[For the sake of my posting schedule and your time, I am posting segments of Chapter 3 as I write them. If you have any suggestions or comments, reach out through my contact form. To read everything released so far, visit the Satan and Spiritual Warfare page.]
What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun. Is there a thing of which it is said, “See, this is new”? It has been already in the ages before us. (Ecclesiastes 1:9-10)
The previous chapter revealed an ancient worldview that still dominates our modern culture. We saw the familiar belief in an evil deity who rivals an all-good god, existing to sow chaos and lead humans into wickedness. This belief evolved into assigning every aspect of life as originating from one of those two sources, eventually impacting early Jewish and Christian thought. With the rise of Gnosticism, some early adopters of Christianity explained their sinful temptations by viewing themselves as intrinsically good “sparks of light” led astray by external forces. And with that, personal experience and revelation became elevated above tradition and reason.
Already, we can appreciate that there’s nothing new about our modern misunderstandings. However, there’s quite a gap between the rise of dualism from 1500 BC – 400 AD and what we say about Satan today. This chapter will take a brisk walk through history and highlight dualism’s prominence in many Christian and non-Christian worldviews over the last 1,800 years. Some specifics may change, but the fingerprints of Zoroastrianism and Gnosticism are still clearly present.
The Disciples of John and Peter (80 – 110 AD)
When looking at Christian Gnosticism in the last chapter, we can understand why God’s people would look at the growing wickedness of an increasingly pagan culture and be attracted to something that so simply explained the evil of the world and the people around them. We can even understand why imperfect people would try to harmonize such an assumed “truth” of their culture with biblical faith. Yet with that, we may wonder whether the Bible, and thus Christianity itself, has been shaped by pagan worldviews. Before we continue looking at the heritage of the modern interpretation of Satan, let’s pause and find a glimmer of encouragement from a few men who studied under two of Jesus Christ’s apostles.
By God’s grace, we have a handful of texts written by disciples of Peter and John. Clement I, Ignatius, Papias, and Polycarp are four men who wrote about various issues faced by the church. Their writings of these men who had first-hand contact with the apostles notably lack any mention of a personal devil who attacks individuals or the church itself.
Their writings certainly mention Satan, but these apostle-taught men speak differently than their dualistic peers. They portray Satan as the wicked ruler of the world, and the church must resist compromising to individuals or beliefs that are against Christ. Yet, never is Satan mentioned as directly attacking or tempting individuals. Although their writings don’t carry the authority of the Bible, it’s a refreshing encouragement to see that those directly taught by the apostles maintained a biblically consistent view of Satan.[1]
Manicheanism (200 – 700 AD)
This Babylonian religion adapted various beliefs to promote a familiar story of the unending battle between the forces of good and evil. At some point, Satan spawned from darkness and established a kingdom from which he creates every evil thing in the universe. Long ago, when forces of good battled this ancient foe, “sparks of light” became trapped in the material universe.[2] Now, humans can only find self-actualization and release from the bonds of the material universe through special knowledge found in Jesus, Buddha, or other prophets.[3]
Ransom Theory of the Atonement (240 – 1100 AD)
For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many. (Mark 10:45)
What does it mean that Jesus paid a “ransom” on the cross? Popularized by Origen in 246 and reinforced by St. Augustine, this Christian doctrine claimed that Adam and Eve sold our souls to Satan.[4] As the hostage-taker, Satan had the power to demand whatever ransom price he wanted God the Father to pay for our captive souls. Augustine explains that Satan demanded the sacrifice of God’s Son without realizing his powerlessness to keep Jesus in the grave.[5] The Ransom Theory of the Atonement portrayed Satan as a being nearly equal to the Almighty God. He could make God play according to his rules, carrying the authority and power to require the Father to meet Satan’s demands.
Catharism (1100 – 1400 AD)
Like copying a friend’s homework assignment and changing a few answers, Catharism and its other variations borrowed heavily from the teachings of Manicheanism while introducing a decidedly more Christian flavor. This particular worldview sprang up in southern Europe and introduced a heretical doctrine on baptism, causing the Roman Catholic Church to oppose and persecute its followers violently. This view taught that humans aren’t merely sparks of light but actual angels trapped in human form and doomed to a cycle of rebirth until they can undergo a special baptism on their deathbed. When performing this baptism, called consolamentum, the recipient will finally be released from the material world (owned by Satan, the evil god of the Old Testament) and return to the true God.[6]
Mysticism (1200 AD – Present)
From the teachings of Meister Eckhart in Germany to the spread of Jewish Kaballah in Spain and France, mysticism found popularity in both Eastern and Western thought. This belief focused more on the true God than His evil counterpart, yet borrowed from Gnosticism’s separation of spiritual good and material evil. Lurian Kaballa, still practiced today, even taught a form of the “divine spark” trapped in humans that seeks release.
However, Satan still played a role in the daily life of a Mystic. To them, attaining oneness with God is the highest human goal. Satan, the most selfish and envious of all beings, cannot tolerate this. Thus, while Satan would generally harass and torment anyone, his attention was directly proportionate to how “close” someone came to God. The nearer one came to finding true union with the divine, the more intensely Satan would try to pull them away.[7]
Mysticism’s most significant contribution to our modern worldview comes from its high emphasis on one’s personal encounter with the divine. Rather than valuing objective realities, it introduced the world to viewing personal experience as ultimate truth.[8] We’ll soon see that while dualism plays a significant role in how we misunderstand Satan, mysticism tempts us to dig into that misunderstanding by clinging to our supposed experiences with Satan, even if those experiences contradict Scripture.
