Fallen Angels

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FALLEN ANGELS
By Bernard J. Bamberger
This book presents the fantastic myths about

the angels who were lured to sin by the
beauty of mortal women, and the proud
angel who rebelled against God and was cast
down as Satan. These ancient tales have had
a great influence on world literature and art;
but they are also of surprisingly great im-
portance for philosophy and religion. The
author traces the history of these beliefs in
Judaism, Christianity and Islam and assem-
bles a variety of tales and superstitions-
some grotesque, others quaint and humorous.
The presentation also reveals a basic diver-
gence between Judaism and Christianity.
The Christian Devil, God's enemy, is con-
trasted with the Satan of Jewish folklore,
God's prosecuting attorney! The concluding
chapter of the work deals with the return of
the Devil to prominence in contemporary
religious thought and shows how Judaism
seeks its own solution of the problem of evil.
The author of Fallen Angels
thus fully
is
justified in claiming that he has described the
adventures of an idea through the ages. For
the problem of evil has challenged mankind
ever since the dawn of intelligence: Why is
there evil in the world, and why do pain
and suffering come upon those who do not
seem to deserve it? The development of the
monotheistic religions intensified this prob-
lem and led to theories which differed in
every age.
The book deals with a basic theological
problem, yet it is written in simple popular
style. It is intended for the intelligent layman
who, no matter what his own answer to the
question, may be curious to learn how it has
been answered in the past or is being an-
swered by others in our own perplexed age.
He may find some of the answers amusing;
he will find all of them instructive. Notes and
references for the students are provided in a
separate section.
Bernard J. Bamberger was born in Baltimore
in 1904 and received his academic training
at Johns Hopkins University. He then at-
tended the Hebrew Union College which
granted him his rabbinical degree in 1926,
his Doctorate of Divinity in 1929, and an
honorary Doctorate of Hebrew Literature in
1951. He occupied pulpits in Lafayette, In-
diana, and Albany, New York, and is now
the Rabbi of the West End Synagogue of
New York City. He was President of the
Synagogue Council of America in 1950 and
1951. He wrote a book on Proselytism in
the Talmudic Era and edited a volume of
essays by alumni of the Hebrew Union Col-
lege under the title of Reform Judaism.
Digitized by the Internet Archive
in 2010
http://www.archive.org/details/fallenangelsOObamb
FALLEN ANGELS
BERNARD J. BAMBERGER
THE JEWISH PUBLICATION SOCIETY OF AM ER IC \
PHILADELPHIA
5712-1952
COPYRIGHT 1952
BY THE JEWISH PUBLICATION SOCIETY OF AMERICA
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

BY AMERICAN BOOK-STRATFORD PRESS, INC.,
new york • Designed by Sidney Feinberg

TO
EKB
Acknowledgments
Work on the studies here presented was greatly facili-
tated because the resources of the following libraries

were available to me: the Albany Public Library,
the New York Public Library, the New York State Library, and
the libraries of the Catholic University of America, Columbia
University, General Theological Seminary, Hebrew Union College-
Jewish Institute of Religion, Jewish Theological Seminar) of Amer-
7
ica, Seminary of St. Anthonv on the Hudson and Union Theological
Seminary. I am grateful for the courteous help received in each

case;my special thanks are due Dr. Joshua Bloch and Mr. Abraham
Berger of the Jewish Division of the New York Public Library,
Prof. Boaz Cohen of the Jewish Theological Seminary, and Rabbi
I. Edward Kiev of the Jewish Institute of Religion.
vii
viii • • • Acknowledgments
At the start of the inquiry I had the privilege of consulting my

teacher, Dr. Jacob Z. Lauterbach of blessed memory. President
Julian Morgenstern (yibbadel Yhayyim) has helped me through-
out by his advice and encouragement. I wish also to express my
indebtedness to Dr. Solomon B. Freehof, the Rev. Michael J.
Gruenthaner, S.J., Dr. Leo Jung, the Rev. Kenneth Ohrstrom,
Prof. Shalom Spiegel and Dr. Joshua Trachtenberg for informa-

tion and assistance they graciously supplied.
Prof. Abraham J. Heschel read the chapters on mysticism and
suggested many changes and improvements. I deeply appreciate
his friendly guidance; in gladly acknowledging his aid, I must
state that he is in no way responsible for the many deficiencies
that still remain in this section of the book.
Mr. Edwin Wolf 2nd, Dr. Maurice Jacobs, and Mr. Lesser
Zussman of the Jewish Publication Society family have displayed
warm interest in my work, and have rendered many services for
which I am truly thankful. Last but surely not least, Dr. Solomon
Grayzel, the editor of the Society, has been a source of strength
at all times. It is hard to find words to express my appreciation
of his warm interest, sound counsel and tireless help.
Bernabd J.
Bamberger
Contents
Acknowledgments vii
part one: Gateway
I Introducing the Theme 3

n The Hebrew Scriptures 7
part two: The Outside Books
Introduction 15
m The Ethiopic Enoch 16
rv The Ethiopic Enoch (continued) 21
v The Ethiopic Enoch (concluded) 23
vi Jubilees, Testaments, Zadokite Work 26
vn The Slavonic Enoch 32
ix
x • • • Contents
viii The Adam Books 35

ix The Testament of Job 37
x Esdras, Baruch, Pseudo-Philo 42
xi The Apocalypse of Abraham 46
part three: Crossroads
xn Hellenistic Writings 51
xni Where the Ways Divide 54
part four: The Early Christian Church
xrv The New Testament 61

xv The Church Fathers 73
The Interpretation of Genesis VI Satan . . . . . .
The Limitations of Christian Dualism
part five: The Rabbis
xvi Talmud and Midrash 89

The Sin of the Angels Enoch The Frailty . . . . . .
of Angels The Character of Satan . The Evil

. . . . ,
Inclination The Serpent The Demons . . . . . . . . .
The Princes of the Gentiles

xvn Interlude: The Legend in Islam 111
Ihlis . . .Harut and Marut
xvm New Paths: The Visionaries 117
1. Apocalypses ... 2. Mystical Writings
xrx New Paths: The Later Aggada 128
Sinful Angels The Fall . . .
of Satan . . . Satan's
Malice Samael as Prince of Rome
. . . Uzza the . . .
Patron Angel of Egypt The Guardian Angels . . .
of the Nations . . . Enoch . . . Lilith . . . Sum-

ming Up
part six: Medieval Judaism
xx The Rationalists 147

The "Sons of God" Enoch Azazel . . . . . . . . . Job
Hillel ben Samuel and the Christians
. . .
Contents • • • xi
part seven: Jewish Mysticism
xxi The German Cabala 163

xxn The Spanish Cabala 168
xxiii The Zohar 176
The Fallen Angels Naamah, Lilith, . . . the Rulers
of Arka The Paternity of Cain
. . . . . . Samael-
Satan . . . Mystical Dualism
xxrv The Later Mystics 186

xxv Mysticism for the Masses 194
part eight: Christian Theology
xxvi The Devil of the Philosophers 201

xxvn The Devil of the People 208
Witchcraft . . . The Devil's People— the Jews . . .
The Heretics
xxvm Protestant Christianity 220
Luther . . . Calvin . . . English Literature . . . The
Witches
part nine: The Devil in Modern Dress
xxix The Century of Liberalism 235

xxx Epilogue 239
Bibliography 253
Notes 263
Index 291
FALLEN ANGELS
Fallen Angels
PART ONE
Gateway
CHAPTER ONE
Introducing the Theme
veryone likes tales of adventure. A more mature

taste finds interest in the study of character and
the development of personality. This book, how-
ever, traces the evolution of an idea and its adventures through
the centuries.
The study of ideasmay be both interesting and practical: it is
important to know, for example, how the democracy of Franklin
D. Roosevelt differed from the democracy of Thomas Jefferson.
But what value can there be in the history of a mythological idea,
a belief in angels, and in sinful angels at that? Can such a story
be of interest anyone but a student of antiquity or a dabbler in
to
the curious vagaries of the human mind?
An obvious answer is: The myth of the rebel angels has had a
great influence on world literature. The figure of Prometheus,
... 3
4 • • • Fallen Angels
staunchly defying the omnipotent Zeus, even though he is fore-

doomed to defeat, has fascinated many poets. The drama is
heightened when the rebel against Deity is not a human being,

but an angel— one of God's holiest creatures. Such a paradox was
bound to stir the poetic imagination. Its most notable result is
the massive epic of John Milton. The depiction of Satan is one of

his greatest successes— the desperate fallen angel is more vivid
and interesting, sometimes more appealing, than his unspotted
fellows. Paradise Lost is, more famous than
as the saying goes,
widely read; but its rich music and dramatic power still reward
anyone old-fashioned enough to open its pages.
We need not mention the Faust literature, nor the countless
works of imagination in which the Devil plays a part. Our con-
cern is not with his manifold activity, but only with his rebellion
and fall. To Milton, indeed, this was no mere literary theme. He
may have embellished Paradise Lost with poetic fancies; but to
him this was only the adornment of profound and literal truth.
Later authors, however, have utilized this subject matter more
freely for their own special purposes.
The romantic pessimist, Alfred de Vigny, tells in his poem,
Le Deluge, of one Emmanuel, son of an angel whose name he
bears and of a mortal woman. Emmanuel learns from the stars
that the flood is coming, and seeks refuge in the company of his
beloved on Mount Ararat. She had been offered marriage and
securityby Japhet, son of Noah, but remained faithful to Em-
manuel. The pair hope that his angel father will rescue them;
but no help comes and they are overwhelmed by the rising
waters.
De Vigny 's longest poem, Eloa, is about a female angel, born
of a tear dropped by Jesus. (In the authentic tradition, angels
are exclusively masculine. Deeply moved by the spirit of divine
)
pity, £loa is obsessed by vague reports about an exiled rebel

angel. She goes forth to seek and comfort this unfortunate being.
Satan, however, is not redeemed by her good offices; £loa is
caught in the net of his blandishments and dragged down to
perdition.
Utterly different again is Anatole France's La Chute des Anges.
Here much curious learning is combined with fantastic imagina-
tion and mordant wit, the whole presented in France's limpid
style, to expose the evils and follies of French society and to
Introducing the Theme • • • 5
advance the cause of social and spiritual revolution. The ancient

legend is only the vehicle of the author's satirical aim.
The varied uses which creative writers have made of this old
belief testify to its fascination. But we have to do with much
more than a fantastic tale suitable for poetic treatment. Fantastic
it is, sometimes grotesque; but as we trace its development, we
shall find ourselves standing at some critical points in the history
of the human spirit. Most of those who have previously investi-
gated this subject have dealt chiefly with its folkloristic aspect.
The present study is more properly theological, not to say apolo-
getic. Following the fortunes of the belief in fallen angels, we
shall gain a deeper insight into the character of Judaism and the
character of Christianity, and into their divergences. Before we
finish, we shall have to confront contemporary issues of major
importance.
Our study through many and varied writings, in a
will lead us
dozen languages, composed through the centuries in many parts
of the world. Some of our sources are queer indeed, many of
them confusing. So at the start it will be well to outline the nature
of our undertaking.
Man has always had to contend with physical and moral evil,
with wickedness and with pain. But the existence of evil, how-
ever unpleasant, presented no theoretical problem to the primi-
tive mind. Everyone knew that there are good, friendly gods,
and also wicked, cruel deities and demons. It is the latter who
cause all our woes and worries. The purpose of religion was
to conciliate and strengthen ) the powers of good and to placate
(
or defeat the spirits of evil. Of course one had to deal cautiously

even with the kindest gods, for they too could be dangerous if
offended. One might even utilize the powers of evil for his own
purposes— that is, practice witchcraft— but this was hazardous in
the extreme. The general division of the supernatural beings into
kind and cruel powers was familiar to all the pagan peoples; this
dualism found its most extreme and dramatic expression in Persia.
The religion of Israel affirmed that the whole world is the crea-
tion and domain of one God, who is all good. We need not dwell
here on the sublimity of this conception or its liberating effects
on the human spirit. But there is no denying that it posed new
problems. If God is unique, and if He is perfectly good, how are
we to account for the evil in the world? This question still gnaws
at our hearts; it was soon perceived by Israel's more thoughtful

spirits.
was put thus: Why do the righteous

Originally, the difficulty
suffer and the wicked prosper? The prophet Jeremiah raised the
question in these terms, and his perplexity is echoed in many of
the Psalms. The Book of Job states the problem with unequaled
power and passion, and attempts a noble and dignified solution.
But the answer which Judaism later adopted, and even made offi-
cial, was that all the apparent inequities we encounter in this life
are adjusted by reward and punishment in the life beyond the

grave.
Yet the problem in its broader sense remained. Granted that
the wicked will be punished and the righteous rewarded after
death, why are men wicked at all? Why did God create a world
which is not entirely good? In the centuries preceding the Chris-
tian era, so much hardship and tragedy befell the Jewish people
that they ponder these questions; and many who
were bound to
lacked philosophic training felt the sting of the questions no less
keenly. And so some of them attempted a mythological explana-
tion.
God, they said, created everything good. But certain angels

whom He made for His service were faithless to their high call-
ing. The story of the fallen angels appears in two general forms.
One version tells that a group of angels became enamored of
mortal women, succumbed to lust and defiled their heavenly
holiness with earthly love. Their human consorts bore them giant
offspring, violent and cruel. Having sinned first in weakness, the
fallen angels went on to deliberate rebellion. A terrible punish-
ment overtook them and their violent children; but the corrup-
tion they had wrought continued to taint all mankind.
The other form of the story concerns one of the mightiest of
the angel host, who rebelled against God at the time of Creation,
or, according to some, even before. His sin was pride, and he
even dreamed of usurping the place of the Almighty. Cast down
from heaven, he became Satan, the adversary; and out of his
hatred of God and his jealousy of man, he led Adam to sin.
Both these stories appear in Jewish writings dating from the
last few centuries before the Christian era. At the same time,
we meet two related ideas. One is the existence of a demonic
power, called Satan and also by several other names, who is op-
Introducing the Theme • • • 7
posed to God and an enemy of man, especially of Israel, but

whose origin is not clearly accounted for. The other concept is
somewhat different. It holds that each nation on earth has a

guardian angel above, a sar or prince. The nations that have
oppressed and persecuted Israel have done so at the instigation
and under the leadership of their heavenly patrons. The redemp-
tion of Israel must therefore be preceded, not only by the over-
throw of its earthly enemies, but also by the downfall and punish-
ment of their guardian angels.
These ideas were not altogether new. They drew upon a com-
mon store of mythological notions which have spread from people
to people. Different scholars have found the sources of these
myths in Babylonia, Persia or Greece. It is almost impossible
to decide the matter finally, for there must have been constant
interchange of such legendary coin among the nations. But in
recent years, a great deal of Canaanite literature has come to
light—the literature of a people who were the nearest neighbors

of Israel and spoke almost the same language; and we shall not
greatly err if we suppose that the Jewish mythographers drew

largely on Canaanite-Phoenician materials. But they did not just
borrow and retail an old myth. They created something new and
different: they tried to graft pagan branches on the monotheistic
trunk of Judaism.
Our task will be to trace the fortunes of this belief within the
Jewish religion and in the religions that sprang from Judaism.
CHAPTER TWO
The Hebrew Scriptures
The post-biblical authors who told the stories of

the rebel angels believed themselves to be ex-
positors of Scripture. They were only elaborating with greater
clarity and detail what was already hinted in the Bible. Were
they right in this supposition? On this point scholars have dis-
agreed. So our first inquiry is: does the Hebrew Bible contain the
belief in fallen angels?
The passages we must consider are few and brief, so we may

quote them in full. The first is Genesis 6.1-4:
1. And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the
face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them, 2. that
the sons of God (b'ne haElohim) saw the daughters of men
that they were fair; and they took them wives, whomsoever
they chose. 3. And the Lord said: 'My spirit shall not abide
( ? ijadon ) in man forever, for that he also is flesh; therefore
shall his days be a hundred and twenty years.' 4. The Neph-
ilim were in the earth in those days, and also after that, when
the sons of God came men, and they
in unto the daughters of
bore children unto them; the same were the mighty men that
were of old, the men of renown.
Who were the "sons of God"? Some ancient commentators have
insisted that the phrase is no more than an honorific title for hu-
man beings, meaning "the sons of the rulers." But they had spe-
cial motives (as we shall see) for adopting this interpretation.
Both the present context, and the other cases where this phrase
occurs in the Bible, compel us to explain "sons of God" as divine,
angelic beings. 1 This little paragraph tells of the marriage of
mortal women
superhuman spouses.
to
Verse 3 is obscure. The translation of the word yadon is no
more than a guess; the whole sentence does not seem to have
any bearing on the rest of the section. But certainly it is not a
condemnation of the action of the sons of God. 2
The most significant fact about the passage is a negative fact:
the Bible does not suggest that these intermarriages were sinful,
or the issue of them bad. It gives no hint that any punishment
resulted. Ancient teachers supposed that this little tale accounts
for the Flood, the story of which follows our paragraph. But the
Torah nowhere suggests such a thing. The Flood was a punish-
ment for human wickedness.
These four verses have no clear connection with the rest of
the book of Genesis. They seem rather to be a mythological frag-
ment, which accounts for the origin of the famous ancient heroes.
Such mighty men, whose fathers were gods and whose mothers
were mortal, are found in the lore of many peoples. Such was the
Babylonian hero Gilgamesh; such was Hercules, among many ex-
amples in Greek mythology. And the Canaanite epic of The
Beautiful and Gracious Gods tells how the great god El begot
The Hebrew Scriptures • • • 9
Shahar and Shalim on mortal women. 3 Of course the Bible repre-

sents the fathers not as gods, but as angels. The Gibborim or
heroes— so our text seems to say— are not identical with the
Nefilim* ( The latter are a breed of primeval giants who are men-
tioned elsewhere in the Bible under such names as Refaim and
Zamzumim.) The Nefilim were on earth before the heroes were
engendered as well as later on.
Beyond question, the tale of the fallen angels was based on
this passage; it is a kind of Midrash upon it. But the Torah sup-
plied only the starting point of the story, not the story itself.
The second passage is from a doom-song upon the King of

Babylon; it dates, then, at the earliest from the Babylonian exile,
perhaps later. It runs (Isaiah 14.12-15):
How thou fallen from heaven

art
day-star, son of the morning! (Helel ben Shahar)
How art thou cast down to the ground,
That didst cast lots over the nations!
And thou saidst in thy heart:
T will ascend into heaven,
Above the stars of God (El)
Will I exalt my throne;
And I will sit upon the mount of meeting,
In the uttermost parts of the north;
1 will ascend above the heights of the clouds;
.'
I will be like the Most High ( Ely on )
Yet thou shalt be brought down to the netherworld,
To the uttermost parts of the pit.
Christian tradition has regularly adduced this passage as a
proof-text for the fall ofSatan—very rarely, the same interpreta-
tion appears in Jewish literature.^ But leaving this tradition aside,
the modern scholar must recognize that the poem has a strong
mythological flavor. El, Elyon, and Shahar are now known to us
as members ( the first two as leading members ) of the Canaanite
pantheon. "The mount of meeting in the uttermost parts of the
north" is the abode of the gods, corresponding to Mount Olympus
in Greek myth. It is very tempting then to see in this poem an
allusion to a Canaanite or Phoenician myth concerning one Helel,
son of the god Shahar, who sought to usurp the throne of the
chief god and for his audacity was cast down into the abyss.
.
10 • • •
Fallen Angels
This would be a parallel to the Greek legend of the revolt of

Zeus against Kronos, and of the unsuccessful attempt of the
Titans to unseat Zeus in his turn.
But all this, though plausible, remains conjecture. No extant
Canaanite source tells us about Helel ben Shahar, nor of a revolt
against Elyon. It is still possible that "Shining one, son of the
dawn" was a poetic phrase coined by the author of the prophecy.
In any case, the writer was exulting over the fall of a human
king. Even if he is alluding to a myth, we need not suppose that
he believed in it. 6 English literature is full of allusions to classical
mythology, but for the purposes of ornament only.
The last passage we must consider is Psalm 82:
1. God standeth in the Congregation of God (El);

In the midst of gods (elohim) He judgeth.
2. How long will ye judge unjustly
And respect the persons of the wicked?

3. Judge the poor and the fatherless,
Do justice to the afflicted and the destitute.

4. Rescue the poor and the needy;
Deliver them out of the hand of the wicked.
5. They know not, neither do they understand;
They go about in darkness.
All the foundations of the earth are moved.
6. I said: Ye are gods,
And all of you sons of the Most High (Elyon).
7. Nevertheless ye shall die like men,
And fall like one of the princes ( sarim )
8. Arise, O God, judge the earth;
For Thou shalt possess all the nations.
Scholars have been at loggerheads concerning this brief Psalm.

Some insist that it is directed against wicked earthly rulers; others
are just as positive that it describes a judgment upon sinful an-
gels. Dr. Julian Morgenstern has now brought us closer to a solu-
tion of the difficulty. 7
He points out that, whichever interpreta-
tion one may adopt, part of the Psalm will fit his view and
another part will not. Look at the Psalm again: the lines which
(following Dr. Morgenstern) have been indented refer unmis-
takably to human rulers. They have been substituted for part of
a mythological poem, of which only the beginning and end have
been preserved. The older verses contain the names of El and

Elyon, and their subject matter is plainly mythological. It is the
judgment by the God of Israel upon the wicked angels. The part
of the poem that has been suppressed must, among other things,
have stated the sin for which the angels were punished.
Thus far Dr. Morgenstern's analysis seems to be correct beyond
question. But he has indulged in some other conjectures which
are less convincing. 8
What, says Dr. Morgenstern, was the sin of the angels? It is
the sin related in Genesis 6, of marrying mortals and engendering

children. The order of the universe is that celestial beings are
deathless: therefore they need no offspring. Indeed, were they
toreproduce their kind, the increase of the immortal population
would soon overcrowd heaven and earth. Only earthly creatures
who taste death need to achieve immortality in their children.
The elohim upset this wise dispensation by begetting offspring;
therefore Elyon punished them by stripping them of immortality.
Curiously enough, Dr. Morgenstern's reasoning was anticipated
by the Midrash. When Hannah prayed at Shiloh— so the rabbis
relate— she said: "Lord of the Universe! The celestials never die,
and they do not reproduce their kind. Terrestrial beings die, but
they are fruitful and multiply. Therefore I pray: Either make me
immortal, or give me a son!" 9
But the ancient mythographers were not so logical. The gods

of Canaan, like those of every folk but Israel, begot children with
blithe indifference to any quasi-Malthusian considerations. No
one ever questioned their right to marry among themselves, or to
consort with mortals. If Hera objected to the flirtations of Zeus,
it was not because his lady-loves were human. Hephaestus was
no less indignant when his wife betrayed him with the god of
war. At her marriage to Eros, Psyche was transformed into a god-
dess; and Artemis was not condemned for loving Endymion.
In short: Genesis 6 tells that the angels married women, but
not that this was a sin. Psalm 82 reports that the elohim sinned,
but not that they married women. There is no biblical evidence
to warrant a combination of the two items. On the assumption
that these mythological materials came from North Semitic
sources, the probability is all the other way. A more reasonable
guess is that the sin of the angels described in the part of the
Psalm now lost was an attempt to usurp the power of El and
Elyon. This would fit in with the (admittedly conjectural) inter-

pretation of Isaiah 14.
The Bible, then, contains some of the materials of which the
myth of the rebel angels was fashioned. But the story itself and
the ideas it expresses are found neither in the Bible nor in the
heathen sources which Scripture occasionally echoes. As for the
myth of the fall of Sat an, there is* no /hint of it in the Hebre w
Bibl e. Satan appears a few times, but always as a member of
God's entourag e, an agent entruste d with special_duties, never as
a rebel. The serpent of Eden is neither a devil nor the agent of a
devil. He is just an animal, although a crafty and malicious
animal.
But the belief in guardian angels of the nations is found in a
few late passages of the Bible. These passages occur in apoca-
lypses—visions of the end of days and the last judgment, which
were composed in the Maccabean period or close to it. Thus
Daniel receives a revelation from the angel Gabriel after a long
period of fasting and prayer. Gabriel explains that he could not
come to him sooner because he had to struggle for twenty-one
days with the prince (sar) of Persia. At length Michael, one of
the chief sarim, came to his aid— this, presumably, enabled Gabriel
to answer Daniel's call. Later, he adds, he will have to return to
his combat with the guardian of Persia and then with the prince
of Greece; "and there is none that holdeth with me against these
,
except Michael, your prince.' Further on, in the account of the
final redemption, Michael, "the great prince who standeth up for
the children of thy people/* is to play a leading role (Daniel
10.13-21,12.1).
The Book of Daniel does not say that the angelic rulers of
Persia and Greece will be punished along with their peoples; but
the author probably took this for granted. In another biblical
apocalypse (a brief and enigmatic document which cannot be
exactly dated) we read: "The Lord will punish the host of the
high heaven on high, and the kings of the earth upon the earth;
and they be gathered together as prisoners are gathered in
shall
the dungeon, and shall be shut up in prison, and after many days
shall they be punished" (Is. 24.21 f.). 10
This same little prophecy declares that in the end of days God
will punish "Leviathan the slant serpent and Leviathan the tor-
tuous serpent" (Is. 27.1). This creature is described in almost ex-
actly the same words Canaanite poems discovered at Ras

in the
11
Shamra. Leviathan, or as these poems spell it, Lothan, is the
North Semitic name for the primeval sea serpent whom the Baby-
lonians called Tiamat. Did our apocalyptic writer believe then in
a mythological power of cosmic evil? Probably not. Throughout
his booklet the root of evil seems to bepagan nations and
in the
their angelic patrons, not in the universe itself. Leviathan is most
likely only a figure of speech designating the great heathen em-
pires, not a concrete embodiment of the satanic.
This interpretation is the more probable because the name
Rahab, by which the primeval serpent is also known, is twice
applied by the Bible to Egypt. There are indeed several passages
which speak of God's triumph over Leviathan-Rahab in the days
of old. 12 They celebrate the power of God over nature, not over
evil. In any case, they imply that the serpent was completely
destroyed in ages past, so that God will have no new battle to

fight at the end of time. The Hebrew Bible does not know an
organized realm of spiritual evil arrayed against the Kingdom
of God.
Fallen Angels
PART TWO
The Outside Books
Introduction
\ie story of the fallen angels, which we did not

find in the Bible, appears fully in works which
Jewish tradition characterizes as the Outside
Books, that is, books left out of the Scriptural canon. They are
writings which imitate the biblical style, usually with indifferent
success. The oldest of them are contemporary with the latest
biblical books (the second pre-Christian century); and the rest
were written at different times down to about the year 100 of
the Christian era. Most of them were composed in Hebrew or
Aramaic, a few in Greek. Frequently these writings were attrib-
uted by their authors to heroes of an earlier age: Abraham, Noah,
Moses. Because of this, the whole literature is often called the
Pseudepigrapha.
• • • 15
Some were included in Greek manuscripts of

of these books
the Bible, and thence were taken over by the Catholic Church as
sacred scripture. They are known as the Apocrypha ("hidden
books"); in Jewish tradition they have no more status than the
bulkier literature which was rejected by the Catholic Church as
well. Some of the latter writings (such as the Book of Enoch, to
which we shall come at once ) exercised considerable influence on
early Christianity; but then they were discarded and were pre-
served only in such ecclesiastical backwaters as the Coptic and
Armenian Churches.
Most of these books, though written by Jews, represent a type
of Judaism off the main line of Jewish religious development. In
some cases there is doubt whether the book is of Jewish or Chris-
tian authorship. Few of the Hebrew originals have survived—in
tattered fragments recovered from the attic of the old synagogue
in Cairo. The rest are known to us only in translations and in
translations of translations— from Hebrew to Greek, and thence
into Latin, Syriac, Ethiopic, Slavonic, Armenian! These versions
were made by Christian scribes; many contain manifestly Chris-
tian insertions. There must be other instances that have not been
detected. Moreover, when a text has passed through the hands
of several Christian translators, its tone and flavor may have been
considerably modified.
Despite much careful scholarship, the text and interpretation
of many of these writings is still far from certain; and there is
often sharp disagreement as to their respective dates and their
relation one to another. They are indispensable for our inquiry,
but we must approach them with a somewhat skeptical humility.
CHAPTER THREE
The Ethiopic Enoch
ver a century ago the explorer Bruce brought back

o
to England from Abyssinia three manuscripts of
an Ethiopic work called the Book of Enoch. It has now been
established that the original of this work was composed in Pales-
tine, in Hebrew or Aramaic— or perhaps some sections in one
The Ethiopic Enoch • • • 17
tongue, some in the other. 1 It bears the name of Enoch, the an-
cient worthy, of whom we are to hear a great deal. Concerning
Enoch, the Book of Genesis gives a brief but interesting account:
He lived three hundred and sixty-five years—much less than the
other antediluvians!— a figure that suggests some connection with
the sun and sun myths. Then "Enoch walked with God and was
not, for God took him" (Gen. 5.18-24)— a cryptic remark that was
to inspire a whole cycle of Enoch-legends.
The present Enoch book ( sometimes called I Enoch, for there
are two others) consists largely of visions in quasi-biblical style,
dealing with the end of days, punishment for the wicked and re-
ward for the righteous, the Messiah, and But it is
similar themes.
far from a unit. It even contains a section on astronomy and the
calendar that is almost scientific in tone. It is a collection of docu-
ments different in content, spirit, style, and date. Following the
most diligent student of I Enoch, the late Canon Charles, we
shall begin with some sections in which Enoch plays little or no
part, and which Charles believes came from an ancient "Noah
Book." 2 These sections bring us at once to our central theme.
* The angels, the children of Heaven, 3 saw the beautiful daugh-
ters of men and desired them as wives; but the chief of these
erring angels, Semjaza, feared that they would not dare to carry
out their desire and would leave him to pay the penalty of sin
alone. He therefore bound them by an oath to fulfill their resolve.
They descended to earth in the days of Jared (Gen. 5.18; from
yarad, "descend") and alighted on Mount Hermon, which was
named for the oath (herem) they had sworn. These angels, in
the number of two hundred, 4 each took a wife to whom they
taught charms and enchantments, root cutting and knowledge of
plants. Soon young were born to them, who grew to be giants
three thousand ells, high. The giants consumed all the possessions
of mankind; then they began to feed on human flesh and, at last,
to eat one another. They also began "to sin against birds, beasts,
reptiles, and fish." 5 The earth made accusation against them and
the cry of men went up to heaven. 6
The outcry of suffering mankind reached the four principal
angels, who interceded with God. In their complaint, they men-
tioned Semjaza, but gave first place in criminal responsibility to
his associate Azazel, "who hath taught all unrighteousness on
earth, and revealed the eternal secrets which were preserved in
&
heaven.^ God replied to their appeal. Uriel warn was sent to
Noah of the impending Flood, Raphael to bind Azazel and im-
prison him in the desert place Dndael. The fallen angel was
placed on jagged rocks and covered with darkness, to abide till
the final judgment when he shall be cast into fire. "The whole
earth has been corrupted through the works that were taught by
Azazel: to him ascribe all sintf Raphael was also bidden to heal
the earth, which the angels had corrupted, that all men might not
perish through the secrets revealed by the "Watchers"— for it was
to this high order of angels, who never sleep, that the backsliders
belonged. 7
Gabriel was directed to incite the giants to mutual slaughter,
disregarding the prayers of their fathers who had hoped that
their children, if not immortal, might live at least five hundred
years. Then Michael was ordered to bind Semjaza and his com-
panions; after seeing their children slain, they were imprisoned
in the valleys of the earth for seventy generations. When the
final judgment comes, they will be led off to the abyss of ever-
lasting fire. Michael was further instructed to destroy all the
children of the reprobates and the Watchers who have wronged

mankind, yea, to destroy all evil from the earth. The passage ends
with glowing predictions of a future purified and redeemed from
all wickedness, and dedicated to righteousness and holiness.
This is the substance of I Enoch 6-11. Before examining the

story in detail, let us look at some fragments which Dr. Charles
has also assigned to the cycle of Noah-legends.
One section tells how Noah, terrified at the approaching Flood,
appeals to Enoch (already translated to heaven) for guidance.
In a vision Enoch tells Noah that the end is coming because men
have "learnt all the secrets of the angels and all the violence of
the satans, and all their powers—their most secret ones"— as well
as sorcery, witchcraft, idolatry and metallurgy. In a burning
valley of the west, which Enoch shows Noah, the wicked angels
are tortured by subterranean fires. Hot springs on earth result
from the heat thus generated; human rulers should look on this
phenomenon as an awful warning, not as a medical resource.
When the angels are removed from this place ( to permanent hell
fire?), the hot springs will become cold again. 8
Several other lists of the fallen angels are given; one in partic-
ular is puzzling, for it contains names we have not encountered
before. Those who led the angels astray through the daughters
of men are here called Jekon and Asbeel. Then there was Gadreel,
who taught men to make and use weapons and who lured Eve to
sin. Penemue taught men "the bitter and the sweet" and all the
secrets of their wisdom. Worse still, he introduced the art of writ-

ing: for men were created in a state of innocence and had no
need "to give confirmation to their good faith with pen and ink;"
but "through this knowledge they are perishing." Another of
these angels, Kasdaye, taught a variety of ominous, demonic prac-
tices, including abortion. 9
Lastly we learn of an angel who possessed the secret of a
powerful oath by which the forces of nature might be controlled.
He wished to learn from Michael the "hidden name" (probably
the ineffable Name of God), so that by pronouncing it in his
oath he might still further enlarge his power. But the end of the
10
story is lost.
It is impossible to say just how old these stories are; but they
must have existed in writing by 200 b.c.e. or shortly thereafter.
For as we shall see, the story of the fallen angels, as found in
chapters 6-11, was used in another document which we can date
definitely during the Maccabean revolt, between 168 and 165.
By that time the tale was well known and accepted without ques-
tion.
The Noah-sections are not a unit. The fragments just cited do

not agree with the consecutive narrative we quoted first; and
even that contains some inconsistencies. But all these items are
different versions of a story that is Sometimes the
basically one.
arch-villain is Semjaza, and the sin consists chiefly in marrying
mortal women and begetting monsters. Elsewhere the worst
criminal is Azazel, and emphasis is laid on the crime of revealing
various secrets to mankind. But the divergences should not be
exaggerated. 11
There is also a combination of geographical backgrounds.
Most of the associations are with northern Palestine. Mount Her-
mon was a holy site of the Canaanites and Phoenicians; vast tem-
ple ruins are still to be found on its slopes. The hot springs
mentioned in one of the fragments are no doubt the famous hot
springs of Tiberias. All this fits with what has been said about the
North Semitic origins of this mvthology. ^
Other references point to southern Palestine. The name Azazel
is The ancient Atonement-Day ritual (Lev. 16)

quite familiar.
included the sending of a scapegoat "to Azazel, to the wilder-
ness." Jewish tradition has generally considered Azazel to be the
name of a place near Jerusalem; but very probably Azazel was
originally a demon who inhabited the wilderness of Judah, and
the scapegoat was an offering to him. The Mishnah reports that
the scapegoat was thrown over a cliff at a place called Bet
Hadudo. This has been plausibly identified with the Dudael
where, according to our story, the wicked angels are impris-
oned. 12 Thus northern and southern traditions have been inter-
twined.
Despite variations in have a single out-
detail, all these stories
look. They seek to account for evil, specifically for moral evil,
through the fall of the angels. The sin of the former Watchers
had a threefold aspect.
First, for angels to enter into marriage and sexual union was a
defilement of their pure essence. 13 This alone proves sufficiently
that our story took form in Israel. The heathen gods all had con-
sorts, mortal or immortal; Judaism, however, exalted God above
all physical needs and desires and sensed that He is pure spirit
long before the Greek philosophers had defined spirit. Jews— and
only Jews—would have expected that the attendants of the spir-
itual God should be likewise elevated above earthly necessities
and impulses.
Second, the issue of these unions was evil. Here and elsewhere,
the children of the mixed marriages are identified with the Ne-
filim (from nafal, "to fall"), though the text of Genesis does not
seem to intend this. The story of the misdeeds of the giants seems
intended to account for the moral anarchy that preceded and
caused the Flood.
^
The same implied in the third aspect of the sir*— the
intent is
arts which the rebel angels taught their wives. These forbidden
matters included the arts of female adornmenrând makeup,
which stimulate lewdness; the arts of war, especially the manu-
facture of weapons; and the various forms of magic. But we also
meet the suggestion that the angels sinned not merely by teach-
ing immoral practices, but above all by revealing secrets of the
natural universe, which God had not intended man to know.
Especially odd is the notion that the art of writing is undesirable;
authentic Jewish tradition regarded writing as a divine creation
given to man as a great blessing. 14 Here we have the same sort

of thinking that appears in the story of the Tree of Knowledge
and the Greek myth of Prometheus.
Quite possibly there was some Hellenistic influence on this and
other versions of our myth. There must have been constant inter-
change of folk-beliefs and ideas in ancient as in modern times.
Persian and Babylonian influences, though more problematical,
cannot be ruled out. 15 But we can be quite sure that the chief
sources of the myth are Canaanite, and that its present form is
distinctively Jewish. For it was called forth by the tension be-
tween the existence of vast and seemingly triumphant evil in the
world and the Jewish belief in one righteous God.
CHAPTER FOUR
The Ethiopic Enoch (Continued)
'omewhat later than the chapters just considered—

'according to Dr. Charles— are those which now
follow immediately the first account of the fallen angels. Here we
find the ancient seer Enoch with the rebellious
in direct contact
spirits. He has already ceased to be a mortal, and appears in his
character of heavenly scribe.

These chapters are somewhat muddled and, instead of follow-
ing them in their present disorder, it will be easier to summarize
the new ideas that appear in them.
First, Enoch's association with the reprobate angels. He is
summoned by the loyal Watchers to rebuke the fallen members

of their order, who shall never know peace and forgiveness and
shall witness the slaughter of their children. Enoch tells Azazel
of the sentence imposed on him for teaching men unrighteous-
ness. But the other fallen angels beg him to draw up a petition
for their pardon and present it before the heavenly Throne. To
this he accedes and, going to a place near Dan and Hermon
( again the North Palestinian locale
) he reads the petition aloud
,
till he falls asleep. In a vision Enoch beholds the heavenly assize
and is given the verdict. On awakening he transmits the decision

to the fallen Watchers, who receive it with faces covered.
Their plea is utterly They

shall never return to
rejected.
heaven. After beholding the massacre of their children, they shall
be fettered to the earth as long as the world lasts. "You should
intercede for men," Enoch must tell them, "not men for you."
The nature of their sin is made clear: they, who should have been
holy and spiritual, had defiled themselves by lusting for flesh and
blood. "You were formerly spiritual, living the eternal life and
immortal for all the generations of the world; and therefore I
have not appointed wives for you." Moreover, they had commit-
ted a great wrong in revealing heavenly mysteries, for through
these secrets men and women do much evil. Yet these secrets are
trivial— for the truly important arcana had not been revealed even
to the angels. 1
This episode serves to underscore the greatness of their crime,
which can never be expiated. At the same time it reveals the
high rank to which Enoch had attained. Though his pleading was
unsuccessful, he at least undertook it—whereas we read in an
earlier fragment that even Michael, the greatest of the archangels,
dared not intercede for his fallen colleagues. 2 Enoch has already
become a favorite in the celestial halls : we shall see him attaining
even greater honors later on.
A second and very important element in this section is the ac-
count of how evil spirits came into the world. Everyone believed
in the reality of demons: but what was their origin? Above all,
how did they originate in the world created by a good God? Our
chapters explain that these dark powers are the result of the mis-
cegenation of angels and mortals; but the details are contradic-
tory. One passage states that the giants became evil spirits; an-
other, that the fallen angels became evil spirits, leading men
astray to sacrifice to demons, while the women they married be-
came sirens. But the usual view is that when the giants were
slaughtered, in accordance with the punishment decreed for
them, the evil spirits emerged from any event,
their bodies. In
the demons, once they made their appearance, remain at large
until the final judgment. "They take no food, but nevertheless
hunger and thirst and cause offences." 3
This story not only accounts for the existence of evil spirits,
but makes more logical the belief that evil in the world is due to
the fall of the angels. For the giants were murdered, the sinful
angels imprisoned and mankind wiped out by the Flood. How
then could the old sin have had an enduring effect? The answer is
now given that the fall of the angels led to the generation of
demons, who could not be drowned by the Flood and who trans-
mitted to subsequent ages the baneful influence of their sires.
A third new item is a brief story telling how Enoch journeyed
through the remote parts of the universe. In a spot which is
neither heaven above nor firm earth beneath, he beheld seven
great stars like burning mountains. His angel-guide explained to
him that these stars were being punished for failing to rise at
their appointed time. Their punishment was to last ten thousand
years. 4
This really has nothing to do with our theme. We note it only
because from time to time, in ancient and medieval thought,
angels and stars have been closely identified. Several scholars
have suggested that the myth of the fallen angels was inspired
by the phenomenon of shooting stars. 5 This may be true of the
pagan sources of our myth—not the myth itself. But in the present
section, wicked stars and wicked angels are not the same. The
punishment of the stars is appropriate to them; it will last a long
time, but not forever.
CHAPTER FIVE
The Ethiopic Enoch (Concluded)
ow we come to a kind of vision, or apocalypse,

1 quite common in the Outside Books. In it an
ancient seer beholds the panorama of world from Crea-
history,
tion to the coming of the Messiah. This final redemption is to be
preceded by a period of great suffering. Such revelations were
written to give hope and courage to the people in times of per-
secution. Their basic message is: Stand fast a little longer, then
goodness will triumph. We can fix the date of such writings with
some assurance: the point which the review of history issues
at
into predictions of trouble followed by the appearance of the
Messiah is the point of time when the author was actually writ-
ing. Thus the vision in I Enoch 85-90 was composed during the
years when the pious patriots of Judea were fighting for religious
24 • • •
Fallen Angels
liberty against the tyranny of the Syrian, Antiochus IV. The per-
secution began in 16S b.c.e., and our work must have been dis-
1
seminated not long thereafter.
As frequently in such writings, the storv of mankind is pre-
sented in cryptic form— and the symbolism here is particularly
grotesque. We read that a star (Semjaza or Azazel) fell from
heaven, and began to pasture among the oxen (mankind). Then
a number of stars fell, were transformed into bulls, and began to
cover the cows (the angels married mortal women), who in turn
brought forth elephants, camels, and asses (the giants). As a re-
sult, the oxen became restless and began to bite and gore, but
themselves fell prey to the wild beasts. The archangels now ap-
pear in the guise of men, and one of them stations the seer on a
point of vantage where he can see what is to follow. An archangel
seizes the first of the fallen stars, binds it and casts it into a
horrible abvss. A second gives a sword to the elephants, camels
and which thereupon slav one another. A third stones the
asses,
other fallen stars, binds them hand and foot and casts them into
the gulf. 2
The course of biblical historv is then outlined bv means of
similar imagerv. Israel being symbolized by sheep. Nothing new
is added to the biblical storv till we reach the period of the later
kin^s. Xow we read that God, the "Lord of the Sheep," becomes
so disgusted with the sinfulness of his flock that He will no longer
care for them Himself. He summons seventy shepherds to guard
the sheep and directs them to destroy a specified and limited
number of them. These shepherds are to serve singly, each in
turn. But the Lord of the Sheep knows in advance that the shep-
herds are not trustworthv thev will surely kill more of the sheep
:
than thev were bidden. So He appoints "another" to record their

actions, but not to interfere with them.
These shepherds take an active part in the destruction of the
Temple and the slaughter of Israel. Thereafter, too, they kill the
sheep wantonlv and irresponsibly. The recorder renders a report
3
of their wicked deeds on three occasions.
The account of the Maccabean revolt leads to a description of
the final struggle between good and evil. In this the shepherds
apparently fight on the side of the wild beasts. The wicked pow-
ers are defeated and the last judgment follows. The rebel stars,
beginning with the first to fall, appear in fetters before the
The Ethiopic Enoch • • •
25
heavenly court. They are convicted and thrust into the flaming
abyss. Then the seventy shepherds are similarly judged and sim-
ilarly punished. Evil having been exterminated, the eternal reign
4
of goodness will begin.
Who are the seventy shepherds? Various explanations have
been proposed, but only one seems They are the angelic
possible.
patrons, the sarim, of the nations of mankind which, according
to an ancient Jewish tradition, number seventy. We have already
seen this notion of national guardian angels in the Book of Daniel,
which was written during the same time as the document we are
examining. 5
Why is Israel so bitterly persecuted? In the first instance, be-
cause Israel sinned, depriving themselves of God's direct protec-
tion. He is not unable to help them, nor indifferent to their plight.
But he has handed them over for punishment to the heavenly
representatives of the heathen world. The latter have abused
their authority; instead of chastising Israel, they have sought to
annihilate them. The prophets had said the same thing about the
heathen nations: "I was but a little displeased, and they helped
for evil" (Zech. 1.15).
This section of Enoch sets forth a doctrine found nowhere else.
Other writers held that each nation has its sar, the patron of
Israel being Michael; or else that Israel is under the direct guid-
ance of God, while other nations have angelic guardians. Here,
however, we read that God was Israel's shepherd till the last
years of the Kingdom of Judah; then in disgust He turned them
over, not to their own guardian, but to the sarim of the Gentiles.
The "other" who is to record the acts of the shepherds has been
generally identified as Michael. But he plays only the role of
observer and scribe, not (as elsewhere) that of Israel's militant
champion.
In stating that the seventy shepherds ruled over Israel, our
writer hardly meant that each of the seventy nations of mankind
had ruled— or would rule— over Palestine. Most likely his
literally
intent was merely that all the heathen and their heavenly repre-
sentatives were involved in the guilt of oppressing Israel.
Both in their sin and in their punishment, the shepherds are
clearly distinguished from the fallen angels. The myth we met
in the older sections of I Enoch is fully adopted; the importance
attached to it is indicated by the fact that it is the only addition
to the Bible story included in the vision till we come to the ac-
count of the shepherds. The fallen angels brought sin into the
world; the seventy shepherds harried Israel. The two concepts
meet, but do not fuse.
The later sections of Enoch—composed, according to Dr.

