Replies to post #92780 on Tornado Alley (PROG)

[fuagf]

We perceive evil as greater than a mere moral ignorance. We perceive
it as transcending the individual and possessing unity of purpose and
force. Over the centuries, the expression of these perceptions has
formed a tradition that posits a principle of evil and accords it
personality.

Hebrew-Christian thought developed this tradition most fully. The
tradition, a complex blend of diverse mythological and philosophical
elements, bears the following marks: (1) It is alive. Perceptions of
evil continue to occur to individual minds. The bleeding soldier,
the crippled child, the old woman in the devastated village, the
murdered hostage, these are not abstractions, but real people who
truly suffer. Personifications of evil also persist, even in the
materialist world of today, as the revival of interest in exorcism
and possession testifies. (2) Because the tradition is alive, it
goes on develloping through time. The movement of the concept is
continually being reinforced and modified by new formulations.
(3) Because the tradition has not yet reached its focus, no final
definition of the Devil is now possible. It is possible, however,
to offer a definition of the Devil as conceived at the time of the
New Testament.

The most important development in the tradition is the shift from
monism in the direction of dualism. Monism posits one divine
principle; polytheist monism teaches that the many gods are
manifestations of that principle. The God is a coincidence of
opposites, responsible for both good and evil. This ambivalence
is manifested in two ways: (a) each individual deity may be
ambivalent, as is the God himself; (b) two deities representing
opposite principles, such as Horus and Seth, may be paired.

The first clear departure from monism occurred in Iran, where
Zarathustra's followers posited two principles, each independent
of the other. One was the good god, the god of light; the other
the evil god, the god of darkness. In Iranian dualism, both
principles were spirits. Another dualism appeared in Greece,
asserting an opposition between spirit and matter. These two
dualisms -- Iranian and Greek -- united in late Jewish and
Christian thought; the result was an association of the good Lord
with spirit and the Devil with matter.

The third departure from monism appeared among the Hebrews. The
early insisted that Yahweh was the only manifestation of the
divine principle: their god became the God. They wanted their
one god to be all good as well, however, and so they implicitly
and unconsciously separated the evil side of the God from the
good side, calling the good side the Lord and the evil side the
Devil. But as the essential principle of their religion was
monotheism, however, they had to stop short of positing two
separate principles. That left the evil spirit, the Devil, in
an anomalous position. On the one hand he was the author of
evil, and his existence relieved the Lord of direct responsibility
for many of the evils of the world. On the other hand, he was
not an independent principle but the creature and even the servant
of the Lord. This anomaly led to an implicit tension between
monism and dualism. The Devil, who was not prominent in the Old
Testament, gained stature in the Apocryphal, Apocalyptic, and New
Testament literatures. Far from being a mere accretion of
peripheral superstitions, the Devil has his genesis in the God
himself. He is a counterpart, a doublet of the good Lord. He is
the shadow of God.

The shift from monism toward dualism was paralled [sic] by a shift
in theodicy. In most of the ancient religions, theodicy was
implicitly expressed in mythology. But Greek philosophical
thought, and the Jewish and Christian writers influenced by it,
sought a rational and explicit theodicy. The philosophers
formulated a rational conception of moral law that was applicable
to all intelligent beings. This permitted a rational and moral
definition of evil. In mythology evil had been vaguely defined;
philosophy now made the distinction between moral and natural
evils and defined the Devil's role in both.

To what extent was the Devil responsible for the evil in the world?

Egyptian thought, positing a perfect cosmos, needed not theodicy.
In Mesopotamia and Canaan, and among the early Greeks and Hebrews,
something was felt to be wrong with the world, and this evil was
variously ascribed to evil spirits, to ill choices of human free
will, or to the inscrutable will of the deity. Dualism radically
changed this theodicy, freeing the God from responsiblity for evil
and assigning it instead to an independent and hostile spirit.
Both late Hebrew and early Christian thought were caught in the
tension between monism and dualism. Insisting on monotheism, they
left the God with at least partial responsibility for evil; tending
to dualism, they shifted much of the blame onto the Devil.

