1. The great advantage of Judaism over other religious systems lies in its
unified view of life, which it regards as a continuous conflict between
good and evil influences within man. As man succeeds in overcoming evil
and achieving good, he asserts his own moral personality. Outside of man
Judaism sees no real contrast between good and evil, since both have
emanated from God, the Spirit of goodness. Judaism recognizes no primal
power of evil plotting against God and defying Him, such as that of the
Persian dualism. Nor does Judaism espouse the dualism of spirit and
matter, identifying matter with evil, from which the soul strives to free
itself while confined in the prison house of the body. Such a conception
is taught by Plato, probably under Oriental influence, and is shared by
the Hindu and Christian ascetics who torture themselves in order to
suppress bodily desire in their quest of a higher existence. The Jewish
conception of the unity of God necessitates the unity of the world, which
leaves no place for a cosmic principle of evil. In this Judaism dissents
from modern philosophers also, such as John Stuart Mill and even Kant, who
speak of a radical evil in nature. No power of evil can exist in
independence of God.(557) As the Psalmist says: “His kingdom ruleth over
all. Bless the Lord, ye angels of His, ye mighty in strength that fulfill
His word, hearkening unto the voice of His word.”(558)
This increased the difficulty of the problem of the origin of evil. The
answer given by the general Jewish consciousness, expressed by both
Biblical and rabbinical writers, is that evil comes from the free will of
man, who is endowed with the power of rebelling against the will of God.
This idea is symbolized in the story of the fall of man. The serpent, or
tempter, represents the evil inclination which arises in man with his
first consciousness of freedom. So in Jewish belief Satan, the Adversary,
is only an allegorical figure, representing the evil of the world, both
physical and moral. He was sent by God to test man for his own good, to
develop him morally. He is “the spirit that ever wills evil, but achieves
the good,” and therefore in the book of Job he actually comes before God’s
throne as one of the angels.(559)
2. In tracing the belief in demons we must draw a sharp distinction
between popular views and systematic doctrine.(560) During the Biblical
era the people believed in goat-like spirits roaming the fields and woods,
the deserts and ravines, whom they called _Seirim_—hairy demons, or
satyrs,—and to whom they sacrificed in fear and trembling.(561) As Ibn
Ezra ingeniously pointed out in his commentary, Azazel was originally a
desert demon dwelling in the ravines near Jerusalem, to whom a scapegoat
was offered at the opening of the year, a rite preserved in the Day of
Atonement cult of the Mosaic Code.(562) In fact, in ancient Babylon,
Syria, and Palestine diseases and accidents were universally ascribed to
evil spirits of the wilderness or the nether world. The Bible occasionally
mentions these evil spirits as punitive angels sent by God. In the more
popular view, which is reflected by apocryphal and rabbinical literature,
and which was influenced by both the Babylonian and Persian religions,
they appear in increasing numbers and with specific names. Each disease
had its peculiar demon. Desolate places, cemeteries, and the darkness of
night were all peopled by superstition with hosts of demons (_Shedim_), at
whose head was _Azazel_, _Samael_; _Beelzebub_, the Philistine god of
flies and of illness;(563) _Belial_, king of the nether world;(564) or the
Persian _Ashma Deva_ (Evil Spirit), under the Hebrew name of _Ashmodai_ or
_Shemachzai_.(565) The queen of the demons was _Lilith_ or _Iggereth bath
Mahlath_, “the dancer on the housetops.”(566)
The Essenes seem to have made special studies of both demonology and
angelology, believing that they could invoke the good spirits and conjure
the evil ones, thus curing various diseases, which they ascribed to
possession by demons. While these exorcisms are not so common in the
Talmud as they are in the New Testament, there remain many indications
that such practices were followed by Jewish saints and believed by the
people. Often the rabbis seem to have considered them the work of “unclean
spirits,” which they endeavored to overcome with the “spirit of holiness,”
and particularly by the study of the Torah.(567)
3. This answers implicitly the question of the origin of demons. Obviously
the belief in malevolent spirits is incompatible with the existence of an
all-benign and all-wise Creator. Accordingly, two alternative explanations
are offered in the rabbinical and apocalyptic writings. According to one,
the demons are half angelic and half animal beings, sharing intelligence
and flight with the angels, sensuality with beasts and with men. Their
double nature is ascribed to incompleteness, because they were created
last of all beings, and their creation was interrupted by the coming of
the Sabbath, putting an end to all creation.(568) According to the other
view they are the offspring of the “fallen angels,” issuing from the union
of the angels with the daughters of men as described in Gen. VI, 1 f.
These spread the virus of impurity over all the earth, causing carnal
desire and every kind of lewdness. The whole world of demons is regarded
as alienated from God by the rebellion of the heavenly hosts, as if the
fall of man by sin had its prototype in the celestial sphere.(569) A
rabbinical legend, which corresponds with a Persian myth, ascribes the
origin of demons to the intercourse of Adam with Lilith, the night
spirit.(570) On the other hand, the archangel Samael is said to have cast
lascivious glances at the beauty of Eve, and then to have turned into
Satan the Tempter.(571) The Jewish systems of both angelology and
demonology, first worked out in the apocalyptic literature, were further
elaborated by the Cabbalah.
