On Matthew 4:18 through Matthew 4:20

Hello, friends, and welcome back to The Moral Vision of Jesus Christ.  This will be the most in depth gospel-study ever written by the time we are through with it.  If you're new here, you can acquaint yourself with this study by reading the Introduction, which can be found here.

Please note that we are developing an index of Christ's sayings as we move forward through the Gospel.  We are collecting certain data along with each saying that will allow us, one day, to peer into Christ's morality with a precision that has been (at least in recent times) unrivaled.  That index of sayings can be found here.

For the last six weeks, we spent a preposterous amount of time and effort to show the invalidity of the cosmology of Satan as a critical component of Jesus' moral teachings.  Going forward, at least for a while, I hope for there to be little more to say about that topic.  I appreciate the patience of those of you who stuck it through with me.

Today, we're going to talk a little more about the authorship of the Gospel, and then continue our reading of The Gospel According to Matthew.

Salud.

---------------------------------------------

A Brief Overview of the Authorships of the Gospels of Christ

When they're growing up, most American Christians today are taught (if they're taught anything about them at all) that the four gospels were written by the persons named in their titles; that The Gospel According to Matthew was written by a guy named Matthew; that The Gospel According to Mark was written by a guy named Mark, etc.  It is factually dishonest to teach people these ancient traditions.  Incorrect information about the nature and origin of the gospels has led to incorrect interpretations of the gospels.  Today, we will work to dispel some of these inaccuracies. 

What did the ancient Christians say about the authorship of these four books?

The ancient tradition holds that The Gospel According to Matthew was written by the Apostle Matthew, an eyewitness to the events of Jesus' life, who is mentioned in The Gospel as one of The Twelve.  The ancient tradition says that The Gospel According to Mark was written by John Mark, a figure occuring in The New Testament and sometimes described as "Peter's Interpreter."  The ancient tradition holds that The Gospel According to Luke was written by a certain Syrian from Antioch named Luke.  Finally, the ancient tradition says that The Gospel According to John was written by none other than John of Zebedee, an eyewitness to the events of Jesus' Galilean Ministry.

I hate to be the burster of bubbles, but none of that is likely correct.

Let's take this one at a time, in search of the actual authors.  Follow me.

The Gospel According to Matthew

Author - Anonymous

The Gospel According to Matthew, as we've mentioned, is anonymous.  There is no byline in the text, and the author of the text does not insert himself into the narrative at any juncture.  He never says "on summer evenings, me and Jesus used to wander out to the edge of town for prayer," or "I saw Jesus as they took him to be crucified."

The Gospel according to Matthew, far from being an original work, can actually be shown to be a combination of at least three different sources that existed prior to it.  Matthew is a combination of The Gospel According to Mark, the "Q-text," and what scholars call "M."  Recall that "Q" stands for the German "Quelle" meaning "Source," and indicates the source of work that Matt and Luke have in common that is not found in Mark.  "M" stands for "Matthew" and indicates written and oral traditions available to the author of Matthew but not reflected in the other two synoptics*.  

Matthew is a compilation, not a firsthand account.  If the author of Matthew had been Matthew of The Twelve, he wouldn't have needed to avail himself so heavily of Mark and Q.

The Gospel According to Mark

Author - Anonymous

The Gospel According to Mark, the oldest extant Gospel, is attributed in the ancient tradition to a gentleman named John Mark.  John Mark makes several appearances in The New Testament as a travelling companion of Paul and Barnabas, and as a subordinate of the Apostle Peter.  John Mark apparently never knew Jesus, but might have known people who knew Jesus.  To reiterate: the ancient tradition holds that Mark was not authored by an eyewitness.

It is not possible to say for sure who wrote Mark, as the text has no byline, so most modern scholars will simply tell you "we don't know who wrote Mark."

The Gospel According to Luke

Author - Anonymous

The Gospel According to Luke, as you may recall, is part-one of a two-part series that modern scholars call "Luke-Acts."  Part-two of Luke-Acts is The Acts of the Apostles, the first text to appear in The New Testament after the four Gospels.  Most scholars concur that the two texts are indeed of a common author.

Luke-Acts was ascribed, in the ancient tradition, to Luke, a physician and travelling companion of Paul.  This travelling companion is mentioned in a few instances in The New Testament, but it is hard to verify the character as an actual doctor, let alone the author of Luke-Acts.

The texts themselves are, in fact, anonymous, and most scholars will tell you "we aren't sure who wrote Luke-Acts."  What scholars will tell you is for sure is that Luke-Acts is not an eyewitness account, as evidenced by the prologue at the beginning of Luke, in which the author speaks of "those who were eyewitnesses from the beginning."  This means that two out of three of The Synoptic Gospels were understood in the ancient church to be non-eyewitness accounts.

The Gospel According to John

Author - Anonymous

The authorship of The Gospel According to John is perhaps one of the most important topics we will ever cover here at The Moral Vision.  There are a number of reasons for this, many of which will only become totally clear sometime in the future when our study has had time to mature.

When reading the Gospel straight through, The Gospel According to John feels like a sucker-punch after the three homogeneous Synoptics.  The tone of the writing, the style of the writing, and the cosmology conveyed by John are all markedly different than its Synoptic brothers.  Even the simple chronology of events is different in John.  In the Synoptic gospels, for instance, Jesus celebrates a Thursday Passover meal the night before his execution on Good Friday.  The Gospel According to John, however, indicates that the execution occurred the day before Passover.

We will write volumes about the incoherency between John and the other Gospels.  Today, as far as authorship is concerned, we will avail ourselves of the notation provided as an introduction to John in The New American Bible, Revised Edition.  The NAB notes the following about John:

Critical analysis makes it difficult to accept the idea that the gospel as it now stands was written by one person.  Chapter 21 seems to have been added after the gospel was completed; it exhibits a Greek style somewhat different from that of the rest of the work.  The prologue apparently contains an independent hymn, subsequently adapted to serve as a preface to the gospel.  Within the gospel itself there are also some inconsistencies, e.g., there are two endings of Jesus' discourse in the upper room (14:31; 18:1).  To solve these problems, scholars have proposed various rearrangements that would produce a smoother order.  However, most have come to the conclusion that the inconsistencies were probably produced by subsequent editing in which homogeneous materials were added to a shorter original. 

Other difficulties for any theory of eyewitness authorship of the gospel in its present form are presented by its highly developed theology and by certain elements of its literary style.

To be clear, this passage constitutes the Roman Catholic Church admitting that John was likely not an eyewitness account.

Ancient tradition said that John was written by John of Zebedee, an eyewitness to - and key figure of - the Galilean Ministry.  Ancient tradition ascribed the Epistles of John and the Book of Revelation to the same author.  There are many American Christians who still hold these ancient views today.  About the authorship of Revelation, the NAB has this to say:

The author of the book calls himself John, who because of his Christian faith has been exiled to the rocky island of Patmos, a Roman penal colony.  Although he never claims to be John the Apostle, whose name is attached to the fourth gospel**, he was so identified by several of the early church Fathers, including Justin, Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, Cyprian, and Hippolytus.  This identification, however, was denied by other Fathers, including Denis of Alexandria, Eusebius of Caesarea, Cyril of Jerusalem, Gregory Nazianzen, and John Chrysostom.  Indeed, vocabulary, grammar, and style make it doubtful that the book could have been put into its present form by the same person(s) responsible for the fourth gospel.

Scholars generally agree that The Gospel According to John was the last of the Gospels to find its present form, sometime between 90 and 110 AD.

So, what can we say about the Gospel, generally?