The relationship of demons to the Devil has always been somewhat
blurred, and the demons of the New Testament are a composite of
different elements. One element is the fallen angels. To the
extent that the demons are fallen angels, their origin is in the
*bene ha-elohim*, the sons of the God. In this context the demons
share a common divine origin with the Devil, and there is reason
to refer in one breath to "the Devil and the other demons," for
the Devil is the first and greatest of the fallen angels. But the
demons have roots in other ancient traditions as well. They are
menacing spirits of the thunderstorm or the lonely grove, avenging
ghosts of the dead, bringers of disease, and violent spirits who
possess the soul.
---------------------------------------------------------------

principle of evil -------------- DEVIL \
|
} fallen angels
/ demons |
| /
pagan deities {
nature spirits |
\

---------------------------------------------------------------
In the living tradition, the characteristics of the personification
of evil gradually accumulate. In Egypt and Mesopotamia the workings
of the evil spirit are expressed diffusely. In Canaan the spirit of
evil, Mot, signifies death and sterility. In Iran, Ahriman is
destroyer and deceiver, the personification of lust and greed, the
prince of darkness, the lord of lies, and the lie itself. It is
curious that the deep ambivalence toward the female principle in
these ancient traditions did not produce a female personification
of evil. The Egyptian Sekhmet, the Canaanite Anath, the Greek
Hecate, are all ambivalent. The Iranian Jeh the whore and Druj
the lie are evil, but they are subsumed under the general, and male,
evil principle. Ahriman. The female Hellenistic Dyad was a
bloodless abstraction. Other evil female spirits -- Lilitu,
Labartu, the Gorgons, Sirens, Harpies, and Lamias -- were minor
entities that never approached the dignity of the principle of evil.

The Christian iconography of the Devil has ancient precedents,
although the links are not always clear. The Devil is red. Red
was characteristic of the followers of Seth, but no connection has
been demonstrated between the redness of Seth and that of the
medieval Devil. A red serpent adorned the temple of Marduk, but
again the connection is unclear. It is possible that the Devil's
redness is derived from the redness of the underworld's destroying
fire. Or, the Devil is black. Seth sometimes appeared as a black
pig, and Dionysos was sometimes black, but the connection is
uncertain. The Devil's blackness may derive from his association
with darkness, which symbolized death, annihilation, and the
terrors of the night. Lilitu, Lilith, and the Lamias are night
creatures, and the world of the dead is dark from Egypt to Greece
and Iran to Rome. Canaanite Mot and Greek Hades are lords of
death and darkness. The most direct connection of darkness is
with Mazdaism, where Ahriman is defined as the lord of the absence
of light. Though the principle of darkness may be translated
iconographically into a black hue, the Devil can also be pallid
owing to his association with death and the sunless underworld.
The cold and stinking nature of the Devil so prominent in medieval
beliefs derives directly from the iconography of Ahriman.

Theriomorphy, the manifestation of a spirit as a beast, is
associated in India, Egypt, and Mesopotamia with ambivalent deities;
in other cultures, an animal appearance was ascribed exclusively
to spirits of evil. Animals associated with evil were the pig,
scorpion, crocodile, dog, jackal, cat, rat, toad, lizard, lion,
serpent, and dragon. Of these the pig, cat, toad, dog, and serpent
appear most frequently in the Judeo-Christian tradition. The goat
form of the Devil derives primarily from the image of Pan. From
such theriomorphic ancestors the Devil inherited his claws, cloven
hooves, hairiness, huge phallus, wings, horns, and tail.

Three of his characteristics have origins other than the bestial.
Wings are an ancient symbol of divine power found on the shoulders
of many Mesopotamian deities, and from Mesopotamia they passed
over onto the shoulders of the Hebrew cherubim and seraphim.
Ahura Mazda in Iran was presented borne aloft by mighty wings.
Hermes, the messenger of the gods, wore wings upon his ankles or
legs. Horns too are ancient symbols of power and fertility.
The Devil's "pitchfork" derives in part from the ancient trident,
such as that carried by Poseidon, which symbolizes threefold
power over earth, air, and sea, in part from the symbols of death
(such as the mallet of Charun), and in part from the instruments
used in hell for the torment of the damned.

The Devil, like gods and angels, is not restricted to any one
form. He has the power to change his shape at will, and in order
to deceive he may appear as a handsome youth, a beautiful girl,
or even an angel of light.

The Devil's association with the underworld connects him to both
death and fertility. In Egypt, Mesopotamia, Canaan, and early
Greece, and among the early Hebrews, the underworld was a place
where the dead led a pale, shadowy existence; the torment of
sinners did not figure prominently. With the advent of Iranian
dualism, and with the Greek philosophers' definitions of morality,
punishment became more prominent. In Iran, the dead had to pass
over the Chinvat Bridge in order to attain paradise; lurking
beneath were demons who caused sinners to fall from the bridge
into a pit of torment. Among the Greeks, shadowy Hades gradually
merged with the more sinister Tartarus, and the torments at first
reserved only to a few (Prometheus in the world above, Tantalus
and Ixion in the underworld) were extended to all the unjust. The
Hebrew concepts of Gehenna and Sheol combined to produce an
underworld place of torment, which in Apocalyptic literature
became the abode of the Devil and his attendant demons. All
these elements combined to create the Christian tradition of hell,
which the New Testament was as yet far from clearly articulated.