Charles, in the first pre-Christian century— make little reference
to the fallen angels. This fact is of great importance, for the con-
tent of the later chapters provides ample opportunity for such
6
allusions. But they occur rarely. In several places the Flood is
explained as the punishment for human sin, and the angels are
not mentioned at all. 7
Those who wrote of fallen angels in the Book of Enoch were
not playing with a folk tale. They were wrestling with a central
problem of religion. To them, the realm of evil is summed up in
the rebel angels and their progeny: the giants and the evil spir-
its. The Devil in the conventional sense does not appear in this
work. 8 Semjaza and Azazel are the arch-sinners.

The belief that evil came into the world when the angels took
mortal wives, taught them forbidden arts and engendered mon-
sters and demons— all this was in its heyday before the Macca-
bean revolt. Never thereafter do we meet the story in such full
detail and with such stress on its importance. In the later strata
of I Enoch, as in other Jewish writings of the same time, the
belief in fallen angels no longer holds a central place. But though
its influence declined, the belief persisted.
CHAPTER SIX
Jubilees, Testaments, Zadokite

Work
come now
The Book
w e to three writings,
others, yet all three
of Jubilees,
somehow
which we possess
each unlike the
related.
in a secondary Ethi-
opic translation, retells the Bible story from Creation to the giv-
ing of the Torah, with many changes and embellishments. These
Jubilees, Testaments, Zadokite Work • • • 27
reflect the peculiar religious ideas of the author, especially his dis-
tinctive calendar system. The date of Jubilees is much debated. 1
The Testaments of theTwelve Patriarchs are a series of book-
lets purporting to come from the twelve sons of Jacob. Each is
pictured on his deathbed. He gathers his children about him,
reviews his own and finds in it the illustration of some virtue
life
to be adopted or some vice to be avoided. His discourse ends

with a vision of the distant future. The Testaments are extant
in Greek and were formerly regarded as a Christian work; but
it is now agreed that the original text was in Hebrew and was
composed in the latter part of the second pre-Christian century.
There are many parallels and between Jubilees and
similarities
the Testaments; but we are not sure which author borrowed from
which, or whether both drew on a common source. 2
Among the treasures brought to light from the attic of the old
synagogue in Cairo were two Hebrew manuscripts, both incom-
plete, which Dr. Solomon Schechter published as Fragments of a
Zadokite Work. They contain the history and constitution of a
Jewish sect which left Jerusalem to settle in the neighborhood
of Damascus. The Zadokite Work refers to Jubilees by name,
and seems to have borrowed some details from it. But the date
of the Zadokite writing is also in dispute. 3
Several distinguished scholars have dated both the Zadokite
document and the Book of Jubilees in the period of the Macca-
bean kings, that is, in the same period as the Testaments. The
present inquiry appears to corroborate this view: for the three
works are much alike in dealing with fallen angels and with
powers of evil in general, and the views they contain point to a
time somewhat later than that of the oldest sections of I Enoch.
The Book of Jubilees does not introduce any demonic power

into the Eden story: the serpent is just a snake. But it speaks of
the Watchers who descended to earth in the days of Jared. This
descent was not (as in Enoch) due to rebelliousness; nothing is
said of an oath to persist in sin, or of a deliberate attempt to

corrupt mankind by revealing forbidden knowledge. On the con-
trary, the angels came down "to instruct the children of men, and
that they should do judgment and uprightness in the earth."
But despite their good intentions the angels fell from grace.
They began to wed the daughters of men and were defiled. Wit-
ness against them was borne by Enoch, of whom we read that he

associated with angels, acted as heavenly scribe and priest and
wrote a book full of great wisdom. His warnings were ineffec-
tive: punishment for taking human wives and begetting the
as
giants, the angels were shorn of their power and placed in soli-
tary confinement underground. But first they had to look on while
their children slew one another. 4
Elsewhere we read that Kainam the son of Arpachsad discov-
ered an inscription, which he sinfully copied. It contained the
teaching of the Watchers whereby they used to interpret the signs
of the heavenly bodies. Though he wrote the information down,
Kainam kept silent about it for fear of Noah's anger. 5 This is the
only reference our work makes to the other sin of the angels,
the revelation of celestial arcana; and this too was apparently
more a sin of carelessness than of deliberate malice.
The author was familiar with the main outlines of
of Jubilees
the story found in Enoch; but he toned it down, and did not lay
such emphasis upon it. For he found the source of evil chiefly
in another place. Wickedness is now personified in a single sinis-
ter being. 6
Sometimes this being is called Beliar. This is the Greek equiva-
more correctly Beliaal. But what a
lent of the biblical Belial,
change of meaning has occurred! Belial is a compound Hebrew
word meaning "without value." B'ne Belial (literally "sons of
Belial") means simply "worthless fellows." Jubilees also uses the
expression in the same sense to characterize those who neglect
the rite of circumcision (15.33). But when Moses prays that the
spirit of Beliar may not rule over Israel, "to accuse them to Thee,
and to ensnare them from all the paths of righteousness" (1.20),

a satanic figure is in the author's mind.
Usually, however, the Father of Evil is called Mastema—en-
mity. This too is word, which does not appear as a
a biblical
proper name except in Jubilees and the Zadokite Work. We hear
of Mastema first in connection with demons, after the Flood.
The passage speaks of the evil spirits as children of the fallen
Watchers, and probably reflects the view we found in I Enoch
that the demons issued from the corpses of the giants. Some time
after the Flood had ended, the sons of Noah complained to their
father that evil spirits were leading their families astray. Noah
prayed that the demons should be imprisoned; and God had
Jubilees, Testaments, Zadokite Work • • • 29
already instructed the angels to carry out this petition, when

Mastema, the chief of the evil spirits, made a desperate appeal.
"Lord, Creator," he pleaded, "let some of them remain before
me, and let them hearken to my voice and to all that I shall say
unto them; for if some of them are not left to me, I shall not be
able to execute the power of my will on the sons of men; for
these are for corruption and leading astray before my judgment;
for great is the wickedness of the sons of men/' God thereupon
permitted one tenth of the number of the demons to remain at
large in Mastema's service; the rest were confined under the
earth. As added protection against the demons, Noah was in-
structed in medicine. 7
Mastema's origin is obscure. He does not seem, like his follow-
ers, to have emerged from the body of a fallen giant. Though
chief of the evil spirits, he appears to be different in essence.

He needs them for his purposes. Arguing that they should not be
imprisoned, he has apparently no fear that he will be fettered
along with them.
In the passage just cited, and in several others, Mastema is
subservient to God. His task is to tempt men to sin; if they suc-
cumb, he accuses them before God's Throne. Nor does he initiate
the process of sin. Men must take the first step in doing evil:
only then can Prince Mastema and his evil spirits lead them on to
greater wrongdoing (11.1-5). This is in accord with the biblical
view that Satan serves the divine economy. Men achieve true
righteousness only if they are tempted and resist the temptation.
But this outlook is not consistently sustained: sometimes Mastema
seems to delight in malicious trouble-making.
In the days of Abraham, for example, Mastema sent clouds
of ravens who ate up the seed sown in the fields and reduced men
to near starvation. But when Abraham was old enough to under-
stand the matter, he commanded the ravens to return whence
they came; and they obeyed at once. Next year he introduced a
sort of seed-drill, which protected the grain against further depre-
dation (11.11 ff.).
The command to sacrifice Isaac was suggested to God by

Mastema, Abraham's
as a test of fidelity. Therefore the angel who
called to Abraham boy stood beside Prince Mastema,
to spare the
now utterly ashamed. Despite his own steadfastness, Abraham
prayed for deliverance from the evil spirits who sway men's
.
hearts. 8 And in blessing his grandson Jacob, he voiced the assur-

ance: "The spirits of Mastema shall not rule over thee or over
thy seed, to turn thee from the Lord" ( 19.28 )
Mastema made desperate efforts to prevent the deliverance
of Israel from Egypt. The Bible ( Ex. 4.24 ff ) tells that on his .
way from Midian to Egypt, Moses was attacked by God for fail-
ing to circumcise his son, and was saved only by the prompt
action of his wife Zipporah. As Jubilees retells the story, it was
Mastema who tried to kill Moses— as a measure of defence for
the Egyptians— and the Angel of the Presence who thwarted his
design. The Egyptian sorcerers performed their marvels with
Mastema's help; but the angels would let them do only destruc-
tive wonders, not miracles of healing. The angels also kept Mas-
tema in bonds for four days at the time of the Exodus, that he
might not accuse Israel to God nor prevent them from borrowing
treasure from the Egyptians. As soon as he was released, he re-
turned to his shameless purposes. He hardened Pharaoh's heart
and incited him Here his malice
to follow the departing Israelites.
overreached and the Egyptian hosts were destroyed at the
itself
Red Sea (ch. 48). Yet the forces that slew the first-born of Egypt
on Passover Eve are also called the powers of Mastema! 9
Plainly, the Book of Jubilees does not give a consistent picture
of this being. Sometimes he works for God as tempter, accuser
and executioner— the traditional role of Satan. Sometimes he is
evil incarnate, rejoicing in destruction, hating Israel. We shall
find similar ambiguity in other writings. Highly important is the
idea first suggested in this work, that evil spirits are an organized
army, operating under a single leader. 10
There one reference in Jubilees to the doctrine of na-
is just
tional guardian angels. God, we read, "chose Israel to be His
people, and He sanctified it and gathered it from amongst all
the children of men; for there are many nations and many peo-
ples, and all are His, and over all hath He placed spirits in au-
thority to lead them astray from Him." n
The Zadokite Work usually calls the evil principle Belial; this
figure too appears in a double light. Sometimes he acts as the
agent of divine punishment, working under God's direction, or at
least by His permission. 12 But sometimes he appears as a rebel.
He inspired the Egyptian sorcerers, Jochaneh and his brother, to
Jubilees, Testaments, Zadokite Work • • •
31
oppose Aaron and Moses. Any person who is ruled by the spirits
of Belial, and speaks rebellion, is to be condemned as a necro-
mancer and wizard. When a penitent sinner makes good his vow
13
to improve, the angel of Mastema departs from him. This docu-
14
ment refers once to the fallen Watchers.
In the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs the sinful angels

are mentioned only twice. One reference is a passing mention of
the Watchers who "changed the order of their nature" (Naphtali
3.5). The other deserves more extensive notice.
It is part of Reuben's bitter attack on womankind. They are
constantly seeking to ensnare men. "Thus they allured the Watch-
beheld them, they
ers before the Flood, for as these continually
lusted after them and conceived the act in their mind; for they
changed themselves unto the shape of men and appeared to
them when they were with their husbands; and the women,
lusting in their minds after their forms, gave birth to giants,
for the Watchers appeared to them as reaching up to heaven"
(Reuben 5).
This writer departs radically from the traditional legend. He
denies that there were actual unions between angels and mortals.
Ordinarily angels do not have human form; the mere presence
of the Watchers in mortal guise, and the passion mutually roused
in them and in the women, caused the latter to conceive giants.
But the real fathers of the giants were human. Apparently these
notions were inserted into the text by a scribe who objected to
the idea that angels can enter into the sex relation. But he solved
no problem; the angels as he pictured them are lustful, even
though they do not—perhaps cannot— act upon their desires. 15
The passage is more curious than important. The main author
of the Testaments has his own definite notion of the source of
evil. It is due, not to fallen angels, but to the Devil— sometimes
called Satan, more frequently Beliar. How and why Beliar came
into existence is not explained; but he is consistently pictured as
God's opponent.
This author is a thoroughgoing dualist. He does not seem aware
of theproblem which the existence of a Devil poses for Jewish
monotheism: certainly he makes no attempt to meet it.
Of the frequent references to Beliar, we shall cite only a few
which display this dualism most clearly. Fornication separates
man from God and brings him near to Beliar ( Simeon 5.3 ) . Levi
summons his children (19.1) to choose between the Law of the
Lord and the works of Beliar. When the soul is continually dis-
turbed, the Lord departs from it and Beliar rules over it. Naphtali
contrasts (2.6, 3.1) the Law and will of God with the purposes
of Beliar. When Israel leaves Egypt, Joseph prophesies (20.2),
they will be with God in light; Beliar will remain in darkness
with the Egyptians.
Hosts of evil spirits are associated with Beliar. Of their origin,
too, nothing Sometimes the language suggests that these
is said.
spirits are no more than figures of speech, embodiments of the
several vices. 16 But often they are real demons. 17

The Messianic Age will mark the end of these dark powers.
(We shall meet this idea frequently.) Levi beholds in heaven
(3.3) the angels who are to punish the spirits of deceit and
Beliar. In another prophecy he declares that the Messiah will
bind Beliar and give to his children the power to trample the evil
spirits ( 18.12 ). 18
The Testaments speak twice of Israel's guardian angel. 19 He is
not given a name, but no doubt the author is thinking of Michael.

This guardian angel protects Israel against Satan, not against the
angelic patrons of the heathen. The latter are not mentioned at
all in the Testaments.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The Slavonic Enoch
n Jewish literature of the first pre-Christian cen-

i tury, the story of the fallen angels is mentioned
only in passing or not at all. The one exception to this statement
is, significantly, an Enoch-book. This book (called II Enoch, or
The Book of the Secrets of Enoch ) is quite different from the old
Enoch book we have already examined. I Enoch is a compilation
of the most heterogeneous materials; the present writing, which
is extant only in a Slavonic version, is a fairly well-ordered com-
position by a single author. ( But sometimes, like the other apocry-

phal writers, he borrows material from different sources and does
The Slavonic Enoch • • •
33
not iron out the discrepancies. ) In subject matter the two works
are quite unlike. I Enoch deals largely with the future judgment
and the coming of the Messiah; II Enoch tells of heavenly mys-
teries, the divine throne, the angelic hosts; it also contains a nota-
ble section on moral and pious conduct. The later work reveals
considerable advance in the glorification, the all-but-deification
of Enoch. Even before he is taken finally from human associa-
tions, he is transformed into an angel of cosmic importance.*

The book relates how Enoch, before his translation, was taken
for a tour of the seven heavens. In the second of these spheres
he beheld an unearthly darkness. Here prisoners were hanging
fettered, under guard, awaiting the boundless judgment. They
had rebelled against God, disregarded His commandments, and
followed their own impulses. They besought Enoch to pray on
their behalf; modestly he replied: "Who am I, a mortal man, that
I should pray for angels? who knoweth whither I go or what will
befall me? or who will pray for me?" *

In the sequel, we learn that Enoch did accede to their request,
though his prayer was unsuccessful; for so he reports to the
Watchers whom he visited in the fifth heaven. The accounts of
this episode, however, are much confused. What follows here is
a radical attempt to restore what the book may have contained
originally at this point. The chief argument for our reconstruction
is that it makes reasonably good sense— admittedly a dubious
criterion when working in apocalyptic literature. The casual

reader will surely content himself with this conjecture. Whoever
wants scholarly exactness may turn to the notes, where full de-
tails are given; and, if he gets confused, it will only serve him
right! 2
This then what we think the book originally told: In the fifth
is
heaven, Enoch beheld countless soldiers, called Watchers, of

human appearance but gigantic size. They were morose and
silent; in this firmament there was no angelic worship. Enoch's
guides explained: these are the Watchers, from whose ranks come
file angels that rebelled against God, who went down to earth,
violated their oaths on Mount Hermon, took human wives, begot

monsters, befouled the earth. Those in the fifth heaven know of
the severe judgment that God has imposed upon their brothers;
therefore they are sad and have no heart to sing God's praises.
° On the date of II Enoch, see the additional note, p. 289.
Enoch now addressed the Watchers. He them he had seen told

had inter-
the torture of their brethren in the second heaven and
ceded for them; but God had condemned them to be under the
earth (!) until heaven and earth should cease. Enoch urged his
hearers to wait no longer to join in the angelic worship of God,
lest they provoke Him further. Thereupon the Watchers formed
four ranks and broke into a touching song.
But II Enoch has another account of the birth of evil, which
runs as follows: Arriving at the divine throne, Enoch learned
from God many of the mysteries of Creation. The angels were
brought into being on the second day and were assigned to vari-
ous orders in which they were to remain permanently. But one
'from out the order of angels, having turned away with the order
that was under him, conceived an impossible thought, to place
his throne higher than the clouds above the earth, that he might
become equal in rank to My power. And I threw him out from
the height with his angels, and he was flying in the air continu-
3
ously above the bottomless."
A little later the same subject is resumed. The text is full of
difficulties, but it seems to mean: The fallen angel, previously
called Satanel, now Satan, heard of God's plan to create the
earth and set man upon it as master. In his jealousy, Satan de-
termined to spoil God's plan by leading Adam into sin. But,
though Satan had lost his bright angelic character, he had not
become completely amoral: he still understood the distinction
between right and wrong and was aware of his own sinfulness.
He led Eve astray and, through her, Adam. When the infernal
plan succeeded, God cursed— not His creatures as such, but— evil
4
and ignorance.
Yet our author declares that the root of human sin is not in
Satan, but essentially in man's ignorance of his own nature. 5 In
another impressive passage, God affirms His absolute unity and
sovereignty, denying that there is any power that resists Him or
refuses Him subjection. 6
would be an error of method to try to reduce to a system

It
the demonology of II Enoch. 7 Our author has drawn on contra-
dictory sources. He tells of the revolt of Satan, motivated by
power; this passage is undoubtedly inspired by Isaiah 14.12-15.
Either the author or a later scribe has loosely connected this myth
with that of the Watchers who fell through their lust for women.
The Adam Books • • • 35
Again the rebel angels are imprisoned second heaven (as

in the
the text stands, some are also detained in the fifth ) but elsewhere
,
they are said to be confined under the earth. And after devoting
much space to these angelic-demonic matters, the author derives
sin from the limitations of man's own nature. Plainly, he too felt
the difficulties of a dualistic outlook, from which, however, he
could not free himself.
CHAPTER EIGHT
The Adam Books
'hough the story of the lustful angels faded from

TiJewish literature before the Christian era, it lin-
gered—as we shall see—in the minds of the people. Meantime,

writers continued to discourse about the Devil, by one name or
another. Among the works which display this dualistic outlook,
few are more interesting than a group of writings about Adam
and Eve. We possess several such documents in Greek, Latin,
Slavonic and other translations, which seem to go back to one
Hebrew original composed before the fall of the Second Temple.
In reading these texts, one cannot escape the feeling that they
had acquired a certain Christian coloration. The following ac-
count is a combination of the different versions: the sources are
indicated in the notes. 1
Expelled from Eden, Adam and Eve resolved to do penance
for their sin. Eve's act of expiation was to stand for thirty-seven
days in the waters of the Tigris River. After eighteen days Satan
appeared in the guise of a radiant angel and assured her that she
had tortured herself long enough; but Adam returned in the nick
of time and unmasked him. 2
Eve cried out against Satan: Why are you our enemy? Did we
take away your glory? Yes, answered Satan to her great surprise,
it is all your fault. Formerly I was one of the greatest of the
angels. When Adam was created, the decree went forth that we
must all worship him. Michael obeyed at once and summoned
me to do likewise. But in my pride I refused to worship a young
and inferior being, and the angels subordinate to me followed my
36 • • • Falleii Angels
example. Michael threatened me with God's anger; but I replied:

If He be wroth with me, "I will set my seat above the stars of
the heaven, and will be like the highest" (Is. 14.14). The boast
proved empty: God hurled Satan and his angels down to earth
in perpetual banishment. Grief over his fall and envy of Adam
and Eve led Satan to encompass their ruin. 3
After learning the reason for Satan's hatred, Adam prayed:
"Banish this Adversary far from me, who seeketh to destroy my
soul; and give me his glory, which he himself hath lost." Satan
vanished, and the pair resumed their penance.
This story, like that in II Enoch, clearly represents Satan as
a fallen angel, drawing for proof on Isaiah 14. Here too his fault
was that of pride; but we read for the first time that his specific
sin was the refusal to worship Adam. This notion does not ap-
pear in standard Jewish literature, but in the Koran it becomes
the accepted explanation for the fall of "Iblis." 4
The fall of manby Eve in later chapters. She had

is related
been assigned to guard the western and southern sides of Para-
dise. The Devil went to the sector defended by Adam, where the
male creatures were, and suborned the serpent: "Be my vessel,

and I will speak through thy mouth words to deceive him." 5 The
serpent, then, is the tool of Satan; but this conception is not
carried through consistently. In telling of the temptation of Eve,
Satan and the serpent are confused. In one strand of the narra-
tive, the Adversary remains outside the wall of Paradise, while
the temptation is accomplished by the snake; in another version
Satan persuades Eve to admit him to the garden. 6 After eating of
the forbidden fruit, some to Adam; thereupon
Eve swore to give
"he" (Satan or the serpent?) poured upon the fruit the poison
of his wickedness, which is lust, "the root and beginning of every
sin." 7 When I urged Adam to eat, Eve confesses, the Devil spoke
through my mouth. 8
But in God's judgment of the sinful pair, Satan is not men-
tioned. Eve ascribed her downfall to the serpent, who was pun-
ished as a serpent— not as Satan incarnate. Yet in denying Adam
permission to eat of the tree of life, God told him: "Thou hast
9
the war which the Adversary hath put into thee."
Here, then, as in II Enoch, the fall of man is connected with
the hatred of Satan; but some uncertainty remains as to whether
The Testament of Job • • • 37
Satan and the serpent are identical, or whether the snake is the
agent of Satan. This uncertainty recurs in other writings.
This author, however, succeeded in reconciling his dualistic
notions with monotheism by making Satan an angel whom God
created good and who
through the exercise of pride. Thus
fell
he escaped the embarrassment which we shall find in some other

dualistic writings.
Noteworthy is the belief that Adam is to inherit the glory orig-
inally possessed by Satan. This thought recurs when the soul of
Adam appears after death before the throne of God. "If thou
hadst kept My commandment," he is told, "there would now be
no rejoicing among those who are bringing thee down to this
place (the infernal lake). Yet I tell thee that I will turn their
joy to grief, and thy grief will I turn to joy, and I will transform
thee to thy former glory, and set thee on the throne of thy de-
ceiver. But he shall be cast into this place to see thee sitting
above him; then shall he be condemned, and they that heard
him, and he shall be grieved sore when he seeth thee sitting on
his honorable throne." 10
CHAPTER NINE
The Testament of Job
he biblical Book of Job, one of the grandest crea-

T
tions of the human spirit, is devoted chiefly to a
dialogue, profound and passionate, on the question: why do the
righteous suffer and the wicked prosper? As introduction to the
dialogue, weread the story of the blameless Job who was sub-
jected to a series of tragic and undeserved calamities. These
trials were imposed by God at the suggestion of the Satan, who
appears at the divine court among the "sons of God." He is not

a rebel, but a servant. His task up and down the earth,
is to go
observing and reporting on the sins of mankind. The Satan ( that
is, the Adversary) doubts whether Job's piety would outlast his
prosperity; and God therefore gives him permission to afflict Job.

Significantly, the Satan appears only in the prologue of the book;
and Job thinks of his suffering as decreed directly by God.
3S • • •
Fallen Angels
to"
Far different from this masterpiece of religious thought and

literary expression is a booklet in Greek ( which came to light in
the last century) called the Testament of Job. The author has
attempted to retell the Job story with many modifications and
embellishments; and he has shown himself a bunder both as
story-teller and as theologian. Unlike the works we have been
examining thus far, hisbook does not seem to have anv specific
1
ethical or religious aim. It seems to be a sample of a new literarv
genre, which requires a bit of explanation.
Around the figures and incidents of the Hebrew Bible, there
grew up a body of legends and interpretations which were trans-
mitted bv word of mouth from one generation to the next, alwavs
with new additions. This legendary lore, created bv the folk
imagination, came at a later time to be called aggada or haggadah
—which we translate very roughly as "something: told." These
popular traditions were (at a time which is difficult to fix ex-
actly) taken over by the preachers of the svnagogue. Utilizing
the aggada for the inculcation of ethical and religious ideals, thev
modified some of the traditional material radicallv. Some legends
they suppressed altogether. At the same time, they greatly ampli-
fied the aggadic lore by their own creative efforts. This vast bodv
of aggada, at once popular and learned, forms a considerable part
of the Talmud and is the chief constituent of the midrashim—
sources which we shall explore later.
Now the apocryphal and apocalyptic writers also utilized the
aggadic traditions. Manv incidents and ideas found in Enoch
and Jubilees recur in Hellenistic and rabbinic literature, which
indicates that the various writers drew on a stock of common
traditional materials. But the works we have studied thus far
were composed to advance rather clearly defined aims. The au-
thor of Jubilees retold the Bible story in order to emphasize his
peculiar religio-legal doctrines and his calendar svstem. The
Testaments inculcate certain moral virtues and also support the
claim of the Maccabean rulers to spiritual leadership. The vari-
ous apocalypses were intended to sustain the shattered morale
of the people during periods of persecution. The use of aggadic
materials in such books is generallv incidental. The chief excep-
tion is the appearance in I Enoch of the story of the fallen angels,
itself a sample of popular aggada.
But just about the beginning of the Christian era, we find a
number of instances where writers utilize aggada neither as sim-

ple folklore nor for homiletic or propagandistic purposes, but as
grist for their literary mills. They combine traditional stories with
narratives of their own creation, and deck out the whole in pre-
2
tentious form, even adding poetic embellishments. Of such ef-
forts, the Testament of Job is a rather grotesque sample. Our
interest is in its treatment of the figure of Satan.
Job, so the book was a man of truly pious nature who
tells us,
worshipped a certain idol. He came to doubt that it was divine;

at last he learned in a vision that the idol was not God, but "the
,
power of Satan, after whom the nature of man strays.' Job offered
to destroy the idol; whereupon his angelic visitor warned him of
dire consequences should he dare to do so. Satan would in such
case rise against him, destroy his wealth, kill his children, crush
him with disease. But if Job remained steadfast, he would sur-
vive all; and at the resurrection he would wake to receive a great
reward, as the victorious wrestler receives the palm (2.1-4.11).
God knows, then, in advance that Satan will attack Job. Why
does He not intervene, since the attack is not— as in the biblical
book— a test of Job's sincerity? To this, and to other questions we

shall ask, the Testament gives no answer.
Job destroyed the idol. Satan, seeking revenge, appeared at
Job's door in the guise of a beggar asking for a piece of bread
from Job's own hand. Apparently he could harm the saint only if
he met him face to face (why?). But Job had anticipated the
stratagem ( him only a meager ration by the hand
how? ) and sent
of a servant, with the message: Henceforth you shall not eat my
bread, for I am become a stranger to you ( 5.2-7.11 ). 3
Furious, Satan appeared before God and received permission
to appropriate Job's wealth. (Why did God permit this?) But he
could not exercise his right for seven years ( why? ) , during which
Job performed marvels of charity. Thereafter, Satan destroyed all
Job's possessions. Disguised as a Persian ruler, he incited the
people of Uz to rebel against Job, their king. When the people
hesitated to revolt for fear of Job's sons, Satan killed the young
princes.
Job accepted his bereavement with resignation. Satan, realizing

that he could not drive Job to sin by the measures he had taken,
returned to God for permission to afflict Job with a loathesome
. .
disease (Ch. 8-20). (But previously his aim had been revenge,
not temptation!)
Banished to the ash-heap outside the city, the leprous Job was
supported by the menial labor of his wife. After eleven years, her
scanty wages were reduced; and to buy three loaves, she had to
cut off and sell her hair. Satan, of course, was the baker who
drove the hard bargain. She returned to Job in utter despair and
urêd him to curse God and die. But he comforted her with
promises of great reward and warned her that the demon was
following her to confound them both ( ch. 21-26 )
Satan appeared and Job challenged him to open battle. But

Satan knows when he is beaten. He replied: "See, O Job, I am
turned back before thee, though thou art flesh and I am spirit;
thou art smitten with plagues, but I am in great confusion. Thou

art like a wrestler who wrestles with another. The first throws
the second; he who has the upper hand closes the mouth of the
defeated and fills it with sand, and breaks all his bones. Yet he
bears all this with fortitude and does not give in, till the victor
cries out in consternation. So art thou, O Job! Lo, thou art down,
and smitten with plagues; yet thou hast striven with me in all that
I have wrestled with thee, and hast also prevailed" (27.1-5).
So Satan left Job alone "for three years" (27.6)— and indeed
is mentioned only once more in the Testament. But despite the
withdrawal of Satan, Job was as sick and poor as ever. His three
friends and Elihu arrived, and a discussion ensued. This strangely
muddled section is devoted largely to an inquiry into Job's sanity!
The colloquy is interrupted by a touching scene in which Job's
wife dies, after beholding her children in heaven ( ch. 28-40 )
After the discussion had continued for twenty-seven days,

Elihu broke into it. He resented the attitude of the three friends
who showed some sympathy with Job's claim of righteousness.
At first Elihu too had lamented Job's misfortune; but his confi-
dent expectation of a throne in the sky roused Elihu's wrath.
Elihu spoke "in the spirit of Satan" (ch. 41). When God ap-
peared in the storm, He showed
Job that not a man, but a beast,
had spoken through Elihu's mouth. The four kings were rebuked:
but while the three friends obtained pardon through the sacrifices
Job offered in their behalf, Elihu remained unforgiven. Eliphaz

sang a most extraordinary song, rejoicing in his own salvation,
and condemning Elihu in the most savage and vehement terms

(ch. 42-43).
The healing of Job was accomplished by heavenly girdles
which God gave him when He appeared in the storm. Job gave
these girdles to his daughters before his death, and then was
taken into heaven in a divine chariot (ch. 47).
The confusion and uncertainty of the author as to the character
of Satan is manifest. Satan is the spirit of idolatry and malice.
God foresees that he will take vengeance on Job, yet cannot or
will not prevent him. Satan cannot attack Job without God's
Still,
permission. Certain quasi-magical procedures are important to

the success of his plans. His intention is not only revenge, but
also to drive Job to rebel against God. Yet he is not altogether
bad: he admires Job for resisting him successfully. He is the
cause of Job's sufferings; but his defeat does not terminate them.
Only God, in whom Job sees the source both of pain and relief,
can cure him. These inconsistencies are due only in part to the
incompetence of the writer: far abler men than he struggled un-
successfully to reconcile belief in a full-blown power of evil with
Jewish monotheism.
Brief mention will suffice for other Palestinian writings which

antedate the fall of Jerusalem in 70 c.e. The Assumption of Moses
( of which only a fragment in Latin survives )
promises that in the
Messianic age "Satan shall be no more, and sorrow shall depart
with him." The section of the book now lost may have contained
an old legend— which we can piece together from Christian
sources— that Satan fought with Michael for the body of Moses. 4
The Ascension of Isaiah, an early Christian apocryphon, be-
gins with an account of Isaiah's martyrdom which is doubtless of
Jewish origin. 5 Before King Hezekiah died, Isaiah informed him
that his son Menasseh would be led astray by Samael Malchira,
and would serve Belial. Nor could Hezekiah prevent the catas-
trophe: the counsel of Samael had already been consummated. 6
The prophecy was tragically fulfilled. Samael dwelt in Menasseh,
who served Satan, his angels and his powers. And he served
Beliar, "for the angel of Lawlessness, who is the ruler of this
7
world, is Beliar, whose name isMatanbuchus."
We meet here for the first time the name Samael ("poison of
God"). It is variously applied in later writings to Satan, to the
angel of death, and to the guardian angel of Rome. No single

8
conception is identified with the name. Malchira means "king

(or angel) of evil." Matanbuchus is a riddle still unsolved. In this
story Beliar, Satan, and Samael are most likely not separate be-
ings, but only different names for the Devil. It is a distinctively
9
Christian usage to call the Devil "the ruler of this world."
Our survey of this literature would be incomplete if we did not
record that many of the "outside books" are completely silent on
our theme. The pre-Maccabean Book of Tobit speaks of Asmo-
deus; but he is a commonplace demon who can be put to flight
by foul-smelling smoke. He has no cosmic significance. The Wis-
dom of Ben Sira, also early, never mentions demons; and the
single reference to angels declares that God has appointed rulers
over the heathen, but reserved Israel as His own portion. 10The
Books of the Maccabees, Judith, and the Testament of Abraham
contain nothing for our purpose. 11 More surprising, the strongly
Pharisaic Psalms of Solomon do not once mention either angels
or evil spirits. In short, the dualistic concepts we have been
studying, and the myths in which these concepts were embodied,
were never accepted by all the Jewish teachers. And many im-
portant thinkers had discarded them before the rise of Christi-
anity. 12
CHAPTER TEN
Esdras, Baruch, Pseudo-Philo.
'he fall of the

Jewish state, the destruction of Jeru-
T:salem, and the burning of the Temple were an
overwhelming tragedy for all Jewry, and especially for the Jews
of Palestine. More than ever were they conscious of the reality
and pervasiveness of evil. Shortly after the debacle, two great
apocalypses were written which struggle with the problem of
divine justice as passionately and poignantly as does the Book of
Job. One is the Apocalypse of Ezra (IV Esdras), which has come
down to us in Latin; the other is the Apocalypse of Baruch, which
survives in Syriac. They manifest a spiritual level higher than
Esdras, Baruch, Pseudo-Philo. • • • 43
anything else in apocalyptic literature, and contain many parallels

to the rabbinic aggada.
In their effort to solve the problem of evil, these writings make
no use of dualistic myths concerning fallen angels, evil spirits,
or devils. The Ezra apocalypse does not even hint at the exist-
ence of such dark beings. It finds the source of evil in the sin of
Adam, whose misdeed occasioned the downfall of all his poster-
ity (7.116-118). The author here reveals a measure of spiritual
kinship with his older contemporary, the apostle Paul.
The Baruch apocalypse also traces the beginning of evil to
Adam's sin, which brought untimely death, disease, grief and

pain into the world. "Sheol kept demanding that it should be re-
newed in blood, and the begetting of children was brought about,
and the passion of parents produced, and the greatness of hu-
manity was humiliated, and goodness languished" (56.5, 6). And
he adds: "the darkness of darkness was produced. For he (man)
became a danger to his own soul: even to the angels he became a
danger. For, moreover, at that time when he was created, they
enjoyed liberty. And some of them descended and mingled with
women. And then those who did so were tormented in chains. But
the rest of the multitude of the angels, of which there is no num-
ber, refrained themselves. And those who dwelt on the earth per-
ished together with them through the waters of the deluge ( ibid.,
w. 9-15).
Here the story of the fallen angels recurs for a moment; but in
how changed a setting! The tale is substantially the same. The
author can summarize it as something familiar to his readers. But
its meaning is completely reversed. The fall of the angels is not
the source of evil or the cause of human sin; instead, it is the

sinfulness of mankind that caused the fall of certain angels. The
episode reveals the measure of human corruption, not its origin. 1
But our seer will not go as far as the author of IV Esdras in
making Adam the cause of human depravity. Sin indeed began
with Adam and brought suffering and death into the world. But
Adam's sin did not corrupt human nature at the root, as IV Esdras
implies and as is taught explicitly in the Christian doctrine of
original sin. For in a prayer of Baruch we read: "Though Adam
first sinned and brought untimely death upon all, yet of those
who were born from him each one of them has prepared for his
own soul torment to come, and again each one of them has
&'
chosen for himself glories to come . . . Adam is therefore not the

cause, save only of his own soul, but each of us has been the
Adam of his own soul" (54.15, 19).
Dating from thesame period as these two great apocalypses
is a book now called The Biblical Anti(juities. It has had a strange
history. The Latin text was published in 1527 as a work of Philo,

the Jewish philosopher of Alexandria, whose genuine writings we
shall examine Azariah dei Rossi, the great Jewish his-
shortly.
torian of the Renaissance, knew the volume and pointed out some
of its many parallels to rabbinic literature. Then, somehow, the
book was forgotten by and only in recent years has it
scholars;
received scientific treatment. Meantime some selections from the
work turned up medieval Hebrew manuscript called The
in a
Chronicles of Jerahmeel. It was natural for Dr. Gaster, who pub-
lished this manuscript, to see in these selections part of the lost
Hebrew But it has been shown that
original of Pseudo-Philo.
Jerahmeel (or one of his sources) merely translated from the
Latin text. 2 The book is a Palestinian chronicle which relates the
Bible story from Creation to the death of Saul with many aggadic
elaborations.
Though written after the Temple, in the same epoch
fall of the
as the Baruch and Ezra apocalypses, it has little of their deep
and gloomy earnestness. Our author sought only to tell an inter-
esting story, utilizing both traditional aggada and embellishments
of his own. But he resembles the two apocalyptic authors in his
close affinity to the rabbinic tradition and in the slight attention
he gives to demonic powers. As his English translater remarks:
"Esdras never mentions them, Baruch very seldom, Philo rather
oftener, but not often, and always vaguely/' 3
Pseudo-Philo tells the story of the sons of God and the daugh-
ters of men in briefest summary, without interpretation and
without mention of the giants (3.1, 2). Though ordinarily he de-
lights in expanding and ornamenting the biblical narrative, he
apparently wants to dispose of this matter as quickly as he can.
And in his entire version of the Pentateuchal story we find noth-
4
ing for our purpose.
In his paraphrase of Judges, he is a little more venturesome.
He represents Ehud (Judges 3.12 ff.) as a Midianite wizard who
lured Israel by the practice of sorcery, "commanding the angels
that were set over sorceries because for a long time he did sacri-
Esdras, Baruch, Pseudo-Pliilo. • • •
45
fice to them. For this was formerly in the power of the angels,
and was performed by the angels before they were judged, and
they would have destroyed the unmeasurable world; and be-
cause they transgressed, it came to pass that the angels had no
longer the power. For when they were judged, then the power
was not committed unto the rest; and by these signs do they
work who minister unto men in sorceries until the unmeasurable
age shall come. And God, willing to try Israel, whether they were
yet in iniquity, suffered the angels, and their work had good
5
success."
This tale seems to be the author'sown invention: Jewish tradi-
tion would hardly have blackened the name of Ehud, a national
hero. It should be noted that God tolerated the sin of the angels
only to test Israel; further, that magical power was withdrawn
even from the loyal angels once this power had been abused.
Our text mentions the Watchers occasionally— here they seem
to be guardian angels. 6 The Adversary appears just once, in ami-
cable conversation with God. 7 There are a few allusions to evil
spirits. The tribe of Issachar sought oracles from the evil spirits
of the idols. 8 Eli feared that the call to Samuel might have come
from an evil spirit. He then ruled: "If one call unto another twice
in the night or at noonday, they shall know that it is an evil spirit.
But if he call a third time, they shall know that it is an angel/' 9
The Bible tells that when Saul was troubled by an evil spirit,
he found relief in David's music. Pseudo-Philo supplies the song
with which David drove away the evil spirit. It refers to the first
steps of Creation and suggests that spirits were brought forth on
the second day. They were born of "a resounding echo in the
abyss. But one to be born to David's loins will rebuke them." 10
These casual references, scattered through a rather bulkv VOl-
ume, show how little importance the writer assigned to demonic
forces. In this respect, as in many others, he kept close to the
central Jewish tradition.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The Apocalypse of Abraham
Outside Books we must consider,

