was “the serpent, the most cunning of beasts”. The Serpent of Eden is, however, identified with Satan in the New Testament. Satan’s (only, so far as I know) credited appearance in the Old Testament is in the Book of Job, where he’s in sufficiently good standing with God that he can come before the Throne to make wagers with Him. His role in Job isn’t presented so much as an enemy, as a tester of sorts.
Three passages in the Bible are the lynchpins for Christian theology regarding the devil.
Isaiah 14:12-15 - How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations! For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north: I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High. Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit.
Luke 10:18 - And he said unto them, I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven.
Revelation 12:7-9 - And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels, and prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven. And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.
The Christian church interpeted Christ’s statement in Luke with Isaiah’s prophesy, so it identified Lucifer with Satan.
The name Lucifer is from Jerome, who uses this Latin word to translate the Hebrew helel - “bright one”. I should point out that a fuller reading shows Isaiah in this passage is actually taunting a (Babylonian?) king, who he is ironically calling helel. This is clear from reading the entire chapter from Isaiah. Newer translations of the Bible such as the NIV avoid the problem by dropping the name “Lucifer” from the Isaiah passage.
The final passage from Revelation is understood by some Christian theologians to refer not to future events but to past ones, since (1) the famous “rising beast” of Revelation does not appear until chapter 13, and (2) the broad details match the passage from Isaiah.
when I read the first part, I always figure revelations was future events (which would in fact imply Satan had not yet been cast from heaven) but I guess the second part refutes that. Isiah implies the war was Satan attempting to gain control of heaven, but doesn’t particularly address his motive for doing so
I guess the question then becomes, from whence (Such as Paradise Lost and Inferno) did much of the pop culture lore and other Xian theology regarding the devil come from. I presume much of it came from the Priests of the Middle Ages threatening their peasents with damnation and the temptation of Satan. Is there some particular writing that spurs most of this, or is at all just individual extrapolation from the bible?
Same with Jesus being tempted in the desert, Matthew 4:1-11:
1: Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. 2: And he fasted forty days and forty nights, and afterward he was hungry. 3: And 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, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.'" 5: Then the devil took him to the holy city, and set him on the pinnacle of the temple, 6: and said to him, "If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down; for it is written, He will give his angels charge of you,’ and On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone.'" 7: Jesus said to him, "Again it is written, You shall not tempt the Lord your God.’” 8: Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain, and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them; 9: and he said to him, “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.” 10: Then Jesus said to him, “Begone, Satan! for it is written, `You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve.’” 11: Then the devil left him, and behold, angels came and ministered to him.
Seems like it could have been a literal appearance or Jesus facing down the inner temptations He felt.
And of course Christ says “Get behind me, Satan” when presented with temptation for worldly power by His disciples.
There was a thread with a list of classic lit depictions of the devil–can’t find it now. Faust (Goethe and Marlowe) and Don Jaun in Hell and the Devil and Daniel Webster were all mentioned.
Milton began Paradise Lost as a play, inspired in part by the Passion Plays of the Middle Ages. He turned it into a poem (probably because of the inherent staging difficulties–nekkid Eve).
Here are a couple of excerpts from Paradise Lost that address some of your questions:
Sin speaking:
The key of this infernal Pit by due,
And by command of Heav’ns all-powerful King
I keep, by him forbidden to unlock
These Adamantine Gates; against all force
Death ready stands to interpose his dart,
Fearless to be o’rematcht by living might.
But what ow I to his commands above
Who hates me, and hath hither thrust me down
Into this gloom of TARTARUS profound,
To sit in hateful Office here confin’d,
Inhabitant of Heav’n, and heav’nlie-born,
Here in perpetual agonie and pain,
With terrors and with clamors compasst round
Of mine own brood, that on my bowels feed:
Thou art my Father, thou my Author, thou
My being gav’st me; whom should I obey
But thee, whom follow? thou wilt bring me soon
To that new world of light and bliss, among
The Gods who live at ease, where I shall Reign
At thy right hand voluptuous, as beseems
Thy daughter and thy darling, without end.
Thus saying, from her side the fatal Key,
Sad instrument of all our woe, she took;
And towards the Gate rouling her bestial train,
Forthwith the huge Porcullis high up drew,
Which but her self not all the STYGIAN powers
Could once have mov’d; then in the key-hole turns
Th’ intricate wards, and every Bolt and Bar
Of massie Iron or sollid Rock with ease
Unfast’ns
So, Sin is supposed to guard the gates of Hell, but lets Satan out. (Other pasages make clear that God knowingly permits this.)
