Read The Origin of Satan Online
Authors: Elaine Pagels
Tags: #Religion, #Christianity, #History, #Christian Theology, #General, #Angelology & Demonology
192 / NOTES
dition, see Peter Awn,
Satan’s Tragedy and Redemption: Iblis in Sufi Psychology
(Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1983).
22. Note scholarly debate cited in note 20 concerning the priority of Genesis
6. I am following those scholars who see 1
Enoch
6-11 as amplifications of Gen.
6:1 , including Philip S. Alexander and Paul Hanson, “Rebellion in Heaven,
Azazel, and Euhemenistic Heroes in 1
Enoch
6-11,”
Journal of Biblical Literature
96 (1977): 195-233.
23. George W. E. Nickelsburg, “Apocalyptic and Myth in 1
Enoch
6-11,”
Journal of Biblical Literature
96 (1977): 383 05.
24. David Suter, “Fallen Angel, Fallen Priest: The Problem of Family Purity
in 1
Enoch
6-16,”
Hebrew Union College Annual
50 (1979): 115-35. Cf. George W. E. Nickelsburg, “The Book of Enoch in Recent Research,”
Religious Studies
Review
7 (1981): 210-17.
25. John Collins,
The Apocalyptic Imagination: An Introduction to the Jewish
Matrix of Christianity
(New York: Crossroad, 1984), 127.
26. This question dominated the concerns of many others as well; for discus-
sion, see the forthcoming book by Howard C. Kee,
Who Are the People of God?
27. George W. E. Nickelsburg, “Revealed Wisdom as a Criterion for Inclu-
sion and Exclusion,” in Neusner and Frerichs, eds.,
To See Ourselves As Others
See Us
, 76.
28. See the article by George W. E. Nickelsburg, “Riches, the Rich, and
God’s Judgment in 1
Enoch
92-105 and the Gospel According to Luke,”
New
Testament Studies
25 (1979), 324-49.
29. On the basis of the Watcher story in 1
Enoch
6-16, Forsyth
The Old
Enemy
, 167-70) comments that it implies “a radically different theology” from
that of the Genesis primordial history, in that “in Enoch we have heard nothing
about a wicked humanity. Instead, all human suffering is attributed to the angelic
revolt and the sins of their giant brood.” Yet as I read the Enoch literature, its
authors demonstrate awareness of the tension between—and correlation of—
human and angelic guilt, or at least of the possibility of contradiction. The passage
may be included as a corrective to any who exempt humans from responsibility by
blaming the angels’ transgressions. For a discussion, see Martha Himmelfarb,
Tours
of Hell: An Apocalyptic Form in Jewish and Christian Literature
(Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1983).
30. This identification occurs commonly in later Jewish sources, often traced
to the Septuagint translation of 1 Chronicles 16:26: οι των εθνων θεοι δαιμωνες εισιν.
31. Josephus,
Life
, 10.
32. Pliny the Elder,
Natural History
, Loeb edition, vol. 2, 5.15, 73. For discussion of Pliny’s description of the Essenes, see J. P. Audet, “Qûmran et la
notice de Pline sur les Esséniens,”
Revue Biblique
68 (1961): 346-87; D. F. Graf,
“Pagan Witness to the Essenes,”
Biblical Archaeologist
40 (1977): 125-29.
33. L. H. Schiffman,
Archaeology and History in the Dead Sea Scrolls
(Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1989).
NOTES / 193
34. G. Vermes,
The Dead Sea Scrolls: Qûmran in Perspective
(Atlanta, Ga.:
Scholars Press, 1989).
35. See F. F. Bruce, “The Romans Through Jewish Eyes,” in M. Simon, ed.,
Paganisme, Judaisme, Christianisme
(Paris: E. de Boccard, 1978), 3-12; G.
Vermes,
Post Biblical Jewish Studies
(Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1975), 215-24.
36. S. David Sperling, “Belial,” forthcoming in Karel van der Toorn,
Dictio-
nary of Deities and Demons
(Leiden: E. J. Brill).
37. See, for example, Matthew Black,
The Scrolls and Christian Origins
(New
York: Scribner, 1961), 91-117.
38. Carol Newsome,
Songs of Sabbath Sacrifice: A Critical Edition
(Atlanta, Ga.: Scholars Press, 1985).
