The Doctrine of Satan in OT

7/29/2019 The Doctrine of Satan in OT

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The Doctrine of Satan: I. In the Old TestamentAuthor(s): William CaldwellSource: The Biblical World, Vol. 41, No. 1 (Jan., 1913), pp. 29-33Published by: The University of Chicago PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3142352

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THE DOCTRINE OF SATANIIN THE OLD TESTAMENTWILLIAM CALDWELL, PH.D.Fort Worth, Texas

The early Christianwriters devotedpages to their discussion of theworkof Satananddevils. Theysawtheirpresenceboth n idolsand in philosophers. Whencedid thisbelieforiginate? Howfar is it an essential elementof Christianity? Is it an insepa-rablepart of biblicalbelief? Thesequestionsare not academic. Amongtherank andfile of Christiansto believen a personaldevilis oftenmadea testof orthodoxy. Thisarticleof Dr. Caldwell's s the irst of three n which he tracesthehistory of thedoctrineof Satan in theOldTestament,n the nter-biblicaliterature,andin the New Testament.

When we begin the study of the OldTestament we are likely to be surprisedto find that Old Testament piety aroseand flourished without some elementsof doctrine which to modern Christiansoften seem indispensable. For example,it has been a source of wonder thatJudaism could furnish so many martyrsto the ideals of a supra-mundane lifewithout the hope of a blessed personalimmortality. In like manner, it muststrike the general reader of the Bible asbeing strange,if true, that no suchpersonas the devil of traditional theologyappears in the Old Testament. In thetheology of many Christians the doc-trine of the devil is only second to thedoctrine of God, and the devil is anindispensable part of the machinery offaith and piety.It may be admitted, however, withreference to Old Testament faith, thatsome form of dualism was probablyalways present. There was of courseno place for any sort of Persian dualism,positing an eternal strugglebetween twoself-existent deities, the one good, the

other evil. For the God of Israel issupremeand beside himthereis no other.But there is a dualism in experience.There is an evil side to Nature and tohumanlife. And so we are not surprisedto find recognition of this dualism inearly times. Israelites believed in evilspirits dwellingin wild wastes away fromthe habitation of man, although thereferences are often obscure and thetranslation of the Authorized Versionmisleading. (For example, Deut. 32: 7;Lev. I7:I7; Isa. I3:2I; 34:I4, etc.)But it may be worth while to examineone case of obscure reference, viz., toAzazel, which seems to be a demon ofthe desert. Azazel

In Lev., chap. I6, we have the men-tion of Azazel in connection with thegreat Day of Atonement, but there is noexplanation. "And Aaron shall castlots upon the two goats: one for theLord and the other for Azazel. AndAaron shall bring the goat upon whichthe Lord's lot fell, and offer him for asin-offering. But the goat on which29


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THE BIBLICAL WORLDthe lot for Azazel fell, shall be presentedalive before the Lord, to make atone-ment with him and let him go to Azazelin the desert."It must be admitted at the outset thatone of the latest and best authorities(Brown-Driver-Briggs, HebrewLexicon,I906) explains the word Azazel not as aproper name, but as a reduplicated,intensive, abstract formation, meaning"entire removal"-in this case, "entireremoval of sin and guilt from sacredplaces into the desert on the back of agoat, the symbol of entire forgiveness."But this view has some very strongopponentswho take the word as a propername of a spirit haunting the desert.Nestle says, "If one readsLev., chap. I6,with an open mind, the impression isthat Azazel must be related to Yahwehin something of the same way asAhriman to Ormuzd,or Satan (Beelze-bub) to God" (Encyc. Religion andEthics). Cheyne supposes the ritualof Azazel on the Day of Atonementwas partly to provide the ignorantpeople with a visible token of theremoval of sins of the year, partly toabolish the cultus of the Seirim bysubstituting a single personal angel,Azazel (evil no doubt by nature, butrendered harmless by being bound),for the crowdof impersonaland danger-ous Seirim. Azazel seems to havebeen one of the spirits haunting thewilderness which had received a nameand a place and been clothed withattributes sufficiently well known tothose for whom the ritual was intended,however vague to us. OrigenidentifiesAzazel with Satan, as he does also theserpent of Gen., chap. 3. Benzingeraccepts Reuss's statement that "the