'he last of the
T
though extraordinarily interesting, has been some-
what neglected by scholars. 1 It is the Apocalypse of Abraham,
preserved in a Slavonic translation which contains many unin-
telligible passages and several additions by Christian scribes.
The was composed in Palestine after the destruction of
original
the Temple. Unlike the Baruch and Ezra apocalypses, which date
from about the same time, it presents an extreme dualistic doc-
trine.
The first part of the book tells how Abraham came to believe
in one God and sought to spread monotheism. This story, much
like those told by the rabbis, is rationalistic in tone. A similar 2
rationalistic monism appears sometimes in the second part, the

apocalypse proper; but more often we find in this section a mood
of mystery and mysticism, an intense consciousness of a realm
of evil, and a dualistic doctrine that reminds us of the trend
called Gnosticism— a movement we shall consider a little later.
The philosophic and mystical elements are so interwoven that we
can be sure the book comes from a single author who drew on a
variety of sources.
Abraham, the apocalypse relates, ascended to heaven on the
back of a pigeon, accompanied by the great angel Jaoel. 3 As they
flew upward, an unclean bird appeared and urged Abraham to
return to earth, lest the heavenly beings destroy him. The un-
clean bird, the angel explains, is ungodliness, that is, Azazel.
And upon thee, Azazel! For Abraham's
Jaoel cries out: "Disgrace
lot is in heaven, but thine upon the earth. Because thou hast
chosen and loved this for the dwelling-place of thine unclean-

ness, therefore the eternal mighty Lord made thee a dweller
upon the earth, and through thee every spirit of lies, and through
thee wrath and trials for the generations of ungodly men; for
God the eternal mighty One hath not permitted that the bodies
of the righteous shall be in thy hand, in order that thereby the
The Apocalypse of Abraham • • • 47
life and the destruction of the unclean may be

of the righteous
assured." And Jaoel warns him to depart from Abraham, who
is his enemy, and whom he will not be able to overcome. "For be-
hold, the vesture which in heaven was formerly thine hath been
set aside for him, and the mortality which was his hath been
transferred to thee (ch. XIII). 4
Now the angel commands Abraham, the chosen of God, to
rebuke the evil being, "who hath scattered over the earth the
secrets of heaven and hath rebelled against the Mighty One. Say
to him: Be thou the burning coal of the furnace of the earth;
go, Azazel, into the inaccessible parts of the earth." But after he
has uttered this exorcism, Abraham is to have no further words
with Azazel; for God has given him power over those who answer
him (ch. XIV).
The myth of the fallen angels seems to be echoed here, not
only in the name Azazel, but in the charge of revealing heavenly
secrets and banishment of Azazel to a fiery netherworld.
in the
But basically this Azazel is a malignant Satan, not (like his name-
sake in I Enoch) an amorous angel. His character, and his place
in the divine economy, become clearer as the apocalypse pro-
ceeds.
Abraham comes before the divine throne and receives revela-
tions of the future ch. XVIII ff ) The angels now fade from
(
.
.
the picture and we have a direct colloquy between God and

Abraham, though the discussion is sometimes hard to follow. God
promises Abraham a numberless posterity, "a nation and a peo-
ple, set apart for Me in My heritage with Azazel." This is dualism
with a vengeance— God appears to divide the world with the
Prince of Evil! The author seems horrified by his own bold
thought; for Abraham recalls Azazel's taunts, and asks: "How
then, while he is not now before Thee, hast Thou constituted
Thyself with him?" (ch. XX).
No clear answer is given, and Abraham's attention is directed
to a vision of the earth, the netherworld, Leviathan, and Para-
dise. He beholds ( on earth? ) a multitude of human figures, half
on the right side, half on the left. God explains that the lot of
men is predestined. Those on the left are assigned, "some for
judgment and restoration, and others for vengeance and destruc-
tion at the end of the world. But these which are at the right side
of the picture, they are the people set apart for Me of the people
. .
4S • • •
Fallen Angels
with Azazel." They are, in short, the posterity of Abraham, whom

God will call "My people" (ch. XXI-XXII).
Next the seer beholds the fall of Adam and Eve. The forbidden
fruit resembles a bunch of grapes. The serpent has 5
human hands
and feet, and bears six wings on each shoulder. But it is not clear
whether he is identical with Azazel, or is only the agent of the
Devil. 6 Again Abraham asks why God has given such destructive
power to the forces of evil, and receives the reply: "They who
will to do evil— and how much I hated it!— over them I gave him
power, and to be beloved by them." But Abraham persists: Why
did God create man with the will to do evil? ( ch. XXIII )
To this clear and desperate question, a muddled reply is given.
Canon Box restates it thus: "God allows men to desire evil (with
its inevitable punishment later) because of the treatment meted
out by the nations to the chosen seed." 7 But this is no answer

at all; and it may be that the text, here and elsewhere, has been
mutilated.
The vision is resumed. Again Abraham sees Adam and Eve
with "the cunning Adversary, and Cain who acted lawlessly
through the Adversary, and the slaughtered Abel, and the de-
struction brought and caused upon him through the lawless one"
(ch. XXIV). This, it seems, is the only place in the book where
Satan is called by and it is the first instance where
his usual title;
Satan is said to have incited the murder of Abel. Further visions
of sin and of the Temple are shown to Abraham; but he is still
wrestling with the basic problem, and again asks: Why does God
permit sin? This time God answers that both Abraham and his
father Terah had free will. "As the counsel of thy father is in
him, and as thy counsel is in thee, so also is the counsel of My
will in Me, ready for the coming days" ( ch. XXVI )
And it is of the coming days that the rest of the book tells, of
the destruction of the Temple, of ultimate redemption, of the
final judgment upon the wicked. 8 During the final visions— which
become more and more obscure until the abrupt end of the text-
Abraham is again on earth. He hears of plagues prepared for the
heathen and of the coming of the Messiah. As for the wicked, "I
have prepared them to be food for the fire of Hades, and for
ceaseless flight to and fro in the air of the underworld beneath
the earth." Those who followed idols and their murders shall
"putrefy in the body of the vile worm Azazel, and be burnt with
The Apocalypse of Abraham • • • 49
the fire of Azazel's tongue, for I hoped would come to

that they
Me, and not have loved and praised the strange god, and not
have adhered to him to whom they were not allotted, but instead
they have forsaken the mighty Lord" (ch. XXX- XXXI).
The original conclusion of the apocalypse seems to be lost; and
it is probable that the author was not as confused as the present
state of the text indicates. His answer to the problem of evil may
have been something like this: God permitted evil to exist that
man might reveal himself in his true colors and stand or fall by
his own efforts. The resultant evil is to be overcome by Israel, the
seed of Abraham, by voluntary consecration of themselves to the
sendee of God. Such a solution may well have been mutilated
by the Christian adapters of the apocalypse.
But even in its present state, the book shows this writer strug-
gling manfully— if not successfully— with his difficulty. To him,
wickedness is so real and so enormous he cannot but believe that
there is a cosmic power of evil at work. He struggles to integrate
this conviction with his Jewish faith. At one moment he affirms a
completely deterministic order; at another he argues for free will,
and presumably finds in this, rather than in Azazel's rebellion,
the root of human sin. Sometimes Azazel appears to be coordi-
nate with God in the rule of the universe; elsewhere he works
evilonly by God's sufferance.
The problem is stated over and over with powerful force; the
solutions are confused and obscure. We
can understand why the
main body of Jewish teachers turned away from this type of
thinking altogether.
Fallen Angels
PART THREE
Crossroads
CHAPTER TWELVE
Hellenistic Writings
'he long array of books we have examined were

all, or nearly all, written in Palestine, in Hebrew
or the relatedAramaic language, and for Jewish
readers. But during the same years, Jews in Egypt and elsewhere
were producing a voluminous literature in Greek, the interna-
tional language of the time. This literature reflects the cosmo-
politan Hellenistic culture; it is addressed to non-Jews as well
as Jews, sometimes primarily to Gentiles. The Hellenistic-Jewish
writings provide a few items for our study, though their chief
value lies in other directions.
The oldest of these documents is the Greek translation of the
Bible, the septuagint, produced in Alexandria some centuries
before the common era. In this rendering, the Hebrew satan is
• • • 51
regularly translated diabolos, which

Greek means, not only
in
accuser, but false accuser, slanderer— a connotation absent from
the original Hebrew word. From this Greek term our word
"devil"
_
andcognates
o are derived.
all its
The Septuagint rendering of Genesis 6 is not the same in all
manuscripts. In some, bene haElohim is translated "sons of God,"

in other texts the reading is "angels of God." Both readings are
quite old. The tale of the fallen angels was no doubt known to
1
the Jews of Alexandria.
FLAvrus josephus, a Palestinian by birth, had a varied, colorful,

cosmopolitan, and somewhat shady career. His writings consti-
tute in part an apology for his own conduct; but in large measure
they are intended to give the Roman-Hellenistic world more
knowledge of the Jews and Judaism, and that in the most favor-
able and sympathetic terms.
In his massive Antiquities of the Jews Josephus tells briefly of
the many angels who consorted with women, and begot sons who
were beguiled to wickedness by their own strength. "For the tra-
dition is that these men did what resembled the acts of those
men the Grecians call giants." Josephus adds that Noah remon-
strated with the sons of the angels for their villainy, and they
became so angry that he fled with his family to another land:
a story found nowhere else. 2 From this passage we learn merely
that Josephus knew the old tale, and that he did not attach great
importance to it. He relates it as an evidence of the moral de-
generacy of mankind, not as a cause of the corruption. Perhaps
he included it because of the parallel to the Greek myth of the
Titans; for Josephus loved to suggest resemblances between
Greek and Jewish ideas.
This mild and superficial rationalist makes small mention of
evil powers. In the account of Saul's melancholia he speaks of
evil spirits; 3 and he knows of Solomon's skill in casting out de-
mons. The contemporaries of Josephus had apparently inherited
this art; for he relates in some detail the methods of a Jew named
Eleazar who exorcised in the presence of Vespasian and his army.
A ring containing a root, whose virtues Solomon first discovered,
was the instrument employed. Reciting Solomonic incantations,
the exorcist applied the ring to the nostrils of the possessed victim
and the demon was drawn forth. The patient fell unconscious.
Hellenistic Writings • • • 53
Eleazar adjured the demon never to return; and to prove that he

had really been expelled, he was required to upset a bowl of
water placed some distance away. 4
In his history of The Jewish War, Josephus had already told
at length of the root baaras which has the power of driving out
evil spirits. These latter, he declares, are spirits of the wicked
dead which enter men and kill them unless help is given. 5 This
notion is borrowed from Hellenistic folklore. Authentic Jewish
sources often speak of demons, and occasionally of ghosts; but
never identify the two. 6
Josephus was much concerned with "public relations." His

older contemporary, philo of Alexandria, had loftier aims, in con-
sonance with his earnest and deeply religious nature. Philo was
convinced that the entire Scripture, especially the Torah, is an
allegory of spiritual truths; and he tirelessly searched the holy
books to discover their profounder meaning.
A brief but beautiful treatise, Concerning the Giants, is de-
voted to the interpretation of Genesis 6. Philo, as usual, bases
his exposition on the Greek translation of the Bible; and his copy
of the text contained the rendering "angels of God" only. Had he
found the phrase "sons of God" in his text, he most certainly
would have been inspired to comment on it.
Philo denies that the passage is a myth. We have no reason,
he holds, to deny the existence of creatures who live in the air. 7
Some of these beings keep themselves perfectly pure of earthi-
ness; others sully themselves with material desires. "Souls and
demons and angels are but different names for the same one ob-
ject." Knowledge of this fact will keep us free from superstitious
dread of the demons. For just as the words "soul" and (in Greek)
"demon" are applied both to good and evil beings, so too the
title "angel" is given both to the spirits who have kept themselves
free of physical desireand to those who succumb to its lures.
Of such our passage speaks who, instead of courting the daugh-
ters of right reason, woo pleasure. 8
And again, says Philo, the mention of the giants is not a myth.
It is to teach us that some men are earth-born ( gegenes, a word-
play on gigas, giant ) while others are heaven-born, and the high-
,
est are God-born. 9

Why is Philo so insistent that Genesis 6 does not contain a
myth? Obviously because a mythological interpretation of the

story was current. But even as allegory, the popular tale is objec-
tionable to him. Philo has a special reason for this.
Following his master, Plato, Philo is a philosophical dualist.
Matter and spirit are sharply sundered entities, radically opposed
to each other. Matter is evil, mind good. Or, matter is unreal,
spirit is real. Philo can therefore not conceive of beings both im-
material and wicked: the angels can become evil only by descent
into material forms. Thus the angels could not have desired mor-
tal women had first committed the cardinal sin of
until they
donning materiality. This is not very different from the descent
of the human soul into the body, which Plato had described as a
sort of "fall"; and Philo echoes the idea in this very treatise. 10
But this philosophical dualism has little connection with the
dualistic mythology we are examining. For Philo, the fallen an-
gels are not rebels against God, nor the source of human corrup-
tion.
Yet the Hellenistic world did know a cycle of dualistic myths
which bear the general label "Gnostic." We shall say something
of these in our next chapter.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Where the Ways Divide
'tanding at the crossroads, we glance backward,

S:'then look ahead. We have seen many variations of
the myth of the rebel angels. We have recognized in this myth
the attempt of certain Jewish teachers to solve the riddle of hu-
man and moral evil. The long drawn out tragedy of
suffering
Palestinian Jewry— above all, the terrible fate that overtook the
most pious and loyal— made this no mere academic problem.
Faith was threatened: without faith a people cannot endure. We
who in our generation have witnessed an unparalleled outburst
of savage cruelty can understand how these ancient Jews re-
acted; mere human selfishness has seemed inadequate to explain
the bestiality of the Nazis. The workers of iniquity appear to be
driven by a demonic force that exults in malice and glories in de-
Where the Ways Divide • • • 55
struction. It is not surprising that some of our forebears con-

cluded that human wickedness is inspired and directed by mightv
angels who have rebelled against God.
The astounding thing is that, after some centuries of experi-
mentation with this idea, the authoritative teachers of Judaism
dropped it altogether. But the nascent Christian faith adopted
and extended the dualistic viewpoint of the apocalyptic writers.
The main line of Jewish thought returned to an uncompromising
monotheism in which there was no room for satanic rebels. This
is, indeed, a notable parting of the ways.
no wonder that a conservative like Ben Sira, who kept
It is
close to the biblical viewpoint and whose own life was sheltered
and tranquil, should have disregarded the myth of the fallen an-
gels. But those who were more receptive to new religious influ-
ences, and who lived through the mounting horrors of Roman
oppression and the fall of the Temple, also rejected this myth.
What was their reason?
Did they object to the story because it drew on foreign sources?
Probably not. For the Pharisees adopted the belief in resurrection
and made it a cardinal principle of faith, though it was borrowed
from the Persian religion. This they did despite their difficulty
in finding Scriptural support for the resurrection-doctrine, whereas
in the case of the fallen angels they had to explain away biblical
passages that seem to teach the idea!
Nor did the Synagogue reject this belief because the Christian
Church adopted it. Representative Jewish writers, some of them
unmistakably Pharisaic, had dropped the notion of rebel angels
well before the Christian era. Witness the Psalms of Solomon,
the later strata of Enoch, and the Testament of Abraham. On
I
this point the Ezra apocalypse is particularly instructive. Com-

posed toward the end of the first Christian century, it contains
speculations about original sin much like those of Paul. Yet de-
spite this spiritual kinship to Christian thought, it never mentions
Satan or the fallen angels.
The fact is: all such beliefs are inconsistent with an effective
monotheism. Not logically, it is true. Christian theologians were
to meet the requirements of theoretical monotheism by the doc-
trine that God created all angels good, but endowed them with
free will. When they rebelled against Him, neither His omnipo-
tence nor His goodness were impaired. But no matter how subtly
one may elaborate this theory, it still leaves some Satan or Azazel
in active opposition to God. Maybe it is only by divine tolerance,
even by divine intent, that the demon retains his power. Maybe
God utilizes the Devil's evil purposes in order to work ultimate
good. Maybe God can destroy him at any time, and will do so
some day. But for the moment he remains an active and deter-
mined enemy of God and man. The average person looks on the
Prince of Evil with a fear that amounts almost to reverence. To
escape the Devil may become a more pressing concern than to
serve God.
The leaders of Judaism through many centuries displayed com-
parative indifference toward the demands of systematic the-
ology and philosophy, together with a sensitive regard for the
influence of beliefs and observances on the religious life of the
common man. Questions of formal consistency rarely troubled
them; they judged doctrines and practices by their practical re-
sults. Christianity could integrate the concept of Satan into its
philosophy; but it could not always protect its adherents from

over-anxiety about the Devil. It was evidently because they
sensed the religious danger of the belief in fallen angels that the
Jewish leaders sought to suppress it.
It is often said that Judaism is an amythical religion. Our study
shows that the statement is substantially correct, yet in need of
qualification. From time Judaism displays a reversion to
to time,
myth. Nor is this merely a symptom of decline and decadence, of
infidelity to that clear, prophetic, ethical rationalism which is the

classic expression of Jewish faith. Rationalism tends to become
shallow; ethicism may become insipid. "There are more things in
heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamed of in your philoso-
phy." A rationalism worn thin must be corrected by a new vision
of the profundities of existence. This new vision is likely to take a
mythical form. Then the Jewish community, profoundly shaken
by the experience, comes to realize that however deep the mys-
tery may
no myth can explain it: and the mighty simplicities
be,
of monotheism, revitalized and deepened, are restored to their
place. 1
The belief in angels, though well established in Jewish tradi-
was itself a source of
tion, difficulty for many Jewish thinkers.*
They were bound to object to a tale of angels who were capable
The author hopes to discuss this subject fully at a later time.
Where the Ways Divide • • •
57
of earthly amours. But in the long run, the belief in any sort of
Devil (whether we trace his fall from a heavenly estate or, with
the author of the "Testaments," merely assume his existence) is
just as mythological. The essence of myth is not colorful narra-

tive, but the idea that God has a history. If God has an opponent
whom He one day destroy, He has a history indeed; and it
will
was precisely this that Judaism could not accept.
In both the Bible and the Talmud— the Jewish writings that
precede and follow the Outside Books— Satan is a familiar char-
acter. But he is not a Devil in the Christian sense. He works under
God's direction and with His consent. At times he begins to show
some diabolic malice; but the Jewish teachers are not caught off
guard. It must have been to counteract the danger here involved
that they told many tales— to which we shall come presently— in
which Satan appears in a sympathetic light, as one who does
God's dirty work faithfully and gets precious little credit for his
trouble.
We have already noted that the story of the angels who mar-
ried mortal women is associated with the figure of Enoch, and
that the rejection of the story seems to go hand in hand with a
de-emphasis on Enoch's greatness. To understand this matter
more fully, we must make a side trip before setting forward from
the crossroads.
In the early centuries of the Christian era, and no doubt for
some time previously, there was a tendency, centered in Egypt,
which is known as gnosticism. It was not a unified movement;
there were many Gnostic sects which differed widely in doctrine
and practice despite a certain family resemblance. Those about
which we know most were Christian heretics; our information
about them comes almost entirely from the Church Fathers who
vehemently attacked them. The subject of Gnosticism has had
great fascination for scholars, because it provides such rich op-
portunities for theory and hypothesis. It is usually said that there
were pagan and Jewish, as well as Christian, Gnostics.
Gnosticism drew on ancient Babylonian, Persian and Egyptian
myth; upon biblical lore and Jewish piety; and upon Greek phi-
losophy. The Christian Gnostics, of whom we learn from Irenaeus
and other Fathers of the Church, taught an extreme and thor-
oughgoing dualism. They found an irreconcilable conflict be-
tween matter and spirit, the consequence of which was often a
rigid asceticism. They also drew a distinction between the true

God, who is transcendant, unknowable and good, and the
all
Demiurge or Creator, the God of this world, who is not good

at all. To this they added the belief not only in fallen angels, but
in fallen souls.The descent of spirits into matter was a cosmic
catastrophe. Only selected individuals (pneumatic persons, in the
Gnostic jargon) can find the way back to redemption, which is
that of mystic ascent and union with the good God. To this end
the soul must not alone employ the means of religious purifica-
tion—fasting, prayer and contemplation— but also magical for-
mulae and incantations to vanquish the evil spirits that would
prevent the return of the spirit to God. 2
The records of Jewish Gnosticism, so called, are such visionary
documents as the Slavonic Enoch and the Apocalypse of Abra-
ham, a few mystical fragments preserved in the Talmud, and
some more extensive mystical writings of the post-talmudic
period, which we shall examine later. These writings do have cer-
tain affinities with Gnostic teaching. When, for instance, the
Apocalypse of Abraham speaks of the good souls aligned on the
right of God and employing a
the evil souls on His left, it is
conventional Gnostic metaphor. The theme of the talmudic and

post-talmudic mysticism is the ascent of the soul from level to
level until it arrives at the throne— or, to use a more familiar
symbol, the chariot— of God.
But the essential features of Gnosticism are missing from these
works. Judaism tolerated only a moderate ascetic practice. Celi-
bacy was condemned. The Jewish teachers refused to brand the
body and all its works as completely evil. Nor would they admit
that the souls have fallen away from God by entering the body.
The ascent to the heavenly chariot is not a quest of redemption
from 3
evil: it is a blessed pilgrimage.
Nor do the Jewish Gnostics admit the doctrine of a Demiurge.
Judaism teaches that the creation of the world was a manifesta-
tion of God's love, not a rebellion against Him. A faint echo of
the found in the notion of an archangel who
Demiurge idea is
bears God's name within him, and who is vouchsafed all but
divine honors. Sometimes he is called Sar haOlam (the Prince
of the World) or Sar haPanim (the Prince of God's Presence).
It is he who in the Apocalypse of Abraham and certain other
works is called Jahoel (Jaoel); in the Talmud and elsewhere he

Where the Ways Divide • • • 59
bears the cryptic name of Metatron. But at the most, he is only

4
an important angel.
Now in late Jewish writings, Metatron is identified with the
translated Enoch!
Two conceptions seem to have merged here. The older ac-
counts of Enoch do not represent him as the Sar haPanim; the
earlier accounts of Jahoel-Metatron say nothing of his earthly
origin. But the increasing glorification of Enoch may be readily
traced in the two pre-Christian books that bear his name. His
identification with the archangel— in a post-talmudic Hebrew
Book of Enoch— is foreshadowed plainly in the Slavonic Enoch-
book. 5
Now we understand why this hero was dropped from the cata-
logue of ancient Jewish worthies. It was not because of anti-
Christian sentiment which saw a damaging parallel between the
translation of Enoch and that of Jesus; for the rabbis did not
minimize the translation of Elijah, which is an even closer par-
allel. Equally mistaken is the notion that the later Jewish teach-
ers, in their nationalistic narrowness, cared only for Abraham

and his seed and disregarded the glory of pre-Abrahamite saints.
For the Jewish mystics of the post-talmudic era glorified the
heavenly Enoch more than ever, and even called him "the lesser
Yahweh." Moreover, Enoch's importance is deprecated in early
universalistic writings, such as the Wisdom of Solomon and the
discourses of Philo. 6 The reason can only have been that the Jew-
ish teachers objected to the eccentric and dangerous doctrine that
had grown up around the figure of Enoch.
This low opinion of Enoch helped to discredit the ideas found
in the Enoch books, just as the objectionable ideas found there,
such as the myth of the fallen angels, helped to bring the hero
Enoch into disrepute. The Church, on the other hand, which re-
tained the belief in wicked angels, kept Enoch Old
in its list of
Testament saints. There was no danger that he would take on
cosmic attributes— they were reserved for the Incarnate Word.
The translation of Enoch, like that of Elijah, was hailed as a
prototype of the ascension of the risen Savior.
For the rest, we need not concern ourselves with the bizarre
forms which the Gnostics gave to the dualistic myth. These here-
sies were far too extreme for the Church to accept. But the Jewish
teachers could not tolerate even the controlled dualism of Cath-

olic Christianity. The roads branch here to right and left.
Fallen Angels
PART FOUR
The Early Christian Church

CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The New Testament
e have dealt up to this point with writings

which, with a few exceptions, have had little
direct influence on world culture. Many of
them were long unknown even to the learned. We come now to
literature which has profoundly affected the life and thought of
mankind— the Christian Scriptures. The New Testament authors
transmitted to their vast audience many of the ideas that we have
discovered in the Jewish Outside Books— books with which the
early Christian thinkers were well acquainted. Certain trends,
notably the trend toward a mythological dualism, which appear
sporadically and tentatively in the pre-Christian literature of
Israel, recur in more developed and systematic form in the New
Testament literature.
The composition of the New Testament began in a sense when
• • • 61
the followers of Jesus collected and transmitted their recollections

of his deeds and words. But the documents we now possess were
written over a period of about a century, beginning some twenty
years after his death. The New Testament authors included men
of Jewish and of Gentile birth; some hailed from Palestine, some
from other lands. In background and education, in personal tem-
perament and religious concepts, in their interpretation of the
personality and career of Jesus, they differed considerably. All
the more striking, then, is their agreement on the doctrine that
there is an organized force of evil in the spiritual world. Though
the story of the angels who succumbed to the charms of mortal
women was known to them, they made little use of it. But the
consciousness of the Devil, as a rebel against God and man's
chief enemy, is almost everywhere present. Through the New
Testament this consciousness has penetrated deeply into the soul
of the Western World.
We begin with the Apocalypse of John, which is placed last

in the order of the New Testament books. In date, however, the
Apocalypse comes midway in New Testament literature— it was
composed probably about the year 100. It is a convenient starting
point for us because resembles the Jewish apocalypses we
it
have been studying. Some scholars have even thought it an origi-

nally Jewish work, adapted for Christian use by a few additions
and changes. More probably, the author was a Jewish Christian
1
who was thoroughly at home in the ideas and imagery of Jewish

apocalyptic. We need not doubt that what little he tells us about
himself is true. (Incidentally, he was not the same John who
wrote the Fourth Gospel and the Johannine Epistles.) He gives
little attention to the pageant of world history, which so fasci-
nated the authors of Daniel and I Enoch. Nor does he speculate

on God's justice, like the seers who assumed the names of Baruch
and Ezra. John starts directly with the crisis of his own time.
But what distinguishes him most from his Jewish predecessors
is a dualism more extreme than anything we have yet encoun-
tered.
He proceeds for nearly a dozen chapters without signifi-
2
cant reference to the demonic world. The famous "four horse-
men"— pestilence, war, famine, and death— who are followed by
Hades (6.1 ff.), the angels who blow destructive blasts on their
The New Testament • • • 63
trumpets (8.6ff.), and Appolyon, the angel of the abyss, who

rules over the locusts (9.11) are all instruments of God's
righteous anger. But presently we begin to hear about the Devil.
He appears first as a beast, rising out of the abyss to make war
on the witnesses of God (11.7). Then he is depicted as a Dragon
with seven heads, each bearing a diadem, and ten horns; his tail
casts a third of the stars down to earth. He is waiting to devour,
as soon as it be born, the child of
shall a woman in travail. The
child is the Messiah, the woman probably represents Israel. But
the Dragon is foiled: as soon as the child is born, it is caught up
to the throne of God, while the woman takes refuge in the wilder-
ness (12.1ff.).
Next we read of war in heaven. Michael and his angels engage
the hosts led by Satan and completely defeat them. "So the huge
dragon was thrown down— that old serpent called the Devil and
Satan, the seducer of the whole world— thrown down to earth,
and his angels thrown down along with him" ( 12.7-9 ) This fall, .
we must understand, did not occur in the long ago, but at the
very moment when John beheld it in his vision. A heavenly voice
announces that Satan, who had been accusing "our brothers"—
the Christians— night and day before God, has been expelled.
These accusations had been apparently directed against the
Christian souls that were already in heaven; for the voice con-
tinues: "Rejoice for this, O heavens, and ye that dwell in them!
But woe to the earth and the sea! The devil has descended to
you in fierce anger, knowing that his time is short" (12.10-12).
So the Devil in the form of the Dragon resumes his attack on
the woman who bore the man child; by a series of miracles she
escapes. Enraged, the Dragon wars on the rest of her offspring,
"on those who keep God's commandments and hold the testi-
mony of Jesus" (12.13-17).

Now we read of another beast, the Beast, who derives his
power from the Dragon (ch. 13 ). 3
Many details are obscure, but
the general meaning is plain. Satan, beaten in heaven, seeks to
accomplish his designs on earth; therefore he stirs up the Roman
government to persecute the Christians. The Beast is the Anti-
christ, the evil counterpart of the Christ or Messiah. The Anti-
christ is the human representative of Satan, as the Messiah is the
earthly agent of God. This idea was complicated by popular be-
lief—held by pagans as well as Christians— that the Emperor Nero
would return to life for one last fling of supreme wickedness

before the final judgment. The Antichrist has the characteristics
of Nero, as exaggerated by popular hatred. The idea of the Anti-
christ has its first clear expression in one of Paul's letters and is
repeatedly stressed in Revelation by the symbolism of the Beast. 4

The "mark of the Beast" is placed on those Christians who escape
persecution by worshipping the Emperor's image ( 13.15 ff. ).
After many vicissitudes, the seer beholds the Messiah mounted

on a white horse, a sharp sword issuing from his lips. He engages
the Beast and the kings of the earth and defeats them. The Beast
and the "false prophet" are flung alive into a lake of burning
brimstone; the rest are slain by the sword of the Messiah's mouth
(19.11-21).
But the struggle against evil is not yet over. An angel descends
from heaven, bearing a heavy chain and the key of the abyss.
This angel— not the Messiah!— imprisons the Dragon, "that old
serpent, who is the devil and Satan," in the abyss. For a thousand
years the Messiah reigns, the martyrs who refused to worship
the Beast are happy, and the nations are secure from the seduc-
tions of the serpent. But after the millennium, Satan will have to
be released for a little while. He will rouse the nations, even Gog
and Magog, to attack the saints and the beloved city. Then fire
will descend and consume them; the Devil will be cast into the
brimstone lake, where the Beast and the false prophet are, to
suffer eternal torture. Evil will cease to exist: only goodness will
endure (ch. 20).
The picture of Satan in the Apocalypse is quite clear. He is the
power of unmixed and ruthless wickedness. His aim is not to test
the saints, but to destroy them. Yet he appears to have certain
limited rights. 5 He was allowed to reside in heaven and lodge
accusations against the martyrs, until the good angels flung him
out. At the end of the Messiah's thousand-year reign, he has to be
released for his final effort at rebellion. The Messiah, be it noted,
prevails only over the Devil's earthly representative, the Anti-
christ. It is an angel who binds Satan in the abyss: his final de-
struction is by the direct intervention of God.
We turn back now to the earliest written documents of the

Christian Church— the letters addressed to various communities
,by Paul, the apostle to the Gentiles. Thirteen letters make up the
present collection; but scholars disagree as to how many are

really the work For our purpose, this critical question is
of Paul.
not important. The keen awareness of a demonic world runs
through the entire Pauline literature.
This is the more surprising because Paul's theology did not
require the existence of a personal Devil. The source of evil, he
held, was Adam's sin. The author of IV Esdras, whose views were
somewhat similar, never mentions Satan. Paul's belief in evil
powers was not a logical consequence of his system, but the re-
flection of his own inner experience. For this reason, his convic-
tions on the subject appear to have fluctuated in intensity. The
consciousness of the demonic is much more strongly marked in
some letters than in others. 6 Paul, physically frail and emotionally
violent, was subject to many changes of mood.
But these variations did not affect the substance of the belief.
Satan was a very real being, with whom Paul had to reckon. It
was Satan who kept him from going to Thessalonica (I Thess.
2.18); his physical infirmity was "a messenger of Satan" (II Cor.
12.7). Those whose vile conduct required their expulsion from
the Church were formally consigned to Satan, but with hope of
their ultimate redemption (I Cor. 5.5; cf. I Tim. 1.20).
Temptation by the Devil leads to sin— to sexual misconduct,
and to false doctrine and unbelief (I Cor. 7.5; I Tim. 5.15; I. Thess.
3.5; II Tim. 2.26). Religious leaders are especially exposed to his
attacks, through the conceit their high office may engender and
through the embarrassment which slander may cause them (I
Tim. 3.6). In a situation where open conflict threatened, Paul
counseled tolerance "lest Satan should take advantage of our
position—for well I know his manoeuvres!" (II Cor. 2.11; cf. Eph.
4.27).
The second letter to Corinth manifests a particularly vivid con-
sciousness of Satan. He is the god of this world, who blinds the
eyes of believers. There can be no harmony between Christ and
Belial. Satan masquerades as an angel of light; no wonder that
his followers represent themselves as ministers of righteousness!
(II Cor. 4.3, 6.15, 11.14 f.).
Elsewhere Satan is Power of Darkness" (Col. 1.13)
called "the
and "the Prince of the Air— the spirit which is at present active
within those sons of disobedience" (Eph. 2.2). In an early letter
to Thessalonica, Paul speaks of the "lawless one" whose rebel-
66 ' • •
Fallen Angels
lious activity must take place before the return of the Messiah.
The lawless one is certainly the Antichrist, for "his arrival is due
to Satan's activity." The basic conception is like that found some-
what later in Revelation, though the details are different— possibly
Paul expected Caligula, who was not yet Emperor, to reveal him-
self as Antichrist when he ascended the throne. 7 To this subject
Paul does not return: his chief interest is the redemption of indi-
viduals rather than the approaching world judgment. But he is
sure that at the end God will crush Satan under the feet of the
faithful. 8
Paul speaks several times about "the elemental spirits of the
world" and about angelic "hosts, principalities, and powers."
Sometimes he represents them whose au-
as subordinate beings,
thority has ceased with the advent of Christ (Gal. 4.1-9). But
elsewhere he suggests an opposition between Christ and these
inferior beings. The Colossians are warned against theosophic
speculations "corresponding to the elemental spirits of the world
and not to Christ." For when the Savior wiped out the tale of
mankind's previous sins, "he cut away the angelic Rulers and
Powers from us, exposing them to all the world and triumphing
over them in the cross" ( Col. 2.8 ff . ) . The antagonism is still more
"Our wisdom," says Paul, "is
explicit in the first letter to Corinth.
not the wisdom of this world, or of the dethroned powers who
rule this world none of the powers of this world understands
. . .
it; if they had, they would never have crucified the Lord of glory"
8a
(I Cor. 2.6-8; cf. 15.24 ff.).
Most dramatic of all is a famous passage in Ephesians which,
though probably not by Paul, is not untrue to his spirit. The
author has announced the superiority of Jesus to the angels and
has foretold that the latter will learn certain items of divine wis-
dom from the Church. 9 Then comes the stirring cry: "Put on God's
armor, so as to be able to stand against the stratagems of the devil.
For we have to struggle not with blood and flesh, but with the
angelic rulers, the angelic authorities, the potentates of the dark
present, the spirit forces of evil in the heavenly sphere. So take
God's armor, that you may be able to make a stand upon the evil
day, and hold your ground by overcoming all the foe above . . .
all, take faith as your shield, to enable you to quench the fire-
tipped darts of the evil one" (Eph. 6.11 ff.). There is no more
The New Testament • • •
67
eloquent expression of both the beauty and the terror of the

Christian outlook than this.
From Paul's mystical rhapsodies over a Christ perceived only

by the eye of the spirit, we pass to the life and sayings of
story
a concrete, visible Jesus who lived as a man among men. The
Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke are commonly called the
synoptic gospels because of their many similarities. It is gener-
ally agreed that Mark is the oldest, as it is the briefest, of the
three. Most of Mark's gospel was incorporated into the accounts
of Matthew and Luke, along with materials derived from other
sources. We shall start with the reports of Mark, with parallels
from the other gospels, then present the items peculiar to Mat-
thew and Luke.
The Synoptic Writings manifest a strong dualism in a form
appropriate to their graphic and popular character. Evil appears
as a personal, tangible Satan who
an army of wicked
directs
spirits. These demons are everywhere; demonic possession is a
frequent cause of disease, especially of madness. One of the chief
tasks of Jesus, as Mark narrates his career, was to expel these un-
clean spirits. 10
Now the demons and the phenomena of possession

existence of
and exorcism were commonplaces of ancient life. But the Gospel
adds two new and significant features. First, Jesus does not expel
the evil spirits by the usual magical or pseudo-medical hocus-
pocus. He simply orders the demons to depart, and they must
yield to his superior strength. Second, they are not a casual ele-
ment in creation. They are an organized body, operating under
the generalship of Satan-Beelzebul.
The scribes of Jerusalem try to belittle Jesus' achievements,
and even to make them appear sinister, by declaring that Beel-
zebul is the familiar of Jesus and that by the prince of demons
he casts out demons. Jesus retorts: "How can Satan cast out
Satan? A house divided against itself cannot stand; if Satan has
risen against himself and ismust come
divided, he to an end.
You cannot plunder a strong man's house unless you first tie up
the strong man." lx
The demons, then, are subordinate to Satan. When they yield

to Jesus, they are surrendering to a stronger opponent, not to a
superior officer. By exorcising demons, Jesus is raiding enemy

territory.
Whenthe disciples of Jesus go forth, the casting out of demons
is one of their chief duties. 12 After the resurrection, Jesus again
assures his followers that they will expel demons in his name. 13
Particularly interesting is the story of a spirit which the disciples
could not exorcise. Jesus drove it forth, and explained to his crest-
fallen pupils that "this kind" can be expelled only by fasting
and prayer. So Mark tells the story; but Matthew ascribes the
failure of the disciples to lack of faith. 14
In recent years, a hitherto lost passage came to light which
belongs to the conclusion of Mark's Gospel. In this section, the
disciples say to the risen Jesus: "This age of lawlessness and un-
belief lies under the sway of Satan, who will not allow what lies
under the unclean spirits to understand the truth and power of
God." To this excuse for their own shortcomings, Jesus answers:
"The term of years for Satan's power has now expired; but other
terrors are at hand." 15
We pass on to the other Synoptic Gospels by way of the temp-

tation in the wilderness,which Mark relates with utmost brevity.
He tells us no more than that Jesus was carried by the spirit into
the desert that he might be tempted by Satan, that he was in the
company of wild beasts, and that angels ministered to him. As to
the nature of the temptation Mark says nothing, but his succes-
sors inform us more fully. The temptation had three parts. Jesus
was hungry; the tempter urged him to transform some of the
stones into bread. Then Satan conveyed Jesus to a pinnacle of the
Temple and invited him to throw himself down. (Apparently
Satan wanted Jesus to work miracles for his own selfish interest;
or perhaps to test God, thereby manifesting imperfect faith.)
Finally the Devil offered all the kingdoms of earth to Jesus, if
the latter would worship him. To this Jesus replied: "Begone,

Satan! It is written: 'You must worship the Lord your God, and
serve Him alone.' " 16
Note that Jesus rejects the offer because the condition is
wicked; but he does not question Satan's ability to make the offer
good. To the gospel writers, as to Paul, Satan was the ruler of
this world.
Matthew has a number of references to the Devil and his evil
hordes which are not found in Mark. Some persons, for example,
supposed that John the Baptist had a devil, because his mien was
sad. 17 At the end of days, God will say to the wicked: "Begone
from Me, accursed ones, to the eternal fire which has been pre-
pared for the devil and his angels." 18
In one of his discourses, Jesus suggests that those who back-
slide from his teaching will descend to a more degraded level
than they occupied before his coming. He illustrates his thought
thus: "When an unclean spirit leaves a man, it roams through diy
places in search of ease, and it finds none. Then it says: I will go
back to the house I left, and when it comes, it finds the house
vacant, clean, and all in order. Then off it goes to fetch seven
other spirits worse than itself; they go in and dwell there, and
19
the last state of that man is worse than the first." Though this
is just a parable, it was plainly intended as a realistic account of

demonic behavior.
Some important passages are peculiar to Luke. When the dis-
ciples returned from their first missionary efforts, they reported:
"Lord, the very demons obey us in your name." "Yes," replied
Jesus, "Iwatched Satan fall from heaven like a flash of lightning.
I have indeed given you the power of treading on serpents and
scorpions and of trampling down the power of the enemy; noth-

ing shall injure you. Only rejoice not because the spirits obey
you; rejoice because your names are enrolled in heaven." 20 Here
too the evil spirits are part of Satan's army: their defeat goes
hand in hand with his downfall.
Luke is the first evangelist to state that Satan entered Judas
Iscariot and so caused him to betray Jesus— a thought further de-
veloped in the Gospel of John. 21 At the last supper, Jesus ex-
plained to Peter: "Satan has claimed the right to sift you all like
wheat, but I have prayed that your faith may not fail." Again we
see Satan endowed with certain rights; as ruler of this world, he
can test the disciples, and even God apparently cannot deny him
the opportunity. 22
As a sequel to his gospel, Luke composed the Acts of the
Apostles. Here we see notions of the Devil and his demons much
like those already encountered. Exorcism is frequently men-
tioned. Especially striking is the tale of certain Jewish exorcists
who tried to drive away evil spirits "in the name of Jesus, whom
Paul preaches." The spirit replied: "Jesus I know, and Paul I
know, but you— who are you?" And the possessed man attacked
the would be exorcisers, wounded them and chased them off. 23
When Paul called Elymas the sorcerer, "you son of the devil,"
the context suggests that he was using more than a conventional
term of abuse (13.10). Elsewhere Paul declares to Agrippa that
on the road to Damascus he had received a commission to rescue
both Jews and Gentiles "from the power of Satan, to God" (26.18).
the general epistles also provide a modicum of evidence. The

little homily which bears the name of Jude ( about the beginning
of the second century) refers plainly to the legend of the fallen

angels. To illustrate the certainty of divine retribution,
Jude de-
clares: "The angels who abandoned their own domain, instead
of preserving their proper rank, are reserved by Him within the
nether gloom in chains eternal, for the gloom of the great day." 24
This tallies with the account in I Enoch, a book which Jude cites
by name. He also mentions the legend that Satan and Michael
fought for possession of the body of Moses. 25 Jude's reference to
the fallen angels is echoed by a still later writer, whose work was
mistakenly ascribed to the apostle Peter (II Peter 2.4, 10).
Altogether different from these writings is the tone of the
Epistle to the Hebrews, which is closer to the allegorical style
of Philo. document also declares that Jesus died to "crush
But this
him who wields the power of death— that is to say, the devil;"
(2.14) and the author includes Enoch in his catalogue of spiritual
heroes. 26
The author of I Peter warns his readers: "Your enemy the devil
prowls like a roaring lion, looking out for someone to devour;"
and he adds, "Resist him, keep your foothold in the faith" (I
Peter 5.8). More difficult is a passage which in its original form
may have spoken about Enoch and his dealings with the fallen
angels. But if the name of Enoch was ever in the text, it has dis-
appeared from our manuscripts, which appear to make Jesus the
one who preached to the fallen spirits. Out of this single refer-
ence developed the legend of the "harrowing of hell"— that is,
that between his death and resurrection, Jesus released all those
who had been imprisoned in hell up to his time— a legend which
we shall meet again, and which has made some impress on litera-
ture and art. 27
Even the Letter of James, despite its simple ethical tone and
its marked Jewish thought, shows the same preoccupa-

affinity to
tion with the demonic world. "You believe in one God," says the
sage. "Well and good. So do the devils, and they shudder" (2.19).
That is to say, correct belief, unless complemented by righteous
action, can only cause misery. And again James says: "Resist the
devil, and he will fly from you" (4.7). Any one such passage
might be taken as figurative; but the sum of all the items requires
us to interpret them literally and realistically.
The Gospel and Epistles of John possess a doctrine and style

all their own. In them Jesus is not the vivid and dramatic person-
ality of the Synoptic Gospels. Instead he is presented as the
incarnate Logos, "the word of God" on the garment
that has taken
of flesh. Instead of homely sayings and parables concerned with
the day to day experience of common men, the Jesus of the
Fourth Gospel delivers abstract and symbolic discourses. Charac-
teristic of this gospel also is its depiction of a basic and bitter
antagonism between Jesus and the Jews. This Johannine litera-

ture is generally regarded as the latest stratum of the New Testa-
28
ment.
John is not interested in demons, and his spiritualized Jesus
performs no exorcisms. 29 Indeed, angels are rarely mentioned in
the Fourth Gospel, not at all in the Epistles of John.
But the Devil appears in concrete form. Jesus says bluntly to
his Jewish antagonists: "You belong to your father, the devil,
and you want to do what your father desires; he was a slayer of
men from the very beginning, and he has no place in the truth
because there is no truth in him, for he is a liar and the father of
lies" (8.44). Satan suggests the betrayal to Judas; and at the last
supper, as Judas receives a piece of bread from the hand of Jesus,