Each book of it arrives in its modern form anonymous.  Ancient attributions of these works have turned out to be questionable in every case.  None of the Gospels claim to be an eyewitness accounting of events, and modern scholarship indicates that ancient traditions attributing any of these books to eyewitnesses are incorrect.

So, we have no first-hand account of the life of Jesus Christ.  What we do have is four anonymously composed and compiled texts that sometimes disagree with one another.  Because they sometimes disagree, these texts must bear the maximum amount of literary scrutiny before they can be accepted as truly representing the teachings of Jesus.  And that, friends, is really the whole point of our broader endeavor.  Our study together constitutes this requisite scrutiny.

Now, let's get back to our Gospel.

------------------------------

Matthew 4:18 through Matthew 4:20

18 As he was walking by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon who is called Peter, and his brother Andrew, casting a net into the sea; they were fishermen. 

19 He said to them, “Come after me, and I will make you fishers of men.” 

20 At once they left their nets and followed him.

------------------------------

You will tire of me saying "this is one of my favorite parts," but this is one of my favorite parts.

Jesus has just began his Galilean Ministry, and he needs to recruit some help.  He walks down to the shores of the Sea of Galilee and sees our man Peter (a.k.a. Simon, a.k.a. The Rock) fishing with his brother Andrew.  He calls out to them with Jesus Saying #6, “Come after me, and I will make you fishers of men.” 

I love the abruptness to this scene.  There's an economy of language to Jesus here that makes him seem powerful.  "Fishers of men" resonates in my head like a bell.  

I love that, without a word, the brothers leave their nets, or their careers, behind.  What could it have been about the personality of this man that other men would just abandon their trades and follow him?  This scene affords us a good opportunity for this kind of reflection.  One thing that is fairly constant throughout the Gospels is Jesus' charisma and ability to captivate others.  I like to imagine what someone would have to say, or how they might have to act, in order to convince me to abandon my nets the way these boys immediately did.  

This personality must have been a force.  Whoever he was, he must always have been the center of attention.  Instantly the most important guy in every room.

I love how obedient Simon and Andrew are here.  "At once" they followed him.  They don't argue or make any excuse, but are so motivated by Christ's personality that they simply obey his words instantly.

Great reading.

Next time, we will see this scene replayed for the recruitment of the brothers Zebedee, neither of which authored The Gospel According to John.  Rapidly, we approach Jesus' "Sermon on the Mount," which contains some of the richest data we have about Jesus' moral code.  Join us again, because we are finally getting to the good stuff!***

Please share this writing.

Love.

-------------------------
* The "Synoptic" Gospels are the first three: Matt, Mark and Luke.  "Synoptic" comes from the Greek "sunopsis" - literally "to see together."  This term is used to describe these Gospels because these Gospels share the same story arc, generally.  The term excludes The Gospel of John, because that Gospel is markedly different than the first three.

** Many Bible scholars call the gospels by their number, since we don't know who wrote any of them.  For them, "Matthew" is "the first gospel."  "Mark" is "the second gospel," and so forth.

*** Who am I kidding?  Ancient history is all good stuff.

-------------------------
To read what's next, click here.
To read what came prior to this, click here.

For the index of Christ's words, click here.

On Matthew 4:15 through Matthew 4:17

Hello, friends, and welcome back to The Moral Vision of Jesus Christ, the most in-depth Gospel study you'll ever read.  If this is your first time here, you might go back to the Introduction and start there.  If you're a repeat reader, I love you.

Today, we will finally finish our six-part series about the origins of the modern "Satan."

It's been a long six weeks, and I'm grateful to all of you for hanging in there with me.

Before we start the last leg of this study-within-a-study, I'd like to recap some of the most important points we've learned over the last few installments.  To review:

1 - Devils, demons, and snakey supernatural creatures of malevolence exist in some of the oldest written human literature known - literature that predates Jewish traditions by a wide margin.

2 - The Jewish scriptures use the word "satan" with an article in front of it - "the" or "a."  The word is not capitalized in the Jewish scripture as a proper-noun would be, because "satan" is not a name in the Jewish scripture.  "Satan," in the Jewish scripture, always means "adversary," "accuser," or, as in Job, "one of a council of divine beings who exist in heaven with God and who have no power or authority outside of God."

3 - We can't find a story in The Old Testament about Satan being a lead angel who was kicked out of heaven for the sin of pride and then forced to administer a torture realm called "hell."  This is because "Satan" and "hell" didn't exist to the Jews of the Biblical era.  The concept of hell, and of an angelic fall from heaven, began to emerge during the Intertestamental Period, especially in The Book of Enoch.

4 - The New Testament features thirty-some references to "the devil" and thirty-some references to a "capital-S" Satan.  The New Testament doesn't describe the creature, but rather assumes the reader's familiarity with this "Satan."  Nowhere in The New Testament are we given any background information about this creature.  Nowhere in The New Testament are we given the story of Satan as a lead angel who was kicked out of heaven for the sin of pride.  Thus we can say unequivocally that The Bible is not where modern Christians get their concept of Satan.

That's it.  Those are your "must-remembers" thus far.  And now, without further ado, Part VI of our study.

Understanding the Origin of Modern Common Conceptions of The Devil in Christianity

Part VI

The Development of the Devil since the First-Century

Recently, a friend and I were discussing the issue of suffering in the world in the context of a God that is all knowing, all loving, and all powerful.  In philosophy, this topic is known as "The Problem of Evil."  My friend said something to the effect that "we suffer and get sick and sin and experience the frailties of flesh not because of God, but purely because of Satan.*"  My friend was expressing a view that is prevalent in Americans today.  This prevalent understanding of the universe is intellectually lazy in every sense of the word, and generally served as the impetus for this six-part study.

The blaming of the suffering of the world on an extremely powerful, but not-quite-Godlike, scapegoat called Satan is a clear attempt to have one's cake and eat it, too.  Rather than address The Problem of Evil head on, the modern Christian has eroded his God's power by giving a large share of it to this "Satan," essentially turning his monotheism*** into a bitheism****, with the devil playing the role of God Number Two.

The devil that my friend and the multitudes of American Christians believe in is, according to them, responsible for all discomfort, conflict, illness, and evil in the world.  The Devil that Modern American Christians believe in is omnipresent and omniscient, and can literally ensnare and control humans who do not resist him through a living appeal to God.  

The devil that American Christians believe in is snakey, tailed, horned, and pitch-fork-bearing.  He is frequently thought to be red in color when manifested physically.  Modern artistic depictions of the devil are almost always cartoonish, but Christians still believe that this character is directly responsible for the prevailing winds of cultural history.

Ultimately, Satan has evolved into the modern Christian's excuse for his complete unwillingness to imitate Christ.  People's egos keep them from accepting fault for almost anything, so it is hedonistically soothing to believe that all of one's mistakes and misfortunes come from the supernatural administrator of hell.  

This is the true purpose of the story of Satan: he is an excuse for human weakness.

"The devil made me do it."

Today, to wrap up our study, we will track the short-distance-evolution of the New Testament Satan into the Satan we know in cartoons today.  To this end, we'll first glance at the writings of Origen of Alexandria.  

Origen was a "Church Father," or an ancient theologian writer.  He was the most prolific writer of the early Church Fathers.  Origen was known in his time for preaching that God had created the souls of humanity before he created the universe, and that at the end of time, all souls might be redeemed to God.  Both of these concepts would later be seen by the Church as heretical.  

Origen was also known by a rumor that he had paid a doctor to surgically remove his testicles, either because a phrasing in The Book of Matthew recommends it***** or because Origen wanted to remove any doubt in the Alexandria community about his motivation in tutoring women as well as men in Christian theology.  Some historians speculate that he may have been accused of some impropriety early on in life, which might have spurred this action, if it did in fact occur.

