The Devil

Ahh, the Devil.  Lucifer, The Prince of Darkness. Satan. Belial. The Father of Lies. Beelzebub.

You are probably familiar with the story of Lucifer, the most beautiful and powerful of all of God's angels, who became too proud for his own good and started a rebellion against God - only to end up being thrown down into Hell along with his co-conspirators. 

But Satan still wields power in this world as well. As my dad put it, "life is a battle that is fought not only in this world, but between the forces of the spirit realm". The Tempter keeps luring people away from God, and woe is anyone who listens to his lies.

The Fallen Angel, as depicted by Gustave Doré for John Milton's Paradise Lost.

However, as it often is with biblical lore, that story isn't really found anywhere in the Good Book. Rather, it is pieced together by re-interpreting various texts long after they were written, and then putting those pieces together to form something new.

But first, let's have a look at Satan. He wasn't evil to begin with. To be more precise, "Satan" wasn't even the name of any particular being, but rather a title meaning "an adversary" or "an accuser". Satan (or ha-satan) was one of the Bene Elohim (Sons of God) whose role was basically that of a public prosecutor. He would look for hypocrisy among humans and report it to God, most famously illustrated in the Book of Job. In the story, God is bragging about how good Job is, to which the accuser (the Satan) replies that of course he's good - he's got everything he needs. Satan then asks God for permission to perform some quality assurance testing on poor Job by taking away everything he has (including the lives of all his children), to which God agrees.

Some of you might think that God was a bit of a dick there, but anyone who's played this game will surely understand why He did it.

The word "satan" is also used in the Hebrew Bible to describe regular humans whenever the word "adversary" is needed (such as for king Solomon's adversaries in 1 Kings 11:14 and 11:23) and to describe King David in 1 Samuel 29:4, when the Philistines are worried that he might become an adversary in battle.

It was only during the period of the Persian occupation of Judea that Zoroastrian influences gave rise to the whole idea of a cosmic war between good and evil. By the time of the New Testament writings in Greek, "the adversary" had become capitalized as "Satan" who had turned into the single, rogue opponent to God we all know and love today.

But that's enough about Satan. Now, let's talk about Lucifer.

"Huh?" goes my Imaginary Confused Reader. "Surely they are the same thing?"

It's a bit more complicated than that. You see, Lucifer's fall from heaven in Isaiah 14 isn't originally about any rebellious angel, but a mockery of the king of Babylon. And again, the part of the story that establishes our Fallen One as the most beautiful of all the angels (Ezekiel 28) is mocking the vanity of another ruler: the King of Tyre. Finally, the celestial war against Satan and his angels, who were then hurled down to Earth, is taken from the Book of Revelation (which in its entirety is basically just a power fantasy about the fall of Rome - the infamous "number of the beast", 666 or 616, refers to Emperor Nero).

In short, the origin story of Lucifer is one that was cobbled together from these different pieces of writing, each taking a piss at a different ruler. They are also from vastly different eras (between Isaiah and Ezekiel, some 130 years had passed; from Ezekiel to the Book of Revelation it took another ~670 years). The main culprits for putting it all together were Origen of Alexandria (185 CE - 253 CE) and Augustine of Hippo (354 CE - 430 CE). A lot of the imagery of Hell and the Devil that we have today also comes not from the Bible or later theologians, but from John Milton's Paradise Lost, which was written in the 17th century.

So why did I feel compelled to write this out? Did I only want to ruin the show Lucifer for you, or the lyrics of some songs by Ghost?

First of all, I wanted to demonstrate how a lot of the narratives that are called "biblical" have actually come into existence. Dr. Daniel McLellan, a biblical scholar and author, has characterized the Bible as a box full of Lego bricks; you can use it to build all kinds of things, and I personally think that the whole "Rebellion in Heaven" story is a prime example of this.

Second, there are many people who still suffer from the imagery of Hell and the Devil today, placed into their heads very often during early childhood. I know what it feels like, and have found that it helps if you delve a bit into the origins of these beliefs. Religious abuse is something that's still not talked about enough.

And finally, when you look past it all, it's just a great story. There's something very compelling about it. Something true.

When we read the news and watch how the lives of millions get ruined by just a few individuals, once handed power by the very people they now oppress - when we see their pride, their minds clouded by their egotism, power, and greed - then we mock them, as we should, in the hopes to see them fall.

It's the same story all over again, since the dawn of humanity.