THE CONSUMING FIRE.
The Shekinah--Jewish idols--Attributes of the fiery and
cruel Elohim compared with those of the Devil--The powers of
evil combined under a head--Continuity--The consuming fire
spiritualised.
That Abraham was a Fire-worshipper might be suspected from the
immemorial efforts of all Semitic authorities to relieve him of
traditional connection with that particular idolatry. When the good
and evil powers were being distinguished, we find the burning and
the bright aspects of Fire severally regarded. The sign of Jehovah's
covenant with Abram included both. 'It came to pass that when the sun
went down, and it was dark, behold a smoking furnace and a burning
lamp that passed between those pieces' (of the sacrifice). In the
legend of Moses we have the glory resting on Sinai and the burning
bush, the bush which, it is specially remarked, was 'not consumed,'
an exceptional circumstance in honour of Moses. To these corresponded
the Urim and Thummim, marking the priest as source of light and
of judgment. In his favourable and adorable aspect Jehovah was the
Brightness of Fire. This was the Shekinah. In the Targum, Jonathan
Ben Uzziel to the Prophets, it is said: 'The mountains trembled
before the Lord; the mountains Tabor, Hermon, Carmel said one to the
other: Upon me the Shekinah will rest, and to me will it come. But
the Shekinah rested upon Mount Sinai, weakest and smallest of all the
mountains. This Sinai trembled and shook, and its smoke went up as the
smoke of an oven, because of the glory of the God of Israel which had
manifested itself upon it.' The Brightness [25] passed on to illumine
every event associated with the divine presence in Semitic mythology;
it was 'the glory of the Lord' shining from the Star of Bethlehem,
and the figure of the Transfiguration.
The Consuming Fire also had its development. Among the spiritual
it was spiritualised. 'Who among us shall dwell with the Devouring
Fire?' cries Isaiah. 'Who among us shall dwell with the Everlasting
Burnings? He that walketh righteously and speaketh uprightly; he
that despiseth the gain of oppressions, that shaketh his hands from
holding of bribes, that stoppeth his ears from hearing of blood,
and shutteth his eyes from seeing evil.' It was by a prosaic route
that the Devouring Fire became the residence of the wicked.
After Jeroboam (1 Kings xiii.) had built altars to the Elohim,
under form of Calves, a prophet came out of Judah to denounce the
idolatry. 'And he cried against the altar in the word of Jehovah,
and said, O altar, altar! thus saith Jehovah, Behold, a child shall
be born unto the house of David, Josiah by name; and upon thee shall
he offer the priests of the high places that burn incense upon thee,
and men's bones shall be burnt upon thee.' It was deemed so important
that this prophecy should be fulfilled in the letter, when it could
no longer be fulfilled in reality, that some centuries later Josiah
dug up the bones of the Elohistic priests and burned them upon their
long-ruined altars (2 Kings xxiii.).
The incident is significant, both on account of the prophet's
personification of the altar, and the institution of a sort of Gehenna
in connection with it. The personification and the Gehenna became
much more complete as time went on. The Jews originally had no Devil,
as indeed had no races at first; and this for the obvious reason
that their so-called gods were quite equal to any moral evils that
were to be accounted for, as we have already seen they were adequate
to explain all physical evils. But the antagonists of the moral
Jehovah were recognised and personified with increasing clearness,
and were quite prepared for connection with any General who might be
theoretically proposed for their leadership. When the Jews came under
the influence of Persian theology the archfiend was elected, and all
the Elohim--Moloch, Dagon, Astarte, Chemosh, and the rest--took their
place under his rebellious ensign.
The descriptions of the Devil in the Bible are mainly borrowed from
the early descriptions of the Elohim, and of Jehovah in his Elohistic
character. [26] In the subjoined parallels I follow the received
English version.
Gen. xxii. 1. 'God tempted Matt. iv. 1. 'Then was Jesus
Abraham.' led up into the wilderness
to be tempted of the devil.'
See also 1 Cor. vii. 5, 1
Thes. iii. 5, James 1.13.
Exod. v. 3. 'I (Jehovah) will John xiii. 2. 'The devil having
harden Pharaoh's heart;' v. 13, now put into the heart Judas
'He hardened Pharaoh's heart.' Iscariot, Simon's son, to betray
him.'
1 Kings xxii. 23. 'Behold the John viii. 44. 'He (the devil) is
Lord hath put a lying spirit in a liar' ('and so is his father,'
the mouth of all these thy continues the sentence by right
prophets, and the Lord hath of translation). 1 Tim. iii. 2,
spoken evil concerning them.' 'slanderers' (diabolous). 2 Tim.
Ezek. xiv. 9. 'If the prophet be iii. 3, 'false accusers'
deceived when he hath spoken a (diabolo). Also Titus ii. 3, Von
thing, I the Lord have deceived Tischendorf translates
that prophet, and I will stretch 'calumniators.'
out my hand upon him, and will
destroy him from the midst of
my people.'