One of Origen's most important and enduring works was On the First Principles, written between 220 and 230 AD, wherein he attempts to lay out his understanding of Christian theology in a very regimented and precise fashion.  Origen speaks of the Devil and human free-will in the preface of this text:

This also is clearly defined in the teaching of the Church, that every rational soul is possessed of free-will and volition; that it has a struggle to maintain with the devil and his angels, and opposing influences, because they strive to burden it with sins; but if we live rightly and wisely, we should endeavour to shake ourselves free of a burden of that kind.

Shortly thereafter, in the same text, Origen continues:

Regarding the devil and his angels, and the opposing influences, the teaching of the Church has laid down that these beings exist indeed; but what they are, or how they exist, it has not explained with sufficient clearness. This opinion, however, is held by most, that the devil was an angel, and that, having become an apostate, he induced as many of the angels as possible to fall away with himself, and these up to the present time are called his angels.

So, one of the most literate and educated Church Fathers of all time himself admits that the Christian Church as he knew it had failed to sufficiently explain the cosmology of Satan.  The question is then begged: if the cosmology of Satan was not sufficiently explained in 225 AD, how can modern Christians be so sure about what they know about Satan today?

Time seems to have been a salve for this uncertainty.

St. John of Damascus, regarded by the Catholic Church as a "Doctor of the Church," wrote a text known as An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith near the turn of the eighth century AD.  An Exact Exposition was a summary of the theological writings of the Church Fathers that had gone before St. John.  Like On the First Principles, it was designed to be a systematic elucidation of the sum of Christian theology.

About Satan, in An Exact Exposition, St. John writes:

...[he] was not made wicked in nature but was good, and made for good ends, and received from his Creator no trace whatever of evil in himself.

He continues, in talking about the dominion of Satan and his angel minions:

Hence they have no power or strength against any one except what God in His dispensation hath conceded to them, as for instance, against Job and those swine that are mentioned in the Gospels.

St. John was both eating and having some delicious cake when he was writing this.  According to him, Satan was made good by God, but of his own volition turned evil.  However, in his evil, Satan has no power except that allotted to him by God.  So evil is all ultimately controlled by God, but, simultaneously, God can wash his hands of all the evil.  The chasm existing in the middle of this logic is mind-bendingly wide.

Unlike Origen, St. John of Damascus appears to find the Church's explanation of Satan at least sufficient, as he is very confident throughout An Exact Exposition about the nature of all things metaphysical.  His confidence is apparent even in the title, by his use of the word "exact."

Moving on, I would call your attention back to the Fourth Lateran Council, which we mentioned previously.  Recall that the text of Lateran Council IV, written in 1215 AD, said the following:

The devil and the other demons were indeed created by God good by nature but they became bad through themselves; man, however, sinned at the suggestion of the devil.

The Fourth Lateran Council was one of the most significant ecumenical councils ever to be held, and the dogma spelled out therein would have been understood by most any Christian during the late middle ages.  By the spread of the dogma of this council, most Christians in the subsequent centuries came to believe that, at the time of the final judgment, all humans "may receive according to their merits, whether good or bad, the latter eternal punishment with the devil, the former eternal glory with Christ."

Moving along in time, we come to the 13th-century Codex Gigas, also known as The Devil's Bible.  This book, a manuscript of The Bible with some additional Christian literature, is known as The Devil's Bible because of its inclusion of a particularly mesmerizing full-page illustration of the devil.  The illustration, which can be found easily on the internet, depicts a devil that has two red horns, a forked or double tongue, a round, green head, sharp, menacing teeth, and four-fingered hands with vicious claws at the ends of their digits.  We mention the Codex here to illustrate the evolution of the visual imagery of Satan.

As we now know, Satan's physical appearance is not described in The Bible.  What you may not know is that we have no record of people visually depicting Satan until the middle ages.  Most of the earliest depictions of Satan in art have him looking a lot like the Greek fertility god Pan: goat-legged, cloven hooved, bearded, pointy-eared and goat-tailed.  Medieval depictions also gave Satan his trident, which was most certainly borrowed from the Greek god Poseidon.  Again we emphasize: any physical description of Satan is extra-scriptural.

Finally, we would be remiss if we didn't take a moment to look at the treatment of the devil towards the end of Dante's Inferno, the indescribably important 14th-century epic poem by Italian writer Dante Alighieri.

In Inferno, Dante is led through the concentric circles of hell, toward its very core, by the spirit of the poet Virgil, who wrote The Aeneid.  At the core of hell, Dante encounters a devil that is gigantic in proportion, and sits frozen in ice up to its chest.  The creature has three evil faces and three sets of bat-like wings.  The flapping of its wings freezes all the other inhabitants of that final inner-circle of hell.  As Dante walks by the frozen victims, he notes the positions they are suspended in.  Some on toes, some turned up on their heads, some bent over like a bow, heads toward their toes.  A creepy scene.

The writing is really too interesting to miss, so here you go - Dante's description of the devil:

          Were he once as beautiful as now he’s ugly
          (And yet he raised his fist against his Maker!)
          Well may all our grief come down from him!

          Oh how much wonder was it for me when
          I saw that on his head he had three faces:
          One in front — and it was fiery red —

           And two others, which joined onto this one
          Above the center of his shoulder blades,
          And all three came together at his crown.

          The right face seemed halfway white and yellow
          While the left one looked the color of the race
          That lives close to the source of the Nile.

          Beneath each face there sprouted two large wings,
          Suitably massive for such a bird of prey:
          I never sighted sails so broad at sea.

          They had no feathers but looked just like a bat’s,
           And he kept flapping these wings up and down
          So that three winds moved out from in around him:

          This was the cause Cocytus was all iced.
          With six eyes he wept, and from his three chins
          Dripped down the teardrops and a bloody froth.

          In each mouth he mashed up a separate sinner
          With his sharp teeth, as if they were a grinder,
          And in this way he put the three through torture.

          For the one in front, the biting was as nothing
          Compared to the clawing, for at times his back
          Remained completely stripped bare of its skin.

          "That soul up there who suffers the worst pain,"
          My master said, "is Judas Iscariot —
          His head within, he kicks his legs outside.

Here we see the ultimate evolution of the monster.  Large enough to fit multiple men in its multiple mouths as he chews at their forms and tears at their skin.  Once divinely beautiful, now unfathomably ugly.  The center of hell.  The great tortured torturer.  These motifs are some of the critical last steps in the evolutionary chain of the modern Satan.

Little about Satan has changed significantly since Dante, except that he had to face off with a chain-smoking Keanu Reeves at some point very recently.

What can we say then, in conclusion, now that we've thoroughly beat this dead horse?

We can say this: Satan is the Christian's intellectually dishonest escape from The Problem of Evil.  Concerns about Satan are not present in the moral teachings of Jesus Christ.  The modern understanding of Satan does not come from The Bible.  There is no reason, in all of history, to believe that Satan is any more real a figure than Zeus or Angra Mainyu or Darth Vader.

There is no reason to believe in the modern Satan, except that humanity requires a scapegoat for its folly, as it is fundamentally incapable of admitting its own fault.

The devil made me do it?

No, no, friend.  I made me do that.

------------------------------

Matthew 4:15 through Matthew 4:17

15 “Land of Zebulun and land of Naphtali,
the way to the sea, beyond the Jordan,
Galilee of the Gentiles, 

16 the people who sit in darkness
have seen a great light,
on those dwelling in a land overshadowed by death
light has arisen.” 