Number of angels in Satan’s band:
for great indeed
His name, and high was his degree in Heav’n;
His count’nance, as the Morning Starr that guides
The starrie flock, allur’d them, and with lyes
Drew after him the third part of Heav’ns Host
At least a third–in another place it says 1/3 -1/2.
Hail horrours, hail
Infernal world, and thou profoundest Hell
Receive thy new Possessor: One who brings
A mind not to be chang’d by Place or Time.
The mind is its own place, and in it self
Can make a Heav’n of Hell, a Hell of Heav’n.
What matter where, if I be still the same,
And what I should be, all but less then hee
Whom Thunder hath made greater? Here at least
We shall be free; th’ Almighty hath not built
Here for his envy, will not drive us hence:
Here we may reign secure, and in my choyce
To reign is worth ambition though in Hell:
Better to reign in Hell, then serve in Heav’n.
So Satan is in Hell as punishment, but spins it so that he is reigning there.
It should be added that helel/Lucifer are terms for the “morning star,” Venus. The passage in question compares the King of Babylon to the morning star, which rises briefly in the morning then “falls” and is eclipsed by the Sun (which is God in this analogy). This passage has nothing to do with Satan and “Lucifer” is actually a misnomer for that particular Biblical character.
Try: What’s the deal with angels? … at the end of that (lengthy) Staff Report, there are a few paragraphs on the biblical and extra-biblical origins of Satan.
Both, more or less. People will naswer differently in the details, but Satan is the most powerful force in Hell, but also a prisoner of it.
This one is debated and is not really known. Various suggested reasons mostly involve pride in some way: the desire to be all-powerful himself (and failing that, absolute ruler of his own domain), hatred of humanity for being favored, etc.
Maybe. Who knows?
He’s not human. He’s not limited by our sense of time, having existed before it, probably. He has vast powers which we do nto wholly understand, since they involve transtemporal and transmaterial knowledge. Most believe that Satan can tempt anyone to anything, can force no one, but that he is extremely good at it.
the word satan means adversary (well archaic anyway) one interpretation I have heard is that god created satan to be a sort of opposite (the root of devil and diabolical is diabalein which means “to oppose”) he was created to bounce ideas off of you could say. and it turns out he took his opposition all the way.
I hope this is coherant, its late and I had a coule drinks
The “historical truth about Satan” (meaning what people thought about him at various points through history) is (pun only partially intentional) damnably difficult to get at due to the massive accretion of extra-Scriptural and even extra-doctrinal myth erected around it. However, this seems to have been the process:
Pre-Exilic Judaism seems to have considered the Satan as a sort of cosmic Ken Starr, a member of the Divine Court whose job it was to accuse of sin, to dig out hidden instances of sin, to test the individual by providing him opportunities to sin (entrapment not being against God’s law) – an investigative prosecutor with sweeping powers to accuse one of sin before God the Most High Judge.
From this a focus on Satan as tempter evolved.
Exposure to Zoroastrianism during the Exile, with its dualistic theology of the supreme and good god Ahura Mazda (Ormazd) opposed by the evil god Angra Mainyu (Ahriman), subtly warped the picture from Satan-as-God’s-Attorney-General to Satan as rebel against God.
The Problem of Evil and how to reconcile it to an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent God strongly influenced the popular conception of Satan. On the one hand, God as supreme in the world means that Satan-as-rebel has been conquered and overthrown, or at least that he will be. On the other, the prevalence of evil and sin in the world means that someone must be inducing it, so Satan must have free run to cause this. Further, the whole mythical structure, with divine royal court and such, suggests that Satan as rebel against God has his own hierarchy over which he reigns.
Scapegoat-ism contributes. It’s sober fact that there is a strain in human nature that desires to pass the buck to someone else, to point the finger of blame at another and exculpate one’s own guilt by passing the blame on. Flip Wilson’s famous “De debbil made me do it!” line is funny precisely because it appeals to that streak in humanity: “It’s not my fault that I sinned – the Devil tempted me, and I was weak and gave in to his wiles!”
Dante and Milton’s theological fiction both echoed and shaped that evolving concept, with the inherent paradox of Satan-as-God’s-prisoner-cast-down and Satan-as-free-archrebel-and-tempter built in.
To give the cynical, atheist answer, the Devil probably mostly came about simply because it was found that of anything in the Bible, Revelations was the one that always stopped people in their tracks and got them to behave. The prophecy of “do good or you will not be taken to the Kingdom when the world ends” easily lead to “do what we say or…” And creating a character to represent Hell (where you would end up instead of the God’s Kingdom) was found to be similarly good propoganda.