The Rise of a Personal Devil (400 – 1500 AD)
As the Roman Catholic Church dominated the Western world, it set the pace for Christian thought of that day. This was especially true when we remember that the Church translated the Bible into Latin in the Middle Ages, only granting access to church officials and the incredibly wealthy. Gatekeeping the Bible like this resulted in the average Christian basing their biblical truths on tradition and folklore with no reliable way to check if the teachings they heard or repeated were biblically accurate.
Thus, there’s little surprise that dualism morphed the doctrine of Satan into something even more illogical than anything we’ve seen in history. Rather than Satan being a vague figure in the background, the devil became closer to the chief evil we think of today. No longer did Satan contend against God – people now believed Satan personally attacked them.
Around 600 AD, Pope Gregory the Great wrote:
“… separate persons are not assailed by all vices, but by certain ones which are near, and placed close to them. For the ancient enemy first beholds the character [‘conspersionem’] of each person, and then applies the snares of temptations… Our secret adversary, in order then to catch us easily, prepares deceptions closely connected with our several characters… He lays snares therefore against men one by one, by vices adapted to them… [9]
This personal devil, one who custom-tailors temptations to each individual, became a popular part of the culture. We see this reflected in the religious arts as Satan’s depictions show a grotesque creature harassing individuals. Playwrights also started featuring him in morality plays, sending various vices to hinder the story’s characters.
As the centuries progressed, Satan became a boogey man like never before. In 1326, People John XXII officially condemned all forms of magic and divination as “pacts with hell,”[10] leading to centuries of official and unofficial witch hunts as the public became convinced Satan was leading women astray. The fear of witches eventually became weaponized, with religious and political opponents receiving accusations of witchcraft to discredit them. As Satan’s worldly power grew in the minds of the people, they took parts of local pagan folklore, like the mischievous fairies, and reinterpreted them as wicked demons responsible for all manner of human suffering.[11] By the 1500s, the Roman Catholic Church even developed a type of baptism meant to exorcise Satan from children.[12]
Modern Christians seeking to understand where we got our “almost god of evil” cannot ignore the profound legacy of the Roman Catholic Church. By forcing the public to rely on spoken traditions, Satan became a being of mythological proportions. He was the one spying on individuals and attacking their weaknesses. He possessed children and led vulnerable women into the occult. Leaders and laypeople alike took Satan from being a powerful enemy of God and transformed him into an ever more powerful and personal enemy of every individual.
We’ve seen Satan as an “almost god of evil” slowly take shape through various pagan and Christian worldviews over the years. Yet if the time between Zoroastrianism and mysticism gave us a black-and-white sketch of him, the Roman Catholic Church colored in the picture. His portrayal in the Middle Ages faces the same issues we noticed in Chapter 1 – namely, that Satan would require god-like power to be capable of everything Christians blame on him. Yet it’s this mix of folklore and dualism that the godly men of the Reformation would carry out of the Roman Catholic Church and into the Christian consciousness of today.
[1] See 1 Clement, Ignatius to the Ephesians, Polycarp to the Philippians, and Fragments of Papias.
[2] Richard Watson, “Manichæans, or Manichees,” in A Biblical and Theological Dictionary (New York: Lane & Scott, 1851), 617–618.
[3] John F. A. Sawyer, “Manicheism,” in A Concise Dictionary of the Bible and Its Reception (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 160–161.
[4] Dyrness, William A., and Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen, eds. Global Dictionary of Theology: A Resource for the Worldwide Church. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2008, 86.
[5] St. Augustine. “Sermon 80 on the New Testament.” In The Confessions of St. Augustine, edited by Philip Schaff, accessed April 29, 2024. https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/160380.htm.
[6] Fichtenau, Heinrich. 2010. Heretics and Scholars in the High Middle Ages, 1000-1200. Pennsylvania State University Press, 155-171.
[7] Russell, J.B. (1992) Lucifer: The devil in the Middle Ages. Ithaca: Cornell Univ. Press, 290
[8] M. J. Meadow, “Mysticism,” in Baker Encyclopedia of Psychology & Counseling, ed. David G. Benner and Peter C. Hill, Baker Reference Library (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1999), 779.
[9] Gregory I, Pope. The Books of the Morals of St. Gregory the Pope, or an Exposition on the Book of Blessed Job. Vol. 3, The Sixth Part, Book XXIX. Accessed February 16, 2024. http://www.lectionarycentral.com/GregoryMoralia/Book29.html.
[10] Poole, W. Scott. Satan in America: The Devil We Know. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2009, 9.
[11] Russell, Jeffrey Burton. Witchcraft in the Middle Ages. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2019, 100-101.
[12] Johnstone, Nathan. “The Protestant Devil: The Experience of Temptation in Early Modern England.” Journal of British Studies 43, no. 2 (2004): 173–205. https://doi.org/10.1086/380949.