Satan enters the body of the disciple and drives him on to
treason. 30
John, like Paul, recognizes Satan as the ruler of this world.
"Now is this world
be judged," says Jesus shortly after his
to
entry into Jerusalem; "now shall the prince of this world be ex-
pelled" (12.31). At the last supper he announces: "The prince of
this world is coming. He has no hold on me; his coming will only
31
serve to let the world see that I love the Father" ( 14.30-1 ).
Before his death he prays for his disciples, "not that Thou wilt
take them out of the world, but that Thou wilt keep them from
the evil one" (17.15).
The same outlook pervades the First Epistle of John. "We
know," this writing states, "that we belong to God, and that the
whole world lies in the power of the evil one" (5.19). And again,
"He who commits sin belongs to the devil, for the devil is a sinner
from the very beginning. This is why the son of God appeared,
to destroy the deeds of the devil" (3.8). Such clear cut state-
ments require us to take the other references to the Devil— they
are frequent in this treatise— literally. Though ethical in emphasis,
these utterances are not mere rhetoric. But I John uses the word
Antichrist as a figure of speech, to designate those who teach
32
false doctrine.
Our survey of New Testament literature has revealed in every

important document, transcending all differences of doctrine, the
common element marked dualism. It is derived no
of a deeply
doubt from Jewish apocalyptic, but is more extreme. It recog-
nizes a cosmic evil embodied in Satan, his angels, and his host
of demons and unclean spirits. These powers are diametrically
opposed to God and His servants. Sometimes Satan seems to have
a place in the celestial economy, or to possess certain temporary
rightswhich even God cannot deny him. This lower world is his
domain, over which he shall rule till his overthrow in the end
of days.
The names given to the Devil in Jewish literature reappear in
the New Testament: Belial, the Accuser (this is the meaning of
Satan and Diabolos). But he is also known by
which are titles
foreign to the Jewish writings: Beelzebul, the enemy, the evil

one, the prince of this world, the prince of the air. 33 These are
precisely the names which indicate that Satan occupies a separate
sphere of his own, apart from and opposed to God and the good
—a concept which was utterly repudiated by the leaders of
Judaism.
The Church Fathers • • •
73
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The Church Fathers
"ome of the early Christian writings were accepted

S:las authoritative; others were excluded from the
New Testament as apocryphal. A few, like the Shepherd of
Hermas, once regarded by some Christians as Scripture, are now
classified among the "Apostolic Fathers." The oldest documents
in this group belong to the same age as the latest writings in the
New Testament. But soon we encounter a new type of Christian
literature, discursive, often argumentative, basing its authority
on the events and documents of an earlier day.
The term "Church Fathers" is somewhat vague. It includes the
leaders and teachers of the Church from the apostolic period to
some date in the Middle Ages. The age of the Fathers is some-
times thought to end with Gregory the Great (Pope from 590 to
604), but the patristic library edited by Migne includes many
later authors.
The literary voluminous and diversified
output of the Fathers is
—including works in Greek, Latin and Syriac. Aside from the

official pronouncements of Church Councils, we have treatises on
theology, histories, sermons, liturgies, hymns, letters, biblical

commentaries and other forms. Every conceivable subject is
somehow touched upon; but the prevailing interest is doctrinal.
The Fathers were deeply concerned with defining the teachings
of the Christian faith and with defending it against pagans, Jews
and Manicheans, and against heretics within the Church.
One is not surprised to find a pronounced dualism in the
thought of the Church Fathers. For their basic source, the New
Testament, is pervaded by this spirit. Few of the personalities we
shall meet, diverse as they were in background and temperament,
failed to devote much attention to Satan, his past history and
present enterprises, to evil angels and wicked spirits. These mat-
ters, derived from Jewish apocalyptic and elaborated in the
Christian Scriptures, were developed still further by the scholars
of the Church. To present this subject fully would require a

massive volume— we shall touch upon a few of its main features.
the interpretation of genesis vi. The early Christians seem to

have known the tale of the angels who consorted with the daugh-
ters of men, as told in the Book of Enoch. But aside from two
New Testament references already quoted, 1 the matter is not dis-
cussed till we come middle of the second
to Justin Martyr, in the
century. Justin, a Palestinian of non-Jewish origin, composed an
Apology for the Christians, addressed to the Emperor Antoninus
Pius, and a Dialogue with Trypho, a Jew.
Justin ascribes all evil to the demons, of whose reality he is
intensely conscious. In the Apology he insists repeatedly that the
persecution of the Christians is due to baseless slanders— slanders
invented and spread by demons. 2 These demons are the offspring
of angels, to whom God had committed the care of mankind, but
who transgressed by succumbing to love of women. ( Sometimes
Justin confuses the wicked angels and their demon children.) 3
The so-called gods of the heathen, declares Justin, are none
other than these demons, who have imposed their false divinity
on men, partly by deceit, partly by terror. 4 This is something new.
It has some precedents in Hellenistic thought, but none whatever
in Judaism. The rabbinic teachers did not doubt the existence of
but they never identified them with pagan gods. The
evil spirits;
latter,Judaism always held, have absolutely no existence. Justin's
view, however, was widely adopted by Christian thinkers.
And he used it cannily. For, says Justin, the evil spirits, having
set themselves up as deities, made advance preparations to pre-
vent their overthrow by Christianity. They devised myths (like
that of Dionysus ) to suggest "that the things which are said with
regard to Christ were mere marvellous tales, like the things
which were said by the poets." They also invented rituals similar
to those of the Church, to discredit the latter. 5
In the Dialogue with Trypho Justin makes more frequent men-
tion of Satan than he does in the Apology; but the fallen angels
are not overlooked. In arguing with Trypho, Justin stresses the
free will of the angels, who are therefore liable to sin and subject
to punishment. 6 Trypho, however, protests vehemently against
the "blasphemous" assertion that the angels sinned and rebelled
against God. 7 Now the Dialogue represents Trypho as conceding
The Church Fathers • • • 75
point after point, allowing arguments which no professing Jew

could have admitted. It is all the more convincing that on this
matter, of the sinfulness of the angels, Justin depicts his antagon-
ist as unyielding. Clearly, this was an important issue between the
mother and daughter religion.
Justin's disciples held somewhat similar views. Tatian likewise
identifies the demons with the gods of Olympus; but the demons
of whom he speaks seem to have originated from the fall of
Satan, not of the amorous angels. 8
Athenagoras adds several novelties to the development of our
myth. He attempts to combine its two forms by making Satan,
the ruler of matter, encompass the ruin of the angels by the
daughters of man. (These angels had been stationed in the first,
or lowest heaven: they were not so eminent as the Watchers of

whom Jewish seers had spoken.) The fallen angels are not im-
prisoned, but roam the earth; their self-defilement prevents them
from rising again to heaven.
Athenagoras distinguishes carefully between these fallen angels
and the demons— the latter are the souls of the giants. 9 Tatian and
Athenagoras agree that the angels have free will and can rebel
if they choose.
Irenaeus was Bishop of Lyons in the third century— he is the
firstEuropean we have encountered in our study. A great foe of
the Gnostics, he makes several references to our myth, especially
the episode in which Enoch announces the condemnation of the
fallen angels. 10 He also cites an interesting epigram against a
certain Gnostic who possessed:
"Wonders of power that is utterly severed from God and

apostate,
Which Satan, thy true father, enables thee still to
accomplish
By means of Azazel, that fallen and yet mighty angel." n
Here again, two forms of the myth are fused.

The Fathers of the third century mention the story as some-
thing familiar and use it for moralistic purposes. 12 Most original
are the explosive comments of Tertullian, an extreme misogynist
even for an age that gave small honor to women.
The angels, says the African doctor, were seduced by the
daughters of men. 13 But after they had already fallen, the angelic
spouses taught their wives astrology, magic— and the cosmetic

arts. Now why, asks Tertullian ironically, should the angels have
instructed the women women who
in self-beautification? Surely
could charm angels without the use of makeup could please men
as well! And to what greater conquests could the women have
aspired? No, the angels taught their consorts these arts out of
sheer malice toward God. "These are the angels whom we are
destined to judge; these are the angels whom we in baptism
14
renounce." Naturally, Tertullian defends the authenticity of
the Book of Enoch. 15
This Father has the keenest awareness of demonic forces. They
must exist because they are the objects of universal belief. Men
"call on Satan, the demon chief, in their execrations, as though
from some instinctive soul-knowledge of him We are in- . . .
structed, moreover, by our sacred books ( ) how from certain !
angels who fell of their own free will, there sprang a more wicked
demon-brood, condemned of God along with the authors of their
race, and that chief demon we have referred to." 16 Satan is chief
of the demons; but he has a different ancestry. Here again, the
two forms of our myth come together.
A more thorough and artistic fusion appears a generation later
in the Institutes of Lactantius, who apparently borrowed much
from Athenagoras. The "Christian Cicero" states bluntly that God
from the beginning gave the Devil power over the earth. But to
prevent him from utterly corrupting and destroying mankind, He
sent angels to protect and guide men. These angels, being en-
dowed with free will, were themselves liable to sin; God foresaw
their disobedience and warned them against transgression. But
Satan, "that most deceitful ruler of earth," enticed them to sin
with women. Banished from heaven, they became Satan's under-
lings. Their children were neither angels nor mortals and could
not even be consigned to hell; they wander about the earth, doing
all sorts of evil at the Devil's order. So there are two kinds of
demons: the fallen angels, and their semi-human offspring. These

demons, though harmless to the faithful, do great injury to the
unwary. Astrology, magic and idolatry are their inventions; and
they are the beings whom the Greeks and Romans worship as
17
gods.
The most extraordinary variations on our theme are found in

the Clementine writings. This literature is not recognized as au-
The Church Fathers • • • 77
thoritativeby the Churches, and represents something of a by-

path in Christian thought. The Clementine Homilies and Recog-
nitions constitute a sort of religious novel in which romantic
incident is combined with dialogue and debate on theology.
Though some scholars of the last century exaggerated their im-
portance for Christian history, they are writings of unusual in-
terest. They display much more sympathy toward Judaism than
do most Christian documents of the period. Generally anti-

18
Gnostic, the Clementines sometimes adopt Gnostic ideas.
Among several accounts of the fall of the angels, the fullest
runs thus: The angels who
dwell in the lowest levels of heaven
were grieved at man's ingratitude to God. They asked that they
might enter man's life and, by becoming fully human, convict
the sinners and bring them was granted.
to punishment. This
The angels transformed themselves into gold and gems, and let
themselves be stolen so as to convict the covetous. They also
changed themselves into beasts, birds and fish— as told by the
heathen poets. Thus they accomplished their purpose; but having
donned mortality, they in turn fell prey to mortal weakness and
were overcome by lust.
Soon the fiery substance of the angels congealed, because of
their passions, into solid flesh. Never again could they return to
heaven or resume their former state. When asked by their mis-
tresses to display their primal splendor, they could not grant the
request. As a sort of compensation, they taught their ladies all
the secret and forbidden arts they knew. (This is a new and un-
paralleled explanation! ) The women bore giant young. God per-
ceived that the earth would not suffice to sustain them, so He sent
down manna But the giants had an inborn
for their nourishment.
hunger for blood; they began to eat human flesh and soon were
devouring one another. The Flood was the inevitable outcome of
this horror. After had subsided, God established laws for the
it
souls of the giants, which are larger in size ( ) than human souls.
!
They were forbidden to trouble any man unless he subjects him-

self to them by practicing idolatry, immorality, the eating of
blood, or other heathenish deeds. "But those who betake them-

selves to My law, you not only shall not touch, but shall also do
honor to, and shall flee from their presence. For whatsoever shall
please them, being just, respecting you—that you shall be con-
strained to suffer." But those men who disobey God's law will be
punished at His order, either by the demons or by some other

19
agency.
Another somewhat different account of the demons states that
they are spirits who desire to enjoy the pleasures of food, drink
and These delights they can experience only by entering the
sex.
bodies of men and using them for their own gratification. 20
The Clementines also have much to say about Satan, but this
is not connected logically with the fall of the angels. Side by side
with the kind of naive, mythological supernaturalism we have

illustrated, the Clementines present nuggets of philosophic
thought, such as the following discussion of the origin of evil.
The inquiry: why did God create evil beings? is answered by

the assertion that there is no evil in substance. God created His
children with freedom of choice, and evil results only when they
abuse their freedom and choose wrongly. So far we are on famil-
iar ground. But the questioner persists: Why, if God foresaw that
His creatures would make the evil choice, did He nevertheless
create them? To this the reply is given: It would have been be-
neath God's dignity to change His good plans just because His
creatures would not conform to them. Besides, their disobedience
serves an ultimately good purpose. "He foresaw that there would
be faults in His creatures; and the method of His justice de-
manded that punishment should follow faults, for the sake of
amendment. behooved therefore that there should be ministers
It
of punishment, and yet that freedom of will should draw them
into that order." 21
Several of the fourth-century Fathers state that the angels

sinned with the daughters of man. The last to do so is St. Am-
brose of Milan, who commits himself on the question with some
hesitancy. 22 For a reaction, which had begun at least a century
before, now set in strongly.
The first Christian to challenge the traditional story seems to
have been Julius Africanus, a third-century historian. He noted
that in some Greek Bibles, Gen. 6.2 read "sons of God" instead of
"angels of God." (None of these writers knew the Hebrew orig-
inal.) Julius states as his opinion that the descendants of Seth
were called sons of God because of their righteousness, while the
wicked posterity of Cain were called the seed of man. He also
mentions the view that the sons of God were angels who taught
women astrology and magic, and by whose power the giants were
)

79
conceived; but without flatly rejecting this view, he indicates his

23
preference for the naturalistic explanation.
We shall see that Jewish sources considerably earlier than
Julius Africanus explained the "sons of God" as human beings;
but nowhere do the rabbis suggest that evil resulted from a union
between the hitherto righteous Sethites and the dissolute Cainite
women. This notion seems entirely of Christian origin; perhaps
it was derived from Gnostic sources. For we know of Gnostic
sects who venerated Seth, and others whose patron Saint was
Cain. 24
Origen, the exponent of a highly philosophic and spiritual con-
ception of Christianity, also had difficulty with the familiar myth.
He considered Genesis 6 an allegory of the descent of souls into
bodies. "Even before us," says Origen, "there was one (Philo?)
who referred this narrative to the doctrine regarding souls, which
became possessed with a desire for the corporeal life of man." 25
The great Alexandrine thinker also had his doubts about the
Book of Enoch. He cites it a few times in his exposition of the
26
Christian faith; but elsewhere he questions its genuineness. In
his polemic against the heretic Celsus, Origen derives much
amusement from a passage which Celsus had cited from Enoch
without naming his source. It states that the sixty or seventy ( !
angels who descended together are chained under the earth, and
27
that hot mineral springs are due to the tears of these prisoners.
This is apparently the only Christian source that mentions the
subterranean punishment of the angels. Most of the Fathers felt
that the rebels and their demon offspring were but too dreadfully
at large.
The other third-century Fathers, less philosophic than Origen,
seem to have had no trouble with our story. But soon the opposi-
tion becomes vocal. The Syrian authority Ephraem declares that
Genesis 6 refers to the Sethites and Cainites; the same view ap-
pears in one passage of the Clementines which may be of Syrian
28
origin. In the west, Hilary of Tours brushes away the tale of
fallen angels "about which some book or other exists," as unim-
portant. "We need not know those things which are not contained
in the book of the Law." 29
Meantime, in Palestine, Jerome, the great Hebraist of the
Church, was handling the subject most warily. Apparently he
doubted the reliability of the Enoch-book, and did not like the
myth of the fallen angels; but for some reason he hesitated to

speak plainly. 30
Others were more forthright. St. Caesarius of Aries insisted
that angels are incorporeal, and therefore could not have mated
with women. Genesis 6 tells of the union between the Sethites
and Cainites. Philastrius of Brescia branded as actual heresy the
opinion that the giants were born of angel fathers. Leading fig-
ures in the East likewise adopted the rationalistic view. 31
The issue was finally decided by St. Augustine, after years of
pondering. In his studies on Genesis, he states his difficulties
clearly. How
could angels copulate with women? Moreover,
giants are sometimes born of normal human parents. It is easier
to believe that men who were previously righteous fell from
grace than that incorporeal angels yielded to sensual sin. Still,
adds Augustine, incubi are too well attested a phenomenon to be
lightly disregarded. 32
In the City of God he repeats the problems in much the same
terms; but now Augustine has made up his mind. Genesis 6 must
refer to intermarriage between the clans
and Cain. True,
of Seth
Scripture teaches that angels sometimes appear in visible and
palpable forms. That demons can enter into sexual relations with
human beings is affirmed "by such persons, and with such con-
fidence that it were impudence to deny it." Augustine is not cer-
tain whether devils, embodied in air, can experience or impart
sexual sensation. But he is now sure "that God's angels could
never fall so at that time." II Peter 2.4 refers to the angels who
rebelled along with Satan. Giants are still occasionally born; this
isan unusual, but not a miraculous phenomenon. As for the inter-
pretation of Genesis 6, we should bear in mind that Scripture
sometimes applies the term angel to men. Careful reading of the
passage reveals further that there had been giants on earth even
before the "sons of God" took the daughters of men. Finally,
Augustine denies the authenticity of the Enoch-book. Jude's testi-
mony proves that Enoch wrote Scripture, but not that the extant
work is genuine. 33
Thereafter, the earlier viewmentioned by the Fathers only
is
for the purpose of refuting it. 34

That the "sons of God" and the
"daughters of men" were the Sethites and the Cainites respec-
tively becomes the standard interpretation of Catholic, and later
of Protestant exegetes down to the modern period. 34a
81
The Fathers who accepted the myth changed its character in

several respects. The fallen angels are no longer of the highest
order, the Watchers, but of an inferior grade. The story is de-
tached from its association with the landscape of Palestine. The
imprisonment of the angels is disregarded, and the story is used
chiefly to account for the existence and multitude of the demons.
The identification of the demons with the heathen deities, a no-
tion without precedent in Judaism, remains general among the
Christian teachers.
The final rejection of the myth is an indication that Christian
thought was becoming increasingly systematic. The thinkers we
have been considering have not attained the philosophic disci-
pline of the medieval scholastics. Yet Augustine is a far more
philosophic mind than Tertullian. We saw that Origen, the pro-
foundest thinker of the early Church, did not accept the story
literally; and several of the more orderly writers, like Lactantius,
tried to combine it with the myth of Satan. Gradually the Fathers
realized that this crude tale involved serious difficulties: how
could incorporeal angels enter into a carnal relationship? At the
same time, they must have seen that the story was unnecessary.
The origin of evil, and of evil spirits, was fully explained by the
rebellion of Satan.
satan. That Satan is the arch rebel, the source of all wickedness,
was the belief of educated theologians and simple folk alike.
Thus the problem of evil found its full and often detailed solu-
tion. A doctrine so clearly suggested in the New Testament nat-
urally found frequent expression in the writings of the Fathers
from the earliest days.
Thus St. Ignatius (who carried on the mystical tradition of
Paul) mentions the Devil about a dozen times in the seven brief
letters that bear his name. Sometimes he uses the names Devil
and Satan; but often, following Paul, Ignatius speaks of the
35
"Prince of this world."
The Epistle of Barnabas represents an approach to Christian
theology very different from that of Ignatius, but the same con-
sciousness of demonic forces. The "Black One," says Barnabas,
now dominates the world, though soon to be destroyed. "There
are two ways of teaching and power, one and one of dark-
of light
ness . . . over the one are set light-bringing angels of God, but
over the other angels of Satan. And the one is Lord from eternity
to eternity, and the other is the ruler of the present time of
iniquity." 36
These Apostolic Fathers simply affirm the existence of Satan,
seemingly as a reflection of their own inner experience. But soon
the ecclesiastical writers began to speculate more broadly about
Satan's character and his place in the universe. How did the
power of evil originate? Why does God tolerate the Devil? What
is with the process of salvation— the process which,
his connection
to the Fathers,was the very core of Christianity?
Justin Martyr, we have seen, refers the evils of the world to
the demons who sprang from the intermarriage of mortals and
angels. But he also knows a personal Devil, to whom similar mis-
deeds are ascribed. The Devil likewise created heathen myths
and rites, similar to the history of Christ and to the sacraments,
in order to confuse mankind. 37 He is the deceiving serpent—the
being called the serpent by Moses, the Devil in the Books of Job
and Zechariah, and Satan by Jesus is one and the same. Earlier
writers had suggested this identification, but Justin makes it ex-
plicit. The serpent fell by leading Eve astray. Here Justin follows,
though not exactly, the view of the Adam-books that Satan's fall
occurred after the creation of man, and because of his hostility
to man. 38 Tatian varies the idea somewhat: Satan, the most subtle
of the angels, persuaded men to regard him as a god. Thereupon
men became mortal, and "that first begotten one" became a
demon. 39 The majority of Christian thinkers, however, adopted
the notion we first encountered in II Enoch— that at the very
beginning Satan rebelled out of sheer pride; and he attacked
mankind, who were created after his downfall, out of malice and
vengefulness. 40
Athenagoras presents the doctrine in more abstract form.
There are powers that rule matter, and one of these in particular
is hostile to God. Not that anything is completely opposed to
God, for then it could not exist at all. But the spirit which directs
matter, though created by God, is opposed to the good which is
God's necessary attribute. It is this "prince of matter" who causes
the injustices which make us doubt God's providence. 41 In short,
Athenagoras gives a quasi-Platonic form to the Christian belief
that Satan has a certain claim to rulership in the present world.
In the more elaborate system of Irenaeus, Satan plays a signifi-
83
cant role. 42 According to Irenaeus, Adam's had two basic

fall
results: it made man and robbed man of immor-

subject to Satan,
tality. Hence the salvation wrought by the sacrifice of Jesus has
two stages: it redeems man from the power of Satan, and it con-
fers upon him divine immortality. Irenaeus finds a point to point
correspondence between the subjection of Adam by Satan and
the defeat of Satan by Jesus.
"The death of Jesus contributed to man's salvation in three
ways. It was at once the crowning act of obedience, a recapitula-
tion of Adam's fall, and the payment of a price to Satan in return
for man's release." 43 This last item is of extraordinary importance.
It goes far beyond the suggestion that Satan is the temporary
ruler of the present world. Irenaeus admits that Satan has claims
against mankind which God, through His Son, is obliged to
satisfy. One is startled to learn how much authority was accorded
this view.
The serenely philosophical Origen was among those who
adopted it. "In agreement with some of the Gnostics, Origen
maintained that God offered the devil the soul of Christ in ex-
change for the souls of men, and that Satan accepted the offer, not
knowing, as God did, that he would be unable to hold Christ
after he had him in his possession." It is notable that Origen in-
cluded the belief in the Devil and his angels among the principles
of the Christian faith, though this doctrine is not mentioned in
44
the "Apostles' Creed."
A more popular version
of the idea is found in an apocryphal
writing, the Gospel of Nicodemus, which perhaps dates from the
fourth century. It elaborates the story that, between his death and
resurrection, Jesus descended to hell and released those impris-
oned there. Before Jesus arrived, Satan had a long discussion with
Beelzebub, the prince of Hell. The latter wanted to abandon the
struggle with the savior, but Satan was implacable. "I tempted
him," he declares, "and stirred up my old people, the Jews, with
zeal and anger against him." And he will resist to the end. Soon
that end comes. The "King of Glory" tramples upon death, de-
prives Beelzebub of power, and "takes our earthly father Adam
with him to his glory." Now the defeated Beelzebub turns angrily
on the author of his misfortunes. "Why," he demands of Satan,
"didst thou venture without either reason or justice to crucify
him, and hast brought down to our regions a person innocent
and righteous, and thereby hast lost all the sinners, impious, and
unrighteous persons in the whole world?" As he is speaking thus,
Beelzebub is notified by the "King of Glory" that henceforth
Satan shall be subject to him, in place of those Christ has re-
deemed. 45
Gregory the Great worked out still more fully the myth that
Satan was outwitted by God. Satan, Gregory declared, was justly
in control of the human race; for being sinful, they deserved noth-
ing better than death. But he who demands more than his due
loses even that to which he is entitled! Christ put on flesh. Think-
ing him be a sinful human, Satan caused his betrayal and
to
crucifixion. But Christ was really pure and stainless, not legiti-
mate prey for Satan. By attacking him (however mistakenly),
Satan undermined his own position and lost his valid claim on
the souls of mankind. 46
That such views were maintained by Origen, one of the pro-
foundest intellects of the Church, and by Gregory, perhaps its
most influential personality, is most instructive. We see how
realistically Satan was conceived, and how important was his part
in the scheme of salvation. It is true that the views of the atone-
ment held by Irenaeus, Origen and Gregory were ultimately re-
jected by the medieval Church. Instead, the so-called Latin
doctrine of atonement, most fully elaborated by Anselm, was
adopted. According to this view, the death of Jesus was a satis-
faction paid to God, not a ransom paid to the Devil or a device
for tricking the Devil. Yet a contemporary Protestant theologian
has gone back to the old discarded views, despite their grotesque
mythological expression, as the truly classical doctrine of the
atonement. 47
Those Fathers who tended to Neo-Platonic mysticism, like
Clement of Alexandria and the pseudo-Dionysius, made Satan a
less vivid figure. For such men, evil is not-being rather than a
positive force. Even the demons, according to Dionysius, are

striving for the good. 48 But the main current of Christian thought
was in this matter much closer to Tertullian, for whom the Devil
was a real, concrete and terrifying being, whose existence all
men intuitively recognize. Augustine, despite his own inclination
to Neo-Platonic thought, took thedemonic powers very literally
and devotes to them many chapters of his chief work, The City of
God. 49 Augustine makes plain that the Devil rebelled out of
85
pride, and that his fall preceded the creation of man. The plot
against Adam was the effect, not the cause, of Satan's expulsion
from heaven. And here, apparently for the first time, Augustine
propounds a theory that was to become very popular.
This theory is that God created mankind as a sort of substitute
for the servants He lost when Satan and his angels rebelled. The
number of souls to be saved by God, from the beginning till the
last resurrection, is equal to the number of angels that fell with
Satan. This view (which makes the fallen angels much more
numerous than the early Jewish sources supposed) was adopted
by Gregory and by the profound Anselm. 50
We conclude this section by noting that some tender-hearted
Christians thought it possible that the Devil would ultimately be
redeemed. This view has been ascribed to Origen and seems, in
fact, to be a logical inference from his system; but he is said to
have become angry when accused of teaching so radical a doc-

trine. From the fourth to the sixth centuries, there were violent
quarrels over Origenism, and many errors— rightly or wrongly

ascribed to Origen— were condemned. Certainly the Church
never considered acceptable the notion that the Devil can be
saved. 51
the limitations of christian dualism. The preceding section

might have been expanded indefinitely; but there is really no
need for us to pile up evidence. Despite variations on matters of
detail, the Fathers all held that, in the great drama of man's
salvation by Christ, an indispensable role is played by Satan. For
every good drama must have a villain. In this doctrine, we have
seen a genuine dualism. But, we must add, it is a dualism kept
under control. The evil principle is not eternal, as is God, the
Author of goodness. Satan was created, and he was created good.
By abusing the gift of free will he rebelled, and thus evil was
born. Satan exists now only by God's tolerance, and in the end
of days he will be utterly destroyed. Thus the belief in Satan was
at least formally harmonized with monotheism.
But there were Christians who proclaimed a much more thor-
oughgoing dualism. All such the Church branded as heretics and
fought with her every resource. They are the sects we call Gnos-
tic. Their tenets were diverse and often fantastic; but thev all
affirmed a radical and uncompromising opposition and conflict

between matter and spirit, this world and the divine world. The
Christian Gnostics saw in the visible universe the work, not of
the one and eternal God, but of the Demiurge, an inferior and
actually evil being. For Marcion and others, this Demiurge is the
one who is called God in the Old Testament— he is the Jewish
God, the God of vengeful justice, to whom are ascribed the
characteristics of Satan. The God of love was formerly hidden
from mortal ken; now revealed through Christ. He alone is the
eternal Deity. Against such views some of the greatest personal-
ities of the Church— Irenaeus, Tertullian, and others— insisted that
the Old Testament is holy, a revelation of God the Father. There

is no basic conflict between the old dispensation and the new
one that has succeeded it; the God who created the world is the
same who revealed Himself through Christ.
In the third century one Manes or Mani appeared in Persia
and founded a new religion which under the name of Manichae-
ism flourished for many centuries in the West as well as the East.
Basically, the faith of Mani was the old dualism of the Persian
religion; was combined a measure of heretical Christian-
with it
ity, mostly of Gnostic character. For a long time this religion
was a serious competitor of Catholicism; and many of the Fathers

were constrained to write anti-Manichaean tracts. Augustine, who
in his youth was attracted to the sect, was among the most nota-
ble of those who combated it.
Thus the Church admitted dualism only in measure and in a
form that could be accommodated to monotheism. But even this
limited dualism was flatly rejected by the recognized exponents
of Judaism.
Fallen Angels
PART FIVE
The Rabbis
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Talmud and Midrash
'urning from the Fathers of the Church to the

Fathers of the Synagogue, we
encounter an en-
tirely different kind of literature, with entirely
different problems. The Talmud comes from the same period as
the writings of the Church Fathers and deals with some of the
same issues. Talmudic literature, like patristic literature, is largely
an exposition of authoritative Scripture. But there the resem-
blance ends.
The Church Fathers wanted to clarify Christian doctrine, com-
bat heresy and construct a complete theological system. To this
end they composed elaborate treatises. Almost every statement
quoted in the preceding chapter can be ascribed to a known
author, dated with accuracy and interpreted with confidence in
the light of an extended context.
• • • 89
But the talmudic-midrashic literaturewhich we are now to

consider is a compilation of materials from various ages, which
were transmitted by word of mouth for a long time before they
were written down. The Mishnah was edited about 200 c.e., the
Babylonian Talmud ( Gemara ) in the middle of the fifth century,
the Midrashim later still. But these works contain some elements
that go back centuries before the Christian era.
The authoritative parts of this material, those that were trans-
mitted with the greatest care and subjected to the most critical
with halakah, that is with Jewish religious law. Our
analysis, deal
concern, however, will be chiefly with aggada, that is (speaking
loosely), with the homiletic sayings of the Jewish teachers. Such
utterances were not regarded as official or binding. Inconsist-
encies appear frequently; and even when they are noted, the
effort to reconcile them is superficial. No serious effort was made
to integrate the theological opinions of the rabbis into a coherent
system. The emphasis of traditional Judaism was on correct con-
duct rather than on doctrinal conformity.
Furthermore, the aggadic sentences are generally brief. For
the sake of emphasis, the aggadists often resort to exaggerations
which must not be taken literally. Many sentences are anony-
mous. Even when they appear in the name of a certain rabbi, we
cannot tell from what period of his life they come, or what
circumstances called them forth, or even whether the thought he
expressed was original with him.
It is therefore unsafe to draw any conclusion about rabbinic
Judaism from one or two aggadic statements. Even if they have

been accurately transmitted and correctly understood, they may
represent no more than the speculations of a single teacher. Only
when a view is found with some frequency, and when it accords
with the general spirit of rabbinic thought, dare we say that this
is the opinion of "the rabbis of the Talmud."
For these reasons, we must be greatly impressed by the com-

plete unanimity with which the rabbinic teachers rejected dual-
ism, even the kind of modified dualism we have been studying.
They must have been familiar with these notions; but tiiey repu-
diated them emphatically.
the of the angels. The Talmud never speaks of fallen or

sin
rebel angels. This is no accident; nor were the rabbis ignorant of
the legend. They knew and suppressed it.
Talmud and Midrash • •
91
What, asks the Talmud, is the meaning of the name Azazel

(Lev. 16.10)? It derives from the fact that the scapegoat "atones
for the sins of Uzza and Azzael." 1 Who Uzza and Azzael were
and what sins they had committed, we are not told. But in later
Jewish literature, the leaders of the fallen angels bear these
names, which indeed are but variants of the names Shemhazai
and Azazel we already know so well.
Elsewhere the Gemara remarks that the giants Og and Sihon
were children of Ahijah, the son of Shemhazai. 2
From these two cryptic statements alone, we should never sus-
pect that the Talmud was referring to fallen angels. It does not
even say that these beings were angels of any sort. But the allu-
sion must be to the familiar tale. The very terseness of the refer-
ences is significant.
Who then were "the God" mentioned in Genesis 6? The
sons of
Targum, the Aramaic translation which was accepted for use in
the synagogues, renders this phrase: "the sons of the nobles."
This rendering of the passage is standard in Jewish tradition. Hu-
manity before the Flood became corrupt, as the Bible fully re-
lates. The young aristocrats of the day set the pace for immoral-
ity, making free with the "daughters of man," that is to say, with
women of lower rank, taking whomever they pleased. It was
entirely for human sinfulness that God sent the Flood. 3
R. Simeon b. Johai (second century) cursed those who trans-

lated bene haElohim literally as "sons of God." The proper ren-
dering, he said, was "sons of the judges," which agrees substan-
tially with the Targum. We are not entirely sure who was the
specific object of R. Simeon's curse; but he clearly wanted to pre-

clude any supernatural interpretation of the passage. 4
Two other scholars of the same period differed as to the mean-
ing of the word vayinahem in Gen. 6.6. R. Judah says it means:
"He regretted." God was sorry that He had made man on earth.
Had He set man in heaven, he would have remained sinless, as
the angels are sinless. R. Nehemiah says it means "He was com-
forted." God consoled Himself for man's moral failure by con-
sidering that He had made man on earth. Had He set him in
the neighborhood of the angels, man would have roused them
also to rebellion. 5 The point at issue between the two scholars is
whether regret can properly be ascribed to an all-knowing God.
Both agree that the angels did not rebel, whether because they
92 • • Fallen Angels
were protected from contact with sinful man, or because they

are naturally sinless.
The latter view is We have seen how strongly
more common.
Trypho objected to Justin's statement that angels could sin. 6 Ac-
cording to a famous legend, the angels sought to keep Moses
from receiving the Torah because they wanted it for themselves.
But their purpose was thwarted. The Torah is not suitable for
angels, because they have no inclination to do evil. 7
Strangely, these statements do not derive from awe of the an-
gels. Whereas apocalyptic Judaism emphasized the importance of
the angels, but held that some of them fell from grace, rabbinic
Judaism rejected the myth of the rebel angels, yet belittled angels
as a class. We shall elaborate this point later. Certainly the angels
do not appear in a favorable light in the legend just mentioned.
Selfishly, and in complete ignorance of what the Torah contains,
they wish to keep it for themselves. Moses scores an easy victory
over them. Their very sinlessness is represented as a sort of defi-
ciency. Just as a child who has lost several fingers cannot learn
the art of silk weaving, so the angels cannot use the Torah be-
8
cause they lack the sinful impulse! This paradox reveals a
polemical intent in the story. The rabbis knew the legend of the
fallen angels, and found it objectionable. But they did not di-
rectly challenge such views. In refuting the heretic, they wisely
discerned, you publicize his doctrine. The rabbis therefore at-
tacked such beliefs indirectly, as in the present instance.
enoch. The rabbis were not the first to reject the myth of the
fallen angels. We
saw the same trend in apocryphal literature.
Similar was the fate of the Enoch legend. Enoch, the great hero
of early apocalyptic who was to be glorified in Christian writings,
has dropped out of sight in the later Jewish apocrypha. In the
two Talmuds and in the tannaitic literature he is not mentioned
at all. 9 In the standard Midrashim he appears only two or three
times. The most notable passage reports that Enoch was not
translated to heaven. He died like any other mortal. God recog-
nized that his righteousness was not very deep-rooted. So before
Enoch had a chance to sin, God took him from this world at the
early age (for an antediluvian) of three hundred sixty-five^P) It
is no accident that the character who in earlier writings
certainly
was so glorified, and who in certain post-talmudic sources was
Talmud and Midrash • • •
93
exalted to all but divine heights, should have been, so to speak,

snubbed by the rabbis.
the frailty of angels. The rabbis at times manifest a certain

distaste for angels as a class, in accordance with the biblical dic-
tum, "Behold He putteth no trust in His servants, and His angels
He chargeth with folly" (Job 4.18). We touch on this subject now
only to make plain that it has nothing to do with the belief in
fallen or rebellious angels. God alone is perfect. Therefore the
bound to make mistakes.
angels are
The Talmud reports that the Angel of Death once sent his
agent (evidently an angel of lower rank) to take the soul of
Miriam the Hairdresser; but the emissary blundered and brought
the soul of Miriam the Child's Nurse. The angels sent to deliver
Lot were severely punished for revealing in advance that God
planned to destroy Sodom. But they let the secret slip inadvert-
ently; they had no intention to disobey God. 11
According to a familiar aggada, the angels opposed the crea-
tion of man. The first company of angels whom God consulted
on the subject said: "What is man, that Thou considerest him?"
Whereupon God consumed them with fire. The same fate over-
took a second company. When He presented His proposal to a
"What did it avail the former groups
third group, they replied:
to speak out before Thee? The whole world is Thine; do as
Thou wilt!" 12
Behind this remarkable story are important polemical motives.
The biblical phrase "Let us make man" (Gen. 1.26) had to be
explained, especially as the Gnostics and Christians had eagerly
seized upon it as proof that the Godhead contains several per-
sons. Hence the rabbis picture God as consulting the angels.
But why should the angels have objected to God's purpose?
There was an opinion among the Gnostics (which Philo shared,
at least in part) that God did not create man, or that inferior
powers had a considerable share in man's creation. The purpose
of this doctrine was to clear God of responsibility for man's sin-
fulness. But to the rabbis, such a view was inadmissible. To
emphasize that God alone is the Creator, they taught that the
angels, far from participating in the creation of man, actually
opposed it. 13
In the Koran, this story recurs in combination with the other
legend, that Satan-Iblis refused to join the other angels in wor-

shipping Adam. Such a compound is unknown in rabbinic
sources, which nowhere mention that the angels were required
to give divine honors to men. On the contrary, a story in the
Midrash seems to be directed against this apocryphal legend.
Said R. Hoshaya (third century): When Adam was created in
his primal glory, the image of God on earth, the angels confused
him with the Creator, and sought to recite "Holy, holy" before
him. God thereupon cast a deep sleep upon Adam, and the angels
realized their mistake. 14 This tale rules out the notion that the
angels had to worship Adam;
makes plain the limited knowl-
it
edge of the angels and the fact that they had no share in the
making of man.
the character of satan. Satan is a familiar character of the

aggada, and is even mentioned in a few of the prayers which
have a more official character. It is therefore most important for
us to understand how the rabbis thought of him. We begin with
certain negative facts.
Satan is never called in rabbinic literature the Evil One, the
Enemy, Mastema, or Beelzebul— names familiar to us from
Belial,
the pseudepigrapha and the New Testament. Sometimes he is
called Samael— a name also given to the Angel of Death, with
whom Satan is often identified. 15
Nowhere in talmudic sources is Satan depicted as a rebel
against God. Nowhere is it even hinted that he was once an
angel of light. Nor does the aggada foretell Satan's downfall or
destruction in the future. The classic sources do not involve Satan
in the Eden story: the serpent of Eden is a literal snake. 16
The Satan of the Talmud is essentially the Satan of the Hebrew
Bible. He is an agent of God. His role is unpleasant, even un-
savory. He is spy, stoolpigeon, agent provocateur, prosecutor,
hangman. It appears that the economy of heaven, like that of
earth, requires the service of such characters, who are not always
animated by pure devotion to the public weal.
Satan's functions are clearly described in a tannaitic statement:
He descends to earth and leads men astray. Then he ascends and
inflames God's wrath by reporting their sins. Having received
17
permission, he deprives them of life. He works altogether un-
Talmud and Midrash • • • 95
der God's direction. His job is to test the genuineness of man's

virtue.
In the context of this statement we have the famous saying of
Resh Lakish (third century): "Satan, the evil inclination and
the Angel of Death are one and the same." This highly rational-
istic remark means: Satan is but the personification of sin that
leads to death. 18 The Angel of Death appears many times in our

sources, always as a servant of God, never as a rebel. And, as we
shall see, God created the evil impulse for a useful purpose.
The propriety of Satan's intentions is further attested by a re-
markable fact. The role ascribed to Satan in one version of an
aggada sometimes assigned to the angels, or to God's Attribute
is
of Justice(Middat haDin), in other recensions.