17 From that time on, Jesus began to preach and say, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”

------------------------------

Jesus Saying #5!  And what an important one it is!  The words in Matthew 4:17 mark the beginning of Jesus' ministry.  It is at this moment he declares one of the fundamental tenets of his philosophy: that a "heavenly kingdom" is just around the corner, and that humanity needed repentance before the arrival of that kingdom.

So, to what exactly did Jesus refer here when he said "the kingdom of heaven?"

There are many ways to interpret this phrasing.  We will come across this terminology several times in Matthew, so we will have ample opportunity to discuss all the possibilities.

Being a rationalist, I would like to start with a rationalist reading of Saying #5.  I would like to suggest that the "kingdom of heaven," as spoken about by Jesus in The Gospel According to Matthew, is not the preferable half of a bipolar afterlife, but rather a time of unrivalled peace and bounty that Christ anticipated to be coming (with our hard work) to the physical realm; to the real world.  

We will have plenty of time to discuss alternative readings, and we will have plenty of chances to see that one's interpretation of this saying doesn't have any bearing on Jesus' moral prescriptions.  Those of you who find my rationalist reading preposterous will get yours in coming installments.

So, then, what did Jesus mean when he said "repent?"

In the simplest terms, "repent," in the ancient world, meant "to feel regret about one's misdeeds and to have a desire to live better."  This is certainly how the word is generally used in The Old Testament.  Since we have no reason to stray from this general definition, we can interpret "repent" to simply mean "reform yourselves whole-heartedly!"

"Repent."  This is the first word we read in The Bible that can be considered part of Christ's Ministry.  His first prescription for behavior.  Perhaps the first real clue to his morality, that sweet morsel we pine after.  "Repent," he says.  "Reform."

What does he want reformed?

You'll have to come back to find out.

Thank you so much for reading.  Please share this writing.

Love.

-------------------------

* Shortly after saying that Satan was the cause for all disease, my friend insisted that "you can't trust scientists," and that "the universe is only a few thousand years old."**

** My friend is a voting man. :-(

*** Belief in the existence of only one God.

**** Belief in the existence of only two Gods.

***** ...which it certainly does....

-------------------------
To read what's next, click here.

To read what came prior to this, click here.

For the index of Christ's words, click here.

On Matthew 4:12 through Matthew 4:14

Hello, and welcome back to The Moral Vision of Jesus Christ.  If you are new here, and desire the full effect, you should start here at the Introduction.

Regulars to this Gospel Study will recall that, last time, we were still in the middle of a study-within-a-study, trying to understand the origins of the modern conception of the devil as a pitchfork wielding demon who literally roams the earth tempting men, women and children to sin so that he might have the opportunity to watch them suffer eternally inside some intricate and vast hell-system.  And all with God's blessing.

You'll recall that, to begin our study-within-a-study, we looked at various devil-like characters that predated the Jewish scriptures, showing that such creatures of malevolence predated the Jewish and Christian traditions and were by no means "new" in these faiths.  

You'll recall that we surveyed the extent to which the modern "capital-S" Satan originated in The Old Testament, and found that the "capital-S" Satan didn't exist in The Old Testament.  He doesn't even appear in the Garden of Eden, despite the prevalent modern belief that he does.

You'll recall that we looked at the Intertestamental Period for a "capital-S" Satan and found something very close to him in The Book of Enoch, an intertestamental, apocryphal, pseudepigraphical text.  In Enoch, we found a supremely evil leader of a group of fallen angels who had revolted against God.  The evil leader, Azazel, was kicked out of heaven, tempted humankind, taught them evil ways, and was banished to a fiery netherworld just like the Satan people frighten their children with today.

You'll also recall that, last time, we went through every instance of the use of the word "Satan" in The New Testament, and found that The New Testament is riddled with references to the "capital-S" Satan.  You may have been surprised to learn that The New Testament offers zero biographical information in its references to Satan, but, rather, takes knowledge of the tempter and the story of his angelic fall at the outset of history for granted in its readers.

Today, our study continues as we parse through every single instance of "devil" in The New Testament.  This work is tedious, and might strike some as overkill, but we desire certainty in our effort.  We go to these great lengths so that we can be absolutely sure when we say "Satan's backstory does not exist in Christian scriptural canon."

We will also continue to follow the story of Jesus in Matthew, as he is about to begin his "Galilean Ministry."

Happy studies.

Understanding the Origin of Modern Common Conceptions of The Devil in Christianity

Part V

Instances of the Word "Devil" in The New Testament

The Catechism of the Catholic Church is the official learning tool for the Church faithful.  It is the text used to orient people to cosmology, or the big picture, as the Church sees it.  It is taught and distributed world-wide in incredible quantities.

The word "catechism" is rooted in the Greek "katēkhein" meaning "to instruct orally."  To study one's faith, as a young Catholic, is to study "The Catechism."  

The word "devil" appears twenty-some times in The Catechism of the Catholic Church.  The word "Satan" occurs around twenty times in the same text.  The Catechism says:

The Church teaches that Satan was at first a good angel, made by God: "The devil and the other demons were indeed created naturally good by God, but they became evil by their own doing."

The material quoted here in The Catechism is not from scripture, but rather from Canon 1 of The Fourth Lateran Council, which occurred in 1215 AD.  Lateran Council IV was one of a series of "eccumenical councils" wherein hundreds of clergy, heads of the Church and (sometimes) heads of state from all over Christendom gathered together to vote on changes to the doctrine and practice of the Christian faith.

In addition to the scripturally unfounded assertion that "the devil and the other demons were indeed created naturally good," Lateran Council IV added the following notable laws to Church Canon:

- Before a doctor is allowed to treat a person's ailment, he ought to be compelled by law to try to make the patient talk to a priest about God.*

- All Christians should confess all of their sins to a priest at least once per year.  (Prior to this, forms of sacramental confession and penance were varied across Christendom, or, in some places, didn't exist at all.)

- All Jews and all Muslims must wear clothing that makes them distinct from the Christians in their community, so that they will not accidentally intermingle with Christians sexually.**

- Jews and Muslims need to stay inside on Passion Sunday, and during the last three days of Holy Week.  (Especially on Good Friday.)***

The text produced by Lateran Council IV ends by discussing plans for the unsuccessful Fifth Crusade, a Holy War against non-Christians (primarily Muslims) occupying the Holy Land.

The Church does not try to hide the fact that its modern Catechism gets at least part of its concept of Satan directly from a thirteenth century ecumenical council that advocated things like racial segregation, genocide, and extortion of the ill.

We assert again that the modern concept of Satan, or "The Devil," did not come from Christian or Jewish scripture.  By the end of this fifth segment of our study, we will have demonstrated this definitively.

We have a lot of material to cover, so we cannot delay.  Here are the thirty-two instances of the word "devil" that occur in The New Testament, in order of appearance.  (It will be helpful to have a Bible open in front of you while you read this.)

#1 through #4 - Matthew 4:1, 4:5, 4:8, and 4:11

As we've just seen in our broader study, Matt ch. 4 features "the devil" (not capitalized anywhere in The Bible outside of Revelation) appearing to and tempting a fasting Jesus in the desert, soon after Jesus' baptism.  This occurrence of the devil in the Temptation Narrative does not give us any information about the character's origin.  The mechanics of the modern concept of Satan are not explicated here.

#5 - Matthew 13:39

In this passage, Jesus is explaining "The Parable of the Weeds" to his inner-circle.  He says that the devil is like an enemy who sows weeds into one's field.  Here, the devil is made out to be the creator of the bad portion of the human race.  The explanation of the parable assumes the reader's familiarity with the concept of a "devil" and doesn't give the character a backstory in any sense.