conception of Azazel lies on the waywhich led later to the devil."The Serpent

Next it will be necessary to speak ofthe Serpent in the account of the Fall,which traditional theology has identifiedwith the devil. We do not have here apersonal Satan, but we have a subtleanimal performing functions later as-signed to the devil, as tempter, calum-niator, and hinderer. For the serpentis representedas tempting man, calum-niating God, and hinderingthe progressof innocence by introducing sin intothe new creation. He mars man'srelation with his fellow-man: the guiltypair must hide from each other by meansof fig leaves. He mars man's relationto God: the transgressorsseek to hidefromGodamong the trees.With minds formed by the tradi-tional theology, the interpretation givenby the New Testament, and the popularconceptions of Milton, Bunyan, andLuther, and mediaevalism in general,it is difficult,indeed it requiresa kind ofact of self-denial, not to see the devil inthe serpent and to hear his voice asthe serpent speaks in the well-knowndevilish, questioning, denying, false-promisingway (Gen. 3:4, 5). But thestory is pre-exilic, and moves in a timewhen the full conception of a personalSatan had not arisen on Hebrew soil.The sacred writer knows God as goodand man as innocent, but he finds sinknocking at the door in the subtletyof one of the animals that had passedbefore man.And yet this animal does not appearto be an ordinary animal. It is en-dowed with the faculty of speech and

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THE DOCTRINE OF SATANinspired with occult wisdom, able toprophesy the effect of eating from theforbiddentree. The serpent appears asa medium of the power of temptation.Its function is to present the outwardobject with suggestions calculated tostir the sinful desire within the soul.It makes the appeal of apparentlysuperior wisdom to the natural inclina-tions of innocence-an appeal to thesenses. When curiosity and suspicionhave been aroused and assurance givenof the harmlessnessof the inhibited actand promises given of its magic effect,the excited desire does the rest. Underthe skilful stimulation of the serpentthe act comes to have a value for lifewhich overcomes the center of con-sciousness and sends all scruples to theperiphery. The act is the free choice ofthe soul, conditioned by its endowmentand environment.The wisdom of the serpent is pro-verbial (Matt. Io:I6). This ascriptionof wisdom to the serpent rests not onobservationbut on inference. Its move-ments, its powers of fascination, suggesta demonic characterwhich has been at-tributed to it. Still it is a beast of thefield and a creatureof Jehovah, althoughit has superhumanknowledge,the powerof speech, and hostility to God. Thebeast is not simply a sharp suggester ofthoughts which become evil in humanconsciousness and act, but it is itselfregarded as evil.This is the sober, literal statement ofthe serpentas one of Jehovah'screatures.But a literal interpretation of the storyyields results which, if they do notcontain an inner contradiction, at leastleave us with the feeling that we havenot fully fathomed somehiddenmystery.

Perhaps the sacred writer has availedhimself of an earlier story in which thedemonic character of the serpent wasas clear as it is here obscure. Theserpent elsewhere is worshiped as agood demon. Such worship may formthe background of this story. If thenthe monotheistic principle has not com-pletely eliminated all the mythologicalfeatures of the story which was to beused for ethical and religious purposes,we can better understand the difficultyof interpreting it on Old Testament soilwhere animals do not elsewhere exhibitany analogous powers. The difficultycould not be met by exegesis; it had tobe met in later Judaism, not by a literalinterpretation of the story, but by ahigher deliverance which was essentiallya new constructionof the facts of humanlife and experience.The surprising thing is that the laterJewish and New Testament conceptionseems to be more in accord with Persianmythology, of an incarnation of anevil spirit, than with the narrativebefore us, which gives no hint of anexternal evil person speaking throughthe serpent, but represents the serpentsimply as one of Jehovah's creatures,only more subtle than the rest. Thesacred writer gives us no clue to theorigin of evil, but he has given us amasterly psychological analysis of theprocessof temptationthrough suggestionof doubt, assumption of superior wis-dom that knows how to deny the eviland promise the good, and through theaesthetic, intellectual, and utilitarianappeal of the "forbidden fruit" itself.The curse upon the serpent knowsnothing of anything but the beast andits posterity. It is to go upon its

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THE BIBLICAL WORLDbelly, eat dust, and endure man'senmity. Satan