39. Yigael Yadin, who edited the
War Scroll
, commented that this text, like others from Qûmran, “considerably extends our knowledge of Jewish
angelology—a subject of utmost importance in the Judaism of that time” (
Scroll
, 229). But Yadin did not tell us what constitutes its importance: Discernment of
spirits, the capacity to recognize and understand the interrelationship of
supernatural forces, both good and evil, is essential to the Essenes’ sense of their
own identity and the way they identify others. Having set aside, not so much as
wrong but as inadequate, more traditional forms of Jewish identity, the Essenes
articulate, through their accounts of the battle between angelic and demonic
forces, on which side of the cosmic battle each person and each group of Jews stands.
40. Yigael Yadin assumes that the Prince of Light “is Michael, Prince of
Israel”:
The Scroll of the War of the Sons of Light Against the Sons of Darkness
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1962), 236. But this identification ignores the
sectarianism that dominates the Qûmran texts. Instead, as John Collins observes,
“In 1 QM Michael is no longer simply the Prince of Israel but leader of the Sons of
Light. This designation may have been correlated in practice with members of the
congregation, but in principle it was open to broader interpretations and freed
from ethnic associations. Belial, too, is no longer the prince of a specific nation. . . .
Rather, he represents evil at large, like Satan or Mastema in the book of
Jubilees
. . . .
The adoption of this terminology in preference to the traditional, national, and
social affiliations opens up considerably the range of application of the
eschatological language. Specifically, it invites the correlation of the eschatological drama with the . . . moral conflict of good and evil within every individual” (
The
Apocalyptic Imagination
, 128-31).
1. George W. E. Nickelsburg, “Revealed Wisdom as a Criterion for Inclu-
sion and Exclusion: From Jewish Sectarianism to Early Christianity,” in Jacob
Neusner and Ernest S. Frerichs, eds.,
To See Ourselves As Others See Us:
Christians, Jews, “Others” in Late Antiquity
(Chico, Calif.: Scholars Press, 1985), 73.
2.
Ibid
.
194 / NOTES
3. Wayne A. Meeks, “Breaking Away: Three New Testament Pictures of
Christianity’s Separation from the Jewish Communities,” in Neusner and
Frerichs, eds.,
To See Ourselves
, 94-115.
4. For a different perspective in Paul's view of Jews and Judaism, see John
Gager,
The Origins of Anti-Semitism: Attitudes Toward Judaism in Pagan and
Christian Antiquity
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983), 193-264; Lloyd
Gaston, “Paul and the Torah,” in A. Davies, ed.,
Anti-Semitism and the Foundation
of Christianity
(New York: Paulist Press, 1979), 48-71.
5. K. Stendahl,
The School of St. Matthew
(Uppsala: C. W. K. Gleerup, 1954).
6. Wayne A. Meeks,
The First Urban Christians: The Social World of the
Apostle Paul
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1983).
7. For a discussion of this process, see H. Koester,
Ancient Christian
Gospels: Their History and Development
(London: SCM Press, and Philadelphia:
Trinity Press, 1990), 42-162.
8. See J. Kloppenborg,
The Formation of Q
(Philadelphia: Fortress Press,
1987), for a recent, revisionist view of the development of the Q source.
9. G. R. S. Mead,
Fragments of a Faith Forgotten
(reprint, New York: Uni-
versity Books, 1960), summarized what was known of such fragments at the
turn of the century; see Morton Smith,
Clement of Alexandria and a Secret Gospel
of Mark
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1973).
10. For discussion of passages concerning women in gnostic sources, see
Elaine Pagels,
The Gnostic Gospels
(New York: Random House, 1979), 48-69;
Karen King, ed.,
Images of the Feminine in Gnosticism
(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1986); Jorunn Jacobsen Buckley,
Female Fault and
Fulfillment in Gnosticism
(Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Press, 1986).
11. For a fuller discussion of some of the implications of this discovery, see
Pagels,
Gnostic Gospels
.
12. For a discussion of the original language, see Bentley Layton, “Introduc-
tion to the Gospel of Thomas, NHC II.2,2 in B. Layton, ed.,
Nag Hammadi
Codex
II. 2-7, together with
Brit. Lib. Or.
4926 (I) and
P. Oxy.
I, 654, 655 (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1989), vol. 1, Nag Hammadi Series 20.
13. Koester,
Ancient Christian Gospels
, 49-172.