#6 - Matthew 25:41

In Matthew 25:41, Jesus explains an apocalyptic vision about the judgement of humankind by the "Son of Man."  He says that the Son of Man will invite some of humanity into the kingdom that had been promised them since the beginning of time, and that others he will send to "the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels."  The conception of the devil as being damned to a fiery place is spoken of here as if it is common knowledge.  The cosmology of Satan is not explained here, but assumed.

#7 through #10 - Luke 4:2, 4:3, 4:6, and 4:13

Luke ch. 4 corresponds to Matt ch. 4 in its retelling of the Temptation Narrative.  The devil's history as a fallen angel from heaven is not explained here.  Intimate knowledge of him is assumed in the reader.

#11 - Luke 8:12

Luke 8:12 has Jesus explaining "The Parable of the Sower," which is very much like "The Parable of the Weeds."  In The Parable of the Sower, the sower's seed, having been sown, is not allowed to sprout to fruition because it is carried off by birds who eat it.  In his explanation, Jesus says that the seed taken by the birds represents "the word" being taken away from human hearts by the devil.  Here, as always in The New Testament, the biography of the devil is assumed to be known by the reader.  The modern concept of Satan did not originate here.

#12 - John 6:70

John 6:70 has Jesus speaking to The Twelve.  He says:

“Did I not choose you twelve? Yet is not one of you a devil?”

Here, we are not talking about the devil, or Satan, but rather a devil.  Jesus is referencing the betrayal of Judas, of course.  Again, the passage doesn't refer to Satan, and certainly doesn't give us any portion of the Satanic biography.

#13 - John 8:44

John 8:44 has Jesus telling a group of Jews that they are illegitimate and that they are children of the devil because they do not love him.  The sayings here are not characteristic of the Jesus we know from the Synoptic Gospels.  The modern conception of the devil clearly did not originate here.  The common knowledge of the concept of Satan continues to be taken for granted here in John.

#14 - John 13:2

In this passage, the devil is given credit (as he was in Luke) for the actions of Judas the Iscariot, namely, the betrayal of Christ to the authorities.  The devil's origin and motivations are not explained here.  The author assumes that the reader already knows very well who this singular "devil" is.

#15 - Acts 10:38

In Acts ch. 10, Peter is summoned by a well known guy from a town or two over named Cornelius.  Peter goes to him, and Cornelius asks Peter to share the "good news" with him, as it were.  Peter begins by telling Cornelius that God accepts any nation that fears him and acts uprightly.  He then briefly recounts the action of Jesus during his ministry: "He went about doing good and healing all those oppressed by the devil, for God was with him."

Here, the devil is not defined or explained, but merely mentioned in passing.  It is clear that his biography predates this text in the mind of the author and in that of the intended audience.

#16 - Acts 13:10

Here, Paul and Barnabas are sent off by the Holy Spirit to convert the people of the island of Cyprus.  They land on the eastern coast at Salamis and make their way across the island to Paphos, declaring the word of God in the synagogues they found on the way.

In Paphos, they meet a Roman Proconsul named Sergius Paulus.  Paulus is amenable to hearing the proclamation of the word from Paul and Barnabas, but there is a magician in his retinue that tries to prevent it.  Paul calls the magician a "son of the devil," and then, magically and temporarily, the magician is struck blind.

Good story, but it isn't the story of the origin of Satan, so we must move on.

#17 - Ephesians 4:27

In Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians - perhaps not actually Pauline in origin - we see "Paul" explaining some guidelines that he would like to see enacted in an early Christian community.  He cautions them, starting in Ephesians 4:26, against anger.  Read for yourself:

26 Be angry but do not sin; do not let the sun set on your anger, 

27 and do not leave room for the devil.

It is not entirely clear here what is meant by "do not leave room for the devil."  Since the phrasing occurs in the same sentence as the mandate not to "let the sun set on your anger," we must assume that anger and space for the devil are somehow being related.

What is entirely clear here is that the author doesn't feel a need to explain to his audience who "the devil" is.  The biography of this "devil" is taken for granted.

#18 - Ephesians 6:11

Ephesians ch. 6 advises the recipient of the letter to "put on the armor of God so that you may be able to stand firm against the tactics of the devil."  Offering no explanation of who the devil is, the text then contradicts the modern conception of "Satan" and "devils" as being hellbound by saying that one must fight against "the evil spirits in the heavens."

Immediately before this section of text, the author of Ephesians endorses slavery, which, for us here at The Moral Vision, pretty much negates everything the letter says anyway.

#19 and #20 - 1 Timothy 3:6 and 3:7

1 Timothy ch. 3 should be compelling to the modern reader because the text seems to directly contradict the concept of clerical celibacy.  The section of text at hand, labeled "Qualifications of Various Ministers," says that a bishop can only be married once, and that he ought to keep his children well behaved, otherwise how can he be expected to keep a church in order?

The references to the devil in this text occur as the "qualifications" for the ministers continue to be laid out.  See for yourself:

6 He should not be a recent convert, so that he may not become conceited and thus incur the devil’s punishment.  

7 He must also have a good reputation among outsiders, so that he may not fall into disgrace, the devil’s trap.

The devil's biography is assumed, here, not explained.  Our search for a morsel of the Satanic backstory in The New Testament continues.

#21 - 2 Timothy 2:26

2 Timothy 2:26 is part of an injunction to not argue with one's fellows, but rather to be gentle and kind to all people.  The entirety of the injunction reads as follows:

23 Avoid foolish and ignorant debates, for you know that they breed quarrels. 

24 A slave of the Lord should not quarrel, but should be gentle with everyone, able to teach, tolerant, 

25 correcting opponents with kindness. It may be that God will grant them repentance that leads to knowledge of the truth, 

26 and that they may return to their senses out of the devil’s snare, where they are entrapped by him, for his will.

Here, the devil is understood to be a tempter of mankind, working against God.  The modern conception of Satan or "the devil" as the counterbalance to God and administrator of hell are not born here.  If one read 2 Timothy without knowing about the devil beforehand, one would be left wondering "who is this "devil" guy?"

#22 - Hebrews 2:14

Hebrews 2:14, while explaining why God had made Jesus in the form of man, says that Jesus defeated the devil, "the one who has the power of death," by dying himself.  Hebrews was probably written to early Jewish-Christians who were seen as wavering in the Christian portion of their faith for one reason or another.  The text does not explain the cosmology of the devil, but merely features him as part of this "death" motif.

#23 -  James 4:7

James 4:7 reads:

So submit yourselves to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.

The text doesn't go on to explain that the devil used to be a leader off angels in Heaven.  It doesn't explain that the devil fell from heaven because of pride and was cursed to Hell by God.  It doesn't illuminate the devil's impetus for roaming the earth tempting humans to sin.

James assumes we already know everything we need to about "the devil."

#24 - 1 Peter 5:8

In 1 Peter ch. 5, Peter reaches out to the Christian communities in Asia Minor, telling them to act with humility in their daily lives.  He tells his readers to lay all of their problems at God's feet, because he cares for them.  It warns the reader to be "sober and vigilant" because "the devil is prowling around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour."

Ad nauseum, we see that these New Testament references to "the devil" do not present or explain the devil, but rather take common understanding of the devil's backstory for granted.

#25 and #26 - 1 John 3:8 and 3:10

In 1 John we are told that "one who sins belongs to the devil, because the devil has sinned from the beginning."  The text also talks about "the children of God" in contrast with "the children of the devil."