Thus we read that Satan complained: At all the feasts Abra-
ham prepared for the birth and weaning of Isaac, he set aside
no animal for sacrifice to God. Thereupon God voiced His assur-
ance that if required, Abraham would even sacrifice Isaac. But
in another version of the same tale, it is the angels who make
accusation against Abraham, and to whom God makes this reply. 19
When Esau went hunting venison for Isaac, an angel released
every animal he caught, thus giving Jacob time to practice his
deception and secure his father's blessing. But one parallel says
that God sent Satan to delay Esau. 20
When Ahasuerus invited all his Morde-
subjects to a banquet,
cai warned his fellow Jews not to attend, for by going they would
give Satan an opportunity to accuse them. Many went to the
banquet nonetheless, and straightway Satan entered God's pres-
ence and charged them with violating the dietary laws. But in
some sources it is God's justice which accuses the Israelites and
demands their punishment. 21
Many other aggadot dealing with biblical characters mention
Satan. Rarely does he overstep his legitimate functions; occa-
sionally he seems more crudely malicious. We present a fair sam-
pling of this material.
When Abraham and met them
Isaac set out for Moriah, Satan
on the road and tried to dissuade them from obeying the com-
mand to sacrifice Isaac. There are various accounts of the conver-
sation that ensued. According to some versions, Isaac's assurance
was a little shaken; but Abraham had the courage and determina-
tion to withstand the tempter. Arrived at the mountain, Abraham
a
hid Isaac and built the altar with his own hands, lest "he whom
God rebuke" strike Isaac with a stone and so render him unfit
to be a The post-talmudic sources elaborate on
sacrificial victim.
these episodes and present Satan as much more diabolic. 22
When Tamar was brought to trial for adultery, and produced
the cord, signet and staff of Judah, Samael removed them; but
Gabriel replaced the evidence. 23 In this talmudic story, Samael
seems to have no other motive than the desire to make trouble.
Particularly important are the aggadic comments on the Book
of Job, for in the opening chapters of this book Satan plays a
prominent part. There were various opinions among the rabbis as
to when Job (second century) held that Job was a
lived. R. Jose
contemporary of Moses. When Israel were awaiting deliverance
from Egypt, Satan accused them of the many sins they had com-
mitted—thus delaying their release from bondage. Then God in-
cited Satan to accuse Job, and while Satan was distracted by
this new undertaking, God set Israel free. It is like the case—
later preacher adds— of a shepherd whose flock was attacked by
a wolf and who sent a sturdy ram to hold off the intruder; or
like the banqueter who was attacked by a vicious dog and said:
24
Toss him a piece of meat to tear at. In this story, Satan does no
more than his duty in accusing Israel of real sins. He is the spirit
of strict justice,and God has to circumvent his legitimate prose-
cution in order to redeem Israel, the objects of His special favor.
Still more sympathetic to Satan is the account of the Job story
given in the Babylonian Talmud, an account which locates Job

in the patriarchal period. On one of his visits to the heavenly
court, Satan spoke in the highest praise of Abraham. God sug-
gested that perhaps Job was equally righteous; but Satan in-
sisted that Job could not be compared to Abraham until, like
Abraham, he had withstood severe trials. Hence the suffering im-
posed on Job. How completely Satan worked under God's orders
is made plain by R. Isaac: "Satan had more trouble than Job.
It was as if a master should tell his slave: break the cask, but
save the wine," so was God's command that Satan afflict Job, but
spare his life. Another teacher says explicitly: "Satan acted from
the highest motives (leshem shammayim) When he saw God in- .
clined to favor Job, he said: Heaven forefend that the piety of

Abraham be forgotten." And the Talmud adds, when R. Aha bar
Jacob repeated this interpretation in a sermon at Paphunia, Satan

came and kissed his feet in gratitude! 25
More truly devilish was Satan's part in the episode of the
Golden Calf. The people were nervous over Moses' prolonged
absence; they began to fear that he would never return. Then
Satan created an illusion: the people thought they saw Moses
lying dead on his bier, suspended between heaven and earth.
Confused and terrified by this vision, they lapsed into idolatry. 26
But Satan's device was only a contributory factor in the sin, not
an excuse for it.
When God decreed that David should suffer by falling into the
hands of Yishbi, the Philistine giant, Satan lured him into enemy
territory by taking the form of a deer. Later on, God decided
to subject David to temptation; Satan, in the guise of a bird,
broke the lattice that concealed Bathsheba. In both these legends,
Satan is under direct instructions from above. 27
Some of the references to Satan are little more than rhetoric.
He who woman captured in war "brings Satan
takes to himself a
into his house." So long as Israel lives in peace among themselves,
even though they worship idols, God (if one dare say so!) will
not let Satan touch them. Rabbi Judah the Prince warned his sons
not to get in the way of an ox as he emerges from a swamp, for
"Satan dances between his horns"— that is, he is likely to be
vicious. 28
One who performs certain ritual laws meticulously will be
protected (for the time being) from the accusations of Satan.
What this means is from the plaint of R. Zeira: "I fulfilled
clear
these laws, yet I was caught in a royal labor-draft and forced to
carry myrtle branches to the palace." 29 Ceremonial ordinances
for which no rational explanation can be given—the dietary laws,
for example— are described as "those against which Satan and the
Gentiles can argue." (In a parallel, the evil inclination is men-
tioned instead of Satan.) 30
"R. Isaac declared: Wherever you find idleness, Satan leaps

forth. R. Helbo said: Wherever you find tranquility, Satan ac-
cuses. Said R. Levi: Wherever you find carousing, 'the chief rob-
ber' cavorts." But parallels to this passage— some early—merely
state that ease and idleness lead men to sin. 31 A somewhat differ-
ent Midrash declares that when the pious are vouchsafed a little
peace and quiet, Satan at once makes trouble. Since they are to
enjov the unspeakable bliss of the future world, he argues it is

32
onlv right that they should endure trials in this life.
A traveler should always seek the company of the righteous,
for ministering angels travel with them,whereas "angels of Satan"
go along with the wicked. Mar Samuel would not ride on a
33
ferrv unless there was also a heathen passenger; for he said:

34
"Satan does not have power over two nations at the same time."
In some at least of the passages just cited, Satan is no more
than a figure of speech. But ofttimes the reference is to a very
realistic "accuser." The evening benediction Hashkivenu ("Cause
us to lie down in peace") contains a petition that God "break
Satan," or, according to another version, "remove Satan from
before us and from behind us." The full text of the prayer, in-
cluding this passage, first appears in the prayerbook of R. Amram
Gaon, a teacher of the ninth century. But the prayer is mentioned
in the Mishnah and cited in the Palestinian Talmud; and the
35
reference to Satan mav well have been in the original text.
For Rabbi, the editor of the Mishnah, included in the grace after
meals a special benediction for a guest, containing the words:
"Let not Satan rule over the work of his hands, nor over the
work of our hands." 36
Palestinian sources frequently state that "Satan accuses in the
hour of peril." That is, when one is in physical danger (travel-
ing, for example), Satan at once reminds God of that person's
sins, seizing the occasion to prosecute when the means of punish-
ment are readv to hand. The implication is that one should both
abstain from sin and avoid unnecessary hazards. 37 And when the
rabbis said "One should not open his mouth to Satan" — that is,
3S
one should not utter an ill-omened suggestion— they probably had

in mind a very vivid Satan, waiting to pounce on any incautious
utterance that might enable him to claim a victim.
A very ancient belief, which groes back at least to the davs of
the prophet Zechariah, held that Satan was present in the Holy
of Holies on the Day of Atonement to deliver his accusations and
to prevent the High Priest from making expiation for the sins of
Israel. 39 The Pharisaic-Rabbinic teachers sought to suppress this
notion and the superstitious customs associated with it; but a
number of allusions to it have survived in talmudic literature.
The most explicit is the following: At the dedication of the taber-
nacle, Moses said to Aaron: "Aaron my brother, though the All-
Talmud and Midrash • • •
99
Present has agreed to forgive thy sins, thou needest still to put
something into Satan's mouth. Send a present before thee ere

thou comest into the sanctuary, lest he accuse thee when thou
40
enterest the sanctuary."
The Jacob Z. Lauterbach, in one of his most brilliant
late Dr.
essays, assembled and explained these stray references to the
activity of Satan on Yom Kippur. The ancient ritual of the Day,
Dr. Lauterbach said, sought to negate Satan's hostile efforts in
three ways. The Azazel-sacriflce was to appease him. The smoke
of the incense was to drive him away, for demons find smoke
offensive. And the white robes of the High Priest, so different
from his usual elaborate garb, were a disguise. White garments
are the characteristic attire of an angel; and it was thought that
Satan might not recognize the High Priest among all the white-
41
clad beings. These notions, it should be remembered, were an-
cient and traditional; the rabbis tried to suppress them, but were
not entirely successful.
Even after the Temple fell, the people remembered that Satan
is High Holy Day season. The blow-
particularly energetic at the
ing of the shofar, according to one opinion, is designed to con-
found Satan. 42 The Babylonian Talmud states that Yom Kippur
is the only day of the year when Satan is powerless to accuse
43
Israel; but other opinions seem to have been current.
A very late Midrash, not entirely typical of the rabbinic out-
look, gives this graphic account: "On Yom Kippur, Satan comes
to accuse Israel and enumerates their iniquities. He says: Master
of the World! There are adulterers among the Gentiles, but also
among Israel; there are thieves among the Gentiles, but also
among Israel. The Holy One ( blessed be He! ) enumerates Israel's
merits. The merits and the iniquities are placed in the opposite
pans of the scales and are found to balance each other. So Satan
goes to bring more iniquities, that he may put them in the pan
of iniquities and tip the scales in that direction. But while Satan
is searching for more sins, the Holy One (blessed be He!) re-
moves iniquities from the pan and hides them under His royal
robe." 44 Thus the merits of Israel are made to outweigh their
faults; God's love for His people protects them from the relentless
severity of the accuser.
Diverting and instructive are the tales of encounters between
Satan and the talmudic rabbis. R. Meir was contemptuous of
sinners until one day Satan appeared on the opposite bank of a

river in the guise of a voluptuous woman. Inflamed with sudden
and unconquerable passion, Meir tried to reach the charmer by
means of a rope suspended across the stream. When he was half
way over, Satan released him from the spell, adding: "Did they
not proclaim in heaven: 'Have a care for Meir and his learning,'
your blood would not be worth twopence." 45 Here Satan plays
the role of moralist, instructing the unsympathetic in tolerance
for the sinful.
A less famous scholar, a Babylonian named Pelimo, used to
ward off temptation by exclaiming daily: "An arrow in Satan's
eye!" Once, on an Atonement evening, Satan appeared in the
semblance of a beggar and by hook or crook got himself a place
at Pelimo's table. His repulsive manners brought upon him a re-
buke from his host, whereat the "beggar" collapsed, apparently
dead. Immediately an outcry spread through the town that
Pelimo had committed murder, and to escape arrest he had to
hide in a privy. Then Satan came to him with respectful greet-
ing, revealed his identity, and asked: "Why do you always curse
me so?" "How then," Pelimo replied, "should I have spoken to
drive you away?" To which the Accuser replied with dignity:
"You might have said, May the Merciful One rebuke Satan!" 46
Satan is not always so good-natured. He stirs up quarrels

among men and keeps them When
Meir once settled
bitter. R.
a long drawn out feud, Satan was heard to say: Alas, Meir has
driven me from my house! 47
The Satan of the Talmud is essentially different from the Satan
of the apocalyptic Judaism and of Christianity. The Persian con-
cept of Ahriman, the principle of cosmic evil, deeply colored the
picture of Satan in these literatures. It is not surprising that occa-
sionally the Satan of the rabbis displays some malicious trait.
Far more important is the material, for which there is no parallel
in the older Jewish or the later Christian writings, in which Satan
isdepicted as a sort of genial practical joker, or as the mouthpiece
of God's justice, or as a faithful but somewhat narrow-minded
agent of the heavenly authority. Because God's love is boundless,
He sometimes circumvents Satan's purposes. For Satan has a cer-
tain amount of ill will toward men, especially toward Israel; he
delights in getting convictions, like an over-zealous district attor-
ney. But he is in no sense a rebel; he works on God's side.
the evil inclination. The rabbis operate constantly with the

notion that man has two natures or inclinations within him, one
good, one evil. The task of morality is to control the evil nature
by exercising the good nature. There are a few remarkable pas-
sages in which the evil inclination, the yezer ha-ra, sometimes
identified with Satan, takes on a separate personality.
Especially striking is the legend that the "impulse to idolatry"
was delivered hands of the Men of the Great Synagogue
into the
after the return from Babylon. It appeared to them in the form
of a fiery lion emerging from the ruins of the Holy of Holies.
They caught the beast and plucked out some of its hair; where-
upon it roared so violently that they were afraid "Heaven might
show mercy to it." God's pity, it appears, might extend even
to the spirit of idolatry. So they shut the creature up in a re-
ceptacle of lead, which muffles sound. Having achieved this
success, they sought control over the spirit of physical passion,
and this too was delivered into their power, but we are not told
in what form. They did not dare to destroy it; for it warned
them that to do so would be to destroy the world. In perplexity,
they imprisoned the monster for three days, by which time "a
fresh egg could not be obtained for an invalid in all the land
of Israel." And so they were constrained to let the sexual impulse
roam at large, first however reducing its ferocity by daubing its
eyes. 48
This amazing legend accords with the prevailing rabbinic doc-
trine concerning the evil yezer. It too is God's work. He created
the evil inclination and provided the Torah
an antidote thereto.
as
He made us subject to temptation, that by vanquishing it we
might attain greater reward. "God saw all that He had made, and,
behold, it was very good" (Gen. 1.31). "Good" refers to the good
impulse, "very good" refers to the evil inclination. "Thou shalt
love the Lord thy God with all thy heart" means: thou shalt serve
Him with both good and evil natures. 49
We must remember such statements when we consider other
passages which invest the evil yezer with a certain demonic qual-
ity. R. AmramHisda, a Babylonian savant, once overcame a
severe sexual temptation. Then, by means of an oath, he forced
his evil yezer to depart from him, and something that looked like
a column of flameemerged from his body. "Thou," he averred,
"art fire, I am but flesh; yet have I prevailed over thee." 50
102 • • •
Fallen Angels
An earlier tradition foretells that God will slaughter the evil

inclination in the future, a statement that reminds us of those
apocalyptic passages which prophesy the ultimate extinction of
the Devil and his works. But it is doubtful if there is a real
parallel. The point of our statement is rather in the ethical reflec-
tion that follows:"To the righteous, the evil yezer will appear
as huge as a mountain; to the wicked it will seem thin as a hair.
The righteous will marvel that they could overcome so great a
power; the wicked will be amazed that they succumbed to so
slight a force." 51
Another old statement (based on Joel 2.20) declares that in
the future the evil inclination will be banished from human habi-
tations, for caused the destruction of both Temples and of the
it
scholars who abode in them. Moreover, it prefers to victimize

Israel rather than the Gentiles. Resh Lakish (he who rationalisti-
cally identified Satan, the evil yezer and the Angel of Death)
once said that man's evil impulse seeks to slay him every day,
and that man is saved only by divine grace. R. Jonathan remarked
that the yezer tempts man in this world and testifies against him
in the next. 52
But the weight of rabbinic teaching compels us to explain such
utterances as mere dramatic expressions of the dangers of temp-
tation. The imagery may be a survival of old dualistic notions; it
could hardly have been meant literally. The world remains a
moral unity.
the serpent. The dualistic writers, we have seen, introduced

Satan into the Eden-story. Some identified him with the serpent,
while others held that the serpent was suborned by the Devil to
bring ruin on Adam and Eve. 53 Such notions are not found in the
talmudic sources. The latter picture the serpent as endowed with
many superior qualities before his fall— with upright stature,
speech and wisdom; still he was a beast, not a demon. 54
But one interesting exception is to be noted. R. Johanan, the
greatest teacher of third-century Palestine, declared: "When the
serpent assaulted Eve, he cast filth into her. This filth was re-
moved from Israel after they stood at Mount Sinai; but since the
idolaters were not present at Mount Sinai, their filth has not been
55
purged."
Old oriental folklore held that serpents have a passionate de-
Talmud and Midrash • • 103
sire for women; and this belief is certainly in the background of

R. Johanan's extraordinary statement. But much more is in-
56
volved. "The filth of the serpent" is not a mere physical defile-

ment, but a spiritual contamination which was transmitted to all
Eve's descendants. This contamination can be neutralized only by
the power of the Torah. R. Johanan was experimenting with a
theory of original sin, to which he joined the notion that the
primal serpent was diabolic, a source of moral defilement.
But this little flyer in experimental theology had no immediate
influence. R. Johanan's statement is not quoted in any Pales-
tinian source; and even the Babylonian authorities who preserved
itwere dubious about its implications. R. Aha b. R. Raba asked
Ashe (the dominant figure in Babylonian Jewry at the close of
the talmudic period ) What about converts? Are we to say that
:
they are still filthy, since neither they nor their ancestors stood
at Sinai? R. Ashe replied: Though they were not present, their
destiny (mazzal) was there, as it is written (Deut. 29.14), "with
him that standeth here with us this day before the Lord our
God, and also with him that is not here with us this day." 5T It
is hard to make clear sense of this statement, yet its intent is
plain. R. Ashe would not admit that proselytes to Judaism are

tainted by inherited sinfulness. No far-reaching conclusions for
"rabbinic theology" can be drawn from R. Johanan's unique
remark.
the demons. The existence demons is taken for granted

of
throughout rabbinic literature. The sources often speak of "evil
spirits," more commonlv of mazzikin ( "in jurers" ) or shedim (a
biblical term borrowed from Assyrian ) The scholars shared with

.
the unlearned the belief that there are such beings. Even the
authoritative religious law, the halakah, takes cognizance of
them.
Although the Mishnah never mentions angels, it speaks of de-
mons An
aggadic passage states that the mazzikin were
twice.
created on Sabbath eve, at dusk, among a number of other ex-
traordinary phenomena. 58 More significant is the purely legal
remark that one may extinguish a lamp on the Sabbath out of
fear of an evil spirit, or of certain more tangible dangers. 59
The Mishnah provides elsewhere that if a man falls into a deep
pit from which he cannot for the moment be extricated, and if
he calls out to those nearby that they should give his wife a bill
of divorce, his instructions are to be obeyed. But the Amora,

R. Johanan, would limit this rule (and a similar one mentioned
in the context) by the requirement that the bystander must be
able to see at least the outline (bubiyah) of a human figure in
the pit. Otherwise we might be deceived by a malicious demon
mimicking human speech. R. Hanina held that this restriction ap-
plies only to the country, for demons do not lurk in pits near
centers of population; R. Abin, however, believed that they may
be found also in city neighborhoods. 60
These serious legal discussions show how deeply the belief
in demons penetrated rabbinic thought. References in aggadic
literature are very numerous, but we need not examine them
all. They list the names and characteristics of the various spirits,
or describe the specific means of defense against each. A general

survey and a few illustrations will suffice.
1. The number of the demons is vast, their power to do harm
great. 61 But they are not an organized body under the leadership
of the Prince of Darkness, any more than wild animals are organ-
ized to harm mankind. Ashmedai is mentioned as the king of the
demons, but nowhere do we find him actually ruling. His one
important appearance is in the legend of his dealings with Solo-
mon. There he is pictured as a rather genial sort, of great might
and crude good nature, inclined to drink and to lust, but by no
means vicious. 62 Nowhere does the Talmud speak of Satan as the
leader of the evil spirits.
2. The demonology of the Talmud is largely incapsulated in

an area of superstition. Discussions on this topic are kept sepa-
rate from those which deal with the sublime religious and ethical
truths of Judaism. The two elements are not integrated; for this
could only result in the defilement of religion. The Babylonian
Gemara devotes considerable space to demons, and to the tech-
niques by whichwe may see them and protect ourselves against
them. 63 These sections operate almost entirely with magical pro-
cedures and words; little or no effort is made to give the proce-
dures a Jewish religious character. It is often said that piety
protects man against evil spirits, and that God's blessing espe-
them; but we are not advised to pray for
cially avails against
protection from the demons, nor do the daily prayers contain
such petitions. 64
Demonic possession is rarely mentioned; exorcism appears

only in a few cases and seems to have had no religious signifi-
cance. The fullest discussion is a story concerning R. Johanan
b. Zakkai (before 70 c.e. ) and a Gentile who complained that
the law of the red heifer (Num. 19) smacks of witchcraft. R.
Johanan replied with a question: How is the demon tezazit
(epilepsy) exorcised? The Gentile answered: Herb roots are
brought and caused to smoke under the patient. He is then sprin-
kled with water, and the demon flees. The law of the red heifer,
retorted the rabbi, is similar. Contact with a corpse causes an
unclean spirit to enter a person; sprinkling with water containing
the ashes of the red heifer drives the bad spirit away.
After the Gentile disputant left, the pupils of R. Johanan dis-
missed the explanation he had given as mere "stubble," and de-
manded the true meaning of the law of the red heifer. He replied:
"The dead do not defile, nor do the waters purify. The entire
ceremony is Most High King." 65 Should we then
the decree of the
conclude that R. Johanan and his school did not believe in the
theory of demons and of exorcism? This would be going too far.
But in the next century, R. Jose—who held rationalistic views on
many subjects— declared that one should not murmur a charm
against shedim even on weekdays, still less on the Sabbath. 66
3. Though the rabbis attached no special religious importance
to demons, though they did not make exorcism a concern of faith

or a duty of religious leaders, though they left demons for the
most part in the limbo of superstition where they properly be-
longed, they still had to make some place for these beings in their
scheme of the world. And first they had to answer the question:
Whence did the demons come?
According to many apocalypses, the demons issued from the
bodies of the giants whom the wicked angels had engendered
with the daughters of men. This opinion never appears in tal-
mudic sources. Instead, the demons are said to have been directly
created by God. We have already noted the view that they were
among the unclassifiable beings formed at dusk on the eve of the
first Sabbath.
This notion was elaborated by Rabbi Judah the Prince. The
demons are not complete. God created their souls late on Friday
afternoon, and Sabbath came on before He could create their
bodies. Therefore He left them unfinished, as an example to
Israel that they should stop work promptly upon the approach of
67
Sabbath.
This opinion, however, was not generally accepted. An anony-
mous teaching of comparatively early date enumerates three re-
semblances between angels and demons: they have wings, can
move from one end of the earth to the other, and know the future.
But in three respects the demons are like men: They require food
and drink, reproduce their kind, and die. 68 The common opinion,
then, was that the demons do have bodies.
Since they have a sexual nature like that of humans, it is not
surprising that intercourse between demons and humans should
sometimes occur. Jewish lore knows the incubus and succubus; 69
but since the Jews condemned celibacy as sinful and usually
married young, they were not terrorized by these demon consorts
as were the ascetics of the Church. In the standard rabbinic
sources, such miscegenation is mentioned only in the case of
Adam and Eve who, during the period when they were separated
from one another, mated each with spirits of the opposite sex.
Demon offspring resulted from these unions. 70 The reader may
recall in this connection the familiar legend of Lilith, the demon
who was Adam's consort before Eve was created; but this tale
is of much later origin. 71
The demons are always dangerous and often malicious. There
are two types of protection against them, as there are against dis-
ease and other physical dangers. First, one takes specific measures
in accordance with the nature of the menace. Demons are more
likely to attack a solitary person than a company of two or three;
therefore one should not go out alone at night or sleep in a de-
serted house. Special precautions must be taken in a privy, for
72
filth attracts evil spirits. The magical sentences which repel de-
mons are roughly comparable to medical prescriptions which cure
disease.
Second, learning and piety are a prophylactic against demons,
as against all other Hanina b. Dosa was immune
ills. The saintly
to the bite of a deadly reptile, and equally immune to injury
from the demon queen Agrat bat Mahlat. 73 Modesty in the privy
74
is a protection against snakes, scorpions and demons. God's
75
blessing above everything else protects us from the evil spirits.
But there no specific religious procedure to defeat them.
is
4. The demons, though far from good, are not utterly evil. Cer-
tainly they are not rebels against God. They have their kindlier
moments. An old Midrash compares the temperament of house
spirits and field spirits: "Some say house spirits are friendly, be-
cause they grow up in our company; some say they are danger-
ous, because they know our weaknesses. Some say field spirits
are unfriendly, because they do not grow up with us; others
say they are harmless, because they do not know our weak-
I(i
nesses.
When Noah became demon Shamdan
the partner of the in
planting a vineyard, the latter warned him: Be careful not to
enter my portion of the vineyard; if you enter, I will hurt you. 77
This suggests that his intentions are basically not unfriendly.
Not a few of the talmudic sages had encounters with demons.
Agrat bat Mahlat met Hanina ben Dosa and told him that she
would have injured him had "Heaven" not warned her to leave
him alone. Hanina replied: If I am of such great account in
heaven, I forbid you to enter inhabited places! But Agrat pleaded
so pitifully that Hanina allowed her to be at liberty on Wednes-
day and Saturday nights. Centuries later, Abaye had a similar
encounter with her and tried to banish her altogether. But the
Talmud sadly notes that his efforts were not entirely successful,
and the demons are still especially active on these two nights of
the week. 78
and R. Jonathan were once walking in a forest and
R. Jannai
met a demon, who saluted them with: "Peace, lads!" R. Joseph
and R. Papa were friendly with a demon named Joseph, who
gave them information about his tribe. 79
The Midrash tells of a friendly spirit which inhabited a spring.
Then a vicious spirit tried to usurp his place, and the old inhabit-
ant invoked human aid. Under his direction, the dangerous in-
terloper was killed, to the benefit both of the gentle spirit and
of its human friends. 80
Once Simeon b. Johai was sent to Rome to secure the abro-
R.
gation of some anti-Jewish decrees. In this mission he was helped
by a demon named Ben Temalyon. While R. Simeon was on his
way, this creature hastened on ahead and took possession of the
daughter of Caesar. All efforts to exorcise the demon were futile;
but when R. Simeon arrived and summoned the demon to depart
from the maiden, he was obeyed at once. In gratitude, Caesar
annulled the hateful decree. R. Simeon, however, was not en-
tirely pleased at the kind of help he had received. "An angel,"

he complained, "appeared twice to my ancestor's slave-woman
(Hagar), but not even once to me!" 81
5. The classic sources never predict that demons will be de-
stroyed in the future. For, as one ancient source remarks, God's

glory will be enhanced by rendering the mazzikin harmless more
than if He exterminated them. In the same way, noxious plants,
ferocious beasts, poisonous reptiles— all of which, like the de-
mons, God created for His own good purposes— will no longer
be baneful in the days of the Messiah. 82
the princes of the genttles. We come back now to an idea that

we met much earlier in our inquiry. It is that the patron angels
of the great world-powers are responsible for the sufferings of
Israel. God, indeed, had instructed these angels to punish his
sinful people, but they far exceeded their orders. With savage
glee they incited their peoples to persecute Israel, while they
pitted their might against Israel's angelic defenders. When, there-
fore, God judges the nations, He will also punish their guardian
angels.
We found this conception in the earliest apocalypses. 83 There-
after it disappears. Some of the later apocalyptic authors were
preoccupied with the belief in a cosmic Satan; others dispensed
altogether with a superhuman origin of sin. Christian thought
held that both individuals and nations have guardian angels, but
knew nothing of a conflict among them. The highly developed
concept of Satan left no room in Christianity
any other in-
for
dependent source of evil; nor was there reason for the Church
to retain a notion that was rooted in Jewish national conscious-
ness. But the rabbinic teachers, who so completely rejected a
cosmic dualism, admitted the belief in hostile angels, patrons
of the nations that oppressed Israel. This squared with their
opinion that angels in general are far from perfect.
We meet this view first in an old Midrash to Exodus. Before
God drowned the Egyptians at the Red Sea, He cast their heav-
enly prince into the waters; and as soon as Israel beheld the
downfall of this angel, they began to sing God's praises. "And
also in the future, the Holy One (blessed be He!) will punish the
Gentiles only after He has first punished their guardian angels."
This statement is supported by three significant proof texts. The
first is"The Lord heaven on

will punish the host of the high
high, and the kingsof earth upon the earth" ( Isaiah 24.21 ) which ,
the rabbis understood quite literally. The second is Isaiah 14.12:

"How art thou fallen from heaven, O day-star, son of the morn-
ing! How thou cast down to the ground, that didst cast lots
art
over the nations!" This verse, we have seen, was held by Chris-
tians to describe the fall of Satan; perhaps the rabbis introduced
it here to preclude such a dangerous interpretation. As they un-
derstood it, the first sentence refers to the discomfiture of Baby-

lon's heavenly champion, the second to the downfall of Nebu-
chadnezzar. In a similar way they understood the third proof
text:"My sword hath drunk its fill in heaven; behold, it shall
84
come down upon Edom" (Isaiah 34.5 ).
The later Midrashim repeat aggada and elaborate upon it.
this
For instance: God cast down the patron angels of Sihon and Og,
the Amorite kings, before Israel attacked the earthly rulers. It is
like the case, said R. Abba b. Kahana, of a king who captured

and bound the foe of his son, and said to the boy: Now do to him
asyou please! 85
On the basis of Ezekiel 10, the Babylonian scholars constructed
an elaborate legend. When the First Temple was about to fall,
God determined to destroy Israel by fire and so notified Michael,
their guardian angel. Michael begged God to be content with the
righteous minority, but God decreed that even they must perish
in the general conflagration. Gabriel was ordered to take coals
from under the divine chariot, wherewith to destroy Israel. But
instead, he asked the cherub to hand him the coals; in the interim
they cooled slightly, and so Israel escaped complete annihilation.
Gabriel, however, fell into disgrace for not obeying exactly.
Either he should have continued to beg God for mercy on His
people, leaving the coals alone, or he should have taken them as
he was commanded. So Gabriel was exiled from the divine pres-
ence and had to remain "outside the heavenly curtain"; Dobiel,
the guardian angel of Persia, was put in his place, which he
occupied for twenty-one days. During this period, great terri-
tories were added to the Persian empire. Dobiel further obtained
decrees that all Israel, even scholars, should pay a poll tax to the
Persian government. When these decrees were about to be sealed,
Gabriel called from outside the curtain, reminding God of Daniel's
righteousness. He was now readmitted to the heavenly throne-
110 •• • Fallen Angels
room and once sought to snatch the unfavorable decrees from

at
Dobiel; but the latter quickly swallowed them. Some say the
decrees had not yet been sealed; others say they were already
sealed, but were smudged and blotted when Dobiel swallowed
them. Either opinion will explain why not all the Jews of Persia
have to pay the poll tax. But later on, in the days of Antiochus,
the guardian angel of Greece attacked Israel; and that time
86
Gabriel's best efforts on behalf of the people proved ineffectual.
In this legend, as in the Book of Daniel, both Michael and
Gabriel appear as Israel's champions. This is not unusual, though
most frequently Michael who has the distinction. There is
it is
also another view, which appears from time to time, that Israel
is under the direct guidance of God alone, and that only the
Gentiles are ruled by guardian angels. 87

The belief in these national angels sometimes appears without
the implication that the latter are hostile to the Jewish people.
Among the many interpretations of Jacob's one (as-dream is
cribed to R. Meir) in which the angels are the patrons of Baby-

lonia, Media, Greece and Rome. Each ascends the ladder, to
symbolize the rise of his people, and then descends to typify their
downfall. 88 Again we read that at the final judgment, the guard-
ian angels of the Gentiles will argue that Israelites have been
just as sinful as the rest— why then should Israel be saved, while
89
the Gentiles descend into hell? God's rejoinder does not con-
cern us here; we note only that the guardian angels proceed in a
legitimate fashion, much as Satan acts the role of accuser.
But generally these angels are regarded as malicious. When
Abraham bound his son to sacrifice him ( so a Palestinian preacher
declares), Godrecompense bound the guardian angels of the
in
Gentiles on high. But when in the days of Jeremiah, Israel cast
off all restraints, God loosed the bonds of the angels, and the
downfall of Judah followed. 90
There are many opinions as to the identity of the mysterious
being with whom Jacob wrestled at the ford of the Jabbok. Ac-
cording to R. Hama bar R. Hanina, Jacob was attacked by the
guardian angel of Edom (Rome). This is like the case of a king
who had a vicious dog and a tame Hon. He encouraged his son
to fightwith the lion; then if the dog ever wanted to attack the
boy, the king could say: The lion could not overcome him, how
then can you withstand my son? Even so, if the Gentiles attack
The Legend in Islam • • • 111
Israel, God will say to them: Your heavenly chief could not pre-
91
vail against Israel, still less can you!
Resh Lakish declared that in the future the guardian angel
of Rome will seek sanctuary from the punishment he deserves
by fleeing to Bozrah. But he will make a threefold error. The city
of refuge is not Bozrah, but Bezer; one cannot obtain asylum
from the consequences of a deliberate crime, but only of un-
intentional homicide; and the cities of refuge are a protection
only to men, but not to angels. And so the angel of Rome will
92
suffer his just doom.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Interlude: The Legend in Islam
The compilation of the an Talmud did not close

epoch development of Jewish thought. A
in the
vast body of material which had circulated orally or in private
notebooks was now safely preserved in writing; but the content
of the living tradition was not exhausted even by these volumi-
nous works. The scholars continued to study the same subjects
in much the same spirit as previously.
The great Midrashim, collections of sermonic material, were

edited in Palestine in the centuries following the completion of
the Talmuds. These works contain the teachings and reflect the
conditions of the talmudic period, not of the age in which they
were compiled. Some Midrashim are quite late: Exodus Rabba,
for example, is dated by Zunz in the eleventh or twelfth century.
Yet in substance and tone it does not differ much from earlier
collections: it can be used as a source for "talmudic" Judaism.
But in the post-talmudic centuries other Jewish writings ap-
peared (some in midrashic form) which reveal new trends of
thought and reflect the influences of their own time. Among these
influences, the rise of Islam was certainly one of the most im-
portant.
The decisive events of Mohammed's career occurred between
622 and 632 c.e. At his death ( in 632 ) he was master of Arabia;
112 •• •
Fallen Angels
less than twenty years later, his successors had conquered Syria,
Palestine and Persia. Thus the chief centers of Jewish life passed
under Moslem rule.
The new prophet derived his doctrine largely from Judaism,
with some additions from Christianity. The Koran, which he
promulgated as the ultimate revelation of God, is full of bits of
biblical-aggadic lore, which Mohammed had picked up from
Jewish and Christian acquaintances. Sometimes he gave the old
stories a new twist, either because he had not understood, or be-
cause his own taste prompted him to change, what he had heard.
Many of his followers likewise borrowed Jewish aggadic tradi-
tions, which they handled with much originality. In late Hebrew
writings, old Jewish legends sometimes crop up in their Islamic
form; and our literature even contains some stories of purely
Mohammedan origin.
The Arab writings not infrequently mention fallen angels; and
the legends appear with certain novel features. Some of these
appear also in the later Jewish books. Did the Jewish writers de-
part from their own traditions tocopy the Islamic sources? There
is some reason, we doubt this. But we are handi-
shall see, to
capped in drawing definite conclusions because few of the Jewish
documents can be accurately dated. We cannot even divide them
with certainty into pre-Mohammedan and post-Mohammedan
works. Besides, we may find in a single writing some elements
that certainly and others that possibly reflect Islamic influence,
while othernew trends almost surely are the product of internal
development. The only practical procedure therefore is to present
in this interlude some salient items from Moslem literature, and
then to treat the "new" aggada in a separate chapter.
iblis. The angels— so the rabbis declared— opposed the creation of

man and resented the favor God showed him. Adam, however,
displayed his superior qualities by naming the animals, a feat the
angels could not equal. 1 Mohammed borrowed this legend and
combined with the apocryphal story that Satan fell because in
it
his pride he refused to worship Adam. This combination occurs

repeatedly in the Koran; in the fullest version, Iblis explains why
he will not worship the man: "I am better than he; Thou hast
created me of fire, while him Thou hast created of dust." There-
upon God banishes Iblis for his arrogance; but the Devil is
The Legend in Islam • • • 113
reprieved long enough to lead Adam and Eve astray, and he still
2
tempts mankind to sin.
Probably, Mohammed drew here on Christian as well as on
Jewish Adam-books, the chief written source for these
lore: the
tales, were preserved by the Church. So likewise the name Iblis,
derived from Diabolos, suggests Christian influence; for Arabic
has an exact cognate, Shaitan, to the Hebrew Satan. In the Jew-
ish-Christian sources of the legend, Satan was a great angel be-
fore his fall. The Koran, however, states that "he was of the jinn,
so he transgressed" (18.50). This accords with another statement
that God created the jinni of fire (15.27; 55.15). The jinni are
demons, like the shedim of whom we learned from the rabbis.
One might ask: if Iblis was only a jinn, of a subordinate and
spiritually inferior caste, why was it so important that he worship
Adam, and why was his disobedience so severely punished? But
we should not expect logical consistency from the unlearned
prophet of Arabia. He took the existence of the Devil and of
demons for granted; yet his uncompromising doctrinaire mono-
theism left no room for dualistic conceptions. He did not worry
over the question why Allah, the all-powerful and all-merciful,
should have created evil and malicious beings and tolerated their
plots against mankind; here, as in other matters, he left serious
theological difficulties to his more reflective successors. A dim
recognition of the problem appears in the statement that the
Devil "has no authority over those who believe and rely on their
Lord. His authority is only over those who befriend him, and
those who set up gods with him" ( 16.99, 100 ) . This is fair enough,
if you don't scrutinize it too carefully. Mohammed combined the
superstitions of his own people, the bits of Jewish and Christian
lorehe had acquired and his own unbudging monotheism; and
he remained comfortably unaware of the contradictions involved.
harut and marut. The Koran does not speak explicitly about
fallen angels, but one brief and obscure passage requires our
attention. In the old rendering, by Sale, it runs: "They (presuma-
bly the Jews) followed the device which the devils devised
against the kingdom of Solomon; and Solomon was not an un-
believer; but the devils believed not, they taught men sorcery,
and that which was sent down to the two angels at Babel, Harut
and Marut; yet those two taught no man until they had said:
Verily we are a temptation, therefore be not an unbeliever. So

men learned from those two a charm by which they might cause
division between a man and his wife; but they hurt none thereby,
unless by God's permission, and they learned that which would
hurt them and not profit them" (2.102 f. ). 3
Here once more we find angels teaching men witchcraft— not
however in rebellion against God, but to test the fidelity of man-
kind. The text does not indicate that the angels had fallen previ-
ously or that they fell after the events described; they bear names
we have not met before, names of Persian origin. 4 Whether the
brevity and vagueness of the allusion is intentional or not is hard
to determine. But it is certain that the successors of Mohammed
based on this passage a fuller story about the fallen angels, which
they told in many varied forms.
Before turning to the later literature, we should note two facts.
The defense of Solomon in this Koran passage is in line with
Moslem tradition, which glorified Solomon as the magnificent
monarch— whereas Jewish aggada stresses the apostasy of Solo-
mon's later years, and regards him as a sad example of the de-
moralizing effects of wealth and power. 5 Second, Mohammed
refers several times with respect and approval to Enoch, whom
he calls Idris, the instructor (9.56, 21.85). The same attitude to-
ward Enoch appears in later Moslem writers.
The story of Harut and Marut engaged the attention of the

commentators on the Koran. Tabari (839-923) was especially
interested in the subject and in his commentary gives no less than
ten versions of the tale, most of which have a strong family re-
semblance. 6 Without listing every variation, we shall present the
distinctive features of the legend as it appears in these sources.
Only two angels fall from grace. In most of the versions, their
descent is not made on their own initiative. The angels as a group
deplore the sinfulness of mankind and dismiss the excuse God
offers— men are subject to error and to desire— as insufficient.
Challenged then by God to prove that they can do better, they
select Harut and Marut as their representatives. The latter go
down to earth to act as judges, at a place named Babil— some-
times identified as Babylon in Iraq, sometimes as a place in north-
ern Persia. Several versions state that the angels return nightly
to heaven, by the use of a holy name.
The Legend in Islam • • •
115
The fall of the angels occurs when a beautiful woman appears

before them in a lawsuit. They seek to enjoy her favors; accord-
ing to one version, she insists that they first reveal to her the
divine name, and then by its up to
use she evades them, flies
heaven and is transformed into a star. Most of the accounts, how-

ever, accuse the angels of more serious crimes. They had been
warned in advance not to admit the existence of other gods, to
murder, or to drink intoxicants. But it is precisely these crimes
which the charmer demands as the price of her complaisance.
After fruitless attempts to resist temptation, they finally agree to
drink wine— as the least of the sins demanded— and the lady yields
to them. Later they murder a passerby who has observed their
crime.
Their paramour ascends on high by the use of the heavenly
name. They, however, find themselves earthbound. They seek
intercessors— sometimes angelic, sometimes human— but God will
not forgive them. The utmost concession is that they may choose
between punishment in this world and in the next. They decide to
suffer in this world and are fettered in Babylon. Only one source
cited by Tabari reports that they have continued in their im-
prisonment to teach men magic.
The lady who tempts the angels is called variously Zuhra,
Beduht, and Anahid. These last two are names of Persian god-
most accounts, she is no more than a beautiful woman;
desses. 7 In
but in some this is only an appearance. One version (not in
Tabari, but derived from a commentary printed with his) states
that Zuhra was a star who descended in the form of a woman,
while the angel set over this star took the shape of an idol which
Harut and Marut were required to worship.
Among the versions quoted by Tabari, that ascribed to Mu-
jahid is particularly interesting. The angels marveled at the
wickedness of mankind, since they possess "the Prophets and the
Books and the Signs." Thereupon God had them choose repre-
sentatives to demonstrate the moral superiority of angels. Harut
and Marut, having been charged with the laws they must obey,
acted as just judges, returning each night to heaven. Now Zuhra
appeared as a beautiful woman, whose lawsuit they decided
against her. Afterwards, they admitted to each other that they
were smitten by her charms; so they invited her to return and
reversed their decision. (Another account details their discussion
of the matter. They are quite aware that their deed will deserve
punishment, but decide to sin and "hope in the mercy of God/')
Zuhra gives herself to them, but there is no actual physical con-
tact. "They uncovered their shame in her presence; but their lusts
were only in their soul; and they were not like men in their de-
sires or in the enjoyment of love." 8 Then Zuhra flew away to her
former abode. At evening the wings of Harut and Marut would
no longer bear them up to heaven. 9 They besought a man to
pray on their behalf, and he replied: How can dwellers on earth
pray for denizens of heaven? 10 But when they assured him that
God looked on him with favor, he complied with their wish; and,
in response, he received the message that they might choose be-
tween punishment now or in the hereafter.
Still further variations appear in later Moslem sources. One de-
clares that the two angels are punished by being suspended head
downward in a well in Babylon, a punishment that will continue
till the resurrection. They teach men magic; but no one sees them
unless he goes to the spot to learn their evil lore. In other books,
we learn of three angels who descended on earth; one, however,
realized his susceptibility to female charms and returned to
heaven without undergoing the test. 11
These stories have persisted in living Moslem tradition; and
various forms have been found in recent centuries among the
inhabitants of Persia and Algeria and among the Moriscos of
Spain. 12 The Moslems of India also know the tale; a modern ver-
sion tells thatZuhra had a companion, Mushtari, who played a
similar role and was also transformed into a star. This name is
also originally that of a Persian deity. 13
Without laboring every detail, we may note the chief novelties
in the Moslem version of our myth. Perhaps the most obvious
is the reduction in the number of the sinful angels. In the old
Jewish versions, they amounted to a few hundred and were led
either by Satan, or by Shemhazai and Azazel. In Christian belief,
the number who fell with Satan swells enormously, till the view
develops that the total sum of souls to be saved by the Church
throughout history will equal that of the fallen angels. But in the
Mohammedan account only Harut and Marut sin. We shall see,
however, that this change had probably been made by Jewish
aggadists prior to the rise of Islam.
Instead of the "daughters of man" whom the fallen angels
The Visionaries • • • 117
many, the Moslem story knows usually of but a single charmer,

who lures the angels to spiritual ruin, while she is translated to
the skies. This last is a familiar mythological motif; moreover, the
names given to the lady are those of goddesses, associated partic-
ularly with the planet Venus. In some versions, she is a heavenly
being who enough to tempt the
takes earthly form just long
angels. This, as well as the names Harut and Marut, represents
a borrowing from Persian— perhaps ultimately from Babylonian-
lore.
Other new elements are the inclusion of drunkenness among

the sins of the angels— reflecting Mohammed's ban on intoxi-
cants—the choice given to the angels as to when they shall be
punished, and the notion that they continue to instruct men in
sorcery.
Many of these new variations recur in later Jewish sources.
In Islam, however, the belief in fallen angels, though persistent,
was not very important. Some Mohammedans, both in medieval
and modern times, have rejected the whole tale and explained
that Harut and Marut were human beings. 14 The belief in Iblis
and his fall, clearly stated in the Koran, could not be so readily
dismissed; but it never had anything like the importance which
the same doctrine had in Christian theology.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
New Paths: The Visionaries
or centuries after the Talmud was completed,

