The Devil (from Greek: ???????? diábolos "slanderer, accuser") is the personification and archetype of evil in various cultures. Historically, the Devil can be defined as the personification of whatever is perceived in society as evil and the depiction consist of its cultural traditions. In Christianity, the manifestation of the Devil is the Hebrew Satan; the primary opponent of God. While in Christiany, the Devil was created by God, in Absolute dualism, the Devil is alternatively seen as an independent principle besides the good God. Proponents of such dualism can be found in Zoroastrism, Manichaeism, Albanenses and partly in Catharism. Some other religious and philosophical views, like Thomism, Kabbalah, Bahaism, Sufism and Ahmadiyya, hold that evil has no ontological existence and is regarded as something illusory.
In religions history, often a set of gods having been deposed by a younger generation of deities, then considered evil, like in Christianity, Roman and Greek deities became devils, Titans were replaced by the Olympic gods, Teutonic gods demonized the Giants and in Islam, the pre-Islamic status of Jinn as tutelary deities were reduced to beings subject to the judgment of the Islamic deity and if they do not submit to His law, are regarded as demons.
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Etymology
The Modern English word devil descends from the Middle English devel, from Old English d?ofol, that in turn represents an early Germanic borrowing of Latin diabolus. This in turn was borrowed from Greek: ???????? diábolos, "slanderer", from ?????????? diabállein, "to slander" from ??? diá, "across, through" and ??????? bállein, "to hurl", probably akin to the Sanskrit gurate, "he lifts up".
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Cosmological viewpoints on the Devil
Monism
In monistic view, God is absolute embracing both good and evil. An independent existence of the Devil is denied, the personification of Evil non-existent. Sometimes, like in Hinduism, God is expressed through lesser gods, however God remains responsible for both good and evil, since every deity is just another aspect of the God. Alternative monistic viewpoints regard evil as illusive, therefore just existing in humans own perspective.
Mitigated dualism
In the Mitigated dualism, evil is a secondary principle. The Devil is thought as a creature, originated in a heavenly realm, that only contains good, but somehow fell apart from this place, thus giving existence to evil. God remains as the source of evil but is now twinned into the principle of good and evil, the former as the High God, the latter as God's adversary. The split of the Devil apart from the good God is sometimes expressed by War in heaven.
Absolute dualism
Absolute dualistic worldviews, assert that good and evil are two strictly distinct principles. Evil exist wholly independent from (the good) God. Accordingly, a principle can not embraces opposites, thus the Devil can not have been originated as a heavenly being (an angel or something of the like) or a creature of God. Therefore, both deities are both ontologically limited to their own essence: The good God can just want, create and do good; while the evil Devil can just want, create and do evil.
Theological and philosophical beliefs about the Devil
Hinduism
The earliest Hindu texts do not offer further explanations for evil, regarding evil as something natural. However, later texts offer various explanations for evil. According to an explanation given by the Brahmanists, both demons and gods spoke truth and untruth, but the demons relinquished the truth and the gods relinquished the untruth. But both spirits are regarded as different aspects of one supreme god. Even some fierce deities like Kali are not thought as devils but just as darker aspects of God and may even manifest benevolence.
Zoroastrianism
In Zoroastrianism, good and evil derive from two ultimately opposed forces. The force of good is called Ahura Mazda and the "destructive spirit" in Avestan-language called Angra Mainyu. The Middle Persian equivalent is Ahriman (Anglicised pronunciation: ). They are in eternal struggle and none of these is all-powerful, especially Angra Mainyu is limited to space and time: in the end of time, he will be finally defeated. While Ahura Mazda creates that is good, Angra Mainyu is responsible for every evil and suffering in the world, such as toads and scorpians.
Ancient Egypt
Apep ( or ) or Apophis (; Ancient Greek: ??????; also spelled Apepi or Aapep) was the ancient Egyptian deity who embodied chaos (??zft in Egyptian) and was thus the opponent of light and Ma'at (order/truth). He appears in art as a giant serpent. His name is reconstructed by Egyptologists as *?A'p?p?, as it was written ??pp(y) and survived in later Coptic as ???? Aph?ph.
The deity Set was originally associated with both positive and negative roles: a protector of Ra on the solar boat from the Serpent of Chaos, and a usurper who killed and mutilated his brother in order to assume the throne. However, he was later demonized and he became quite unpopular. According to Herman te Velde, the demonization of Set took place after Egypt's conquest by several foreign nations in the Third Intermediate and Late Periods. Set, who had traditionally been the god of foreigners, thus also became associated with foreign oppressors, including the Assyrian and Persian empires. It was during this time that Set was particularly vilified, and his defeat by Horus widely celebrated. Set's negative aspects were emphasized during this period. Set was the killer of Osiris, having hacked Osiris' body into pieces and dispersed it so that he could not be resurrected. The Greeks later linked Set with Typhon because both were evil forces, storm deities, and sons of the Earth that attacked the main gods.
Nevertheless, throughout this period, in some outlying regions of Egypt Set was still regarded as the heroic chief deity.
Set has also been classed as a Trickster deity who, as a god of disorder, resorts to deception to achieve bad ends.