No novel information about the devil is revealed here.  If you didn't know the devil already, you'd finish reading 1 John wondering "who is the devil?"

#27 - Jude 1:9

The Letter of Jude is interesting because of it's brevity and its apparent link to at least two apocryphal texts.  Jude borrows from The Book of Enoch, which we've learned about before, and another text known as "The Assumption of Moses."  

The Assumption of Moses, which we do not have in a complete form, likely included an argument over the final resting place of Moses' body between the Archangel Michael and an entity called "Sammael," which Jude wants us to read as "the devil."  In "The Assumption," Michael resists reviling this "Sammael" because he lacked the authority to revile anything.  Instead of vociferously judging Sammael, Michael simply tells him "I hope God judges you!"

In the "Letter of Jude," the author warns the reader against false teachers, mentioning that false teachers "revile glorious beings."  It is at this juncture that Jude references the Michael/Sammael story, saying "if Michael wasn't allowed to revile the devil himself, how can a human be allowed to revile a glorious being?"

This reference to the devil is compelling because it is also a reference to intertestamental apocrypha, but neither the Letter of Jude nor this "Assumption of Moses" offer us the recognizable modern backstory of "the devil" that we've been looking for.  We'll call Jude 1:9 and the apocryphal text near-misses and move forward.

#28 through #32 - Revelation 2:10, 12:9, 12:12, 20:2 and 20:10

Remember last time when we lumped all the references to "Satan" appearing in the Book of Revelation together?  We're going to do that again here with "devil."

The word "devil" appears five times in Revelation.  Every instance of "the devil" in Revelation is a projection forward in time.  Revelation relays a bizarre fever-dream of an apocalypse that is all supposed to happen in the future.  One will find no biographical information about the devil in Revelation, but merely outlandish predictions of things that never came; for the last time today, I will say that "in this text, knowledge of Satan is presupposed in the reader by the author."

---

It's been a long couple of segments, I know.  We had to do this, though, and we had to do it this way.

We had to know for sure.

Join us again next time when we look briefly at the evolution of the concept of "the devil" since the Apostolic Age, and then redraw our main assertion: that Christian scripture is not where modern Christians got their preposterous idea of "the devil."

Now, back to our regularly scheduled Gospel reading.

------------------------------

Matthew 4:12 through Matthew 4:14

12 When he heard that John had been arrested, he withdrew to Galilee. 

13 He left Nazareth and went to live in Capernaum by the sea, in the region of Zebulun and Naphtali, 

14 that what had been said through Isaiah the prophet might be fulfilled:

------------------------------

My apologies for cutting a sentence in half here with today's Gospel selection.  Because of the awkward placement of some of the verse-breaks in The Bible, we will occasionally have to split a sentence or two up around here.  I will do my best to maintain continuity.

Last time we met, Jesus' temptation in the desert ended with angels ministering to him.  Immediately subsequent to that, and with no transition, Jesus now finds out that his friend (teacher?) John the Baptist has been arrested.  We aren't told exactly why he has been arrested.

The way the text reads, this moment in time is absolutely formative for Jesus.  It is as if the news of the arrest of his friend (teacher?) is what spurs all of his subsequent action.  Here, as we rarely see him, Jesus seems reactionary.  They've arrested his teacher, so he ratchets up his political action by moving and proclaiming a ministry.  God doesn't appear to Jesus with instructions.  Jesus simply acts.

There's a lot of geographical information in this reading.  Jesus had left Galilee southward to go to the place where John was baptizing.  Now, upon hearing of the arrest, Jesus heads back up north to the region of Galilee, although he changes his actual residence from Nazareth to a town called Capernaum.  The whole region of Galilee was known as a hotbed of political and/or religious radicalism at the time, especially when compared to the more conservative communities near Jerusalem, so it makes sense that this is where Jesus will commence and conduct his radical ministry.

We can see in verse 14 the first half of what will be a classic case of "Shoehorn Matthew," wherein Matthew will try to make it seem as though The Old Testament predicted Jesus' life and exploits exactly.  We will get the second half of that next time.  

The big thing to remember here is that Jesus had expressed no interest in leading a movement up until the point that John the Baptist was taken out of the picture.  This is, perhaps, because John the Baptist was the leader of the movement, to whom Jesus wished to defer as long as he could.

We'll continue to explore the compelling idea that Christ was not only baptized but also taught by John the Baptist as we move forward.

Thank you for sticking this out with me.  I know we've tended toward scholastic density lately, which makes for challenging study.  Our efforts and our patience with this will one day be rewarded one-million-fold.  I'd bet my whole life on that.

Please share this writing.

Love.

-------------------------
* That's messed up.

** That's really messed up.

*** Come on!  Really!?
-------------------------
To read what's next, click here.

To read what came prior to this, click here.

For the index of Christ's words, click here.

On Matthew 4:10 through Matthew 4:11

Hello friend.  Welcome to (or back to) The Moral Vision of Jesus Christ.  If this is your first time here, you can orient yourself to this project by starting at the Introduction, which can be found here.

Where did we leave off?

We've followed Jesus out to the desert to see him tempted by "the devil," aka "Satan," in Matthew Chapter 4.  We've discussed the likelihood that Jesus was having a hallucinatory experience in the desert, brought on by ascetic fasting.  To better understand the narrative, we've been digging deeply into the origins of this "Satan" character.

Today, we continue digging in our multi-part study-within-a-study: "Understanding the Origins of Modern Common Conceptions of The Devil in Christianity," and witness the ending of the "Temptation" narrative in Matt.  

Happy reading.

Understanding the Origin of Modern Common Conceptions of The Devil in Christianity

Part IV

Instances of "Satan" in The New Testament

Last time, as you'll recall, we discussed the presence of a figure that very closely resembles the modern "Satan" in an intertestamental, apocryphal, pseudepigraphical text called The Book of Enoch.  The Book of Enoch may be the first extant text to contain the "biography of the devil."  Now we will continue forward in chronological time to further identify, define and understand the concept of "Satan the Devil" in Christian Scripture.

Today, we will review every one of the thirty-three instances of the word "Satan" in The New Testament.  Where we found no "capital-S" Satan in The Old Testament, The New Testament will surprise us with instance after instance of the "capital-S" Satan.  However, as I've said before, we will not find Satan's biography in The New Testament.  

This study is expanding a little bit past what I initially planned as its limits, in order to accomodate more detail.  Next time we meet, we will comb The New Testament again, but for the term "devil" as opposed to "Satan."  Between Parts IV and V of this study, then, we will be able to say resolutely that we've exhausted New Testament references to the Prince of Darkness in search of his biography, or any functional information about him, and found none.

Let's get started.

#1 - Matthew 4:10

Interestingly, Matthew 4:10 is also part of today's Gospel reading.  Matt 4:10 shows Jesus rebuking Satan in the desert, after the temptations.  He refers to Satan as the "capital-S" Satan, but we are offered no information about the character.  The author of the text clearly assumes the reader's familiarity with the "capital-S" Satan.

#2 - Matthew 12:26

Here, Jesus is accused of performing exorcisms by the power of Satan.  Jesus replies, roughly, "how can Satan drive out Satan, though?" meaning "why would Satan help defeat one of his minions?"  

The fact that the wording surrounds a miraculous event makes the whole conversation dubious.  We'll discuss this in greater detail when we get to it in our study.  For today, we just need to understand that this verse offers no Satanic biography, and assumes the reader's prior knowledge of the entity.  