Isa. xlv. 7. 'I make peace and Matt. xiii. 38. 'The tares are
create evil. I the Lord do all the children of the wickied
these things.' Amos iii. 6. one.' 1 John iii. 8. 'He that
'Shall there be evil in a city committeth sin is of the devil;
and the Lord hath not done it?' for the devil sinneth from the
1 Sam. xvi. 14. 'An evil spirit beginning.'
from the Lord troubled him'
(Saul).
Exod. xii. 29. 'At midnight the John viii. 44. 'He (the devil)
Lord smote all the firstborn of was a murderer from the
Egypt.' Ver. 30. 'There was a beginning.'
great cry in Egypt; for there was
not a house where there was not
one dead.' Exod. xxxiii. 27.
'Thus saith the Lord God of
Israel, Put every man his sword
by his side, and go in and out
from gate to gate throughout the
camp, and slay every man his
brother, and every man his
companion, and every man his
neighbour.'
Exod. vi. 9. 'Take thy rod and Rev. xii. 7, &c. 'There was war
cast it before Pharaoh and it in heaven: Michael and his angels
shall become a serpent.' Ver. 12. fought against the dragon.... And
'Aaron's rod swallowed up their the great dragon was cast out,
rods.' Num. xxi. 6. 'Jehovah sent that old serpent, called the
fiery serpents (Seraphim) among Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth
the people.' Ver. 8. 'And the the whole world.... Woe to the
Lord said unto Moses, Make thee a inhabiters of the earth and of
fiery serpent, and set it upon a the sea! for the devil has come
pole: and it shall come to pass, down to you, having great wrath.'
that every one that is bitten,
when he looketh upon it, shall
live.' (This serpent was
worshipped until destroyed by
Hezekiah, 2 Kings xviii.) Compare
Jer. viii. 17, Ps. cxlviii.,
'Praise ye the Lord from the
earth, ye dragons.'
Gen. xix. 24. 'The Lord rained Matt. xxv. 41. 'Depart from me,
upon Sodom and Gomorrah brimstone ye cursed, into everlasting fire,
and fire from the Lord out of prepared for the devil and his
heaven.' Deut. iv. 24. 'The Lord angels.' Mark ix. 44. 'Where
thy God is a consuming fire.' Ps. their worm dieth not, and the
xi. 6. 'Upon the wicked he shall fire is not quenched.' Rev. xx.
rain snares, fire and brimstone.' 10. 'And the devil that
Ps. xviii. 8. 'There went up a deceiveth them was cast into the
smoke out of his nostrils.' Ps. lake of fire and brimstone.' In
xcvii. 3. 'A fire goeth before Rev. ix. Abaddon, or Apollyon, is
him, and burneth up his enemies represented as the king of the
round about.' Ezek. xxxviii. 19, scorpion tormentors; and the
&c. 'For in my jealousy, and in diabolical horses, with stinging
the fire of my wrath, have I serpent tails, are described as
spoken.... I will plead against killing with the smoke and
him with pestilence and with brimstone from their mouths.
blood, and I will rain upon him
... fire and brimstone.' Isa.
xxx. 33. 'Tophet is ordained of
old; yea, for the king is it
prepared: he hath made it deep
and wide; the pile thereof is
fire and much wood; the breath
of the Lord, like a stream of
brimstone, doth kindle it.'
In addition to the above passages may be cited a notable passage from
Paul's Epistle to the Thessalonians (ii. 3). 'Let no man deceive you
by any means: for that day (of Christ) shall not come, except there
come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son
of perdition; who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is
called God, or that is worshipped; so that he, as God, sitteth in the
temple of God, showing himself that he is God. Remember ye not that,
when I was yet with you, I told you these things? And now ye know what
withholdeth that he might be revealed in his time. For the mystery of
iniquity doth already work: only he who now letteth will let, until he
be taken out of the way: and then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom
the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy
with the brightness of his coming: even him whose coming is after the
working of Satan, with all power, and signs, and lying wonders, and
with all the deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish;
because they received not the love of the truth, that they might
be saved. And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion,
that they should believe a lie; that they all might be damned who
believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.'