Buddhism
Buddhism contains a figure similar to the Devil, called Mara (Sanskrit: m?ra; Chinese: ?; pinyin: mó; Tibetan Wylie: bdud; Khmer: ???; Burmese: ???????; Thai: ???; Sinhalese: ?????), who is a tempter figure in Buddhism, distracting humans from practicing the spiritual life by making mundane things alluring, or the negative seem positive. He tempted Gautama Buddha by trying to seduce him with the vision of beautiful women who, in various legends, are often said to be Mara's daughters. In Buddhist cosmology, Mara personifies unwholesome impulses, unskillfulness, the "death" of the spiritual life.
Judaism
Yahwe, the God in pre-exilic Judaism, was the creator of both good and evil, like stated in Isaiah 45:7: "I create the light, I create the darkness". The Devil does not exist in Jewish scriptures yet. However under influence of Zoroastrianism during the Achaemenid Empire, evil as a separate principle were introduced to the Jewish belief-system, gradually externalized the opposition until the Hebrew term satan developed into a specific supernatural entity, changing the monistic view of Judaism into a dualistic one. Later Rabbinic Judaism rejects the Enochian books, which depicted the Devil as an independent force of evil besides God. written during the Second Temple period under Persian influence. After the apocalyptic period references to Satan in Tanakh are thought to be allegorical.
Christianity
Christianity identifies the Devil ("Satan") with the serpent who tempted Adam and Eve to eat the forbidden fruit, and describes him as a "fallen angel" who terrorizes the world through evil, is the antithesis of Truth, and shall be condemned, together with the fallen angels who follow him, to eternal fire at the Last Judgement. In mainstream Christianity the devil is usually referred to as Satan. Some modern Christians consider the devil to be an angel who, along with one-third of the angelic host (the demons) rebelled against God and has consequently been condemned to the Lake of Fire. He is described as hating all humanity (or more accurately creation), opposing God, spreading lies and wreaking havoc on the souls of mankind. Other modern Christians consider the devil in the Bible to refer figuratively to human sin and temptation and to any immoral human system.
Satan is often identified as the serpent who convinced Eve to eat the forbidden fruit; thus, Satan has often been depicted as a serpent. Though this identification is not present in the Adam and Eve narrative, this interpretation goes back at least as far as the time of the writing of the Book of Revelation, which specifically identifies Satan as being the serpent (Rev. 20:2).
In the Bible, the devil is identified with "the dragon" and "the old serpent" in the Book of Revelation 12:9, 20:2 have also been identified with Satan, as have "the prince of this world" in the Gospel of John 12:31, 14:30; and "the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience" in the Epistle to the Ephesians 2:2; and "the god of this world" in 2 Corinthians 4:4. He is also identified as the dragon in the Book of Revelation (e.g.), and the tempter of the Gospels (e.g.).
The devil is sometimes called Lucifer, particularly when describing him as an angel before his fall, although the reference in Isaiah 14:12 to Lucifer, or the Son of the Morning, is a reference to a Babylonian king.
Beelzebub is originally the name of a Philistine god (more specifically a certain type of Baal, from Ba'al Zebûb, lit. "Lord of Flies") but is also used in the New Testament as a synonym for Satan. A corrupted version, "Belzeboub", appears in The Divine Comedy (Inferno XXXIV).
In other, non-mainstream, Christian beliefs (e.g. the beliefs of the Christadelphians) the word "satan" in the Bible is not regarded as referring to a supernatural, personal being but to any 'adversary' and figuratively refers to human sin and temptation.
Apocrypha/Deuterocanon
In the Book of Wisdom, the devil is represented as the one who brought death into the world. The Second Book of Enoch contains references to a Watcher angel called Satanael, describing him as the prince of the Grigori who was cast out of heaven and an evil spirit who knew the difference between what was "righteous" and "sinful". A similar story is found in 1 Enoch; however, in that book, the leader of the Grigori is called Semjâzâ.
In the apocryphal literature, Satan rules over a host of angels. Mastema, who induced God to test Abraham through the sacrifice of Isaac, is identical with Satan in both name and nature. The Book of Enoch contains references to Sathariel, thought also to be Sataniel and Satan'el. The similar spellings mirror that of his angelic brethren Michael, Raphael, Uriel and Gabriel, previous to his expulsion from Heaven.
Mandaean
According to Mandaeans mythology, one of the fallen lights, which created the known world, called Ruha Qadishta resembles a personified evil. She dwelled in the world of light until her "fall" and then gave birth to the lord of darkness named Ur. Together they create several evil demons and magicians among them Jesus the son of Ruha Qadistha, who accordingly distorted Baptism and Adonai, considered to be the sun. Eventually Ruha will be rehabilitated and return to the world of light.