The word Satan is often used in theOld Testament as a verb, meaningto beor act as an adversary. Satan as a nounmeans a human adversary as in I Sam.29:4, or a superhuman adversary as inNum. 22:22. Satan as a proper nameoccurs in not more than three passagesin the Old Testament, and they are alllate and probably not independent ofeach other: Job. 1:6, 2: ; Zech 3:I, 2;I Chron. 21:1. Perhaps only the lasthas the right to be called strictly apropername. In the Septuagint, underlater influences, it is translated diabolos(B-D-B. Lex.).There can be no reasonable doubtthat the doctrine of Satan suffered someassimilation to the Persian doctrine ofAhriman. But the Persian influencehas often been exaggerated. Therewas an internal process of developmentwithin the life of Judaism, in which themonotheistic principle was regulative.In the earlierScripturesangelsappearasbearers of blessings, curses, and com-mands of God (Judg. 5:23), but oftenthey are, like the Word and Wisdom,only functionally separate from God."Thefunctionof an angelso overshadowshis personality that the Old Testamentdoes not ask who or what the angel is,but what he does." Angels that haveevil tasks arenot themselvestherebyevil,sinceGodis the author of evil (Amos3:6).And they are merely his executives.Angels appear in the Old Testamentmediating God'sjudgments,his chastise-ments, and his testings. Forexample,thedestroying angel that smote the Egyp-tians, the angelofpestilencethat brought

chastisement to David, and the angelsthat came in later times to challengecharacter. These latter especially con-cernus here. In this regardthe Book ofJob is worthy of special examination,for its prologue mentions one of the"sons of God," or angels, called Satanor Adversary. Anything like a clearoutline of Satan appears here for thefirst time in the Old Testament. Buteven here it is the Satan. The presenceof the article denotes the function ofadversary rather than a character per-sonally adverse to the good. The Satanappearsamong the angels who form thecouncil of heaven about the king on thethrone. It is the duty of the Adversaryto challenge and test the good. He isthe enemy of sham and falsepretensions.He reports for duty to the king andexecutes his will, and yet he is not amere instrument; he is an intelligentservant who knows how to offersuggestions for a test-experiment, andhe is jealous for the honor of God.There is no suggestionof a fallen angelfilled with rebellion and hatred to God.Satan is a personmore than functionallyseparate from God, but always underthe divine will and powerless withoutthe divine permission. He is a servantwho knows how to disappear when hiswork is done. When Job's "friends"arrive there is no need for Satan.The scene in Zech., chap. 3, is akinto that in Job. Satan challenges thestanding of the restored community inits faded glory, misery, and meanness.Its representatives are diminished menwith shallow godliness, when comparedwith the great figuresof the past. Thethoughts must arise, Can God takethese poor men and build a new church-


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THE DOCTRINE OF SATANnation? The men are once more onholy ground, but is their characterworthy, their repentance deep, theirreconciliation real? Is this movementman's or God's for the founding of anew Kingdom in righteousness andglory and strength? These thoughts,which have distressed the faithful,receive objective dramatic presentationin Zech., chap. 3. Joshua the highpriest represents the people, clothed infilthy garments. He stands before theLord and Satan stands at his right tooppose him. In other words, we haveon the one side God's love and graceshown in the restorationand the dangerof complaisance in filthy or mean gar-ments, on the other side the severe, try-ing, testing providence of God. Bothin the case of Job and of Joshua, Godand the good are justified and Satan isdefeated, and in a certain sense con-demned. In the one case it is said ofSatan, "Thou dids't set me on againsthim" (Job), in the other, "The Lordrebuke thee, Satan." Satan can donothing beyond the permission of God,and God's ultimate purpose throughoutis benevolent. But still it cannot bedenied that the prosecuting attorneyseems to relish the task before him, thecensor tends to become censorious, thecriminallawyer to become criminal.Envy and hatred and desire to mis-

lead are not far away from one whohas no belief in human virtue and thesincerity of human repentance and thedisinterestednessof humanpiety. "Satanshows an assiduity slightly too keen inthe exercise of his somewhat invidiousfunctions."The last book of the Old Testamentthat speaks of Satan is I Chronicles.In this book (2I:I) we read that Satanrose up against Israel and moved Davidto number the people; this is regardedas a sin. The same act of David isrecorded in II Samuel (24:I), but hereit is said, "God moved David." Wehave here a change from Hebrew toJewish theology, reminding us of thegreat change that took place in Chris-tian theology in the openingof the nine-teenth century,whenone of the foundersof Methodismsaid to the high Calvinists,"Your God is my devil." The authorof the passage in Samuel does not hesi-tate to attribute a direct agency toGod fromwhich the later writer shrinks.We have the same facts, David, acensus, a pestilence; but the theologicalconstruction is different. A differentidea of Godand his relation to the worldis reflected n the Chronicler. With himGod cannot tempt to evil. The expla-nation of David's conduct is simple:"Satan stood up against Israel and pro-voked David to number Israel."

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