Angelology found a conspicuous place in the liturgy in connection with the
_Kedushah_ Benediction and likewise in the liturgy and the theology of the
Church.(572)
On the other hand the belief in evil spirits and in Satan, the Evil One,
remained rather a matter of popular credulity and never became a positive
doctrine of the Synagogue. True, the liturgy contained morning prayers
which asked God for protection against the Evil One, and formulas invoking
the angels to shield one during the night from evil spirits.(573) But the
arch-fiend was never invested with power over the soul, depriving man of
his perfect freedom and divine sovereignty, as in the Christian Church.
4. In the formation of the idea of the arch-fiend, Satan, we can observe
the interworking of several elements. The name Satan in no way indicates a
demon. It denotes simply the adversary, the one who offers hindrances. The
name was thus applied to the accuser at court.(574) In Zechariah and in
Job(575) Satan appears at the throne of God as the prosecutor, roaming
about the earth to espy the transgressions of men, seeking to lure them to
their destruction. In the Books of Chronicles(576) Satan has become a
proper name, meaning the Seducer.
The Serpent in the Paradise story is more completely a demon, although the
legend intends rather to account for man’s morality, his distinction
between good and evil. Satan was then identified with the serpent, who was
called by the rabbis _Nahash ha Kadmoni_, “the primeval Serpent,” after
the analogy of the serpent-like form of Ahriman. Thus Satan in the person
of the serpent became the embodiment of evil, the prime cause of sin and
death.(577) Possibly a part in this process was played by the Babylonian
figure of _Tihamat_, the dragon of _chaos_ (_Tehom_ in the Hebrew), with
whom the god Marduk wrestled for dominion over the world, and who has
parallels in the Biblical Rahab and similar mythological figures.
We must not overlook such rabbinical legends as the one about how the
poisonous breath of the serpent infected the whole human race, except
Israel who has been saved by the law at Sinai.(578) Occasionally we hear
that the Evil Spirit (_Yezer ha Ra_) will be slain by God(579) or by the
Messiah.(580) These Haggadic sayings, however, were never accepted as
normative for religious belief. On the contrary, they were always in
dispute, and many a Talmudic teacher minimized the fiendish character of
Satan, who became a stimulus to moral betterment through the trials he
imposes.(581) Philo, allegorizing the legends, turns the evil angels of
the Bible into wicked men.(582)
5. As to demons in general, the Talmudists never doubted their existence,
but endeavored to minimize their importance. They changed the demon
_Azazel_ into a geographical term by transposing the letters.(583) They
explained “the sons of God who came to the daughters of men to give birth
to the giants of old” as aristocratic Sethites who intermarried with
low-class families of the Cainites.(584) As to the rest, the entire belief
in demons and ghosts was too deeply rooted in the folk mind to be
counteracted by the rabbis. Even lucid thinkers of the Middle Ages were
caught by these baneful superstitions, including Jehuda ha Levi, Crescas,
and Nahmanides, the mystic.(585) Only a small group fought against this
offshoot of fear and superstition, among them Saadia, Maimonides and his
school, Ibn Ezra, Gersonides, and Juda Ibn Balag. To Maimonides the demons
mentioned in Mishnah and Talmud are only figurative expressions for
physical plagues. He considers the belief in demons equivalent to a belief
in pagan deities. “Many pious Israelites,” he says,(586) “believe in the
reality of demons and witches, thinking that they should not be made the
object of worship and regard, for the reason that the Torah has prohibited
it. But they fail to see that the Law commands us to banish all these
things from sight, because they are but falsehood and deceit, as is the
whole idolatry with which they are intrinsically connected.”
6. This sound view was disseminated by the rationalistic school in its
contest with the Cabbalah, and has exerted a wholesome influence upon
modern Judaism. Thus Satan is rejected by Jewish doctrine, while Luther
and Calvin, the Reformers of the Christian Church, still believed in him.
Milton’s “Paradise Lost” placed him in the very foreground of Christian
belief, and the leaders of the Protestant Churches, up to the present,
accord him a prominent place in their scheme of salvation, as the opponent
and counterpart of God. In his work on Christian dogmatics, David
Friedrich Strauss observes acutely: “The whole (Christian) idea of the
Messiah and his kingdom must necessarily have as its counterpart a kingdom
of demons with a personal ruler at its head; without this it is no more
possible than the north pole of the magnet would be without a south pole.
If Christ has come to destroy the works of the Devil, there would be no
need for him to come, unless there were a Devil. On the other hand, if the
Devil is to be considered merely the personification of evil, then a
Christ who would be only the personification of the ideal, but not a real
personality, would suffice equally.”(587) At present Christian theologians
and even philosophers have recourse to Platonic and Buddhist ideas, that
evil is implanted in the world from which humanity must free itself, and
they thus present Christianity as the _religion of redemption par
excellence_.(588) Over against this, Judaism still maintains that there is
no radical or primitive evil in the world. No power exists which is
intrinsically hostile to God, and from which man must be redeemed.
According to the Jewish conception, the goodness and glory of God fill
both heaven and earth, while holiness penetrates all of life, bringing
matter and flesh within the realm of the divine. Evil is but the contrast
of good, as shade is but the contrast of light. Evil can be overcome by
each individual, as he realizes his own solemn duty and the divine will.
Its only existence is in the field of morality, where it is a test of
man’s freedom and power. Evil is within man, and against it he is to wage
the battles of life, until his victory signalizes the triumph of the
divine in his own nature.(589)