#3 - Matthew 16:23

In Matt 16:22, Peter argues with Jesus about whether or not he must be executed in Jerusalem.  In Matt 16:23, Jesus rebukes Peter for his argument by calling him "Satan."  He also says Peter is an "obstacle" to him.  Here, Jesus seems to return to an older usage of the word "satan."  He seems to use it more as a generic term meaning "adversary," and less as the "capital-S" Satan.

#4 - Mark 1:13

Mark 1:13 is part of Mark's highly condensed version of the Temptation in the Desert narrative.  In its entirety, the narrative consists of the following two verses from Mark Chapter 1:

12 At once the Spirit drove him out into the desert, 

13 and he remained in the desert for forty days, tempted by Satan. He was among wild beasts, and the angels ministered to him.

No Satanic biography.  Just Jesus (probably) hallucinating in the desert.

#5 - Mark 3:23 and #6 - Mark 3:26

Mark 3:23 through Mark 3:30 is the Marcan analog of the conversation in Matt 12:26 (see #2).  Here, Jesus asks how Satan can drive out Satan, as he did in Matt. The reader's knowledge of a capital-S Satan is assumed, and no biographical information about Satan is given.

#7 - Mark 4:15

In Mark 4:15, Jesus is explaining the Parable of the Sower to his guys.  He says that Satan steals the word of God right out of some people once it is planted in them.  He doesn't teach us anything about where Satan came from.  He assumes the reader's prior knowledge of the Satanic biography, and the saying contains no moral prescription.

#8 - Mark 8:33

Analogous to Matt 16:23, see #3.

#9 - Luke 10:18

In Luke 10:18, Jesus says:

"I have observed Satan fall like lightning from the sky."

This is his response to the tidings of success brought to him by the Seventy-Two exorcists he had sent out to the countryside.  He is not talking about an angelic fall like the one we saw in Enoch, but instead of the decline of Satan's power over Earth at that time due to the works of his followers.  We can learn nothing about Satan's origin from this verse.  Jesus, here, is merely telling his guys "good job," and is not offering moral teachings.

#10 - Luke 11:18

See #2, #5 and #6.

#11 - Luke 13:16

Luke 13:16 introduces us to a woman "who for eighteen years had been crippled by a spirit."  The woman cannot straighten her back to stand up, which is blamed on this spiritual possession.  Jesus heals the woman by driving the demon out of her.  This occurs in a synagogue.  The leader of the synagogue reprimands Jesus for doing work - healing - on the sabbath.  Jesus says:

15 ... “Hypocrites! Does not each one of you on the sabbath untie his ox or his ass from the manger and lead it out for watering?
 
16 This daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has bound for eighteen years now, ought she not to have been set free on the sabbath day from this bondage?”

From this story we can learn nothing about Satan's biography except that he is capable of causing severe back pain.

#12 - Luke 22:3

In Luke 22:3, the Apostle Judas is possessed by Satan himself to betray Jesus to the authorities of Jerusalem.  

This verse gives us no new information about Satan, but rather assumes the reader's prior knowledge of Satan, as do all of the verses on this list.

#13 - Luke 22:31

Luke 22:31 has Jesus talking to Peter about whether or not Peter will remain loyal to Jesus.  Jesus says that "Satan" wishes to sift the disciples "like wheat," the meaning of which is not immediately and perfectly clear.  Then he tells Peter "you will deny knowing me before the cock crows," parallel with Matthew 26:33-35 and Mark 14:29-31.  

No good information about Satan can be gleaned from this passage.  Here, as elsewhere, one could argue that "Satan" is just a stand in for the words "evil" or "fate."

#14 - John 13:27

About midway through the Gospel of John, we have Satan again entering Judas.  Here, Jesus is eating with his men and he says, roughly, "one of y'all will betray me," and they say "which one?" and he says "the one who I give this piece of bread to."  Then, he gives a piece of bread to Judas.  It is only then that Judas becomes possessed by "Satan."  Jesus then hurries the now possessed Judas off to accomplish his dark deed.  "What you are going to do, do quickly.”  

It is almost as if Satan is a minion or subordinate of Christ, here, helping Jesus accomplish his ultimate goal of dying at the hands of the Roman State.

Here we learn nothing biographical or functional about Satan.

#15 - Acts 5:3

Some time back, we glanced at the Book of Acts to learn what life was like for the very first Christians.  At that time, we noted that the very first thing said about the very first Christian community as it existed immediately after Christ's execution was that they had "devoted themselves to the communal life," and that they were "together and had all things in common."  This was to point out the stark contrast between the first Christians and today's American Christians, who honor Mammon* as their primary God, and Mars as their secondary.

In Acts, we also read a story about a guy in the first Christian community named Ananias.  If you'll recall, Ananias and his wife were found to have hidden some of their personal wealth so they wouldn't have to give it to the common bank of the nascent Christian community.  We bring this to light because, within that same narrative, we find one of our thirty-three mentions of Satan in The New Testament.

In Acts 5:3, Peter, the de facto leader of the community, is questioning Ananias as follows:

“Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart so that you lied to the holy Spirit and retained part of the price of the land?"

The question proves to be rhetorical, as Ananias is struck dead by God, or by Peter through the power of God, before he can respond.  When Ananias' wife get's home, the exact same thing happens to her.

(Yes, it appears the very first Christians were hardcore socialists of a sort.)

We learn nothing about Satan here at his mention, but I will always take any excuse to retell the tale of Ananias.

#16 - Acts 26:18

Acts 26:18 catches Paul of Tarsus in the middle of retelling the story of his conversion to Christ.

On his way to Damascus to persecute some Christians, Paul and his companions are struck to the ground by a great light in the sky and voice coming from it asking Paul "why are you persecuting me?"  Paul says "who are you?!"  The voice responds, roughly, "I am Jesus!  And today, I'm turning you into a Christian so you can go out to the world and turn other people away from Satan and towards God."

This is another instance where we could replace the word "Satan" with the word "evil" and never miss a beat.  We learn nothing functional about the Prince of Darkness, here.

Also, we find the story of Jesus' talking to Paul dubious at best, for reasons that will be explained later in great detail.

#17 - Romans 16:20

In Paul's Letter to the Romans, in a section now labelled "Against Factions," Paul tells the Christian community in Rome that he wants them to be cautious against divisions among themselves.

From Romans, Chapter 16:

17 I urge you, brothers, to watch out for those who create dissensions and obstacles, in opposition to the teaching that you learned; avoid them.  

18 For such people do not serve our Lord Christ but their own appetites, and by fair and flattering speech they deceive the hearts of the innocent. 

19 For while your obedience is known to all, so that I rejoice over you, I want you to be wise as to what is good, and simple as to what is evil; 

20 then the God of peace will quickly crush Satan under your feet. The grace of our Lord Jesus be with you.

As you can see for yourself, this does not offer the Christian follower any functional information about The Devil.  Paul is just worried that the community will splinter apart in those turbulent and trying early years, and is warning against the factionalism that would lead to that outcome.  He assumes his audience knows who Satan is.

#18 - 1 Corinthians 5:5

In 1 Corinthians, Paul writes to the Christian community in Corinth and tells them that he has heard of some incest going on with one of their community members.  He instructs the community to kick the incestual lover out of their midst; to "deliver this man to Satan."

Paul is giving instruction to excommunicate the man for his sexual misdeeds.  Excommunication would have been equivalent to being "delivered to Satan."  Paul is extremely judgemental here.

In 1 Cornithians 5:5, Satan continues to serve as the opposite side of the dual natured universe.  If you aren't in the community, with God, then you must be outside of it, with Satan.  No biographical Satanic data can be found here.