14. Irenaeus,
Libros Quinque Adversus Haereses
, ed. W. W. Harvey (Cam-
bridge: Typis Academicis, 1857), vol. 1, 3.11.9. Hereafter cited as Against
Heresies.
15.
Ibid
., preface.
16. For assessment of Matthew’s provenance, see the summary in Wayne A.
Meeks, “Breaking Away,” 108-14; Alan F. Segal, “Matthew’s Jewish Voice,” in
David L. Balch, ed.,
Social History of the Matthean Community
(Minneapolis:
Fortress Press, 1991), 3-37; also, in the same volume: Anthony J. Saldarini, “The
Gospel of Matthew and Jewish-Christian Conflict,” 38-62; Robert H. Gundrey,
“A Responsive Evaluation of the Social History of the Matthean Community in
Roman Syria,” 62-67; William R. Schoedel, “Ignatius and the Reception of the
Gospel of
NOTES / 195
Matthew in Antioch,” 129-77; Rodney Stark, “Antioch as the Social Situation
for Matthew’s Gospel,” 189-210; also J. Andrew Overman,
Matthew’s Gospel and
Formative Judaism: The Social World of the Matthean Community
(Philadelphia:
Fortress Press, 1990); Amy-Jill Levine,
The Social and Ethnic Dimensions of
Matthean Salvation History:
“Go Nowhere Among the Gentiles” (Matt. 10:56)
(Lewiston, N.Y.: Edwin Mellen, 1988).
17. Mary Smallwood,
The Jews Under Roman Rule from Pompey to Diocletian
(Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1981), 349.
18. Jacob Neusner’s pioneering work has opened an understanding of this
process; see, for example,
Formative Judaism: Religious, Historical, and Literary
Studies
, Brown Judaic Studies, no. 91 (Chico, Calif.: Scholars Press, 1983).
19. See the incisive comments of Alan F. Segal, “Matthew’s Jewish Voice,”
and J. Andrew Overman,
Matthew’s Gospel and Formative Judaism.
20. Alan F. Segal,
Rebecca’s Children: Judaism and Christianity in the Roman
World
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1986); idem, “Matthew’s Jewish
Voice.”
21. For discussion, see Raymond E. Brown,
The Birth of the Messiah: A Com-
mentary on the Infancy Narratives in Matthew and Luke
(New York:
Doubleday, 1977).
22.
Ibid.
23. When Matthew retells the passion narrative, however, he drops his other-
wise frequent references to the Pharisees. There, following Mark, he depicts the
chief priests, scribes, and elders as Jesus’ primary opponents.
24. George W. E. Nickelsburg, “The Genre and Function of Mark’s Passion
Narrative,”
Harvard Theological Review
73 (1980): 174.
25. For discussion, see, for example, Michael J. Cook, “Jesus and the Phar-
isees—The Problem As It Stands Today,”
The Journal of Ecumenical Studies
15
(1978): 441-60; D. Garland,
The Intention of Matthew 23
(Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1979); J. Andrew Overman,
Matthew’s Gospel and Formative Judaism
; Klaus
Pantle-Schieber, “Anmerkungen zur Auseinandersetzung von ekklesia und
Judentum im Matthausevan-gelium”
Zeitschrift fiir Neutestamentliche
Wissenschaft
80 (1989), 145-62.
26. Luke T. Johnson, “The New Testament: Anti-Jewish Slander and the
Conventions of Ancient Polemic,”
Journal of Biblical Literature
108 (1989):
419-41.
1. David B. Gowler,
Host, Guest, Enemy, and Friend: Portraits of the Pharisees
in Luke and Acts
(New York: Lang, 1991); David A. Neale,
None But the Sinners:
Religious Categories in the Gospel of Luke
(Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1991); Robert L.
Brawley, “The Pharisees in Luke-Acts: Luke’s Address to Jews and His Irenic
Purpose,” Ph.D. dissertation, Princeton Theological Seminary, 1978; Jack T.
Sanders,
The Jews in Luke-Acts
(Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1987); Joseph R.
Tyson,
Images of Judaism in Luke-Acts
(Columbia: University of South Carolina
Press, 1992).
196 / NOTES
2. See Susan Garrett,
The Demise of the Devil: Magic and the Demonic in
Luke's Writings
(Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1989).
3. David R. Catchpole,
The Trial of Jesus: A Study in the Gospels and Jewish