The individual eschatology of death and the underworld was
associated with the eschatology of the cosmos, the end of the
world. Before the advent of Iranian dualism, it was not necessary
to assume an end of the world, a climax to cosmic events. But a
universal warfare between a good and an evil spirit ending in the
triumph of one and the destruction of the other renders some kind
of climax inevitable. After ages of struggle, during which the
power of the Devil has increased, the Lord descends, the final
battle is joined, and the Devil is defeated, to be bound forever
in the pit or forever annihilated. On that great day those who
aligned themselves with the Devil, whether spiritual or mortal
beings, will suffer the fate of their master.

But the idea of the fall of the Devil is ambiguously expressed
in the tradition. Eschatology represents the final fall and ruin
of the evil one. But Mazdaism offers two accounts of a previous
fall. At the time of the initial war in heaven, when Ahriman
first coveted the light of Ohrmazd, Ohrmazd cast him into the
outer darkness, or, in another version, hurled him down from heaven
through the earth into the primeval waters below. A similar
eschatology is found in Mithraism. The Hebrews and Christians had
a further reason to emphasize the double fall of Satan. Their
tradition, though implicitly dualistic, explicitly insisted that
Satan was not an independent principle coeval with the God fo light,
but rather a creature of the good Lord, and, like the rest of the
Lord's creation, originally good. It was therefore necessary to
assume an initial fall of Satan from grace, that fall resulting
from his free decision to reject the will of the creator. This
first fall was a moral one, but it was accompanied by a geographical
descent from heaven, either by the free will of Satan and his
followers, as with the Watcher angels, or because of their forceful
ejection from heaven by the angels of the good Lord. When, as with
the Watchers, the descent was voluntary, it was followed by a
second, involuntary, motion, when the good angels thrust the evil
ones down into the valleys and pits of the earth. In the version
in which the evil angels' first fall from heaven was a forceful
ejection, they were cast down into the air, or onto the earth, or
else into the pits and valleys of the earth. Eventually
Christianity would amalgamate these various descents into one
stunning headlong plunge from heaven to hell.

The chief characteristics of the Devil at the time of the New
Testament were these: (1) he was the personification of evil;
(2) he did physical harm to people by attacking their bodies
or possessing them; (3) he tested people, tempting them to sin
in order to destroy them or recruit them in his struggle against
the Lord; (4) he accused and punished sinners; (5) he was the
head of a host of evil spirits, fallen angels, or demons; (6)
he had assimilated most of the evil qualities of ancient
destructive nature spirits or ghosts; (7) he was the ruler of
this world of matter and bodies until such time as the Lord's
own kingdom would come; (8) until that final time he would be
in constant warfare against the good Lord; (9) he would be
defeated by the good Lord at the end of the world. The concept
of the Devil had been given its basic contours.

But Jewish and Christian traditions now began to part company.
Judaism generally followed the Rabbinic tradition in limiting
the role of the Devil strictly. Christianity -- both erudite
and popular -- developed the concept much further. Christian
tradition came to identify the Devil and the demons more
completely with the fallen angels, removing the Devil farther
from his divine origin and assimilating him to the demons as
their prince. It clarified the nature and ranks of the good
and evil angels, along with the extent of their powers over
nature and over humankind, and it addressed the question whether
they had bodies and, if so, of what kind. It set the time of
Satan's rebellion and subsequent fall from grace at the
beginning of time, rather than at the end, and it discussed the
motives for his fall: lust, pride, envy of Adam, or envy of the
Lord. It firmly identified the Devil both with the serpent of
Genesis and with Lucifer. It asked whether the angels fell into
the air or into the pit; it asked where hell was located, whether
it was everlasting, and whether the demons suffer there or whether
they merely torment the damned, their own punishment being
delayed until later. It developed a complex theology of possession,
obsession, and exorcism. It associated the Devil with the
Antichrist, and, by extension, with heretics, Jews, and other
"infidels," who came to form part of a "mystical body of the Devil."
It discussed the extent to which the Lord gave power over humanity
to the Devil in retribution for our sins and the manner in which
Christ has freed us from his power. The Devil of the New Testament
is but one stage of a developing concept, the entirety and overall
direction of which, rather than any one stage, constitute the truth
about the Devil.
------------------------------------------------------------
"The Devil: Perceptions of Evil From Antiquity to Primitive
Christianity", by Jeffrey Burton Russell, Cornell University
Press, 1977; pp. 250-7.
____________________________________________________________
What do I know about the Devil? (1) I have had direct experience
of a force which I perceive as evil, as having unity and purpose,
and as coming from beyond myself. (2) This experience is quite
common among sane people in many cultures, so it cannot be dismissed
as madness. (3) The experience may appear to come from beyond
myself because it arises from my unconscious, rather than because
it objectively is beyond myself. (4) But the beyondness is part
of the perception itself, and it is quite common in the perception
of others, so that it must be taken seriously. (5) If the experience
does come from beyond me, what precisely is the experience of? How
describe the entity that occasions such an experience? Each person
interprets the experience in terms of his own personal and cultural
predilections, so that considerable variety exists in the context
of reported perceptions. (6) My pesonal and cultural predilections
should be adjusted and corrected in terms of what I have learned
from the methodology I have chosen. (7) The methodology I have
chosen shows a definable development of historical tradition, which
asserts, at a minimum, the existence of a principle of evil.
Naturally it can be objected that many people in many cultures do
not share this view. I am here merely presenting my own grounds,
as a human being, for my beliefs. Of course I am not certain that
the Devil exists, much less what he is if he does exist. All
reservations considered, however, I do believe in the existence
of a personification and principle of evil, call it what you will.