#19 - 1 Corinthians 7:5

In 1 Corinthians 7:5, Paul tells the Corinthians how to administer their married lives.  He tells the community at Corinth that when two people marry, they must give one another their body, so that the wife is in charge of the husband's body, and the husband is in charge of the wife's.  He tells them specifically that neither should withhold sex from the other. He says they shouldn't deny one another sex "so that Satan may not tempt you through your lack of self-control."  Here, "Satan" could be seen as a stand-in for the lustful sensations of human flesh.  The instance of Satan here, like all the rest that we've seen in The Bible, is non-biographical.  The meaning of "Satan" is totally taken for granted.

#20 - 2 Corinthians 2:11

Here, Paul contradicts what he had been saying in his first letter to the Corinthians.  In this new letter, he tells the community to forgive members that break the rules.  Paul says that forgiveness is a safeguard against Satan.  Again, knowledge of this "capital-S" Satan is presupposed in the reader.

#21 - 2 Corinthians 11:14

Here, Paul is discussing the presence of false prophets who, at the time of the writing, are speaking in the name of Christ but are out of step with the larger Christ-Movement community.  He says, roughly, "of course there are false prophets, because even Satan dresses up as an angel of light."  Here again, Satan is the opposite of good; the counter-weight to God.

We learn nothing about Satan here, not that we would necessarily consider knowledge gained from a Pauline letter inherently "valuable."

#22 - 2 Corinthians 12:7

In 2 Corinthians ch.12, Paul rambles on back and forth about whether or not he should boast about himself and his accomplishments.  He settles, roughly, on "I won't boast, even though if I did boast, it would totally be true, because I have had all these amazing revelations."  Immediately after this deliberation, he explains his concern that he will become too "elated."

So that he won't become to "elated" as a result of his revelations, Paul says that "a thorn in the flesh was given to me, an angel of Satan, to beat me, to keep me from being too elated."  God has sent some unspecified discomfort or pain to Paul's life, to keep him on the straight-and-narrow.

Satan as metaphor for pain.

This offers us no Satanic biography.

#23 - 1 Thessalonians 2:18

In his first letter to the Thessalonians - the one he actually wrote - Paul tells the Thessalonian community that he had meant to visit them in person, but that Satan had stood in his way.  Here, the use of the capital-S "Satan" is merely a way to say "bad fortune."  We learn nothing about Satan from this.

#24 - 2 Thessalonians 2:9

2 Thessalonians is, according to many modern scholars, pseudepigraphical.  It was possibly written by someone who knew Paul and was trying to imitate Paul's first letter to the Thessalonians.  Chapter 2 of the document seems to be talking about a coming Antichrist in the form of a "lawless one" who Jesus will "kill with the breath of his mouth."  This "lawless one," in 2:9, is called the one who "springs from the power of Satan."  A verse later, the author of this letter says that God is sending this deceiving "lawless one" to tempt people to believe a lie, so that they can be condemned.

The cosmology suggested here is nonsensical, and the text offers us no valuable information about Satan.

#25 - 1 Timothy 1:20

In 1 Timothy, which may be pseudepigraphical, Paul tells his friend Timothy how he wants the community Timothy oversees to be ran.  As an example to Timothy, Paul says that some community members in his town had rejected "conscience" and "made a shipwreck of their faith," and so they were "handed over to Satan to be taught not to blaspheme."

This language is similar to that found in 1 Corinthians, Chapter 5.  To be "handed over to Satan" in the early Christian community, was to be excommunicated.  Paul is just telling Timothy to excommunicate some people.

There is no Satanic biography here.

#26 - 1 Timothy 5:15

1 Timothy ch.5 has Paul, or "Pseudo-Paul," writing to Timothy about how widows should be handled within the Christian Community.  He says, roughly, "old widows can be full members in a community.  They pose no risk of harm.  But young widows tend to get into trouble with gossip and sexiness, so they need to get married again in order to be full members.  That way, they have stuff to do, and they won't go around causing trouble.  Trust me, we've seen this before, and some of our members have been turned away to Satan because of this."

There's a lot that should be said here that we won't say until a later date, when we look at 1 Timothy as a whole.  What we will simply say for now is that 1 Timothy gives us no biography of Satan, and no functional information about him.

#s 27 through 33 - Revelation 2:9, 2:13, 2:24, 3:9, 12:9, 20:2 and 20:7

"Satan" is mentioned several times in The Book of Revelation.  The biography of Satan in Revelation is taken for granted, as it is in every other New Testament book that mentions him.

Scholars aren't certain who wrote Revelation, but it is clear from a stylistic point of view, and by analysis of historical context, that the "John" who claims to author Revelation is not the same "John" who claims to author The Gospel of John.

Revelation claims to be a prophecy handed down directly by Jesus from Heaven.  The narrative of Revelation occurs (generally) during the time in which it was written, not the distant-by-thousands-of-years future.

We feel comfortable lumping all the Revelation mentions of Satan together because Revelation is a fantastical fever-dream, and its narrative cannot be taken seriously except maybe as prose and literary context.  We will study Revelation at length at some point.  For now, just know that the last seven references to "Satan" in the New Testament - those found in Revelation - offer us no Satanic biography, but merely use Satan as the counterweight to God in a wild story about a time of epic war and tribulation.  Knowledge about Satan's origin is presupposed in every case, here.

----

And that's it.  We've reviewed every instance of the word "Satan" in The New Testament, and not one single time did the text tell us who Satan is, where he came from, how he gained dominion over Earth, how he became the administrator of Hell, or how he was given the job by God to tempt all humanity away from God.

In The Old Testament, the "capital-S" Satan does not even exist.  In The New Testament, his existence and back-story are taken for granted.  Again, all evidence points toward Satan's backstory having originated largely during The Intertestamental Period, and perhaps specifically in The Book of Enoch.

Next time, we will double-back and review every instance of the term "devil" in The New Testament in order to demonstrate that The New Testament absolutely does not offer us the biography of Satan, aka The Devil, aka Beelzebul, aka The Prince of Darkness.  That will complete our demonstration that Satan is simply not explained or defined in canon Christian Scripture, and make way for a quick survey of Satan's evolution between the first-century and modern times.  That should wrap up this multi-part study-within-a-study.

For now, let's get back to our Gospel.

------------------------------

Matthew 4:10 through Matthew 4:11

10 At this, Jesus said to him, “Get away, Satan! It is written:
    ‘The Lord, your God, shall you worship
    and him alone shall you serve.’”

11 Then the devil left him and, behold, angels came and ministered to him. 

------------------------------

It is an interesting coincidence that we've already had occasion to discuss Matthew 4:10 today.  

Matthew 4:10 contains Jesus Saying #4.  Recall that, last week, Satan offered Jesus all of the whole world if only Jesus would fall down and worship him.  Today, we get Jesus' firm retort.  He appeals to Jewish tradition and tells Satan to get lost.

Today marks the end of the "Temptation in the Desert" narrative.  I will reiterate one last time that I am of the opinion that the "miraculous" events that we've seen recently described during Jesus' desert trek didn't actually happen.  As I've said before, I do not believe in things that would defy human senses.  

Even if the Temptation in the Desert had happened as we've seen it described, though, the events in the narrative shed no light on the human morality of Jesus, and don't further the cause of instructing humanity how to live their daily lives.  Ultimately, that's what we are after, here at The Moral Vision.  

We want to know, and we will precisely find out: "how did Jesus Christ advise us to live?"

Thank you for visiting.  Thank you for reading.  Please share this work.

Love.

-------------------------

* Mammon means material wealth.

-------------------------
To read what's next, click here.

To read what came prior to this, click here.

For the index of Christ's words, click here.