Most of the original visuals for Satan, demons, and hell seems to have come from (what was to the early Christians, their largest opponent), Roman and Greek mythology but perverted. Hence demons and Satan look like satyrs, Hell is known as Hades and surrounded by Styx, and guarded by the three headed dog (kerberos?)
This is to address the nature of the devil from the early church perspective.
1 Peter 5:8 (KJV)
Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour:
Ephesians 2:2
You used to live in sin, just like the rest of the world, obeying the devil—the commander of the powers in the unseen world. He is the spirit at work in the hearts of those who refuse to obey God.
Milton indeed used pagan gods for the names of many of his fallen angels, and used Greek and Roman mythological elements when it suited him–for example, the language used in recapping the"giant race" story of Genesis echoes thes story of the Greek titans. Paradise Lost is also an attempt to do in English something like (and a homage to) Virgil’s Aeneid, with its invocations of classical muses, etc. Here’s Milton using the pagan dogs you mentioned in his hell:
A cry of Hell Hounds never ceasing bark’d
With wide CERBEREAN mouths full loud, and rung
A hideous Peal: yet, when they list, would creep,
If aught disturb’d thir noyse, into her woomb,
And kennel there, yet there still bark’d and howl’d
Within unseen.
By Milton’s time, he was not so much fighting pagainsim (though no doubt he would have had he thought it necessary) as coopting the best of its literary traditions to support his vision.
I know y’all just are waiting for more long-assed quotations from Paradsie Lost, yes? Here are a couple more that adddress the OP’s specific questions:
Here’s the fire lake–but there’s also a freezer burn torment that goes with it (this passage too shows Milton’s use of Greek and Roman underworld myths):
Into the burning Lake thir baleful streams;
Abhorred STYX the flood of deadly hate,
Sad ACHERON of sorrow, black and deep;
COCYTUS, nam’d of lamentation loud
Heard on the ruful stream; fierce PHLEGETON
Whose waves of torrent fire inflame with rage.
Farr off from these a slow and silent stream,
LETHE the River of Oblivion roules
Her watrie Labyrinth, whereof who drinks,
Forthwith his former state and being forgets,
Forgets both joy and grief, pleasure and pain.
Beyond this flood a frozen Continent
Lies dark and wilde, beat with perpetual storms
Of Whirlwind and dire Hail, which on firm land
Thaws not,
…
Burns frore, and cold performs th’ effect of Fire.
Thither by harpy-footed Furies hail’d,
At certain revolutions all the damn’d
Are brought: and feel by turns the bitter change
Of fierce extreams, extreams by change more fierce,
From Beds of raging Fire to starve in Ice
And here’s why Satan decides he’s had enough and ain’t gonna take any more–it’s that pride thing–God declares his Son lord over the angels:
Hear all ye Angels, Progenie of Light,
Thrones, Dominations, Princedoms, Vertues, Powers,
Hear my Decree, which unrevok’t shall stand.
This day I have begot whom I declare
My onely Son, and on this holy Hill
Him have anointed, whom ye now behold
At my right hand; your Head I him appoint;
And by my Self have sworn to him shall bow
All knees in Heav’n, and shall confess him Lord:
Under his great Vice-gerent Reign abide
United as one individual Soule
For ever happie: him who disobeyes
Mee disobeyes, breaks union, and that day
Cast out from God and blessed vision, falls
Into utter darkness, deep ingulft, his place
Ordaind without redemption, without end.
…
the first Arch-Angel, great in Power,
In favour and praeeminence, yet fraught
With envie against the Son of God, that day
Honourd by his great Father, and proclaimd
MESSIAH King anointed, could not beare
Through pride that sight, and thought himself impaird.
Deep malice thence conceiving & disdain,
Soon as midnight brought on the duskie houre
Friendliest to sleep and silence, he resolv’d
With all his Legions to dislodge, and leave
Unworshipt, unobey’d the Throne supream
Paradise Lost more than any other book is the source of the English-speaking world’s background knowledge that it thinks it knows about this stuff.
So spake our general Mother, and with eyes
Of conjugal attraction unreprov’d,
And meek surrender, half imbracing leand
On our first Father, half her swelling Breast
Naked met his under the flowing Gold
Of her loose tresses hid: he in delight
Both of her Beauty and submissive Charms
Smil’d with superior Love, as JUPITER
On JUNO smiles, when he impregns the Clouds
That shed MAY Flowers; and press’d her Matron lip
With kisses pure: aside the Devil turnd
For envie, yet with jealous leer maligne
Ey’d them askance,