This remarkable utterance shows how potent was the survival in the
mind of Paul of the old Elohist belief. Although the ancient deity,
who deceived prophets to their destruction, and sent forth lying
spirits with their strong delusions, was dethroned and outlawed, he was
still a powerful claimant of empire, haunting the temple, and setting
himself up therein as God. He will be consumed by Christ's breath when
the day of triumph comes; but meanwhile he is not only allowed great
power in the earth, but utilised by the true God, who even so far
cooperates with the false as to send on some men 'strong delusions'
('a working of error,' Von Tischendorf translates), in order that
they may believe the lie and be damned. Paul speaks of the 'mystery
of iniquity;' but it is not so very mysterious when we consider the
antecedents of his idea. The dark problem of the origin of evil, and
its continuance in the universe under the rule of a moral governor,
still threw its impenetrable shadow across the human mind. It was a
terrible reality, visible in the indifference or hostility with which
the new gospel was met on the part of the cultured and powerful; and it
could only then be explained as a mysterious provisional arrangement
connected with some divine purpose far away in the depths of the
universe. But the passage quoted from Thessalonians shows plainly
that all those early traditions about the divinely deceived prophets
and lying spirits, sent forth from Jehovah Elohim, had finally, in
Paul's time, become marshalled under a leader, a personal Man of Sin;
but this leader, while opposing Christ's kingdom, is in some mysterious
way a commissioner of God.
We may remark here the beautiful continuity by which, through all
these shadows of terror and vapours of speculation, 'clouding the
glow of heaven,' [27] the unquenchable ideal from first to last is
steadily ascending.
'One or three things,' says the Talmud, 'were before this world--Water,
Fire, and Wind. Water begat the Darkness, Fire begat Light, and
Wind begat the Spirit of Wisdom.' This had become the rationalistic
translation by a crude science of the primitive demons, once believed
to have created the heavens and the earth. In the process we find
the forces outlawed in their wild action, but becoming the choir of
God in their quiet action:--
1 Kings xix. 11-13. 'And he said, Go forth, and stand upon the mount
before the Lord. And, behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and
strong wind rent the mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks before
the Lord; but the Lord was not in the wind: and after the wind an
earthquake; but the Lord was not in the earthquake: and after the
earthquake a fire; but the Lord was not in the fire: and after the
fire a still small voice. And it was so, when Elijah heard it, that
he wrapped his face in his mantle.'
But man must have a philosophical as well as a moral development: the
human mind could not long endure this elemental anarchy. It asked,
If the Lord be not in the hurricane, the earthquake, the volcanic
flame, who is therein? This is the answer of the Targum: [28]
'And he said, Arise and stand on the mountain before the Lord. And
God revealed himself: and before him a host of angels of the wind,
cleaving the mountain and breaking the rocks before the Lord; but
not in the host of angels was the Shechinah. And after the host of
the angels of the wind came a host of angels of commotion; but not in
the host of the angels of commotion was the Shechinah of the Lord. And
after the angels of commotion came a host of angels of fire; but not
in the host of angels of fire was the Shechinah of the Lord. But after
the host of the angels of the fire came voices singing in silence. And
it was when Elijah heard this he hid his face in his mantle.'
The moral sentiment takes another step in advance with the unknown but
artistic writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews. Moses had described
God as a 'consuming fire;' and 'the sight of the glory of the Lord
was like devouring fire on the top of the mount in the eyes of the
children of Israel' (Exod. xxiv. 17). When next we meet this phrase it
is with this writer, who seeks to supersede what Moses (traditionally)
built up. 'Whose voice,' he says, 'then shook the earth; but now he
hath promised, saying, Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but
also heaven. And this word, 'yet once more,' signifieth the removing
of those things that are shaken, as of things that are made, that those
which cannot be shaken may remain.... For our God is a consuming fire.'
'Our God also!' cries each great revolution that advances. His
consuming wrath is not now directed against man, but the errors
which are man's only enemies: the lightnings of the new Sinai, while
they enlighten the earth, smite the old heaven of human faith and
imagination, shrivelling it like a burnt scroll!
In this nineteenth century, when the old heaven, amid which this
fiery pillar glowed, is again shaken, the ancient phrase has still
its meaning. The Russian Tourgenieff represents two friends who had
studied together in early life, then parted, accidentally meeting
once more for a single night. They compare notes as to what the long
intervening years have taught them; and one sums his experience in the
words--'I have burned what I used to worship, and worship what I used
to burn.' The novelist artfully reproduces for this age a sentence
associated with a crisis in the religious history of Europe. Clovis,
King of the Franks, invoked the God of his wife Clotilda to aid him
against the Germans, vowing to become a Christian if successful; and
when, after his victory, he was baptized at Rheims, St. Remy said to
him--'Bow thy head meekly, Sicambrian; burn what thou hast worshipped,
and worship what thou hast burned!' Clovis followed the Bishop's advice
in literal fashion, carrying fire and sword amid his old friends the
'Pagans' right zealously. But the era has come in which that which
Clovis' sword and St. Remy's theology set up for worship is being
consumed in its turn. Tourgenieff's youths are consuming the altar on
which their forerunners were consumed. And in this rekindled flame the
world now sees shrivelling the heavens once fresh, but now reflecting
the aggregate selfishness of mankind, the hells representing their
aggregate cowardice, and feeds its nobler faith with this vision of the
eternal fire which evermore consumes the false and refines the world.