F world Jewry had its spiritual center in the acad-
emies of Babylonia. The presidents of these academies, from the
sixth century onward, bore the title of Gaon, "Excellency/' The
period up to about 1000 is known in Jewish history as the Gaonic
period.
The writings we shall now consider come from the age of the
Gaonim (for convenience we shall include a few later works),
but little of this literature is by the Gaonim themselves. Those
dignitaries devoted themselves chiefly to exposition of the law
as laid down in the authoritative Babylonian Talmud. A few—
notably Saadia, Sherira and Hai— pioneered in biblical and tal-

mudic philology, and in history, literature and philosophy. But
the books we are to examine emanate from circles somewhat re-
moved from these sober legalists, circles with a tinge of hetero-
doxy.
The Gaonic period, like the centuries just before the Christian
era, witnessed great intellectual and religious ferment. The Kara-
ite author, Al-Kirkisani (tenth century), enumerates no less than
seventeen Jewish most of which still existed in his own day.
sects,
The rise of Islam with its different contending parties no doubt
stimulated sectarian trends in Jewry.
The parallel with the pre-Christian age is surprisingly com-
plete.The Rabbanites headed by the Gaonim correspond to the
Pharisees and represent the main body of Jewish thought. The
Karaites, who rejected popular tradition and interpreted the bib-
lical text with strictest literalness, remind us of the Sadducees.
The pre-Christian Essenes have their counterpart in the later
"Mourners of Zion" and the mystical "Chariot Travelers"— dev-
otees of an ascetic, other-worldly piety.
The parallel extends also to Jewish literature in the pre-Chris-
tian and the post-talmudic ages, especially the literature which
came from circles not quite sectarian, but slightly off the beaten
track of orthodoxy. In both periods this literature took three dis-
tinctive forms:
First, apocalypses: visions of the end of days, the Messiah, the
final judgment and the resurrection.
Second, mystical books, quasi-Gnostic in tone, about the divine
Chariot-Throne, the angels and the ascent into the presence of
God.
Third, unorthodox aggada-books. Jubilees is a good instance
from earlier times; in the Gaonic period, the Chapters of Rabbi
Eliezer are the outstanding example.
These resemblances are neither formal nor accidental. There
is a true inner relation between the Old Testament pseudepi-
grapha and what we may venture to call the talmudic pseudepi-

grapha. It was not a matter of direct literary borrowing; few of
the old apocrypha were in Jewish hands during the Gaonic
period. But there was a continuous living tradition of mystical
and messianic doctrine.
The rabbis rejected the Outside Books for various reasons.
a
They considered certain ideas in these works objectionable, other

ideas dangerous. Thus the talmudic writings are in substantial
agreement with the apocalypses in their expectations of the
future; but in the rabbinic books these topics are given but
limited space. Some of the scholars, moreover, voice stem warn-
ings against excessive preoccupation with the mystery of the end
of days. They wished not to combat, but to "de-emphasize" the
apocalyptic teachings.
Similarly, the Talmud makes no attack, open or implied, on
the mystical doctrines. Some of the greatest of the rabbis were
adepts of mystic lore. insisted that it remain esoteric,
But they
that only a few might
choice disciples be initiated into the doc-
trine by brief hints which they must follow up for themselves.
To publish the intimate secrets of divinity, they held, was a kind
of sacrilege, and actually dangerous.
But there were other notions which the rabbis sought to sup-
press entirely. The belief in fallen angels was only one of these.
They also rejected an old legend of the bloody wars which the
sons of Jacob waged with the Canaanites, and some picaresque
tales about the youth of Moses which probably originated in
Egypt. These stories were not in consonance with rabbinic ideals
and were therefore omitted from the talmudic writings.
But the "conspiracy of silence" was not wholly successful. Some
of the rabbis themselves cultivated mysticism as a secret doc-
trine. Outside the official circles, many
and traditions were
beliefs
quietly kept alive. After the close of the Talmud, conditions
changed, vigilance relaxed and the suspected doctrines came from
underground.
I. APOCALYPSES
The earliest apocalypse to which we can assign a definite date

is now part of a larger midrashic work, the Pesikta Rabbati. The
apocalyptic section was almost certainly written within a few
years after Mohammed's death in 632. 1 It presents a unique con-
ception of a Messiah who at Creation undertook to suffer for the
people might ultimately be redeemed—
sins of Israel, that his
conception obviously borrowed from Christianity. Satan, we read,
asked God about the light which was streaming forth from be-
neath the Throne of Glory. God replied: This is he who is to drive
you back and humiliate you. Satan begged to see the Messiah,
and his request was granted; but at once he reeled back exclaim-
ing: Surely this is the Messiah who will cast me and all the
princes of the heathen into Gehenna. 2 Satan's humility before
God an inheritance from Jewish tradition; but the notion that
is
he will be cast into Gehenna, and by the Messiah at that, is a

further borrowing from Christian thought which had little or no
influence on later Judaism. The combination of Satan and the
guardian angels of the Gentiles is common in post-classical
aggada. 3
This document makes a passing reference to the fallen angels.
When the Messiah appears, sinful Israel will seek to justify
themselves before God. They will say: "Master of the World!
Thou didst plant a heart of stone within us, and it led us astray.
IfAzza and Azzael, whose bodies were of fire, sinned when they
descended to earth, how much more natural was it for us to
do so!" 4 Obviously the story was well known to the Jews of that
day, and in the later form according to which there were only
two sinful angels. The reduction of the number of rebels to two
occurred before Islamic versions could have influenced Jewish
tradition.
The other post-talmudic apocalypses are independent works,
mostly brief and of slight literary merit. In purpose and technique
they are very like the older visions. Their authorship is ascribed
to earlier worthies, sometimes to biblical characters, sometimes
to talmudic heroes. They seem to date from about 750 onward,
and some are as late as the Crusades. 5
A distinct family resemblance runs through these writings.
They lack the rich variety of mythological elements which we
found in pre-Christian apocalyptic. The chief interest is centered
on the time and circumstances of the messianic advent. But new
and startling is the picture—we can hardly say, doctrine— of the
Antichrist. This creature, Satan's earthly representative, though
foreshadowed in older Jewish writings, first appears distinctly—
as we have seen— in Christian literature. In Jewish books, aside
from a few brief allusions we shall note later, he is mentioned
only in the medieval apocalypses.
Thus the Book of Elijah foretells that the last king of Persia
will wage several campaigns against Rome and will overcome
three mighty men who emerge from the sea to meet him. Then
another king, the basest of all, the son of the slavewoman, Gigith,
The Visionaries • • •
121
will come up from the sea and spread terror over the world. This
king will be "long faced, with a raised area (gabhut) between his
eyes, very tall,the palms of his hands high (?), and his shoulders
thin." He will persecute Israel, but the faithful will be able to
repent.
Later in the same work we read: come up from
"A king shall
the sea, and ravage and shake the world; and he shall go up
against the mount of beautiful holiness and burn it. Cursed
among women be she who bore him!" 6 Apparently this is the
same king previously mentioned. He is not a sea monster, for
he has a base-born mother. His role in the cosmic drama is ob-
scure; the entire Book of Elijah is fragmentary and cryptic.
The other writings in this group all tell of a horrible being
called Armilus. What seems to be the oldest source ( The Midrash
of the Ten Kings) predicts: As the end of days approaches,
Satan will descend and go to Rome where he will have sexual
contact with a statue of a woman. The statue will conceive and
bear Armilus, who will reign forty days. "He will make evil de-
crees against Israel, so that righteous men cease and thieves
multiply." If Israel are meritorious, the Messiah son of Joseph
willappear in upper Galilee, go to Jerusalem, rebuild the Temple
and restore the sacrificial worship. He will be killed by Gog and
Magog, the leaders of the last rebellion of the heathen; and only
7
later will theMessiah of the house of David appear.
The Messiah son of Joseph derives from early rabbinic thought.
He is not exactly a false Messiah, but a sort of premature fore-
runner of the Messiah and will come to grief before the advent
of the genuine Davidic redeemer. Gog and Magog (Ezekiel 38
and 39) are associated also in the Talmud with the death of
Messiah ben Joseph. 8
The Gaonic apocalypses usually state that he will meet his
death at the hands of Armilus. Thus we read in The Secrets of R.
Simeon ben Johai, sl work slightly later than the Ten Kings, that
the wicked king Armilus will appear, slay the Messiah ben Joseph
and himself die by the breath of the mouth of Messiah ben David.
Armilus is described as "bald, his eyes are small, a mark of lep-
rosy is on his brow." His right ear is stopped and his left is open
—if a man comes to say anything good, Armilus turns his deaf
right ear to him; but when anything evil is to be said, he hears
it with his good left ear. He is "the son of Satan and the stone."
9
A very similar description in the Midrash Vayosha adds one more

unprepossessing detail: His right arm measures only a hand-
breadth, while his left arm is two and a half cubits long. 10
In the Prayer of Rabbi Simeon ben JoJiai, however, wicked
heathen (not Satan) have intercourse with the statue. Nine
months later it bursts open and Armilus emerges. He claims to
be the god and messiah of Edom and is hailed as such by all the
heathen. Then he demands that Messiah ben Joseph acknowledge
him as god and savior. The Jews bravely refuse him homage and
are massacred by Armilus. After many disasters, Michael blows
his horn, God manifests His presence and the Davidic Messiah
appears. But in this vision, he does not destroy Armilus. God says
to him "Sit down at My right hand" (Ps. 110.1), and the Messiah
has only to look on while God destroys the wicked. 11
This material is repeated in the Wars of the King Messiah
where, however, the appearance of Armilus is due to God's inter-
vention. He Himself preserves the seed of the rascals who em-
brace the statue and causes Armilus to be born. 12
There are two brief references to Armilus in the Targumim—
probably very late insertions. R. Saadia Gaon, in his great work
on Jewish philosophy and theology, mentions Armilus as the
slayer of the Messiah ben Joseph, but omits all reference to his
supernatural origin. He holds, moreover, that the prophecies of
the messianic terrors are conditional and will be fulfilled only if
13
Israel fails to repent before the appointed time.
One might have thought that recognition by Saadia, the great
legalist and rationalist, would have conferred respectability on
Armilus; but in fact he never acquired a secure position even in
Jewish folklore, still less in Jewish theology. Scholars are still
uncertain whether his name is derived from Ahriman, the evil
deitv of Persia, or from Romulus the founder of Rome. The

legend of his birth resembles a medieval legend about Virgil. The
statement that Armilus will try to force the Jews to recognize
him as god and messiah suggests that he was regarded as a per-
sonification of Roman Christianity. 14
If we were to consider this irrational legend in a logical fashion
(which would be an illogical procedure!), we should have to say
that it implies a thoroughgoing dualism. It is therefore interest-
ing to note that in some sources, the part of Satan in begetting
the Antichrist is eliminated; and in at least one version God Him-
The Visionaries •
123
self produces the creature— no doubt as a final trial of the right-

eous.
In short, dualistic elements appear only here and there in
medieval Jewish apocalyptic. A number of works from the same
period give rather extended accounts of paradise and hell. In
none of them is anything said about Satan and the satanic; the
punishment of sinners is entrusted to destructive angels. 15
But in one interesting vision Satan has a part. Israel, we read,
will come to Jerusalem under the leadership of the Messiah and
will claim the Temple; this claim will be contested by the King
of the Arabs. He will suggest that each side bring a sacrifice, and
the Temple shall belong to those whose offering is accepted. But
alas! Israel's sacrifice will be rejected, for Satan will prefer
charges against them; yet God will receive favorably the gift of
16
the sons of Kedar. This document no doubt expresses the dis-
appointment among Jewish visionaries when the wars between
Christianity and Islam resulted in the appropriation of the holy
sites by the Moslems, and not— as had been hoped— in their
restoration to Israel.
H. MYSTICAL WRITINGS
The Jewish mystics of the Gaonic period were the heirs of a
tradition already very old. Its antecedents are recorded in such
writings as II Enoch and the Apocalypse of Abraham; and the
tradition was continued by at least some of the talmudic rabbis.
But the latter permitted speculation on the divine chariot and
the cultivation of mystical ecstasy only within a small closed
group. In the post-talmudic period this reticence largely vanished
and the divine mysteries were made available in writing.
One of the most extensive of these mystical records is the
Hebrew Book of Enoch (III Enoch). It is a compilation of di-
verse documents, probably put together in the early Gaonic
period. 17
Only the opening chapters constitute the Book of Enoch. In
this writing, the glorification of the ancient worthy is carried to
incredible extremes. In the Ethiopic Enoch, as we saw, Enoch
was a great seer whom the fallen angels chose as their advocate.
In the Slavonic Enoch-book, he was transformed into an angel
even before he was finally taken from earth. But according to the
Hebrew account, Enoch became Metatron, the greatest of .all
angels. He was given dominion and power over all the heavenly
hosts, loaded with honors and called by God "the lesser
YHWH." 18 YHWH
This is close to blasphemy, since is the "ex-
plicit" name
God, a name too sacred for human utterance.
of
The Babylonian Gemara refers a number of times to Metatron,
the great angel, "whose name is the same as his Master's." 19 But
there is no hint in the Talmud that Metatron was formerly Enoch.
This notion must have been developing during talmudic times;
and we can readily understand why the rabbis said so little about
Enoch, and that little derogatory.
Enoch, however, did not get all this prestige without opposi-
tion. When God proposed to make him the celestial majordomo,
three angels objected: their dignity would be compromised were
they subordinate to a former mortal. These angels were named
Uzza, Azza, and Azzael: familiar names indeed! But in this docu-
ment they are not rebels: they are respectable, if class-conscious,
members of the heavenly household. God replies to them by in-
sisting that Enoch-Metatron is his favorite. He calls him naar,
lad, as a term of affection, because he is younger than the pri-
meval angels; but he is not inferior to them. 20
Inserted into this account is one that contradicts it. The gen-
eration of Enosh (four generations, by the way, before Enoch)
were a wicked lot. They caused the sun, moon and stars to
descend from the sky in order to make them objects of worship.
The feat was done by witchcraft, which the evil generation
learned from Uzza, Azza and Azziel. 21 Here the rebel angels
play their conventional role. The two stories cannot be recon-
ciled and have no connection.
Another insertion is the story, taken from the Talmud, that
Metatron unwittingly caused the ruin of Elisha ben Abuya, the
famous apostate. For Elisha confused Metatron with his Master
and thus was led to heresy and blasphemy. Thereupon Metatron
was subjected to flogging with lashes of fire. This legend was
added, according to Odeberg, by a scribe who wished to limit
in some measure the supernatural glamour of the translated
Enoch. 22
All the angels fear Enoch-Metatron, even Samael, the chief of
the accusers (mastinim), the greatest of the guardian angels of
the nations. 23 In a later section of the work, Samael is specifically
identified as the heavenly representative of Rome, as Dobiel is
the prince of Persia. Each day Satan (here not identical with
Sarnael) confers with the guardian angels of the Gentiles, and
together they draw up memoranda of Israel's sinfulness. Satan
gives the accusations to the seraphim for transmission to God,
that Israel may be exterminated. But the angels know God does
not wish His people destroyed; so they burn the indictments.
That is why they are called seraphim, burners! 24
It can be seen that the outlook of the Hebrew Enoch ( and the
same applies to the other mystical writings of the period) is
essentially monistic. That is why it appears inaccurate to speak

of Jewish Gnosticism. The ultimate connection of this mysticism
with Gnostic trends is undeniable; but the radical dualism of the
Gnostic sects is so transformed as to be hardly even vestigial.
Enoch-Metatron is no demiurge: he is just a much decorated
servant. Satan and the guardian angels of the heathen world con-
fine their activity to making charges against Israel, which is their
legitimate province.
There is a whole series of writings which describe the mystical

progress of the soul through the different chambers (hekalot)
of heaven until it finally arrives at the divine throne. Much of
this material is still buried in manuscript, and what is available
has not been adequately edited. For the present, we limit our-
selves to thework called Hekalot Rabbati (The Larger Treatise
on the Chambers). According to Prof. Gerhard Scholem, the
outstanding authority on Jewish mysticism, this work was com-
pleted in the sixth century, but some of its components are
earlier. 25
The spirit of the entire booklet is monistic. The mystical pil-
grim knows only the Most High God and the innumerable angels
who surround His Throne and who have no function except to
increase God's glory. Dr. Scholem has pointed out that the
demons who lurk in the way of the Gnostic to destroy him, and
who must be overcome by pronouncing magical charms, are
transformed in the Hekalot into mere gatekeepers appointed by
God to keep out the unworthy. 26 Metatron appears but once in
this work; though many names are applied to him, that of "YHWH
the Lesser" is significantly missing. 27
Only one section of the book do demonic forces appear; and
in
this section is plainly from a separate source. For it is concerned
not with timeless contemplation, but with history— albeit history

in legendary form. It tells of a terrible Thursday when word
came from Rome that four great scholars and eight thousand
disciples had been arrested. R. Nehuniah ben Hakanah ascended
to heaven and learned that Ten Martyrs had been given into the
power of Samael. But through their immolation, a horrible fate
would ultimately come upon Rome. Samael agreed to this con-
dition and eagerly wrote it down. When R. Nehuniah returned
to earth with the news, the imprisoned rabbis did not consider
death by torture too great a price to pay if the downfall of
wicked Rome was thereby assured; and they held a festal cele-
bration. Then, by a heavenly miracle, Rabbi Hanina ben Tera-
dyon (one of those marked for execution) was placed on the
throne of Caesar Lupinus, while the latter died a felons death.
Thus R. Hanina was enabled to execute all the foes of Israel. 28
Note that while the death of the Ten Martyrs was to be con-
summated by Samael, the guardian angel of Rome, it was ap-
proved by God and His court. In a striking passage, God answers
the plaints of Israel by admitting that He has been unduly severe
in His judgments upon them. The mystics evidently preferred
to ascribe human fallibility to God rather than suggest that His
power is limited by Satanic opposition. 29
The legend of the Ten Martyrs, alluded to above, is told at
length in a number of special writings. 30 It deals with famous
tannaim who did indeed die as martyrs at the hands of the
Romans; in the legend they all die at the same time and for the
same extraordinary reason. Their death is to atone for the guilt
of the ten sons of Jacob who kidnapped Joseph and sold him into
slavery. The wicked Roman king uses this charge as a mere pre-
text to destroy the Jewish leaders; but God and His court con-
sider the decree valid.Throughout the centuries God's Attribute
of Justice had been demanding satisfaction for the wrong done
Joseph. Never before had there been in a single generation ten
men as great as the ten culprits, and therefore capable of expiat-
ing their sin.
Still, the heavenly guardian of Rome, Samael, had authority

to drop the complaint. God warned if he in-
him, moreover, that
on pressing the charge, a horrible leprosy would be decreed
sisted
on Rome. Heedless of the consequences for his own people,
Samael insisted on the death of the sages. All this was learned
The Visionaries • • 127
by Rabbi Ishmael ( a central figure in the mystical writings of this

age) when he ascended into heaven to inquire if the decree was
irrevocable. And he and his fellow-martyrs were comforted by
the assurance that their sufferings would be visited upon Rome.
The reference to Samael is not found in all the versions of the
story. Some of them ascribe the decree to God alone. This view
appears in the touching piyyut recited during the Additional
Service on Yom Kippur, a composition of the seventeenth cen-
tury.As this poet tells the tale, Rabbi Ishmael went up to heaven
and met "one robed in linen." The angel said to him: "Accept
the decree upon you, O righteous and beloved ones! For I have
heard 'behind the curtain' that ye are entrapped in this thing!"
Mysticism has often been associated with magic, though they

are in fact quite different. The aim of mysticism is spiritual bliss;
that of magic, control over the material world. Yet the two are
often intertwined. A text from our period which is more magical
than mystical is the still unpublished Habdalah of Rabbi Akiba. 31
The booklet is an expansion of the traditional habdalah, the cere-
mony for the outgoing of the Sabbath. The added material con-
sists of formulae and imprecations to ward off various evils—
forgetfulness of the Torah, evil spirits and, especially, magicians,
against whom
our exorcist waxes quite violent. The devices in-
clude prayers in the conventional style; they also include arbi-
trary and magical procedures. The first word of the Shema is
recited, then the first word of Psalm 91, then the second word of
the respective passages, and so on. 32 Angelic names are also used,
and that of Metatron is singled out for special attention. 33 For
our purpose, the most important section tells of Uzza and Azzael,
who revealed the secret of then Master. Their punishment was to
have their noses pierced and to be suspended upon the moun-
tains of darkness, where the sun's light never comes and no re-
freshing breeze ever blows upon them. May He, the passage
continues, who frustrated the design of Uzza and Azzael frustrate
34
the designs of all who rise up against us!
This document reveals a tendency toward dualism more in
its general character than in any specific item. It frankly recog-
nizes a demonic area in life which must be dealt with by magical
procedures. Characteristically, these superstitions are connected
with Saturday night, which for some reason was through the ages
a focus of such infection. 35
CHAPTER NINETEEN
New Paths: The Later Aggada
sharp line of demarcation cannot be drawn be-

A tween the apocalyptic and mystical writings and
those that are purely aggadic; but the classification is a conven-
ient one. This chapter deals with Midrashim that depart in some
respect from the older standpoints; for, as we have seen, some
later Midrashim are entirely in the spirit of the classical sources.
The mystical and eschatological booklets we have been exam-
ining never attained great authority in Jewish life. A few, such
as the story of the Ten Martyrs, circulated among the people but
hardly acquired the dignity of Jewish classics. The rest were
known only in limited circles, and remained buried in manuscript
till recent years. The same is true of most of the aggadic docu-
ments we shall consider now. They include short accounts of

single episodes, such as the Story of Abraham and Nimrod, and
the Passing of Moses. There are also some larger collections—
Sefer haYashar and the Chronicles of Yerahmeel— compiled in the
latter part of the Middle Ages. Such books made pleasant reading
for the masses, but did not profoundly affect the development of
Judaism.
The one notable exception bears the name Pirke d'R. Eliezer.
This extensive Midrash contains much standard rabbinic aggada
and is dotted with the names of the great talmudic teachers. But
these ascriptions are not reliable; the author (who lived in the
eighth or ninth century) scattered famous names through his
book to lend it authority. The book quote Dr. Gerald
itself is, to
Friedlander, "polemical and unorthodox— polemical in opposing

doctrines and traditions current in certain circles in former times,
unorthodox in revealing certain mysteries." * It contains numer-
ous parallels to the old pseudepigraphs and the Church Fathers,
while departing in some instances from talmudic teachings.
But despite its slightly heretical tone, the book acquired great
influence, since it bore the honored name of R. Eliezer the Great.
The Palestinian Targumim, the late Midrashim, the medieval
The Later Aggada • • 129
commentators on the Bible, the cabalists draw constantly upon

it. Even Maimonides, the great rationalist, who disposes cava-
lierly of the mystical literature, quotes some bizarre aggadot of
R. Eliezer with the remark that they are to be understood as

allegories. Material from this source is therefore of special im-
portance.
sinful angels. We have already cited a seventh century Midrash

which mentions that Azza and Azzael, though of fiery substance,
sinned when they descended to earth. This document had been
written before Moslem influence could have been felt in Israel—
the notion that there were only two sinful angels was apparently
familiar to the Jews before the Mohammedans told the story of
Harut and Marut. Indeed, the one cryptic reference in the Tal-
mud to Azza and Azzael does not suggest that they had any
companions in crime; perhaps the tendency to limit the number
of apostate angels was very old. 2
The later aggadot occasionally mention our story. When God
summoned the soul of Moses, it protested at being removed from
the body of one so continent and pure, whereas "Azza and Azzael,
two angels, descended from the nearness of Thy Shekinah on
high and desired the daughters of earth; and they corrupted their
way till Thou didst suspend them 'twixt earth and firmament." 3
The Palestinian Targum to the Pentateuch (Targum Pseudo-
Jonathan) consists of an ancient core, with numerous embellish-
ments, some of the latter very late. In Gen. 6.2, b'ne Elohim is
rendered "sons of the chiefs," just as in the standard Targum. But
in verse 4, the words "the Nefilim were in the earth in those days"
are paraphrased: "Shemhazai and Azzael fell from heaven and
were on the earth in those days"— obviously a later addition. 4
Seder Eliahu Zuta is a midrashic work, with an obscure history
which we need not discuss for the sake of one brief excerpt. The
passage concerns the attempt of Nimrod to destroy Abraham in a
fiery furnace, and of God's decision to descend and save His faith-
ful servant. The angels doubted the wisdom of this; for, they
argued, Adam had been greatly blessed by God, and he had
transgressed. God "What, then, did Azza and Uzzi and
replied:
Azzael, of your kind? They descended to earth, lusted after the
daughters of man, led them to sin and taught them witchcraft by
which they brought down the sun and moon, the work of My
a

b*
hands!" Abraham, however, had given proof of his fidelity to

God's law. 5
Aggadat Bereshit Midrash to Genesis composed largely
is a late
of standard material. The Oxford manuscript of this work has an
opening chapter not found in the old prints and first published
by Salomon Buber. Here we find two interpretations of Genesis
6, both of which depart from the classical tradition of the rabbis.
One holds that the "sons of God" and the Nefilim (their identity
is assumed) were the descendants of Cain, distinguished for their
superior beauty and their ruthlessness. This seems to be a con-

fused echo of the tale, long cherished in Christian circles, that
the "sons of God" were Sethites who married the shameless
daughters of Cain.
The other interpretation states that the "sons of God" were
Uzza and Uzzael, who dwelt in the firmament and brought them-
selves down to earth for testing. For they had expressed their
contempt for sinful man and had been stung when God replied:
Were you on earth, like the sons of man, and were you to see
their beautiful women, the evil inclination would enter you and
cause you to sin. So they descended to earth; but when they be-
held the beauty of the daughters of men, they sought to return
to heaven, saying: Lord of the world! We have had enough of
He, however, replied: Ye are already defiled and cannot
this trial.
become pure again. (This seems to mean that the angels were
contaminated merely by gazing on women.) Our Midrash iden-
tifies Uzza and Uzzael as the Nefilim. They are suspended by a
chain of iron upon the mountains of darkness. But they still in-
struct in witchcraft those who chose to defile themselves thereby. 6
This perhaps the
is oldest Hebrew source which states that the
angels could not return to heaven after being sullied by desire—
notion first suggested by one of the Church Fathers and held also
by some of the Moslems. From the latter, apparently, comes the
view that even after their imprisonment the fallen angels continue
to teach sorcery.
The most elaborate of all the Hebrew versions is a Midrash

7
preserved in several medieval sources. Asked the meaning of
Azazel, R. Joseph told how God was disappointed with the sin-
fulness of mankind and how Shemhazai and Azzael reminded
Him that they had predicted man's wickedness in advance. They,
The Later Aggada • • •
131
however, were sure that they were proof against all worldly
temptation and descended to earth for testing. At once they were
overwhelmed by desire for the daughters of men. Shemhazai
made his addresses to a beautiful woman named Istahar. But she
would not him until he should disclose the Explicit Name
yield to
by the use of which he could fly up to heaven. At length her lover
revealed the secret; whereupon Istahar escaped from his arms,
pronounced the name and went up on high, where God rewarded
her by placing her among the Pleiades. But the angels consoled
themselves by marrying other women and begot giant sons; those
of Shemhazai were named Hiva and Hiyya. Azzael became an
authority on the dyes and cosmetics women use to make them-
selves alluring. But the Deluge was imminent and Metatron was
sent to warn Shemhazai that punishment would soon come. The
angel was greatly distressed for the sake of his children; their
great stature might enable them to escape drowning, but the
desolation of the Flood would leave them without food to satisfy
their enormous appetite. One night Hiva and Hiyya dreamt sim-
ilar dreams portending the destruction of all flesh save Noah and
his family. They told the dreams to their father, who offered them
strange consolation in the moment of doom. Their names would
be immortal. For when in the future men should work together,
heaving weights and the like, they would shout: Hiyya! Hiva!
Shemhazai, repentant, hanged himself head downward between
heaven and earth; and he is there still. But Azzael was incorrigi-
ble. He still leads men astray through the dyed garments of
women. And he is identical with Azazel to whom the scapegoat
is sent on Yom Kippur.
This Midrash has clearly drawn on the Mohammedan tradi-

tions about Harut and Marut. But here the temptress is called
by the name Istahar— which calls to mind at once Ishtar-Astarte,
the famous Semitic mother-goddess. She is the better known
counterpart of Zuhra and Anahit. Our author either had access
to written sources unknown to us, or more likely he drew upon
mythical traditions still current among the people of his time. 8
But he combines them with other elements peculiar to the Jewish
tradition and adds new items of his own. Professor Spiegel has
pointed out, indeed, that one of the Phoenician deities mentioned
in the Ras Shamra texts is sometimes called Heyyin; and accord-
ing to Sanchuniathon, an ancient Phoenician historian, this deity
was the first to practice navigation. Moreover he had a brother,

(
whose name is not given.) The cry "Hiyya, Hiyya," used by the
sailors in hauling their boats in or out of the water, may have
been in the first instance a sort of invocation to the patron deity
of seafaring. 9 This is only conjecture, but it is far from implausi-
ble. The American youngster who exclaims "Jiminy!" in surprise
or annoyance is quite unaware that he is calling upon Castor
and Pollux, the ancient Gemini, who by the way were also nauti-
cal deities. So it is not improbable that faint recollections of the
old Canaanite myths still persisted among the Jewish people well
into the Middle Ages.
One cannot read this particular version of the story, however,
without a suspicion that it is not entirely serious. The humorous
touches do not seem to be accidental. One doubts that this is
really meant to explain the Yom Kippur ritual. The atmosphere
of grimness and terror which once surrounded the story of the
fallen angels has evaporated; little more remains than an amusing
folk tale.
We have postponed the version of Pirke d'R. Eliezer till now,
not because it is the latest— it is not—but because it is not in line
with the usual development of our myth in later Jewish literature.
This development, we have seen, knows only two or three fallen
angels,whose names vary slightly from source to source. But the
Pirke d'R. Eliezer, which takes the matter quite seriously and
devotes a whole chapter to it, tells of a large group of fallen
angels. No proper names, however, are given.
The account opens with the startling statement that Cain was
not of Adam's seed. (In another passage, the work states plainly
vthat Samael was Cain's father, while Adam begot Abel.) The
N righteous descended from Seth; Cain was the progenitor of the
wicked. This reminds us of the Christian view that "the sons of
God" were Sethites and the "daughters of men" were Cainites;
but the Midrash makes different use of the notion. The shameless
Cainite women, strutting about naked, with painted eyes, caused
the angels to sin. Now angels are of flame. How then could they
have consorted with mortal women without burning their mates?
The reply is: When from their holy estate, they
the angels fell
suffered a reduction in stature and

and their fiery sub- strength,
stance was transmuted into earthy material. From the union of
The Later Aggada • •
133
angels and mortals were born giant offspring—the Anakim—

proud and violent. 10
When the Flood threatened, the giants were confident that
they would escape. Their heads would rise above any level rain-
fall might produce, and their enormous feet would hold back
water rising from below the earth. But God heated the waters of
the abyss until the feet of the giants were scalded; and so they
met their doom. This episode is unique; perhaps it is a reminis-
cence of the hot springs in the Book of Enoch. 11
The myth so long suppressed by the rabbis thus came to light

in the Middle Ages. It had, indeed, never been forgotten. But it
could now be tolerated even publicly because it was no longer
dangerous. Only the author of the Chapters of R. Eliezer seems
to take it seriously, and even to him the fall of the angels is not
one of the major events of history, certainly not the basic cause
of evil in the world. The other medieval writers treat the tale as
a minor episode, and the fullest version has a certain flavor of
comedy. The cosmic significance is gone.
Nevertheless, the standard non-mythical explanation of Genesis
6 was not displaced. We shall find the Bible commentators and
philosophers adhering to it; many aggadists. Thus the late
so did
work, Sefer haYashar, which includes many untraditional legends,
paraphrases Genesis 6.2: "Their judges and officers went unto all
the daughters of men, and took them wives by force— even from
their husbands— of all whom they desired." 12 The Chronicles of
Yerahmeel are a heterogeneous compilation. One chapter con-
tains the long legend of Shemhazai and Azzael we have sum-
marized above. But another introduces into Jewish literature the
view, hitherto confined to Christian writings, that the good men
of the tribe of Seth were lured into marriage with the sinful
daughters of Cain, fell from grace and engendered the giants. 13
the fall of satan. Talmudic literature nowhere contains the

slightest hint that Satan is a fallen angel. He holds his position
as prosecutor by divine appointment and never was anything
else. The view of certain apocryphal writings, that Satan was an
angel who rebelled against his Master, became standard doctrine

in the Church and was later adopted by Mohammed.
In the Middle Ages, however, some Jewish writers revived the
notion.Here again the most notable instance is Pirke d'R. Eliezer.

(This work, by the way, always calls the Devil "Samael"; the
word Satan occurs only Samael was the
in biblical citations.)
great prince (sar) in heaven. The hayyot had four wings and thei
seraphim six; but Samael had twelve. Now the angels were en-
vious of the honor accorded by God to the newly-created man,
and they were still more irritated when Adam proved his wisdom
by naming the animals, a feat they could not match. Most of the
angels did no more than grumble. But Samael went the length of
open rebellion. Descending to earth with his followers, he looked
about for an agent to encompass Adam's ruin. The cunning ser-
pent met his requirements. Samael mounted the serpent (which
in those days looked something like a camel) and directed his
actions, as an evil spirit takes possession of a man and compels
his obedience. The Torah cried out in warning to Samael; but
the warning went unheeded. 14
The Chapters of R. Eliezer do not follow this view consistently.
In the rest of the Paradise story, Samael is not mentioned, and
the snake appears to be acting on his own initiative. But before
the rather detailed account of the serpent's punishment, we read
that God cast down Samael and his troop from their holy place
in heaven. As Samael fell, he seized Michael by the wing and
tried to drag him down too; but God intervened to save the
archangel. 15
Another passage in this remarkable work states that "he who
rode on the serpent" had relations with Eve and became the
father of Cain. This is another radical departure. The old aggada
knew indeed of sexual contact between Eve and the serpent, but
did not explicitly identify the latter with Satan; moreover, the
consequence of this contact was the defilement of all Eve's pos-
terity, but not the engendering of particular offspring. The new
account, which is taken up by many later writers, makes Cain

and 16
his family more demonic than human.
But view of the Devil is rare in pre-cabalistic literature.

this
An aggadic manuscript which Dr. Schechter brought to light
connects Satan's fall, not witii Adam, but with Job. Satan ap-
peared before God and, admitting that Job was extraordinarily
devout, undertook to turn his heart away from piety. But his
repeated efforts failed. Thereupon God rebuked Satan (Zech.
135
3.2) and scornfully cast him out of heaven, as it is said, "Ye shall
fall as one of the princes" (Ps. 82.7). This is the first— and almost
the only— instance in Jewish literature which sees in Psalm 82 a

reference to superhuman malefactors. Generally this Psalm is
interpreted as condemning human kings, or Adam, or Israel in
the desert. 17 In this aggada, also, Satan is not a good angel prior
to his fall; he is the usual tempter and accuser, and he is cast out
for excess of zeal in his job.
Rabbi Moses haDarshan lived at Narbonne, in France, during
the eleventh century. He compiled an extensive collection of
aggadot to the Book of Genesis. Among them is the following:
When God had created Adam, He summoned the angels to wor-
ship His new creation, and the angels came to obey. Satan was
the greatest of the angels in heaven, and he protested against the
order that he, who had been created out of the radiance of the
Shekinah, should bow before one formed from the dust of the
earth. God replied that this earthly creature had superior wis-
dom and could give more appropriate names to the animals
than could Satan. Satan was eager to be put to the test; but when
he was faced with the different creatures, could not give them a
name. Adam was able to perform this feat, though he profited by
hints which God graciously gave him. Thereupon Satan cried out
so loudly that his complaint was audible even in heaven. When
asked the reason for his lament, he said: "Why should I not cry
out, since Thou hast formed me from Thy Shekinah and hast
formed man from the dust of the earth, yet hast given him such
wisdom and discernment!" God replied: "O destructive Satan,
why art thou astonished? Now man shall behold his remotest
descendants and shall give names to them all!" 18
So far our text as preserved in a manuscript abridgement of
Rabbi Moses' work. But a famous Spanish monk, Raymundo
Martini, in his learned treatise against Judaism, called Pugio
Fidei (The Dagger of Faith), quotes a different version which is
brieferand concludes with the words: "When Satan would not

worship (man) and would not hearken to the words of the Holy
One (blessed be He!), He thrust him out of heaven, and he be-
came Satan; and concerning him Isaiah (14.12) says: 'How art
thou fallen from heaven, O day star, son of the morning!' " 19
Obviously these aggadot reflect Christian and Moslem in-

fluence. Even though the stories may have originated among
Jews, they had long vanished from Jewish belief and thought
and were now reintroduced from the outside.
satan's malice. In most of the later aggadot, Satan continues to

play his traditional role of tempter and accuser; but his character
is somewhat blacker. His redeeming traits have vanished, and he
is gleeful when he can stir up trouble.
A legend to which there is no exact parallel in early writings
deals with Enosh whose generation, according to an old tradition,
was the to practice idolatry. Enosh made an idol and
first
breathed upon it, whereupon Satan entered the image and caused
it to move. Thus the people were led to believe that it was indeed
a divinity. 20 A similar story in the Chapters of R. Eliezer tells

that when Israel made the Golden Calf, Samael entered the
image and caused it to bleat. 21 In such instances, he does not go
far beyond his old occupation of agent provocateur.
Nor was Satan utterly wicked when he helped Noah plant a
vineyard and fertilized the soil with the blood of a lamb, a lion,
y
a monkey and a pig. ( That is why men behave like these animals
in the successive stages of intoxication. ) This story goes far back
into oriental folklore; in Jewish literature it appears in only a
few late sources. 22
But Abraham roused the worst of Satan's malice. Very old is the
story of Abraham's struggle with Nimrod and his deliverance by
God from a fiery furnace. One of the medieval versions of this tale
—which seems to have been translated from the Arabic— gives
prominence to Satan. He first advised Nimrod to arrest Abraham.
Then, when the heat of the furnace killed the executioners before
they could cast their victim into it, Satan devised a catapult to
hurl Abraham into the flames. Just before the sentence was to be
carried out, the tempter assumed a human form and urged Abra-
ham worship Nimrod and save his life. But the patriarch saw
to
through the disguise and rebuked his opponent. 23
We have seen in the earlier Midrash that the command for
the sacrifice of Isaac resulted from a complaint that Abraham was
lax in his devotion to God; but there is some uncertainty as to
whether Satan or the angels or the Justice of God made the
charge. There is similar disagreement in the later sources. 24 Ac-
cording to Sefer haYashar, Satan was the plaintiff. In this single
episode, the Accuser plays a prominent role; throughout the rest
137
of Sefer haYashar, Satan is not even mentioned! There seems to

be no logical explanation of this odd phenomenon.
Sefer haYashar describes the heavenly assize in terms obvi-
ously borrowed from the Book of Job. Satan expresses his opinion
that men are pious only when they have a material benefit in
view; once they get what they want, they forget God and His good-
ness. The case of Abraham proves this: before Isaac was born,
he built many altars; but since he has a son, he has not offered a
sacrifice,not even at the great feast he made when Isaac was
weaned. The summons to Abraham follows immediately. 25
Satan tries to direct events so that his contention will be
proved. He attempts to dissuade Abraham and Isaac from their
resolve; he changes himself into a stream to keep them from
reaching Mount Moriah. (These events are known to the classic
Midrash, but in less elaborate form. ) 26
But the malevolence of Satan is more clearly revealed when
Abraham has demonstrated his fidelity. Satan tries to lead astray
the ram that is caught in the thicket, in the hope that Abraham
will not be able to catch it, and will be forced to sacrifice his
son. 27 Since Satan has already lost his case, this is sheer vindic-
tiveness. Even worse was his device to cause Sarah's death. Ac-
cording to Pirke d'R. Eliezer, she died of horror when Samael
reported that Isaac had been slaughtered. The Sefer haYashar
adds a more delicate psychological touch. After crushing Sarah
with grief, Satan admitted that his story was untrue and that
28
Isaac was really alive— and Sarah expired from excess of joy.
The death of Moses is the subject of several aggadic writings.

