Art of the Devil. Arturo Graf
and sense, as if one sought by a fiction of this sort to avoid acknowledging an order of beings originally diabolic; while in the later portion of the same book the demons are giants born of these unions.
In the teachings of the Rabbis, Satan acquires new features and new characteristics; but in the Old Testament, his figure has as yet but little prominence and may even be called evanescent in comparison with that which he possessed later. There may be several reasons for this; the principal one, however, is doubtless to be sought in the very nature of Jewish monotheism, which is so constituted that only with great difficulty can it find room for any positive dualistic concept. Jehovah is an absolute god, a despotic lord, extremely jealous of his own power and authority. He cannot suffer that there rise up against him beings, less powerful indeed than he, but beings who venture to withstand him, who pose as his adversaries, who dare to thwart his work. His will is the one and only law, which governs the world and holds subject to itself all powers save, perhaps, those divinities of the Gentiles, whose existence is not denied, but who do not enter as living elements into the organism of the religion of Jehovah. Therefore, in the Book of Job, Satan appears, more than aught else, to be a servant of God, an instigator of divine trials and experiments. But there are other reasons. One needs only to examine somewhat the character of Jehovah to perceive at once that, where such a god exists, a demon no longer has much reason for existence. In Jehovah, the opposing powers, the mutually contrasted moral elements, which, when distinct and separate, give rise to dualism, are as yet intermingled after a fashion. Jehovah is jealous, savage, inexorable; the punishments that he inflicts are out of all proportion to the faults committed; his vengeances are frightful and brutal; they strike indiscriminately both the guilty and the innocent, both men and beasts. He torments his worshipers with absurd prescriptions which cause them to live in perpetual dread of sin; he bids them smite the populations of the captured cities with the edge of the sword. He says, through the mouth of Isaiah: “I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things”.[12] In him, God and Satan are still united; the separation that slowly takes place between the two, and the definite antagonism resulting from this, are signs of the near approach to Christianity.
Anonymous, Scenes from Hell,west wall, south portal, 1125–1130. Église Saint-Pierre, Moissac, France.
Anonymous, Last Judgment (detail), tympanum, west portal, 1105–1110. Église Sainte-Foy, Conques, France.
Gislebertus, Last Judgment (detail), tympanum, west portal. Cathédrale Saint-Lazare, Autun, France.
Nicolas de Verdun, Chapel Ambon (detail), 1180. Klosterneuburg Abbey, Klosterneuburg, Austria.
Satan is already partly formed, but he attains the fullness of his being only in Christianity, the religion that claims to seek the fulfillment of that Judaism from which it sprang, yet in so large a measure denies it. Here we find ourselves confronted by a maze and tangle of moral causes and historic causes, all of which have the effect of ever exalting, colouring and enhancing the sinister figure of Satan. On the other hand, Jehovah is transformed into a God incomparably milder and kinder, into a God of love, who necessarily rejects, as non-assimilable, every Satanic element; and when Christ also shall have been raised to the godhead – the gentle, radiant figure of the deity who for love of men himself became man, who for their sake shed his blood and suffered ignominious death – , by this very contrast he will bring out in altogether new relief the grim and gloomy figure of the Adversary. The human tragedy, fused with the divine tragedy, will reveal the inner causes of his miraculous progress, awakening in the minds of men new moral concepts, new images of things, a new picture of heaven and of earth. It is true, then, that Satan led our first parents to sin and, by virtue of the offence provoked by him, robbed God of the human family and of the world in which it lives. How great must be his power, how firm his usurped dominion, if in order to ransom the lost it is necessary that the very Son of God shall sacrifice himself, shall give himself up to that death that entered the world precisely through the agency of the Enemy! Before God set his hand to the work of redemption, Satan could rest secure in his possession; but now that this redemption is completed, even before it is completed, will he not be bound to exert his power to the utmost in order to contest with the victor the fruits of victory and to regain, at least in part, what he has lost? Yes, he even dares to tempt the Redeemer himself, and the apostle pictures him as a roaring lion in quest of prey that he may devour.[13]
But if the conditions of the ransom, if the rank of Him who was to bring it about, gave Satan a degree of greatness and importance that he could not have had otherwise, the redemption itself did not rob him of all the prey that he had taken or that he was yet to take, and the victory of Christ did not so completely overthrow his power as the desire of the ransomed would fain have hoped. Saint John said that the world must be judged and the prince of this world be cast out;[14] Saint Paul declares that the victory of Christ had been full and complete and that with his death he had destroyed the king of death;[15] yet the prince of this world was not really deposed, yet the king of death was not slain; but rather he continued, as before, to scatter death broadcast – eternal death no less than temporal. Christ breaks through the gates of Hell, he bursts into the kingdom of darkness, he depopulates the abyss; but behind him the gates close again, the darkness gathers anew, the abyss is repeopled. Strange to tell, never was Satan so much talked of among men, never was Satan so much feared, as after the victory of Christ, after the completion of the work of redemption!
Nor did this come about through any simple error of judgment, through any logical contradiction. Evil has been printed in the book of our life in such characters that no mere religious doctrine, no dream of faith and love, is able to erase it. The discouraging spectacle of a world in dissolution presented itself on every side to the eyes of the new believers; the delicate, fragrant flower of Christ’s teachings unfolded in the midst of Satan’s midden. Was not the work of the eternal prevaricator to be seen in that multicoloured polytheism that had so charmed and seduced men’s spirits? Were not Jove and Minerva, Venus and Mars, and all the gods that peopled Olympus, incarnations of him, or servants of his will, executors of his designs? That lusty, joyous civilisation of paganism, those flourishing arts, that bold philosophy, those riches and honours, those scenes of love and idleness, those boundless debaucheries – were not all these his inventions, his tricks, forms and instruments of his tyranny? Was not Rome’s empire the empire of Satan? Yes, in fact: Satan was worshiped in the temples, lauded at the public festivals; Satan sat on the throne with Caesar; Satan ascended the Capitoline with the Triumphatores. Who knows how often the devout faithful, gathered in the Catacombs, hearing the roar and turmoil of that life passing over their heads, trembled lest the diabolic tempest should engulf the bark of Christ, and in the very arms of the Cross felt themselves threatened and overwhelmed.
Anonymous, Missal Used at the Saint-Nicaise Church in Reims (Missale Remense), between 1285 and 1297. Parchment, miniature, 23.3 × 16.2 cm (text: 14.7 × 10.5 cm). Russian National Library, St. Petersburg, Russia.
Thus Satan attained gigantic proportions from all the greatness of the pagan world centring in himself. In every aspect of that life which cramped him in on every side, the Christian perceived a likeness to the “strong man armed”[16] whom Christ had come to conquer, and who, conquered, had become bolder and more aggressive than before. And his soul was filled with consternation and terror; how was he to guard himself against the wiles, how defend himself from the attacks, of an enemy more venomous than the Hydra, more multiform than Proteus? Tertullian will warn him, others too will warn him, not to seek the company of pagans, not to take part in their festivals and games, to engage in no calling that can, directly or indirectly, serve the worship of idols; but how is he to observe such a prohibition and live? Or how, if he does observe it, is he to
Isaiah xiv, 7.
I Peter v, 8.
John xii, 31.
Hebrews ii, 14.
Luke xi, 21.