The Origin of Satan (33 page)

disciples to address in prayer (“Our Father, who art in heaven . .

.”). Yet, the author adds, the very mention of a feminine spiritual

power “is a great anathema to the Hebrews, who are the apostles,

and apostolic people.”93

Such people do see baptism as rebirth through the holy spirit,

but they do not understand that they must be reborn from the

heavenly Father as well. Thus, says
Philip
,

when we were Hebrews, we . . . had only our mother; but

when we became Christians, we had both father and mother.94

Baptism, then, differs for different people. Some, the author

says, “go down in the water [of baptism] and come up without

receiving anything,”95 but nonetheless such a person says, “I am a

Christian.” For such people, according to
Philip
, the name

176 / THE ORIGIN OF SATAN

“Christian” is only a promise of what they may yet receive in the

future. For others, however, baptism becomes a moment of

transformation: “Thus it is when one experiences a mystery.”96

Whoever is reborn of the heavenly Father and heavenly Mother

becomes a whole person again, receiving back a part of the

human self that had been lost in the beginning of time—“the

spirit, the partner of one's soul.” Such a person becomes whole

again, and “holy, down to the very body.”97 One can hardly refer

to such a person as a Christian, “for this person is no longer a

Christian, but a Christ.”98

What about specific practical questions? This author's attitude

recalls that expressed in the
Gospel of Thomas
, where Jesus’

disciples ask him for specific directions: “Do you want us to fast?

How shall we pray? Shall we give alms? What diet should we

observe?” According to Matthew and Luke, Jesus offers specific

answers to such questions. But according to the
Gospel of

Thomas
, he says only, “Do not tell lies, and do not do what you

hate,”99 an ironic answer, for it turns one back upon one’s own

resources. Who but oneself can know when one is lying, or what

one hates? The
Gospel of Philip
, too, while apparently expressing

a preference for asceticism (obviously intended to mirror Paul's

own preference for celibacy over marriage expressed in 1

Corinthians 7:1-40), refrains from offering specific instructions

about sexual behavior. What matters, apparently, is not so much

what one does but the quality of one’s intention. Hence the

Gospel of Philip
remains nonprescriptive, but with two important

provisos: first, the gnostic Christian must temper with love the

freedom
gnosis
conveys; second, the believer must remain

continually aware of his or her potential for doing evil, for only

such awareness can free the Christian—even the gnostic

Christian—from involuntary enslavement to sin.

Although Irenaeus and others charged that Valentinian

Christians were dualists, the
Gospel of Philip
indicates the

opposite. This author abandons even the modified dualism that

characterizes the great majority of Christian teachings, based, as

we have seen, on the conviction that God’s spirit constandy

contends against Satan. Instead of envisioning the power of evil

as an alien force that threatens and invades human beings from

outside, the

THE ENEMY WITHIN / 177

author of
Philip
urges each person to recognize the evil within,

and consciously eradicate it.

Bishop Irenaeus, determined to check the spread of the gnostic

movement within the churches, realized that the measures

Tertullian had suggested would not stop the Valentinians. It is

not enough, Irenaeus says, to insist that all believers confess the

same creed and accept the moral instruction provided by priests

and bishops, for the wily “heretics” willingly do these things, at

least in public. Nor is it enough simply to insist that Christians

accept the authority of all priests and bishops. The Valentinians

include within their own number many priests who are, so to

speak, on their side; Irenaeus explains, “There are those who

many believe are priests, but who . . . conduct themselves with

contempt toward orders, . . . doing evil deeds in secret”100—like

those who are actually initiated into
gnosis
. Rather, Irenaeus

declares, believers must accept only
certain
priests—priests who

not only are properly ordained but who clearly repudiate secret

teaching and refuse to participate in private meetings

unauthorized by the bishop. Therefore, Irenaeus concludes, “it is

necessary to obey the priests who are in the church—those who,

along with apostolic succession, have received the certain gift of

truth.” At the same time,

it is also necessary to hold in suspicion other [priests] who

depart from the primitive succession, and who assemble

themselves in any place whatsoever, regarding these as

heretics, or schismatics, or hypocrites . . . who cleave asunder

and divide the unity of the church.101

These, Irenaeus warns, will receive divine punishment: fire

from heaven will consume them.

Finally Irenaeus denounces Valentinian theology as the

devious result of Satan’s own inspiration. Irenaeus concludes his

five-volume work
Against Heresies
by speaking, in God’s place,

the words of divine judgment:

Let those persons, therefore, who blaspheme the creator, either

by openly expressed disagreement . . . or by distorting

178 / THE ORIGIN OF SATAN

the meaning [of the Scriptures], like the Valentinians and all

the falsely called gnostics, be recognized as agents of Satan by-

all who worship God. Through their agency Satan even now,

and not earlier, has been seen to speak against God . . . the same

God who has prepared eternal fire for every kind of apostasy.102

Just as in the beginning of time Satan led human beings astray

by means of the serpent, “so now,” Irenaeus declares, “do these

people, filled with a Satanic spirit, seduce the people of God.”