These tell at length of a struggle between Moses and the Angel
of Death, who is here called Samael. These Midrashim display
a curious uncertainty as to whether this Samael is a faithful serv-
ant of God or an evil being.
God first ordered Michael, Gabriel and Zanzagiel to fetch the
soul of Moses; but they declined. Gabriel felt himself too feeble;
Michael wept silently; Zanzagiel, the Angel of the Torah, pointed
out that Moses had been his pupil, and he hadn't the heart to take
away his But Samael gleefully accepted the commission
life.
when it was offered to him. He confronted Moses wrathfully; but
the lawgiver refused to surrender his soul and called Samael

"wicked one." (Yet Samael protested that he was sent by "Him
who created the worlds and the souls; and into my hands are de-
livered all souls since Creation.") by Moses, Samael
Terrified
returned to God and confessed that he could not deal with the
situation. God replied: "Thou wicked one! From the fire of
Gehenna wast thou created, and to the fire of Gehenna shalt thou
return! At first thou wentest forth from My presence in great
glee; now that thou hast seen his grandeur, thou art returned in
shame. Go, fetch Me
But on the second attempt, Samael
his soul!"
again proved to be no match for Moses; he received a drubbing
with die heavenly staff, and his eyes were blinded by the radiance
of Moses' face. At length Moses prayed that he might not fall
into the hands of Samael, and he surrendered his soul to God
Himself. 29 In another form of this legend, Satan prevented Elazar,
the nephew of Moses, from pleading for his uncle's life. What
mean you, said Satan, by pushing aside the words of the Lord?
The people prayed that the lawgiver might be spared to them;
but ministering angels snatched the prayers away. Then a great
angel named Lahash (Is. 26.16) tried to lay these intercessions
before God, whereat Samael bound him with fiery chains, flogged
him with seventy stripes of fire and expelled him from the divine
presence.
Thus far he is the stern executor of God's will; but later on he
appears as a malicious demon, gloating over Moses' approaching
end, while Michael weeps in impotence. "Among all the accusers
(mastinim) there is none like Samael the wicked." In the struggle
with Moses, the latter even denied that Samael is a creature of
God. At this, not unreasonably, Samael was indignant; but he
still could not take away the soul of Moses. He returned to God
with his mission unaccomplished; but God threatened to replace
him with a more competent agent, and he went back to the con-
This time Moses was about to slay the death-angel; but a
flict.
heavenly voice was heard: "Do not harm him: mankind have
need of him." Moses surrendered his soul to the kiss of God;
thereafter Samael made a long and fruitless search for the soul
of the great prophet. 30
A late legend tells how Satan tried to tempt R. Matya b.
Heresh to assuming for the purpose the guise of a woman as
sin,
beautiful as Naamah the sister of Tubal Kain, "after whom the

angels went astray." But the noble scholar was proof against his
wiles. 31 In this story, too, Satan acts with the permission of God.
139
When the Torah was given to Israel— so states the Pirke cTR.
Eliezer— Samael complained that God had given him power over
every nation but Israel. God replied that over Israel, too, he
would have control on the Day of Atonement— if they put them-
selves in his power by sinning. That is the reason for the scape-
goat—it is a sort of bribe to Azazel, here identified with Samael.
In the sequel, Samael testifies that Israel on Yom Kippur are sin-
less and pure as the angels. This passage strangely contradicts

the usual view of the aggada, that it is precisely on Yom Kippur
that Satan has no power over Israel. 32
samael as prince of rome. We have already seen instances

where the belief in the heavenly patrons of the Gentiles is com-
bined with the belief in Satan as the arch-fiend. Satan-Samael
thus becomes the patron angel of Edom, that is, Rome. Just as
the Armilus legend suggests that the Roman power is the Anti-
christ, so this other fusion of originally independent myths makes
Rome the earthly representative of all the powers of evil, and her
sar their heavenly embodiment. 33
The earliest expression of this view in aggadic literature is
found in the printed Tanhuma, which states that the "man" who
34
wrestled with Jacob was Samael, the Prince of Edom. While the
material of the Tanhuma is drawn largely from classical sources,
it was not redacted till the Gaonic period. In fact, there are a
number of divergent forms of the Midrash Tanhuma of which the

printed version is not the earliest; and these versions occasionally
reveal later influences. 35 Such influences account for the identifi-
cation of Samael as guardian angel of Rome; for in talmudic liter-
ature, Samael is a name of Satan and has a cosmic rather than a
national significance. 36
This newoutlook explains several passages in the late Midrash
Abkir. When Jacob and Esau, still unborn, struggled within the
body of their mother, Samael sought to kill Jacob. Michael rushed
and was about to burn Samael to nothingness when
to the rescue
God intervened and subjected them both to legal discipline. 37
Samael here is undoubtedly the patron angel of Esau; for Mid-
jrashAbkir regularly calls the tempter Satan.
Likewise at the Red Sea, Samael protested against the deliv-
erance of Israel, on the ground that they had worshipped idols
while in Egypt. Moreover, he roused the Prince of the Sea to such
a rage that the latter tried to drown the Israelites. ( Here, appar-
ently, the Satanic role of accuser is combined with the zeal of the
angel of Edom attacking the enemies of his people.) But God
answered him: Arrant fool! Did they worship idols deliberately?
Was it not through servitude and mental confusion that they did
so? Thou judgest inadvertent sin as though it were intentional,
and what was done under duress as though it were voluntary.
Thereupon the Prince of the Sea turned upon the Egyptians the
wrath he had been directing against Israel. 38 Elsewhere, as we
shall see at once, Abkir ascribes the attack on Israel at the Sea
to Uzza, the angelic patron of Egypt.
uzza the patron angel of egypt. In the Book of Jubilees, Mas-

tema, a cosmic demon, makes desperate efforts to prevent the
redemption of Israel from Egypt, so that God and the angels
must restrain him. In rabbinic aggada, the national angel of
Egypt plays this role. 39 The episode receives its greatest elabora-
tion in the Midrash Abkir. 40 The sar of Egypt was named Uzza—
another case of the tendency to identify the authors of cosmic
wickedness with the princes of the Gentiles. Uzza summoned
Michael, the representative of Israel, to judgment before God.
He argued that God had condemned Israel to four hundred years
of servitude in Egypt (Gen. 15.13); this term had not yet expired,
and Israel should be brought back in order to complete it.
Michael was unable to answer his argument; but God pointed out
that the verse in Genesis makes no mention of Egypt: it simply
says that Abraham's descendants shall be slaves in "a land not
theirs/' Moreover, the period of slavery should be reckoned from
the date of Isaac's birth and is therefore ended. God now deter-
mined to drown the Egyptians; but Uzza protested. It is unjust,
he argued, to impose a capital sentence for mere enslavement,
especially since Israel had been compensated for their labors by
the treasure they took out of Egypt. Thereupon God assembled
His heavenly court and laid the case before them, dwelling at
length on the insolence and cruelty of Pharaoh. The angels all
agreed that the sentence on the Egyptians was a just one. But
Uzza still did not give up. He admitted that his people were
guilty and begged God to be merciful to them. This plea might
have been successful had not Gabriel displayed one of the bricks
The Later Aggada • • • 141
made by Israel in Egypt; and this evidence of Egyptian cruelty

led God to act with unswerving justice.
In a variant of this legend found in the same source, the guard-
ian angel of Egypt is not given a proper name. His plea for
mercy toward his people is supported by all the angels in council.
Thereupon Michael summons Gabriel, who lays before God a
brick in which an Israelite infant had been embedded, and die
Attribute of Justice urges God to punish the Egyptians. 41
The forensicform of this tale is noteworthy. Uzza, though
partisan, does no more than any attorney, assigned to defend a
criminal, deems proper. The element of angelic rebellion is alto-
gether missing.
the guardian angels of the nations. There are also more gen-
eral references to theguardian angels. Here, too, Abkir is more
dramatic and interesting than the other works. It tells that the
princes of the Gentiles sought to Jacob
kill as he slept at Beth-El.
They were because a commoner has con-
like courtiers, resentful
stant access to the king. "This one," they said, "is destined to in-
herit the world and cause the kingdoms to pass away; let us kill
him!" And Jacob survived only by the special protection of God. 42
An older aggada had told that the angels sought to injure Jacob
while he because his face resembled the human face on the
slept,
heavenly chariot and they were indignant that a mortal should
receive such honors. This earlier story reflects the belief that
angels in general are neither very intelligent nor unselfish. 43 As
refashioned in Abkir, the story stresses the antagonism of the
angelic patrons of the Gentiles to the people of Israel.
Incidentally, Abkir explains in a novel way how Michael be-
came Israel's guardian.Some of the old aggadists had held that
Michael was the angel who wrestled with Jacob at the Jabbok.
Abkir adopts this and adds that, to compensate for the injury he
had inflicted on the patriarch during their struggle, Michael was
assigned thenceforth to care for him and his descendants. 44
The accounts do not always emphasize
of the national angels
their hostility to Israel. A medieval Midrash relates that, when
God created the seventy national princes, each wanted to be the
patron of Israel, until it was decided by lot that the Jews are the
peculiar concern of God— this, oddly enough, in a work which on
a preceding page speaks of Michael as the advocate and spokes-
man of Israel. 45 A mystical booklet represents the patrons of the

Gentiles as assembling before God to hymn his praise. 46
A more Midrash seeks to emphasize the balance
rationalistic
in creation. God provided each nation with a guardian angel and
gave Israel as its protectors Michael and Gabriel. When Israel
sins, the patrons of the Gentiles make accusation before God.
Then Michael and Gabriel plead for their people, and so God
is enabled to show them mercy and reduce the power of the
other sarim. 47
A medieval version of the Hanukkah story uses this concept
in a unique manner. When the Jews and Greeks joined battle,
God seized the seventy guardian angels of the Gentiles, pierced
them with an awl of fire and commanded them to slay their "rela-
tives." If one of them escapes, He warned the angels, your life
will be in place of theirs. So the guardian angels of the heathen
perforce turned the weapons hurled by the Greeks back into the
hearts of those who cast them; and pillaging the Greeks, they
deposited the spoil in Jewish homes. 48
enoch. Outside the specifically mystic literature, medieval Jewry

does not display much interest in Enoch. The Chapters of R.
Eliezer mention him with respect as one who transmitted the
secrets of the calendar and the miraculous staff from Adam to
Noah; and a lesser work mentions him as the heir of the won-
drous garments of Adam. 49 Another document states that Enoch
walked in the ways of heaven; to him may be applied the Scrip-
tural words: "Happy is the man whom Thou choosest and bring-
est near, that he may dwell in Thy courts" (Ps. 65.5). The text
adds that God took Enoch and hid him (genazo)—language sug-
gesting that God took Enoch because of his superior piety, not,
as early aggadists held,because of his unstable character. 50 The
Alphabet of R. Akiba, which is really a mystical work of a mild
sort, makes several references to Enoch-Metatron. The most in-
teresting is the statement: when Moses stood against God to pro-

tect the people from the plague, he did something surpassing
the power even of Metatron. 51
lilith. About the tenth century, a work of popular wisdom was

composed, bearing the name The Alphabet of Ben Sira. A mixture
of proverbs and tales illustrating them, it quotes a few authentic
lines from The Wisdom of Ben Sira, the apocryphal book also
called Ecclesiasticus. Somewhat later another Alphabet of Ben
Sira appeared. Here the moralizing tendency is almost wholly
absent; an extraordinary compilation of folk tales, not all of

it is
them edifying. In this work we encounter for the first time the
story of Lilith, Adam's demon wife, which has passed into the
European literary tradition.
The name Lilith has a very ancient history. A spirit or demon
bearing this title appears in Assyro-Babylonian texts. A Bible
passage, describing a scene of utter desolation, says "Lilith shall
repose there" (Is. 34.14). The Bible translators generally trans-
late Lilith by "the night-monster," on the supposition that the
name is derived from layil, "night"— an etymology probably in-
correct. The Talmud too mentions a female demon named Lilith
and a whole class of spirits called lilin. It tells also that Adam and
Eve once had demon lovers'^
Nevertheless, the tale in the second Alphabet of Ben Sira is
altogether new. When God perceived that it was not good for
man to be alone, He first created a mate for Adam out of the dust
of the earth. But the two did not get on at all; for Lilith had no
feminine submissiveness about her, since her origin was identi-
cal with Adam's. She soon left him and, by pronouncing the
Ineffable Name, flew far away. God, Who
Adam complained to
despatched three angels to force her to return. They found her
among the billows of the Red Sea and threatened to drown her,
especially when she declared her intention of molesting infants
during the early days of their lives. But finally they let her go
on this condition: if children were protected by an amulet bear-
ing the names or pictures of the three angels, she would do them
no harm. She had further to accept the penalty, imposed by God
when she refused to return to Adam, that a hundred of her own
53
children should die every day.
This legend was disseminated more widely among Jewish read-
ers and students by the great cabalistic masterpiece, the Zohar;
and the use of amulets to protect babies against Lilith became a
regular feature of Jewish life. It is remarkable that a tale origi-
nating in so obscure a source should have become so well known
to Christians. Johannes Buxtorf, a Christian Hebraist of the 17th
century, is have introduced the story to the European
said to
54
public. Goethe used it in Faust; Browning, in a dramatic lyric,
Adam, Lilith, and Eve. Itbe expected that when John

was to
Erskine came to disclose the private life of Adam and Eve, Lilith
should play a great role in the primordial domestic drama. Fur-

ther literary allusions could readily be supplied. But for the his-
tory of Judaism, the Lilith story is of little importance. It is
simply an illustration of that old belief in demons which survived

through the centuries and was accorded a certain tolerance with-
out being allowed to undermine the absoluteness of Jewish mono-
theism.
summing up. In reviewing the literature that lies between the

close of the Talmud and the later Middle Ages, one is struck by
the extent to which the talmudic resistance to dualism is main-
tained. The silence regarding fallen angels is broken; but a myth
which dealt with the destiny of the world and mankind has now
shrunk to a mere folk tale. The myriads of fallen angels are re-
duced to two rather commonplace malefactors. And the sinful-
ness of Shemhazai and Azzael is connected only in a small degree
with the existence of sin and evil among mankind.
Satan occasionally takes on a darker and more sinister character
than the talmudic rabbis ascribed to him; but for the most part
he retains his traditional role of tempter and accuser under God's
direction. Only in the Chapters of R. Eliezer does he appear
as a great angel who rebelled against God and encompassed
the fall of man. This work (which also gives more weight to the
myth of the angels who married mortal women) was indeed to
have exceptional influence, but the fullness of this influence came
about only with the efflorescence of the Cabala.
There is a marked tendency in this period to fuse the concept
wicked angel-princes of the Gentiles.
of the Devil with that of the
This tendency indicates how far removed the medieval aggadists
were from the circumstances out of which these originally sepa-
rate conceptions emerged. Enoch, neglected and disparaged by
the rabbis, becomes a cosmic figure in certain mystical circles;
but he does not attain any great stature in medieval aggada.
Armilus, the Jewish version of the Antichrist, appears repeatedly
in late apocalypses and a few other writings; but he does not
appear to have bulked large in the consciousness of the Jewish
people.
The medieval sources speak of demons, of punitive and de-
structive angels, of the functionaries of hell. These beings, how-

ever, are all creatures and agents of God, not rebels against
Him. The successors of the talmudic teachers maintained without
essential change the monistic position of their forebears. But they
were less stringent about excluding myths, the dualistic charac-
ter of which had been obscured with the passing of centuries.
Fallen Angels
part six
Medieval Judaism
CHAPTER TWENTY
The Rationalists
long journey on dim and misty paths, we

fter a
emerge into clear daylight. The last two chap-
with writings that occupy a marginal
ters dealt
place within Judaism; their origin is obscure; their influence, with
a few exceptions, was limited. From them we now turn to famous
works by illustrious men of Israel.
Some explanation and even apology must be given for the title
of this chapter.
During the Middle Ages, Jewish writers began to adopt new
methods. While heterogeneous and anonymous compilations-
somewhat like the Talmud and Midrashim— continued to appear,
we find an increasing number of systematic works on specific
topics by individual authors. Henceforth we need not survey an
entire literature to see if it contains something for our purpose.
... 147
We can disregard a vast body of secular Hebrew writings—poetry

and prose, scientific, grammatical and literary treatises. Nor need
we examine the legal codes, commentaries and responsa.
Of non-legal religious writings, we set aside a large group-
works on mysticism— for treatment in future chapters. Here we
shall examine literature in which cabalistic elements are slight or
altogether absent.
These "rationalistic" works fall into two general classes. There
was a distinguished group of Jewish thinkers during the Middle
Ages who are properly called rationalists. They affirmed (more
or less absolutely) the supremacy of reason, which they identified
rather closely with the logical methods and the philosophic out-
look of their age. They were convinced also that Judaism teaches
nothing repugnant to reason; and hence they were under the ne-
cessity of reinterpreting such biblical and talmudic passages as,
taken literally, contradict the laws of science or the dicta of phi-
losophy. In this group are numbered some of the greatest names
in Jewish history— R. Saadia Gaon and R. Moses ben Maimon.
But there is another group of sages whom we venture to in-
clude among the rationalists. They are the scholars who adhered
unphilosophically but very accurately to the teachings of the
Bible and of tradition. The outstanding representative of this
trend is Rashi, the great commentator on the Bible and Talmud.
He and his confreres were insensitive to the problems that trou-
bled the philosophers. Had they been told that the plain sense
of the Bible contradicts the findings of logic, they would have
concluded simply that the logicians were mistaken. But they
studied the authoritative texts with keen analytical intelligence;
and they often understood the classic sources better than the
philosophic exegetes, who were sometimes driven to distort Jew-
ish doctrines in order to harmonize them with the teachings of
Aristotle.
Our classification is not absolute. Even such intellectualists as
Saadia and Maimonides had their mystical moments; and all the
rationalistswere compelled at one point or another to bow before
biblical and traditional authority. Abraham ibn Ezra, a brilliant
intellect with moments of cynicism, was also a dabbler in the
occult. Chasdai Crescas used the double-edged blade of philo-
sophic criticism to attack philosophy and to vindicate the claims
of orthodox literalism. Moses ben Nahman was a cabalist; his
The Rationalists • • 149
Torah-commentary is dotted with cryptic allusions. But the domi-

nant spirit of the work is traditionalist; it contains many para-
graphs of rational theology, and we shall consider it in this
chapter.
There is another reason why we can consider the philosophers
and the traditionalists together. However these two groups may
have differed on many questions, they were substantially agreed
in rejecting the belief in fallen and rebel angels. The orthodox
traditionalists did so because they followed the guidance of the
Talmud. The philosophers did not diverge from talmudic doc-
trine without strong reason: in the present instance their own
philosophic outlook coincided with the traditional view.
For when the philosophers discussed the problem of evil, it
was in an abstract, reflective fashion. To many of these thinkers,
notably Maimonides, evil is not a positive force but merely the y
absence of good, as darkness is the absence of light. Since evil is
unreal, God— the positive Force in the universe— is not responsible

for it. Other thinkers ascribe a greater measure of reality to what
we call evil and admit that it comes from God; but they hold that
this evil is not absolute. It has some purpose in God's universal
providence. Moreover, divine reward and punishment in the next
world will restore the balance that to us appears disturbed. 1
To such thinkers, a mythological explanation of evil is not to
be thought of;even to refute such a view is unnecessary. Only
Hillel of Verona, in the thirteenth century, found it desirable to
discuss the belief in fallen angels, in answer to Christian theo-
logians.
The other philosophers touch on the matter only when discuss-
ing biblical or rabbinic passages that seem to refer to rebel
angels or to the Devil. Our task, therefore, is to gather the com-
ments on a few biblical sections we have repeatedly considered.
the "sons of god." The rabbinic sources, notably the Targum,

state that the "sons of God" who married the daughters of men
were merely human beings of exalted social station. Some me-
dieval Jewish exegetes depart from this slightly and hold that
the "sons of God" were outstanding for physical or mental en-
dowment and not merely for noble rank. But all the standard
biblical commentators give some human explanation as the pri-
mary meaning of the phrase. The list is impressive: Saadia, Rashi,
150 • • •
Fallen Angels
Lekah Tob, Midrash Aggada, Joseph Bekor Shor, Ibn Ezra,

Maimonides, David Kimhi, Nahmanides, Hizkuni, Bahya b.
Asher, Gersonides and Abrabanel. 2 The Karaite scholars, too,
though they rejected rabbinic tradition, adopted this interpreta-
tion of Genesis 6. 3
Rashi adds the alternative explanation: "The sons of God are
the sons of the heavenly princes (sarim) who perform the mis-
sions of God— for these also had mixed with (humanity)." Else-
where he seems to prefer this view of the matter, for which in-
deed he had precedent few talmudic allusions and in the
in a
writings of his master, R. Moses haDarshan. 4 And R. Moses b.
Nahman (Nahmanides), the cabalist, avows openly his prefer-
ence for the Midrash given by R. Eliezer the Great in his Chap-
ters and mentioned also in the Gemara. "To expound the secret
,,
of the matter, he adds, "would be too lengthy." These remarks,
however, are appended to a rationalistic exposition of the pas-
sage which we shall examine in a moment.
But the other commentators eschew the mythological interpre-
tation. Kimhi says the legend of Azza and Azzael is far fetched.
Abrabanel will not accept it, even though it fits aptly the lan-
guage of Genesis 6.2, and has apparent warrant in traditional
sources. 5 The trouble is that the story cannot be reconciled with
the entire context. How could the sin of angels occasion the moral
decline and punishment of humankind? Nor is it believable that
a spiritual being should become so earthy as to have relations
with mortal women. The aggadot about the fallen angels, says
Abrabanel, must refer to some secret doctrine; we should not
take them literally, as do the Gentiles.
But this scholar, like a number of his predecessors, wishes to
find some more adequate reason for the phrase "sons of God."
Ibn Ezra had, indeed, offered four explanations of the term:
1) The traditional view that they were sons of the nobles. 2)
They were men of holy character (cf. Deut. 14.1). 3) The sons of
God were Sethites; the daughters of men were Cainites. This
had gradually become known
originally Christian interpretation
among Jews. 4 ) Ibn Ezra's own view is that the men in question
possessed the divine power that comes with astrological knowl-
edge. Thus they could choose women of nativity similar to their
own and beget offspring of unusual size and strength.
Nahmanides puts it this way: Adam and Eve were properly
The Rationalists • • • 151
called children of God, since they had no earthly parents. Their

immediate offspring, who must have shared their physical perfec-
tion, were called by the same name. But when men began to
worship idols (according to tradition, in the days of Enosh), a
decline set in. The survivors of the older generation chose the
more robust women for their wives; but they also consorted im-
morally with feebler mates. The sin became known when these
puny women bore unusually large children. The latter were
mighty men in comparison with average men, but fell below
(nefilim) the stature of their fathers. This physical decline con-
tinued till the Flood.
This view seems to have been suggested by Genesis 6.3, in
which God mentions the frailty of man and one hundred and
sets
twenty years as the limit of his life. The commentators inferred
that the mixture of racial stocks led to physical degeneration.
The Levi ben Gerson adopted this idea; and
ultra-rationalist
Abrabanel elaborated two versions of it. The second is substan-
tially that of Nahmanides. The first, however, is concerned more
with moral heredity. The Sethites yielded to lust and married

women of Cainite stock, who were ethically inferior; but men
should only choose wives whose background is good and who
therefore give promise of bearing righteous children. In punish-
ment, God gradually reduced their life span to one hundred and
twenty years. These Sethites supposed that their children would
inherit all their good qualities, as if the male principle— the form
—were alone hereditary. But the children inherited also the fe-
male—material—factor, and so "fell below" their fathers.
A new type of Jewish literature in this period is the philo-

sophic sermon. A number of Jewish preachers utilized the alle-
gorical method in order to find abstract metaphysical truths in
the pages of the Torah. Jacob Anatoli is the first of these whose
writings have been preserved; and he applies his method in con-
siderable detail and with marked ingenuity to the story of the
"sons of God." He sees in this passage an account of the imposi-
tion of forms upon matter. The forms are the sons of God; the
daughters of man are the two orders of material being, sensible
and insensible; they are called daughters of man since the crea-
tion of the material universe has as its goal the existence of the
human race. But though the production of man is the end of the
creative process, man is none the less composite, and therefore

mortal (Gen. 6.3). The goal of creation is not, however, the hu-
man race as such, but the best kind of human individuals. The
importance of the individual is suggested by the reference to
Nefilim.These are of two kinds: Gibborim, mighty men— those,
namely, who achieve intellectual and moral greatness by the
practice of self-control ("Who is a hero? He who conquers his
passions") and the Anshe Shem, men of renown— those who are
by nature wise and good.
Anatoli admits, with disarming frankness, his satisfaction with
this original interpretation which is one of the arcana of the
Torah. He knows that many scholars will consider it sheer fan-
tasy, and he is quite ready for their abuse. For, says he, "the
opinions of the commentators on this passage are untenable;
and have based myself on statements of our sainted rabbis, who
I
declared that the 'sons of God' mentioned in this passage are

angels who fell from heaven." 6 This is indeed a strange situation:
an ultra-rationalist adopts the old myth, but uses it to find Aris-
totelian philosophy in the Bible!
Something similar by Isaac Arama, the most famous
is offered
of the philosophic preachers. He adopts the view that the "sons of
God" were Sethites who married the daughters of Cain. But he
has already explained that Cain, Abel and Seth ( though he does
not question their historic reality) are symbols of the three ele-
ments in the human soul— the sensual, the practical intellect, and
the speculative intellect. Our episode describes allegorically the
7
debauching of man's higher nature by lust.
enoch. From the preceding it is clear that the medieval authori-

ties, though they followed the talmudic tradition and generally
avoided mythological interpretations, were no longer keenly

aware of the old controversies and their meaning. In the same
way, the association of Enoch with the fallen angels had dis-
appeared from their minds. Rashi alone, following the old
Midrash, repeats the derogatory opinion that God took Enoch
from earth before his unstable virtue collapsed. This opinion is
also quoted in the Midrash Aggada, but only after this lauda-
tory statement: Jared was so called because in his days the angels
descended and taught men the service of God. Enoch walked
with the angels in Eden for three hundred years and learned
many sciences from them, including astronomy

and the computa-
tion of the calendar. At length, God rewarded him for his
righteousness by translating him to heaven; and he became Meta-
tron. "And there is a controversy between R. Akiba and his
colleagues on this point." 8
This, of course, is the view of Enoch given in mystical tradi-
tion. Other medieval scholars, however, join in the praise of
Enoch; and it seems that they were influenced not so much by
these mystical trends as by the plain sense of Scripture. For
clearly the words "Enoch walked with God, and was not— for
God took him" seem to suggest that Enoch was a man of lofty
qualities, not the reverse.
Thus, Ibn Ezra says that "God took him" means that Enoch
died. But, he adds, there is a hidden meaning, implied also in
Ps. 49.16 and 73.24, which only the wise will comprehend. In his
commentary on these Psalm-passages, however, his mood is less
reticent. To be taken by God means that the human soul is united
with the angelic spirit-forces, thereby attaining eternal bliss.
Kimhi, a disciple of the rationalist Maimonides, one of is
Enoch's admirers. Enoch, he explains, raised himself to so high

a spiritual level that God removed him from earthly life in the
middle of his days, without sickness or suffering. Some of our
sages held that God brought Enoch and Elijah alive into Para-
9
dise.
Gersonides states that at first Enoch did not walk with God;
later, he came to the recognition of his Creator through the study
of nature and devoted himself to the quest of perfection. At
length he attained so high a level that he was placed in Paradise.
Abrabanel quotes the unfavorable opinion of Enoch found in
the Midrash; he is puzzled by it, for the biblical text hardly
accords with the view of the rabbis. His own explanation is as
follows: Originally Enoch was lustful, as shown by the very early
age (for an antediluvian) which he begot his first born, Me-
at
thuselah. Thereafter he "walked with God," that is to say, he
sought spiritual perfection. But he was still tormented by the
flesh ("and begot sons and daughters"); God therefore released
him from the burden of bodily desire and admitted him at once
to heavenly bliss.
Thus the rationalists and traditionalists are not afraid to glorify

Enoch; while Nahmanides the Cabalist does not even comment

on this episode.
azazel. We have noted

one early rabbinic passage which regards
the Azazel-goat as a propitiatory sacrifice to Satan.^ Usually,
however, the talmudic authorities explained Azazel as the name
of a place to which the scapegoat was sent. This view is main-
tained by Saadia (as cited by Ibn Ezra), Rashi and Lekah Tob.
Samuel ibn Hofni (also quoted by Ibn Ezra) states that even
the Azazel goat is offered to God. 11 But, says Ibn Ezra, this state-
ment is superfluous: the scapegoat is not a sacrifice, for it is not
slaughtered. And then he adds these cryptic words: "If you can
discern the mystery that follows the word Azazel, you will know
its mystery and the mystery of its name; for it has analogies in
Scripture. And I will reveal part of the mystery to you by hint:

you will know it when you reach thirty-three!"
A variety of explanations have been given for this remark by
12
the supercommentators. Few of these explanations attempt to
account for Ibn Ezra's extreme reticence. Of the "arcana" which
are mentioned elsewhere in his commentary, some deal with evi-
dences of post-Mosaic material in the Pentateuch— where the
reason for his discretion is obvious— and some concern the con-
tact of the soul with divine influences, and hence are too sacred
for open speech. Neither consideration seems to apply here.
But we must include one explanation of his riddle, not because
it is necessarily the correct one, but because it comes from the
great R. Moses b. Nahman. With delightful irony, Nahmanides,

the cautious conservative, changes places with the radical Ibn
Ezra whose audacities he has so often criticized. "Lo," says he,
"Rabbi Abraham is 'faithful of spirit, concealing a matter' (Prov.
11.13), but I, the gossip, shall reveal his secret since our rabbis
have already revealed it in many places." Such are a midrashic
identification of the goat (sair) with Esau, the hairy man (ish
sair), and the plain statement in Pirke d'R. Eliezer that the
scapegoat intended to propitiate Samael. 13 Nahmanides then
is
adds by way of explanation: "The worshippers of other gods,

that is, of angelic beings, offer them sacrifices, which is strictly
forbidden by our Torah. God has commanded us, however, to

send a goat on Yom Kippur to the ruler (sar) whose realm is
in the places of desolation. From the emanation of his power
)
come destruction and ruin; he ascends to the stars of the sword,

of blood, of wars, quarrels, wounds, blows, disintegration and
destruction. He is associated with the planet Mars. His portion
among the peoples is Esau, a people who by the sword; and
live
his portion among the animals is the goat. The demons (shedim)
are part of his realm and are called in the Bible seirim; he and
his people are named Seir. The scapegoat is not (heaven for-
fend!) an offering from us to him, but an act of obedience to
God. one entertains a king at dinner, and the king asks his host
If
to give a portion to one of the royal servants, the host obeys.
He honors the king, not the servant, by his action. Of course,
the king makes the request so that all his servants may praise
and not dispraise the host. To avoid even the appearance that we
ourselves give an offering to Azazel, the priest does not himself
select or dedicate the scapegoat; thisdecided by lot, leaving the
is
matter altogether to God. For the same reason we do not slaugh-

ter the scapegoat." From careful scrutiny of the language of the
Targum, Nahmanides concludes that one goat is for the name of
the Lord, but not for the Lord (that is, it is sacrificed in God's
honor, but God does not really consume it), while the second is
for Azazel, but not for the name ( that is, the honor and worship
of Azazel. Ibn Ezra's cryptic mention of "thirty-three" refers to
Leviticus 17.7, the thirty-third verse after the mention of Azazel,
which forbids the practice of sacrificing to seirim. Nahmanides
declares further that the existence of disembodied spirits may be
known on hand by necromancy (which strangely, he
the one
seems to sanction ) and by the mystic interpretation of the Torah.
He closes his comment with a blast against the Hellenists who
follow Aristotle in denying the existence of anything inaccessible
to sense, who assert that whatever their small minds fail to com-
prehend is not true! *
Here, indeed, we have left the firm ground of rationalism for
Cabala; but the passage belongs in this chapter because Nah-
manides is trying to keep his foothold in tradition if not in
logic, while at the same time he yields to his mystical impulses.
We him troubled by the conflict between his conviction that
see
the demonic world is real and his fear of compromising his
monotheism. Not all the Cabalists were so careful.
Nevertheless, none of the other classical commentators would
go so far in recognizing a Realm of Evil. Gersonides and Abra-
banel explain the entire scapegoat ceremony in terms of allegory

and symbol.
job. The ultra-rationalism of Saadia is fully evidenced in his inter-

pretation of the Job stoiy. He explains that the Satan was a hu-
man being who happened he had considerable
to dislike Job;
prestige in a religious fellowship whose members were called
"sons of God." This personal enemy of Job was permitted by
God to harm him, in order to test Job's righteousness; the early
trials were due to his plottings. The sickness which Job later suf-
fered came, however, from God alone; it is to Him that the
words "He smote" (Job 2.7) must refer. 14 This interpretation is
so obviously forced that none of the other commentators adopted
it. Ibn Ezra cites the opinion of Saadia only to refute it. In stat-
ing that the angels are never subject to jealousy and strife, the
Gaon overlooked several biblical passages, notably the conflict
between angels mentioned in the Book of Daniel. No volume,
says Ibn Ezra, can contain all the profound mysteries on this
subject; but he who knows about astral influences will compre-
hend the essence of Satan. In any case he is an angel; but when
Scripture speaks of Satan enticing God to harm Job (2.3), we
must take the language figuratively.
Maimonides devotes two chapters of the Guide to a brilliant
summary and exposition of the Book of Job. One of the talmudic
rabbis has already declared that Job was not an historical char-
acter, and that the book is a parable. Though other teachers
disputed this view, we may be sure, Maimuni insists, that the
book was written not to record events, but to teach profound
truths. The scene in heaven cannot be taken literally. The adver-
sary is inferior to the "sons of God." Their relation to God is
more permanent and constant. His activity is limited to earth, and

he has no power over the soul (Job 1.7; 2.6). He is identified
by our sages with the evil inclination and the angel of death. 15
This talmudic statement is fundamental to Maimuni's exposi-
tion. Satan is the personification of the evil and sinfulness in-
herent in matter and morality. Since evil is essentially negative,
it isnot caused by the Creator. Job and his friends supposed that
his sufferings came from God; but we know from the opening
chapters that they really were due to "Satan." (In his systematic
discussion of the problem of evil, Maimuni insists on its essen-
tiallyunreal and privative character. Man's sufferings are due to

the accidents inherent in matter, to the wickedness of others and
chiefly to his own foolish self-indulgence.) 16
Job ultimately learns that true felicity is not to be found in
earthly things, but in knowledge of God. Divine providence can-
not be judged by the human mind.
Maimuni's interpretation, says R. Levi b. Gerson, is the only
useful treatment of the subject by earlier writers. Most of the
commentators have been content to try to explain the difficult
language of the book. And even in this they have been far from
successful, for the single passages can be understood correctly
only if we grasp the content of the work as a whole. These re-
marks are found in the preface to Gersonides' own commentary,
in which he follows the same general method as Maimonides.
The scene in heaven is figurative; Satan an allegorical symbol.
So far the rationalists. The more orthodox commentators, Rashi
and R. Samuel b. Masnuth, stick closer to the Talmud. Satan is a
member of the heavenly economy; the assemblage of the "sons of
God" was the assize of Rosh haShanah, at which Satan regularly
plays the role of accuser. His motives were of the best; he acted
only as God's servant and agent.
The traditionalists, in short, preserve Satan's essential respect-
ability. The more extreme rationalists (except Saadia) reduce
him to a figure of speech. Only the Cabalists, with some hesita-
tion, begin to ascribe a genuinely diabolic character to Satan.
This trend may be seen in the Kad haKemah of Bahya b. Asher.
Bahya was a follower of Nahmanides, both in his devotion to the
Cabala and in his equal devotion to rabbinic learning. The Kad
haKemah ("Jar of Meal") is a collection of homilies, containing
little or no mystical material and drawn from talmudic
chiefly
and midrashic sources. The section dealing with Providence
(Hashgahah) contains an analysis of the Book of Job, in which
Bahya avowedly follows Nahmanides. He cites the opinion of
Saadia that Satan was a man; and then continues: "The opinion
of R. Moses b. Nahman and of most commentators is that this
Satan is an angel, and so are the 'sons of God.' That they should
have been envious of Job's prosperity and donned the lusts of
the body in places of drink and amusement is not surprising; for
we find an explicit statement to this effect in Genesis 6.2. And
it is known that these angels were not men; yet they clothed
themselves with bodily passions and descended from their holy

station in heaven. So in the case of Job: the sons of God and
Satan were angels drowning in the sea of physical desire, and
they donned the traits of man, such as jealousy, hatred, lust and
anger. And Nahmanides has written: It is known in our tradition
that he an angel created to oppose and to harm
(Satan) is
17
man." we have followed these moderate mystics to a
Again
position far more extreme than even the talmudists—much less
the philosophers— would accept. The rest of this development
belongs in a different chapter.
mxLEL ben samuel and the christians. It remains to consider

a short essay by the thirteenth-century philosopher Hillel of
Verona, which forms an appendix to his chief work, The Rewards
18
of the Soul. In it he directly attacks the belief in fallen angels,
or rather in the fall of Satan. This argument is part of his polemic
against Christianity; apparently the belief in rebel angels found
little credence among the Jews with whom Hillel associated.
Hillel agrees that the notion originated in Israel, through mis-
takes in interpreting such passages as Genesis 6 and Isaiah 14.12. v
It is to be found in "a few homiletical works." The Gentiles bor-
rowed the concept and made it one of the pillars of their doctrine.
They declare that the angels sought to be the lords of the world,
or sought the pleasures of lust, or were guilty of such sins as
hatred or jealousy, or criticized God's conduct of the world. They
were therefore dispersed through earth and air; they are the
demons and devils who stir up war and all manner of evil. They
fill hell; but some can ascend close to the angelic level, and thus
they have a knowledge of the future.