Islam
Islam accepted the notion of a former heavenly being fell from heaven. The Islamic equivalent of Satan is named Iblis. However, Islam adapts the line taken by Irenaeus, rather than the later Christian consensus that he has fallen because of envy and pride of God. Islam generally refuses the midigated dualism, regarding it as contradictional to the Islamic concept of an all-powerful God. Thus the Devil occupies similar to the Jewish notion of the Devil, a minor role in Islam, as a tempter who takes advantage of humans' inclinations toward self-centeredness. Neither is the Iblis the cause of evil nor is his sin unforgivable. Even Islamic narrations agree on, Iblis once dwelled in heaven, they differ in regard wether or not, Iblis was an angel. While sometimes Iblis is clearly designated as an angel, in Surah 18:50 he is called from the Jinns. Scholars disagree weather this excludes Iblis from the angels or not. Jinn may also refer to all incorperal creatures including angels, or to angels, who were the keepers of Jannah. Other scholars argue, the fact Iblis was created from fire, proofs that he was not an angel. On the other hand, scholars such as Ibn Abbas thought, that some angels may have been created out of fire, an idea sometimes related to the biblical seraphim. Those who reject an angelic origin of Iblis assert, that angels are always obedient to God, while Iblis' disobedience is a result of his free-will. Iblis is commonly depicted black-faced in Islamic art, a feature which later symbolize any devilish creature or heretic.
Devil in Sufism
In contrast to Occidental philosophy, the Sufi idea of seeing Many as One and considering the creation in their essence as the Absolute, leads to the idea of the dissolution of any dualism between the ego substance and the "external" substinantial objects. The rebellion against God takes place on the level of the psyche, that must be trained and disciplined for its union with the spirit that is pure. Since psyche drives the body, flesh is not the obstacle to human, but an unawarness that allowed the impulsive forces to cause rebellion against God on the level of the psyche. Yet, it is not a dualism between body, psyche and spirit, since the spirit embraces both psyche and corperal aspects of human. Since the world is hold as the mirror in which God's attributes are reflected, participation in worldly affairs is not necessarily seens as opposed to God. The Devil activates the selfish desires of the psyche, leading him astray from the Divine.
Yazidism
According to Yazidism there is no entity in Yazidism which represents evil in opposition to God; such dualism is rejected by Yazidis and evil regarded as non-existent. Yazidis adhere to strict monism prohibiting to pronounce the word "devil" and everything that is related to hell, regarding even mentioning such words as blasphemous.
Bahá'í Faith
In the Bahá'í Faith, a malevolent, superhuman entity such as a devil or satan is not believed to exist. These terms do, however, appear in the Bahá'í writings, where they are used as metaphors for the lower nature of man. Human beings are seen to have free will, and are thus able to turn towards God and develop spiritual qualities or turn away from God and become immersed in their self-centered desires. Individuals who follow the temptations of the self and do not develop spiritual virtues are often described in the Bahá'í writings with the word satanic. The Bahá'í writings also state that the devil is a metaphor for the "insistent self" or "lower self" which is a self-serving inclination within each individual. Those who follow their lower nature are also described as followers of "the Evil One".
Other names
Demons
In some religions and traditions, these titles are separate demons; others identify these names as guises of the devil. Even when thought of as individual demons, some are often thought of being under the Devil's direct control. This identifies only those thought of as the devil; List of demons has a more general listing.
Titles
A list of liturgical names for the devil may be found in Jeffrey Burton Russell, Lucifer, the Devil in the Middle Ages (Cornell University Press, 1986), p. 128, note 76 online.
These are titles that almost always refer to devil-figures.
The devil as Creator-deity
Several religious authors throughout history have advanced the notion that the god of the Old Testament is consistent in character with the devil. They make the case that the Biblical God is a divine force that wreaks suffering, death and destruction and that tempts or commands humanity into committing mayhem and genocide. Tertullian accuses Marcion of Sinope, the first great heretic of Christianity in the 1st century, that he
[held that] the Old Testament was a scandal to the faithful ... and ... accounted for it by postulating [that Jehovah was] a secondary deity, a demiurgus, who was god, in a sense, but not the supreme God; he was just, rigidly just, he had his good qualities, but he was not the good god, who was Father of Our Lord Jesus Christ.
The Church condemned his writings as heretical. John Arendzen (1909) in the Catholic Encyclopedia (1913) mentions that Eusebius accused Apelles, the 2nd-century AD Gnostic, of considering the Inspirer of Old-Testament prophecies to be not a god, but an evil angel. Hegemonius (4th century) accuses the Persian prophet Mani, founder of the Manichaean sect in the 3rd century AD, identified Jehovah as "the devil god which created the world" and said that "he who spoke with Moses, the Jews, and the priests ... is the [Prince] of Darkness, ... not the god of truth."
These writings refer to the Jewish God variously as "a demiurgus", "an evil angel", "the devil god", "the Prince of Darkness", "the source of all evil", "the Devil", "a demon", "a cruel, wrathful, warlike tyrant", "Satan" and "the first beast of the book of Revelation".
See also
- Deal with the Devil
- Devil in popular culture
- Hades, Underworld
- Krampus, in the Tyrolean area also Tuifl.
- Non-physical entity
- Theistic Satanism
Footnotes
References
External links
- Quotations related to Devil at Wikiquote
- The dictionary definition of Devil at Wiktionary
- Media related to The Devil at Wikimedia Commons
- Entry from the Catholic Encyclopedia
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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