Another important question must at least be raised. What is the
*function* of the Devil today? Is belief in the Devil of positive
value, or not? One the one hand, belief in the Devil is harmful,
because attributing evil to the Devil may excuse us from examining
our own personal responsibility for vice, and the responsibility
of unjust societies, laws, and governments for suffering. It is
also harmful in that people who experiment with Satanism open
themselves to serious psychological dangers. On the other hand,
there is at least one advantage to the belief in the Devil. The
old liberal belief that man is somehow, for some reason,
intrinsically good, and that evils can be corrected by adjusting
education, penal laws, welfare arrangements, city planning, and
so on, has not proved its validity. Recognition of the basic
existence of evil, and consequently of the need for strong efforts
to integrate and overcome it, may be socially more useful as well
as intellectually and psychologically more true. Further, theists
at least should again consider a natural diabology. If a natural
theology can be argued from the putative universal human experience
of the good, then a natural diabology can be argued from the
putative universal human experience of evil.
--------------------------------------------
Ibid., pp. 259-60.
__________________
...C.G. Jung and Erich Neumann... argue that repression (as opposed
to conscious suppression) of destructive feelings gradually creates
a "shadow," a negative force in the personality that can burst out
destructively without warning. I anger you and you want to hit me
in the face. You may recognize that urge and decide not to act upon
it. That is conscious suppression. Or you may refuse to recognize
the urge, insisting that you are too nice a person to feel that way.
That is unconscious repression. The feelings you repress do not
disappear, but are locked into the unconscious, where they may add
to your hatred of yourself, producing ulcers or other suchj symptoms,
or they may cause you to project your own repressed hostilities onto
others. "The more {a person} represses his shadow, the blacker and
denser the shadow becomes," says Moreno. And Solzhenitsyn says:

In keeping silent about evil, in burying it so deep within
us that no sign of it appears on the surface, we are
implanting it, and it will rise up a thousandfold in the
future."

It is the perspective of depth psychology, especially that of Jung,
that is most suggestive in understanding the Devil. The Jungian
psychic process is the process of individuation. In the beginning
a person has only a chaotic, undifferentiated view of himself.
As he develops, his good and evil sides are gradually differentiated
from the other. Ordinarily he represses the evil sid, causing the
growth of a shadow in his unconscious. If the repression mechanisms
are too strong, his shadow will become monstrous and may eventually
burst out and overwhelm him. In healthy people there is a third
stage, the stage of integration, in which the good and evil sides
are both recognized and then reintegrated on a conscious level.

This three-stage development in the human psyche may produce a similar
three-stage development of the human perception of the God himself.
In other words, the God may appear at first undifferentiated. In the
second stage, the benevolent Lord and the evil Devil are increasingly
separated and the evil Devil repressed and banished. A third stage,
which has yet to manifest itself clearly in the history of the concept,
would be the integration of the Lord and the Devil. Jung expressed
his belief in such a process in the deity in his "seven sermons to the
dead":

Aabraxas speaketh that hallowed and accursed word which
is life and death at the same time. Abraxas begetteth
truth and lying, good and evil, light and darkness in
the same word and in the same act. Wherefore is Abraxas
terrible.

----------------------------------------------------------------
Ibid., pp. 30-1.
________________

EOF

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