Against “all heretics,” Irenaeus helps construct for the Christian

churches the structure that has sustained orthodox Christianity

ever since, by claiming sole access to “the doctrine of the apos-

des, and the system of the church throughout the whole world,

and the distinct manifestation of the body of Christ (that is, the

church) according to the succession of bishops,” together with “a

very complete system of doctrine.”103

C O N C L U S I O N

This vision of cosmic struggle, forces of good contending

against forces of evil, derived originally from Jewish apocalyptic

sources and was developed, as we have seen, by sectarian groups

like the Essenes as they struggled against the forces they saw

ranged against them. This split cosmology, radically revising

earlier monotheism, simultaneously involved a split society,

divided between “sons of light,” allied with the angels, and

“sons of darkness,” in league with the power of evil. Followers

of Jesus adopted the same pattern. Mark, as we have seen, tells

the story of Jesus as the conflict between God's spirit and the

power of Satan, manifest in the opposition Jesus encountered

from evil spirits and evil people alike. Each of the gospels in its

own way invokes this apocalyptic scenario to characterize

conflicts between Jesus1 followers and the various groups each

author perceived as opponents. We have seen, too, that as the

movement became increasingly Gentile, converts turned this

sectarian vocabulary against other enemies—against pagan

magistrates and mobs engaged in bitter struggle with the

growing Christian movement, and against various groups of

dissident Christians, called heretics—or, in Paul's words,

“servants of Satan.”

Christians in later generations turned weapons forged in first-

century conflict against other enemies. But this does not mean

that they simply replaced one enemy with another. Instead,

Christian tradition has tended to accumulate them. When pagan

180 / CONCLUSION

converts like Justin Martyr, for example, aimed vocabulary

concerning Satan and the demons against Roman persecutors and

against heretics, they often took for granted the hostile

characterizations of the Jewish majority they found in the

gospels. Justin himself praises those he calls Hebrews—that is,

the ancient Israelites, revered ancestors of his own faith—but

expresses condescension toward those of his contemporaries he

calls not Hebrews but Jews for their “blindness” to God’s

revelation and their “misunderstanding” of their own Scriptures.

Justin castigates the Jews in language largely drawn from

Matthew's polemic against the Pharisees and often repeats for his

Gentile audiences Luke’s refrain in Acts that Jesus was “crucified

by the Jews.” Origen, too, although preoccupied primarily with

struggles against Roman persecution and against “heretics”—and

despite his own extensive conversations with Jewish teachers,

whom he credited with teaching him a great deal about the

Hebrew language and scriptural interpretation—nevertheless

develops the views expressed in Matthew to characterize the

Jewish people as divinely condemned for rejecting their Messiah.

The attitudes Justin and Origen express are not unique to

them. They are readily recognized by most Christians from the

second century through the twentieth because they draw upon a

familiar source, the New Testament gospels. Throughout the

centuries, Christians have turned the same polemical vocabulary

against a wider range of enemies. In the sixteenth century, for

example, Martin Luther, founder of Protestant Christianity,

denounced as “agents of Satan” all Christians who remained

loyal to the Roman Catholic Church, all Jews who refused to

acknowledge Jesus as Messiah, all who challenged the power of

the landowning aristocrats by participating in the Peasants’ War,

and all “protestant” Christians who were not Lutheran.

I am not saying that the gospel accounts are essentially

Manichaean in the ordinary sense of the term, that they envision

good and evil evenly matched against each other. Christian

tradition derives much of its power from the conviction that

although the believer may feel besieged by evil forces, Christ has

already won the decisive victory. Anthony, one of the pioneers

among

CONCLUSION / 181

the desert ascetics, a man famous for wrestling with demons,

explains to his followers:

Since the Lord dwelt among us, the Enemy has fallen, and his

powers have been weakened. He does not submit quietly to his

rail . . . but keeps on threatening like a tyrant.1

Describing how a great, towering figure once appeared to him,

Anthony says he asked the intruder, “Who are you?” and was

told, “I am Satan.” Anthony boldly rebuked the Enemy,

reminding him that

“Christ has come and made you powerless. He has cast you

down and stripped you.” When he heard the Savior’s name, he

vanished, for he could not endure its burning heat. . . . If, then,

even the devil admits that he is powerless, we ought to despise

both him and his demons. . . .

The Enemy with his hounds has only so many stratagems. . . .

We should not be disheartened, nor succumb to cowardice of

soul, nor invent terrors for ourselves. . . . We should take

courage, and always be joyful as people who have been saved.

Let us keep in mind that the Lord who defeated and

vanquished him is with us.2

The faith that Christ has conquered Satan assures Christians

that in their own struggles the stakes are eternal, and victory is

certain. Those who participate in this cosmic drama cannot lose.

Those who die as martyrs win the victory even more gloriously

and are assured that they will celebrate victory along with all of

God’s people and the angels of heaven. Throughout the history

of Christianity, this vision has inspired countless people to take

a stand against insuperable odds in behalf of what they believe is

right and to perform acts that, apart from faith, might seem only

futile bravado. This apocalyptic vision has taught even secular-

minded people to interpret the history of Western culture as a

moral history in which the forces of good contend against the

forces of evil in the world.

182 / CONCLUSION

Philosophically inclined Christians such as Augustine of

Hippo have often disparaged such mythological language and

declared that, ontologically speaking, evil and Satan do not exist.

On this level, orthodox Christianity does not diverge from

monotheism. Yet Augustine himself, like many other philoso-

phically sophisticated preachers, often speaks of Satan in

sermons and prayers and acknowledges, when he is dealing with

people confronted with obstacles, that Christians in this world

still struggle against evil in ways that they experience as demonic