Before we reproduce Hillel's criticism of this doctrine, it should
be noted that he form much closer to that of the
states it in a
Christian than of the Jewish sources. Moreover, he is surprisingly
bold when he refers lightly to the "few homiletical works" in
which Jews have embodied the doctrine. One of these works was
the Pirke d'R. Eliezer, which in that age was unanimously be-
lieved to emanate from the great Tanna, Eliezer b. Hyrkanos.
Even Maimonides regards it as authoritative and, citing some
of its more grossly mythological statements, declares that they
must be interpreted allegorically. 19 Hillel, however, does jwt
trouble himself with the explanation of difficulties in Jewish liter-
ature; instead he adduces philosophic reasoning to prove that

sinful angels are an impossibility.
The argument is that the angelic substance is an emanation
from God. God being a simple Substance containing no contra-
dictions, nothing that emanates from Him can contain contradic-
tory qualities— as, for instance, that the angels should be both
good and sinful. We speak of various angelic degrees; but this
refers only to differences of function. Since angels are all imma-
terial, they are alike in essence. It does not matter for our argu-
ment whether the angels emanate directly from God, or whether

there are intermediaries between God and the angels. At any
rate there must be some intermediary produced directly by God,
who must be a simple substance devoid of contraries; and no
matter how many stages supervene, this could only produce sim-
ple substances without contraries.
It is argued system of emanations, deficiency and
that, in a
imperfection increase with increasing distance from the source.
But this only applies when an emanated quality mingles with
some material or quasi-material substance as light mingles with
darkness; and indeed it applies only to bodies in space and time.
But the angels are themselves the emanation, and they are en-
tirely immaterial. Yet even if we should admit this line of reason-
ing, and say that some angels are inferior in goodness to others,
this would not prove that any are positively wicked. One king
may be less rich or powerful than another, but he is just as royal.
The capacity to do evil is an accident that befalls the soul be-
cause it is joined to a physical body. This cannot be predicated
of angels, whose substance is one and simple, and therefore
impervious to sin.
This, says Hillel, was the argument that I presented to a group

of Gentile scholars. One of them answered as follows: Good and
evil exist in various degrees: good, better, best, and the reverse.
Angels are to some degree composite, since they have both will
and intellect; therefore there can be various degrees of perfec-
tion among them. As it is possible that angels should choose a
higher or lower degree of good, it is not impossible that some
should even choose evil. The combination of will and intellect
in the angels is illustrated by the behavior of the guardian angels
of the nations, as described in the Book of Daniel.
But the Jewish savant was not impressed. You have dived into
deep waters—he tells his opponent in talmudic language— and
come up with a potsherd. Variability in the reception of moral
influences is possible only for beings located in time and space,
in short, for corporeal beings. Good and evil, however, can be
ascribed only to the "practical soul," which angels do not possess.
The "contemplative soul" may attain higher and lower degrees
in the apprehension of truth— but not of goodness or evil.
Hillel then enters upon an analysis (the details of which are
not all clear) to prove that angels do not have a will separate
from their intelligence. Their existence and their intellect are but
two names for the identical essence. The Christian notion that
the lower angels were led to sin because of their proximity to
earth is not as plausible as it seems. For they are closer to the
heavenly spheres than to the sublunar world, and so would be
more subject to spiritual than to material influences.
The argument from the Book of Daniel is dismissed by our
philosopher with the statement that the passages in question can-
not be taken in anthropomorphic terms. The angelic influ-
literal
ences, ordained of God from

Creation and working through the
heavenly bodies, control climate and natural forces in the various
quarters of the earth. Thus our sages say: Every blade of grass
has an angel appointed over it to make it grow. 20 But we must
not ascribe human passions to these angelic rulers of the physical
universe. How this rarefied theory is to be accommodated to the
plain text of Daniel, R. Hillel does not attempt to show.
But he refers in closing to the Christian theory that man was
created to supply the deficiency left in heaven by the fall of the
21
angels. This view, he says jocosely, leads to the wildest conse-
quences. If human souls attain to angelic status, it will follow
that at the resurrection angels will have to put on phvsical bodies.
Moreover, if become angels in heaven,
the souls of the righteous
it isbut logical to suppose that the souls of the wicked will be-
come demons in hell. But then, in view of the prevailiTig wicked-
ness, the devils would multiply more rapidly than the angels.
"See, then, how we profit by this doctrine— the Lord save us
from itl"
Yet while this enlightened Jewish thinker was causticallv at-

tacking the mythological doctrines of another religion, similar
myths were taking stronger hold than ever before upon his own
coreligionists. Hillel was one of the last of the philosophers in an
age when the influence of the Cabala was rapidly advancing.
And here begins a new and important chapter in our inquiry.
Fallen Angels
PART SEVEN
Jewish Mysticism
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
The German Cabala
ystic piety, the sense of immediate communion

with the divine, is strongly evidenced in many
pages of the Bible. In post-biblical times, mysti-
cal movements were not infrequent. Groups of aspiring individuals
perfected and transmitted techniques for entering the "Paradise"
of spiritual ecstasy. Side by side with these practices there devel-
oped also a mystical theology, in which insights often profound
were cloaked, sometimes grotesquely, in myth and symbol. We
have found the belief in rebel angels chiefly in literature of this sort,
emanating from conventicles of intense but slightly heterodox
pietists.
So far as we know, Jewish mysticism flourished for many cen-

turies only in the East. The secret lore was first brought to Italy
in the ninth century, where it circulated among a very small
group. About the year twelve hundred it appeared in the Rhine-
land, and the family of Rabbi Judah the Pious became its fervid
devotees. Although these contemplatives were chary about dis-
• • • 163
seminating their doctrine, their "public" was keenly aware that

something unusual was going on. Legends about the adepts
spread rapidly; and a large mass of magical and superstitious
lore, bearing only a slight relation to true mysticism, was soon
developed and compiled. Meantime, another center of esoteric
study emerged in southern France and northern Spain. Here,
apparently for the first time, thename of Cabala, was
tradition,
given to the mystic doctrine. Some of the Spanish had
Cabalists
studied philosophy; consequently their teaching assumed a more
abstract and intellectual form. The interest in Cabala was greatly
enhanced by the terrible persecutions which burst upon the Jews
of Spain in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, culminating in
the expulsion of 1492. So desperately did the people need spir-
itual fortification and solace that the old restrictions against re-
vealing the mystic secrets could no longer be fully maintained.
The appearance meantime of the Zohar, the "Book of Splen-
dor" ( about 1280 ) was one of the decisive events of Jewish his-
,
tory. This bulky compendium of cabalistic lore acquired an

influence almost as great as that of the Bible and the Talmud.
Thenceforth, until the dawn of the modern era, all Jewish life
was suffused with the cabalistic spirit. Even those whose chief
interest was in Rabbinics, and the occasional students of phi-
losophy, were learned in mystic lore.
This part of our investigation is peculiarly difficult; and our
presentation is incomplete and tentative. The Cabala never en-
tirely lost its secret character. Though several thousand cabalistic
works have been printed, a far larger number remain in manu-
script. Many of the mystical writers deliberately adopted a cryp-
tic style, so that the uninitiate should not understand. Again,
many inadequacy of ordinary discursive
Cabalists, feeling the
language to convey their inner experience, had recourse to sym-
bolisms both obscure and strange. Finally, there are few works
of reference, indices and compendia to assist the student; and the
scientific investigation of the subject is still in its beginnings.
Now it is precisely in this area that dualistic trendsand mytho-
logical fantasy had their most extreme development within
Judaism.
We start with the mystics of the German school. The initiates

of the group were few, their doctrines rather closely guarded.
The German Cabala • •
165
The specifically mystic writings of R. Judah the Pious survive

only in fragments; those of R. Eleazar Rokeach (of Worms), who
most fully expounded the speculative teachings of the school,
remain largely in manuscript. But these men were notable, not
chiefly as mystical philosophers, but as devout pietists. Their
moral austerity and devotional zeal greatly influenced the entire
world in which they lived. Their most notable production, Sefer
Hasidim (the Book of the Pious), is not technically a mystical
work. It is a voluminous compilation for general use, containing
ethical exhortations, tales of saints and sinners, ritual prescrip-
tions and rather amateurish but earnest discussions of theology
and theodicy— all gathered together with only the slightest sys-
tem. More than any other Jewish classic, the Book of the Pious
reflects the popular faith; or more correctly, the Hasidim had
their own esoteric doctrines, but they held them in addition to the
popular faith, which they accepted uncritically even to its foibles
and superstitions. 1
And here we come to a very striking fact. There is a marked
relationship between this German Cabala and the mystical move-
ments in contemporary German Christendom. Non-Jewish in-
fluence, for example, has strongly colored the notion of penance
in the Jewish writings. Furthermore, the Book of the Pious bor-
rows many a tale and from German folklore. But
superstition
Christian theology as such seems to have had little effect upon
those who compiled this work. And this applies especially to our
theme. Fallen angels are not mentioned at all. No hint of a
wicked Devil, as conceived by the Church and as imagined with
utmost terror in medieval Germany, appears. Sefer Hasidim on
this point upholds the simple, naive, but essentially rational posi-
tion of the Talmud.
Satan is mentioned infrequently, and pictured as a perfectly
respectable prosecutor. 2 He is identified with the Attribute of
Justice. When God
purposes to confer great blessings on a man,
Satan urges that this person be subjected to trials to prove him-
self worthy of the projected benefits. With God's permission,
Satan then tempts the man to sin— this is depicted realistically—
but, if he resists the temptation, Satan approves his reward. 3
In contrast to the meager treatment of Satan is the extensive
material on demons. Here the Sefer Hasidim seems to draw less
upon the Talmud than upon the living superstitions of the Ger-
man environment. There much about ghosts, too— a topic which

is
the Talmud seldom mentions. 4 If two men make a compact that

the first communicate with the survivor, the revenant
to die shall
may be distinguished from a demon by administering an oath.
Moreover, a dead person cannot pronounce the holy name Yah.
If one has a bad dream, or sees a spirit or demon, he will avoid
injury by not discussing the matter. If a demon appears in the
guise of one dead, you may drive it away by spitting and saying,
"Unclean, unclean, begone!" Other protective measures are the
"fig" gesture and to touch coals before speaking. 5 It is permissible
to bribe a demon (or for that matter, a human sorcerer) not to
do one injury. 6
A parent should not force his child to go out
alone at night, if he is afraid of demons. 7 And— characteristically!
—one who copies a sacred text should repeat it aloud, for then the
demons will hear and bless him. 8 As in the Talmud, then, they
are not opponents of God, but His creatures. They are dangerous,
but not absolutely evil.
When a new settlement is established in a forest, the demons

who dwell there may resent the intrusion and send illness upon
the newcomers. The Sefer Hasidim provides a ritual, partly re-
ligious, partly magical, to expel demons from such a locality. 9
But such procedures do not always succeed. The inhabitants of a
certain village in Hungary were dying off, despite repeated pub-
He fasts. One day a villager encountered a host of demons; and
their chief gave him a message to the Jews. They must move
away, for their dwellings were built on the dancing place of the
demons. This story is told—be it noted— to illustrate that some of
God's decrees are inexorable and cannot be changed through
human merit. 10 Demons are a sort of "natural force" like earth-
quake or storm. We may not understand why God utilizes them,
yet He and no one else is their Master.
But the authors of Sefer Hasidim make one thing plain: a Jew
has no business dealing with the evil spirits. All conjuring,
whether of angels or demons, is sharply condemned. If a Jew be-
comes an apostate without discernible worldly motives, you may
be sure that he or his ancestors had dabbled in the magic arts;
and in punishment, God has let him go astray altogether. Divina-
tion through the agency of demons may be permissible for Gen-
tiles; but it is not for Jews, who have the resource of prophetic
revelation. 11
The German Cabala • • • 167
A woman had hidden some money and, even on her deathbed,

refused to tell her son where she had concealed it. After her
death, the son engaged a witch to locate the treasure. The witch
trapped a demon and plunged a dagger into his heart, which did
not kill the demon, but inflicted unbearable pain, for he could
not remove the weapon. The demon and his son then summoned
the spirit of the dead woman and pleaded with her to reveal
the secret, that he might be released from suffering. At first the
woman objected: When I was alive, you ruled the soil on which
I sojourned; now that I am dead, you have no authority over me.
At length she consented to disclose the hiding place of the money.

But she warned her son that horrible retribution would come
upon him for exploiting occult powers. 12 The Hasidim, in short,
did not question the efficacy of these supernatural procedures;
but held them sinful.
It is thus clear that the German Cabala, despite a marked
ascetic trend, is not dualistic in any philosophic or mythological
sense. 13 The common notion that it is "practical Cabala," con-
cerned only with spells and incantations, is altogether unfair.
The masters of German Cabala were genuine mystics, and their
chief written document strongly condemns magical practices.
Nevertheless the predilection for such activity could not be re-
strained, and soon found literary expression. The Book of the
Angel Raziel (which probably includes some material from R.
Eleazar of Worms ) deals with amulets, incantations and the like.
,
All such devices, which aim at controlling the physical environ-

ment through supernatural forces, are in essence the very oppo-
site of mysticism, which seeks spiritual benefits only. Yet magic
and mysticism are often intertwined, and it is easy to understand

why. Rationalism, with its cold and critical logic, is the natural
foe of superstition. But mysticism tends (not invariably, but
often) to repress the critical faculty and strengthen the will to
believe. A strange doctrine, which the rationalist would pitilessly
dissect, may be accepted without challenge by the mystic; in his
humble faith, he will not pass judgment on a matter that may
contain deep mysteries as yet unrevealed to him. Thus mysticism
may absorb superstitious elements to which it has no affinity,
which indeed are in essence the denial of mysticism. In this sense
it is true that German Cabala became at length more theurgic
than mystical.
There is, however, a basic difference between the magic of

medieval Jewry and that of contemporary Christians. Dr. Joshua
Trachtenberg, whose fascinating Jewish Magic and Superstition
draws largely on Raziel and similar sources, points out that the
Jews practiced white magic, that is, they used angelic and divine
names to attain material benefits. This may have been an illegiti-
mate use of spiritual forces, but the forces themselves were good.
Gentile sorcerers, however, usually practiced the black art, con-
sciously allying themselves with the Devil and his hosts against
God and the Church. 14
In the German Cabala, for all its and its
luxuriant superstition
speculative inexpertness, the demons remained no more than
dangerous powers, like wild beasts, created by God and serving
His purposes. But the Spanish Cabala, far more profound on the
philosophic side, produced a dualism so thorough-going and ex-
treme that its compatibility with the fundamental doctrine of
Judaism may well be called into question.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
The Spanish Cabala
'he "Spanish"Cabala began, not in Spain, but in

T:Provence, where the book called Bahir ("Radi-
ance") was composed in the twelfth century. It is said to mark
the transition from the older Gaonic mysticism to the later Cabala. 1
Here we find in considerable development (though the expres-
sion is fragmentary and obscure ) the doctrine of the Ten Sefiroth
—the forms or channels, to speak in crude and inadequate terms,
through which Divinity manifests itself. In setting forth the inter-
relations of the Sefiroth, the emanations of the primal light, the
Bahir adopts the ancient symbolism by which the structure of the
cosmos is compared to that of the human body. The Ten Sefiroth
in their organic unity constitute the Archetypal Man: the first
emanations correspond to the head, and so on. This symbolism

leads inevitably to a distinction between right and left, those
Sefiroth which exemplify God's benevolent aspects being on the
right, those which manifest His stern justice on the left. This pro-
The Spanish Cabala •
169
vided the basis for a revival of both the spirit and the expression
of Gnostic dualism. 2 In the Bahir itself, these notions are ad-
vanced only in brief and enigmatic hints. One passage describes
Satan as a quality (middah) of God, whose name is and
evil,
which is on His northern (i.e., left) side. He is further compared

to a king's officer who is appointed over the rock-pile and who
tries to persuade the king's subjects to buy his stones instead of
the food supplied by the officials in charge of the granaries. In a
subsequent parable, however, Satan is compared to a servant who
rebels against the king, refusing to serve in the place appointed
to him and seeking by force and guile to lead both his fellow
servants and the king's children into disobedience. 3
The trends here indicated led, as we shall see, to extreme
dualistic conclusions. But though they are implicit in the very
configuration of the Sefiroth, these consequences were not imme-
diately drawn. The first important Spanish Cabalist, R. Azriel
(1160-1238), who studied under the Provencal mystics and
brought the secret doctrine back to his own country, presented
his views in abstract and quasi-philosophic form. Moreover, the
problem of evil does not occupy a large place in his writings. The
most famous of his disciples was R. Moses ben Nahman, a great
talmudist and Bible commentator and the outstanding Jewish
leader of his day. Nahmanides wrote comparatively little on the
Cabala; but the fact that so eminent a scholar and so beloved a
personality was an initiate gave to the secret doctrine a prestige
it had not previously enjoyed in Spain. The progress of the mysti-
cal movement may be measured by the following circumstances:

In his Torah commentary, Nahmanides refers to cabalistic ideas
in brief and intentionally cryptic remarks, which he flatly tells
the reader will be intelligible only to the adept. Two generations
later, R. Bahya ben Asher (whose teacher had been a follower
of Nahmanides) composed a Torah commentary which achieved
great popularity and which draws largely on the work of R.
Moses. But R. Bahya expounds at considerable length and with
little reticence those cabalistic interpretations which his spiritual
grandfather touched on so hesitantly.

These authorities (and certain others) are loosely grouped as
the school of Gerona, the town where R. Azriel lived. Most of
them were well grounded in the sane, balanced literature of the
Talmud, and had some acquaintance with philosophy— despite
Yet even these thinkers display

their distrust of Aristotelianism.
what is apparently a natural connection between cabalistic spec-
ulation and dualistic myth.
We saw above that Nahmanides took the scapegoat ceremony
to be a propitiatory offering to Satan, though the ceremony is
commanded by God and performed in obedience to His will.
R. Moses enlarges on the rationalistic interpretation of the "sons
of God" in Genesis 6; yet he indicates his preference for the view
that they were fallen angels. Another revealing passage is his
comment on Genesis 4.3, about Naamah, the sister of Tubal Kain.
Here he cites three opinions: Genesis Rabba, a classical Midrash,
states that Naamah was a righteous woman, who became Noah's
wife. Another Midrash depicts her as a beautiful and unprin-
cipled woman, who lured angels to ruin. Still others say that she
was the wife of Shamdon and the mother of Ashmedai, for so it
is recorded in the Writings on the Use of Demons.
In explaining the fall of Adam, Nahmanides adheres to tradi-

tional views and does not identify the serpent with Satan. At the
end of his exposition, however, he insists that the narrative has
also an inner meaning. For, he says, serpents now do not have
the of speech. Were the story to be taken only in its literal
power
sense,mention should have been made of the chief curse laid
upon the serpent, namely, that he was made dumb. But here
Nahmanides stops short, without revealing the inward signifi-
cance of the tale.
Bahya, the pupil of added nothing new to cabalistic

his pupil,
doctrine, but represents opinions that were widely diffused in
Spain prior to the appearance of the Zohar. ( Bahya indeed quotes
a few passages from the Zohar, which came to light in the later
years of his life, but does not seem to have been profoundly
influenced by it.) Like his masters, Bahya tried to find a place
within the monotheistic scheme for a realm of evil; but his at-
tempt was not entirely successful. His Torah commentary com-
bines mythological and rationalistic materials; for this catholic
scholar delighted in all four methods of biblical interpretation—
literal, midrashic, philosophic, and mystical.
Thus he gives a lengthy allegorical explanation of the fall.

Adam symbolizes the intellectual soul; Eve is matter. The serpent
is the evil inclination which leads the soul astray by seducing
The Spanish Cabala • • •
171
the body. The punishment upon the serpent is a prophecy that at

4
the end of days the evil yezer will be completely subjugated.
Less homiletical is the statement that prior to his sin, Adam
was completely intellectualand had no evil inclination. He ate
the fruit out of desire to increase his knowledge, though the in-
tellectual faculty should have kept him from disobeying God's
decree. The evil inclination could reach him only through Eve;
but after he had eaten the fruit, it entered his own being in the
form of sexual desire. This notion that Adam could sin before he
possessed the evil yezer should occasion us no difficulty; for the
angels, disembodied intelligences though they be, have been
known to turn away from God: and Bahya provides illustrations
from Scripture and rabbinic books. 5
The chief instance is that of Satan himself. He was a heavenly
power, but he began to slander his Creator and was therefore
driven from his high abode and brought down below the Sefiroth.
The serpent was but the instrument of the power of evil: thus
alone can we understand the declaration of eternal enmity be-
tween mankind and the serpent (Gen. 3.15), for we have no
special hatred for literal snakes. Bahya also notes as significant
Q
that both angels and serpents are called in Hebrew serafim.
Eve, the passive feminine principle, whose soul is from the
north, succumbed readily to the blandishments of Satan. Cain
was not the son of Adam, but was sired by the serpent. Therefore
the Cainites were called "sons of god"— since they were begotten
by the power of the "strange god" Samael. But Bahya also gives
the traditional view that the "sons of God" were eminent human
beings. 7
Another mythical section discusses Naamah, quoting first the
Midrash that she was Noah's wife. "But some say she was
the wife of Ashamdon and the mother of Ashmedai, and that the
demons were born of her. Four women were mothers of demons:
Lilith, Naamah, Agrath and Mahlath. Each has camps and bands
of the spirit of uncleanness, beyond all numbering. They say each
rules over one of the seasons of the year. They gather on a bare
mountain near the mountains of darkness.* Each rules during
her season from sunset to midnight, they and all their camps.
Solomon controlled them all, calling them servants and hand-
maids (Eccl. 2.7), and used them to do his own will. These four
* Is this a hint of the Walpurgisnacht?
are the wives of the heavenly prince of Esau; correspondingly

Esau married four women, as stated in the Torah." 8
This last paragraph is especially instinctive because practically

all its elements are drawn from the talmudic aggada; but the total
effect is quite different and much more ominous than anything in
the early sources.
Nevertheless Bahya is at pains to stress the Divine Unity, lest
the implications of these dualistic myths be carried too far. We
have seen that Satan was of heavenly origin. In a cabalistic pas-
sage, Bahya states that the good and evil inclinations have a
common root in the "Middle Line" (Kav haEmtzai), a name
given by the mystics to the sixth Sefirah, usually called Tifereth
(glory) or Rahamim (mercy). And again he declares: "Good and
evil have a single root, which is entirely good." 9
An anonymous work same period is Sefer Temunah, the
of the
"Book of Likeness." Here too we have the theory of the Sefiroth,
some of which represent the harsher, some the milder aspects
of the divine nature. This is combined with the doctrine that
world history consists of seven periods, each lasting seven thou-
sand years, until in the Great Jubilee, the fifty-thousandth year,
the process of cosmic development will reach its culmination. We
are now dominated by the Sefirah of strict justice—
in the period
this explains the existence of suffering and wrong. 10 In the next
period, all evil will disappear. In such a scheme, evil is only one
element in God's preconceived plan, and the idea of a rebellion
against the divine rule is irrelevant. Yet the book Temunah like-
wise speaks of angels who mingled with external and unholy
forces, fell from their sanctity and united on earth with alien
powers. 11 The tale was of no importance to this (or indeed to
any) cabalistic system, but it was adopted because it fitted the
prevailing mood of the Cabalists.
It is evident then that even the moderate Geronese Cabala dis-

played a strong tendency toward dualistic myth. But as the thir-
teenth century drew to a close, a much more extreme doctrine
came to the which Dr. Scholem calls the "Gnostical" Cabala.
fore,
The source of evil is no longer merely in those Sefiroth which
represent the severe justice of God: now there is an entire series
of evil emanations, the Sefiroth of the "left side," which largely
173
parallel the divine Sefiroth. This is the doctrine of the Zolwr; but
it is fully set forth in several earlier writings.
In the middle of the thirteenth century— contemporary with
Nahmanides— lived two brothers, Isaac and Jacob haKohen, in
the Spanish town of Soria. Ardent devotees of mysticism (they
were not distinguished talmudists), they studied in southern
France, where the secret lore was still expounded in its older
Oriental and German forms, without the philosophic subtleties
which the Spanish contemplatives had added. The writings of the
two brothers were not published at length until recent years: the
most important is an essay on The Emanation of the Left Side,
by R. Isaac haKohen. 12 It consists largely of extracts from earlier
sources and contains a dualistic doctrine more extreme than any-
thing we have yet encountered. Perhaps Gnostic tendencies were
stronger in the older tradition than our previous studies have
indicated. Or perhaps R. Isaac and his brother, because of per-
sonal predilection, collected and concentrated tendencies which
were more scattered and (so to speak) diluted in the older
sources. At any rate, both R. Isaac and his successors stress the
"top secret" character of the doctrine, which is unknown even
to many Cabalists.
According to R. Isaac, the first two Sefiroth (and certain sec-
ondary emanations from them ) constitute a world of pure good-
ness. Rut from the third Sefirah (Binah, Discernment, called by
R. Isaac "the Power of Repentance") the leftward emanation
began. First a dividing partition (Masak Mavdil) emanated from
the third Sefirah; it had a personality and was named Mesukiel.
But before an orderly process of emanation from Mesukiel could
start, worlds of horror and destructive imaginings came forth.
Three times, therefore, the emanational process had to be re-

versed—as when a burning wick is extinguished by thrusting it
deep into the reservoir of oil. These three abortive "worlds" are
hinted at in Job 22.15, and in the midrashic report that God
created and destroyed many worlds before He made this one.
Thereafter the double emanation began, consisting of seven
successive groups of pure angels on one side, and seven camps
of dark spirits on the other. Between them there is constant war-
fare, yet their intention is toward the Lord of all, Who created
them, and to the performance of His will.
The first and chief of the forces of jealousy is Samael. He is
not, indeed, wicked in essence, but in his desire to come into

contact with an emanation not of his own kind. The other leaders
of the "left side" bear names suggesting their wrathful and jealous
nature. The occasion for conflict in these spheres is a being called
Lilith, who stands to Samael in the same relationship as Eve to
Adam. She is, in fact, called "the old Eve," and also Zefonith—
"the one from the North." Yet Samael and Lilith emanate from
beneath the Throne of Divine Glory, the legs of which are some-
what shaken by their activity. 13
R. Isaac is at some pains to indicate that none of these pow-
ers is material. The bright and dark angels are like forms of
man depicted in "appearances of great fire," but are genuinely
spiritual. 14
This work also presents the doctrine that there are three "at-
mospheres"— levels of existence— on high. The first is apparently
that inhabited by angels; below it is the area through which
prophets receive their inspiration; lowest is the "air of the utiliza-
tion of demons," through which one may gain foreknowledge of
events, travel from place to place instantaneously, and so on.
x This lowest level is itself divided into three levels. The first is
ruled by Ashmedai who, though called King of the Demons, is
subject to Samael. The mate of Samael is Lilith while Ashmedai ,
mates with the Lesser Lilith. The middle level is controlled by

Kafkefon i, whose two wives are called Little Leprous One and
Dreary One. From these unions issue horrible creatures with
bodies, which war against one another and cause comets and
quakes. These beings are all subject to Ashmedai, and they trans-
mit their supernatural knowledge to those beneath them.
The lowest of the sub-levels is inhabited by injurious demons
(mazzikin), which take various forms, such as dogs and goats.
Azza and Azzael belonged to this latter class, but they alone had
human form. When they fell from heaven— that is, the level just
mentioned— they donned materiality and their offspring were dis-
tinguished by their great size and strength. Other demons appear
regularly in human form, both male and female. Only falsehood
prevails among them; they are jealous of humanity and constantly
seek its harm. Indeed, they would obliterate everything they en-
counter, were they not subjected to the control of a great angelic
prince, named Yofiel. To this angel the king of the mazzikin, by
name Kafzefoni, must submit. His children can leap from one end
175
of the "air" to the other; sometimes they perform actions that

benefit human beings. Thus they reveal the future if he who
questions them is worthy. When summoned by an unsuitable in-
quirer, they appear in response to his incantation, but are not
allowed to reply to his questions. 15
The destruction of the evil emanations and of Edom, which
will occur at the appointed time, announced in several pas-
is
sages. One suchasserts that in the physical world there are two
kinds of Leviathan— one a clean, the other an unclean beast. Like-
wise in the celestial world there are a clean and an unclean
Leviathan. The latter acts as the "groomsman" who effects the
union of Samael and Lilith, and is therefore called Taniniwer,
blind dragon. The future extermination of this being is predicted
16
in Isaiah 27.1.
These excerpts give some notion of the world of dark mythol-
ogy in which R. Isaac moved. He himself was conscious of the
difficulty these ideas involved for the faithful Jew, and he tried
to fit them into the monotheistic system. The leftward emanation
does not proceed directly from the Godhead, but from the third
of the emanated beings or Sefiroth. The earliest of the evil emana-
tions, being too virulent, were not permitted to endure. Samael
is not absolutely, but only relatively evil. The entire leftward
process is ordained of God for His own purposes. "It was the
decree of His wisdom to create a world which should be entirely
evil, in order to chastise the erring, that they might repent com-
pletely and thus receive benefit and, if they do not repent, to
destroy them. Concerning these two worlds, the Bible says of God
that He forms peace and creates evil" (Is. 45.7). "Though the
evil emanation has no share or inheritance in the world that is
all good, the beginning of its emanation is not evil." Why God
chose that evil should emanate from good is beyond our com-
prehension. "Our intelligence cannot conceive the depth of the
hidden mystery, for it is sealed up." 17
A similar spirit pervades the writings of R. Moses of Burgos,
a disciple of Isaac haKohen. There are a number of differences
both in the cabalistic doctrine and in its presentation. R. Moses
gives a connected and rather wordy account of the matter, adorn-
ing it with talmudic and cabalistic citations and imparting a
strong moralistic tone. His chief work, The Left-hand Pillar, in-
sists that the dualistic system was willed by God because the
world can exist only through the interplay of opposing forces,

and because reward and punishment both are essential to the
divine justice. In his description of the ten evil Sefiroth, R. Moses
departs considerably from his teacher. According to R. Isaac, the
leftward emanation begins from the third Sefirah, and there are
only seven existent spheres of evil— the number ten being made
up by the three worlds that were destroyed. R. Moses, however,
states that the leftward emanation starts from the fifth Sefirah,
"the great fire of Geburah (Might)," and there are actually ten
evil Sefiroth. The eighth in this series bears the name Samael;
Lilith is the tenth. This is the scheme later adopted in the
Zohar. 18
The writings of Moses haKohen,
of Burgos, like those of Isaac
have been published in full only of late years. But his outlook was
shared substantially by R. Todros Abulafia, who seems to have
been his pupil, though they were nearly of an age. Unlike the
scholars just mentioned, R. Todros was a leader of the Jewish
community and an accomplished talmudist. His book, Ozar
haKabod ("The Treasury of Glory"), is the first systematic effort
to interpret talmudic aggada in cabalistic terms. In this work he
speaks clearly, yet reticently, about the double emanation, a sub-
ject unfamiliar even to the mystics. Despite the parallel character
of the two emanations and their correspondence, there is never-
theless "a difference in their existence and persistence" at which
Abulafia dares not even hint. Yet dark and bright forces alike
yearn to fulfill the purpose of their Possessor. What this purpose
is, we cannot guess. It belongs to the things of which it was said:
"Be silent! Such is My plan." 19
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
The Zohar
n the last years of the thirteenth century, the book

I:.called the Zohar began to circulate among Spanish
Cabalists. It is a kind of rambling commentary on the Pentateuch,
together with sections based on Ruth and the Song of Songs. Its
contents are not exclusively mystical; much of it has an ethical or
The Zohar • • • 177
devotional character. Elaborate aggadic sections, derived only in

part from the old sources, adorn its pages. The Zoliar is not only
the greatest sourcebook of Cabala, but the last monument of
creative aggada.
The Zohar consists of alleged discussions between the second
century Tanna, R. Simeon b. Johai, and his disciples, with stories
of their spiritual experiences. Most cabalists have revered it as an
authentically ancient work. But from the time of its appearance,
it has been connected with the name of a well known mystic,
Moses de Leon; and some people suspected that he had written
it himself.
The historian Graetz, who detested the Cabala, insisted that the
Zoliar is a forgery, the work Moses de Leon.
of the "charlatan"
Other scholars, however, held that Moses merely assembled and
edited materials gathered from many places— so that the work has
some claim to be considered ancient. It is, indeed, made up of
various documents, bearing different names.
The fullest analysis of the problem, by Professor Scholem, in-
dicates that Graetz was not far from wrong. Except for two docu-
ments (the Ra'ya Mehemna, or Faithful Shepherd, and the Tik-
kunim ) the Zohar is the work of a single author, who was almost
,
certainly Moses de Leon. The earliest sections are those entitled

Midrash haNeelam, or Esoteric Exposition. The fact that certain
aggadot appear in different versions is not to be explained as due
to various sources. The author returned repeatedly to certain
themes, developing them each time in a different way. Graetz was
mistaken only in branding Moses de Leon as a fraud who foisted
his work on the public for his own gain. Moses was influenced by
the same reasons which led the apocalyptic authors to ascribe
their writings to ancient worthies. 1
To confirm or refute Dr. Scholem's arguments is outside the
scope of our undertaking. But the material we shall now present
fits in well with his thesis.
the fallen angels. One passage in the zoharic literature does

not see in Genesis 6 an allusion to the fallen angels. It is found in
the Midrash haNeelam, which Scholem regards as the earliest
portion of the great undertaking. Here the "sons of God" are said
tohave been "sons of prominent personages," and the fathers are
blamed for their failure to restrain their children. Another ex-
planation is that the "children of God" were Adam and Eve, since
God created them directly; they are called NejUim because they
fell (nafelu) from grace. 2
But the author soon gave up this approach and interpreted the
passage in accordance with the familiar myth. The story is told
and re-told many times; as in most late versions, the Zohar knows
only of two angels who married mortal women and invariably
calls them Azza and Azzael. One cannot trace exactly the de-
velopment of the legend in the Zohar; some of the accounts differ
little from those in the older sources, 3 others add mystical over-
tones, or bring the fallen angels into association with Balaam and
Solomon, or with Naamah and Lilith. We shall cite only the most
interesting examples.
R. Simeon expounded to his companions: When the Shekinah
proposed to the Holy One (blessed be He!): Let us make man,
a number of the angels objected, and Azza and Azzael were par-
ticularly vehement. They argued:* Why make man, when it is
known in advance that he will sin through his wife who is dark-
ness? (For light is male, darkness female; the left side is the
The Shekinah replied: You yourselves will
darkness of creation.)
through the one you now accuse. For these very angels later
fall
went astray after mortal women, and the Shekinah cast them
down from their holiness.— Here the disciples interrupt the dis-
cussion to point out that Azza and Azzael spoke truth just the
same. To whichSimeon answers: The Shekinah objected to
R.
Adam sinned with but one woman, the
their airs of superiority.
angels with many. Moreover, God had provided Adam in advance
with the capacity to repent.— A general discussion of the problem
of evil follows. Why, instead of creating man with two inclina-
tions and freedom of will, did God not make man sinless, eligible
neither for reward nor punishment? R. Simeon can only answer
that the Torah, which was created for man's benefit, contains
promises of retribution: God creates nothing to no purpose. 4
Fuller details appear in the following: Azza and Azzael were
two angels who criticized their Lord (for making man) and were
cast down to earth. Usually, when angels descend to earth, they
clothe themselves with air and take on a temporary matter, of
which they divest themselves when they are ready to go back on
high. But the two angels were so eager to remain among women
that they became more completely material; and when they had
The Zohar • • •
179
been on earth for seven consecutive days, they could not return
again to heaven. They begot children upon their mortal wives;
then God chained them in the mountains of darkness with iron
chains which are fixed to the great deep. Were it not for these
bonds, they would obliterate the world. Even fettered, they can
weaken the celestial family by the magic spells they know
still
and which they teach to all who resort to them. These angels
draw their vitality from the north, the "left side." They are the
anshe shem ( literally, "men of name" ) because they use the holy
names in magical incantations. (The usual interpretation, "men
5
of renown," is also mentioned. )
Prominent among those who have learned supernatural arts

from Azza and Azzael was the enchanter Balaam. For the latter
testified (Numbers J23/7) that he came from the "ancient moun-
tains" ( or "mountains of the east" ) which were readily identified
,
with the mountains of darkness where the fallen angels are

chained. The Zohar speaks several times of Balaam's dealings
with the imprisoned pair; the most fantastic version runs as fol-
lows:
Balaam, practicing the black art in Egypt, realized that his
spells could not prevent the liberation of Israel. In trepidation he
went to the mountains of darkness and reached the chains which
fasten the fallen angels. Now Azza who, even when punished,
continued to rage against God, is shrouded in complete darkness.
Azzael was a little more submissive; he was therefore permitted
to see. Consequently, when a visitor arrives at the top of the
mountains, Azzael can inform Azza about it. The two then set up
an outcry and are soon surrounded by great burning serpents.
They send to the visitor an unimata, an animal something like a
cat with a snake's head, two tails and small paws. The newcomer
must cover his face and produce smoke by burning the carcass of
a white cock. Tamed apparently by the smoke, the unimata
guides the visitor till he reaches the end of the chain which is
fixed in the earth and reaches down into the deep, where it is
securely fastened to a bolt (samik) set in the lower abyss. The
man must kick the chain three times; the angels call him; he must
bow, then climb up to them with his eyes closed. The visitor sits
before them, serpents surrounding them on all sides; when he

opens his eyes, he with terror. They instruct him in magic
is filled
for fifty days, after which the monsters escort him from the moun-
tains of darkness. Balaam, however, knew a word of special

power, so that he could remain with them for a longer course
of study. 6
Solomon likewise had dealings with Azza and Azzael— of a
more legitimate sort. Each day he would ride on an eagle to
Tarmod in the desert of the mountains. This is not the earthly
Tarmod ( Palmyra-Tadmor ) but a place where spirits and beings
,
of the "other side" gather on the mountains of darkness. The

eagle could reach this place in an hour's flight and hover above
it while Solomon dropped an amulet he had prepared to ward
off harm from evil spirits. Then espying the place where the
angels are chained (a place which no one but Balaam could
enter), the eagle would swoop down, holding Solomon securely
under his left wing. Solomon would produce a ring engraved
with the Holy Name, and place it in the eagle's mouth; and by
this means the angels were constrained to answer his inquiries. 7
naamah, lelith, the rulers of arka. Naamah is frequently

mentioned as the temptress of Azza and Azzael; but the Zohar
presents her in other roles as well. One passage connects her exist-
ence with fundamental concepts of zoharic Cabala. When the
Primeval Light was concealed, a husk was created for the "mar-
row," that is, the good reality; the husk extended and produced
another husk. (This symbol of negative and demonic forces will

be discussed below.) The latter sought to cleave to the Anpe
Zutre (literally, "the Impatient," the configuration of the Sefiroth
expressing the quality of severe justice), but this God would not
allow. When Adam and Eve were created, the same husk again
sought contact with the "Impatient," but God cast her into the
sea. After Adam fell, God brought the husk forth from the sea
and gave her the power to injure those who have incurred punish-
ment through the sins of their fathers. She hurries through the
world, and wherever she finds children appointed for punish-
ment, she mocks at them and kills them. When Cain appeared,
she could not at first cleave to him; but afterwards she bore him
demon children. A little later in the passage, Naamah and Lilith
are mentioned; they appear to be descendants of the original
"husk," the ancestress of the evil spirits, whose qualities are so
akin to theirs. 8
Elsewhere it is emphasized that Naamah comes from the "side"

of Cain, who was really the offspring of the primeval Serpent.

She is the mother of demons and bears rule by night, wielding
the terrible weapon of croup. She rouses the passions of men in
dreams and sometimes has by them. These spirits
spirit-children
in turn beget demon children upon mortal women, and the chil-
dren become the charge of Lilith. Sometimes Naamah rouses a
man by a sexual dream; he awakens, and embraces his own wife.
The child is then begotten from the "side" of Naamah and, in-
stead of becoming a victim of Lilith, becomes Naamah's charge.
Though most demons (according to talmudic report) are mor-
tal, Naamah, Lilith and Agrath bath Mahlath will continue to
exist until the Messianic day when God shall extirpate the spirit
of uncleanness. Naamah's regular abode is among the waves of
the sea. 9
The Zohar also speaks repeatedly of Lilith. She acts as the
nurse of demon children; but she seeks to kill human infants and
draw away their souls. The souls, however, are rescued and
brought to God by three holy spirits. The Jew who leads a sanc-
tified life need not fear Lilith; for these holy spirits will protect
his child. If he neither sanctifies nor deliberately defiles himself,
the protection will extend only to the soul of the child, not to its
10
body.
One of the most grossly mythological passages in the Zohar
concerns a subterranean area, one of the seven "earths" below,
where the Cainites dwell. When Cain was driven off the face of
the earth (Gen. 4.14), he descended to this place, which is called
Arka. It is a land of mingled darkness and light, each of which
has its ruler; and previous to Cain's arrival they had been in
conflict. But when Cain descended, the rulers composed their
differences; and the two-headed offspring which Cain sired par-
ticipate both in darkness and light. The two rulers of Arka are
named Afrira and Kastimon. In appearance they resemble the
holy angels, each having six wings. They both have one face
like an ox, and one like an eagle; when joined, they have a human
countenance, and in darkness they are changed to the appearance
of a two-headed snake. They enjoy swimming through the deep
to plague the imprisoned Azza and Azzael. Thence they go by
night to visit Naamah; but she evades their embraces, preferring
to rouse the passions of men. They flutter about the world, then
return to their underground domain to awake the appetites of
the Cainites, that the latter may beget progeny. The "heavens"
where Afrira and Kastimon rule are not like ours, nor is their
"earth" productive. Jeremiah 10.11 refers to such "gods," who
11
did not make heaven and earth.
the paternity of cain. We have noted a single talmudic state-

ment that Eve suffered sexual defilement by the serpent, and
thereby a moral taint was transmitted to mankind. Israel, how-
ever, by accepting the Torah, was purged of this "original sin."
Another aggada declares that Seth was the first to be begotten in
Adam's likeness; and later homilists drew rather far-reaching de-
ductions from this. The Chapters of R. Eliezer boldly declare
that Cain was not the son of Adam, but of the serpent. 12 This
kind of mythology would naturally appeal to the mystics, and it
occurs repeatedly in the Zohar. The distinction between Satan
and the serpent, which had been maintained even by the more
sectarian aggadists, now breaks down completely.
An extended discussion of this theme ascribes the fall of man
to the "heavenly serpent," from the "side" of which all deaths
••v
have occurred save only those of Moses, Aaron, Miriam and (by
implication) Sarah. All magic is ultimately derived from the side
of the primeval serpent— therefore all enchantments, including
divination by the chirping of birds, are called nehashim, from
nahash, snake. Magic is a peculiarly feminine art, because it was
the woman, Eve, whom the serpent defiled. 13
The statement that the serpent sired Cain seems to contradict
the biblical report that Adam was his father. Actually, the serpent
did defile Eve, begetting an evil spirit which sported within her,
but had no body with which to enter the world. The marital re-
lations between Adam and Eve provided this spirit with an outer
covering, and so Cain was born. That is why Eve says "I have
gotten a man with the Lord" (Gen. 4.1 ). 14
The purification of Israel by the acceptance of the Torah was
only temporary; the worship of the Golden Calf defiled the men
again. The women had never completely lost the taint; for woman
comes from the left side, the side of strict justice, and is therefore
the more susceptible to defilement. During her menstrual periods,
an unclean spirit rests upon her, and the magical spells she works
at such a time are particularly efficacious. Hence the drastic ne-
cessity of avoiding contact with a menstruous woman. 15
The Zohar • •
183
samael-satan. There are innumerable references to Samael-

Satan, by these and other names. As he is identified fully with
the Primeval Serpent in some passages, so he is elsewhere fully
identified with the Prince of Edom— but now Edom likewise is a
symbol more cosmic than national.
Sometimes the Zoliar reproduces the material of the old aggada
with slight cabalistic overtones. For example, he who celebrates
the festivals in joy, but does not give a portion to God by sharing
his good cheer with the poor, incurs the enmity of Satan. The
Accuser lays the matter before God and brings punishment upon
the selfish offender. He is always making the rounds of festal
celebrations to discover if the poor are received hospitably. At
the feast Abraham gave when Isaac was weaned, the poor were
neglected; and it was Satan's consequent complaint that led to
thecommand for the sacrifice of Isaac. 16
One of R. Simeon's disciples held that the serpent in the Eden
story but a symbol of the evil inclination; another, that it was a
is
literal snake. The master decided: It is all one. Samael appeared
upon the serpent; the image of the serpent is Satan: it is all one.
Samael descended from heaven, rode upon the serpent and terri-
fied the creatures. They (sc. Samael and the serpent) seduced the
woman by words and brought death into the world. By his
their
malevolent wisdom Samael brought curses on the world and de-
stroyed the "primal tree" created by God. But later another holy
tree—Jacob— appeared and took the blessings, so that Samael
should not be blessed in heaven or Esau on earth. 17
The "man" with whom Jacob wrestled was Samael, the prince
of Edom. According to the Midrash haNeelam, the heavenly
patrons of some nations are at times given power over others;
especially is this true of the ruler of Edom. The words (Gen.
32.25) "Jacob was left alone" mean that Israel had no angelic
defender. Though all the other heavenly princes sought to take
his part, God restrained them, saying: He needs none of you.
The merits of Jacob enabled him
Samael single-handed,
to defeat
but the latter succeeded in touching Jacob's thigh— that is, his
offspring. When Israel neglect the Torah, Samael is permitted to
enslave them. 18 The Zohar proper declares that Samael attacked
Jacob on Wednesday, the day of the week on which the sun and
moon were created and, according to a familiar exegesis, a day
of ill omen. (For the command Yehi meorot, "let there be lumi-
naries," is written defectively and can be construed Yehi meerot,

'let there be curses.") Hence Jacob was "left alone," for when the
moon wanes, the power of the evil serpent
is increased. As Samael
he was protected on the right by the power

tried to destroy Jacob,
of the "side of Abraham" ( representing mercy ) and on the left by
the power of the "side of Isaac" (representing strict justice).
Samael could therefore not injure his body, but only one of his
extremities. 19
When Israel stood at the brink of the Red Sea, the angel of
God went behind camp
guard against the Egyp-
the Israelite to
tian advance (Ex. 14.19). But attacks from on high as well as
from human enemies threatened Israel. The heavenly patron of
Egypt had gathered six hundred chariots, each manned by six
hundred attacking "princes." There is something odd in the bibli-
cal phrase ( Ex. 14.7 ) "He took six hundred chosen chariots and
:
all the chariots of Egypt." Were not the six hundred chosen
chariots Egyptian too? No, replies the Zolwr; they were a loan
to the patron of Egypt from Samael. God retaliated in the days
of Sisera, when these chariots were delivered into the power of
the Matronitha (or "mistress," a name given to the last of the Ten
Sefiroth). They will finally be destroyed when Edom falls.
20
mystical dualism. The material we have been presenting—which

could be enormously expanded— reveals the exuberant imagina-
and
tion of the author of the Zohar. Utilizing old materials freely
fancifully, and combining them with creations of his own, he
greatly augments the mythological trend within Judaism. But he
is also a serious and in many ways a profound thinker, and
he is deeply troubled by the problem of evil. To this problem the

Zohar provides several solutions.
The conception of the double emanation— of good and evil
balanced against one another— is ubiquitous in this work.
Sefiroth,
The Zohar is studded with references to the right and left "sides,"
especially to the left as the "other side." We have already encoun-
tered this idiomatic use of the word "side." The "side" of Cain, of
Samael, of strict justice, and so on, are (in Zoharic language) "all
one." The concept of the double emanation, which in the Zohar
is taken for granted more than it is expounded, systematically is
close to that which Moses of Burgos had taught. 21
Another doctrine of the Zohar was foreshadowed in the writ-
ings of Isaac haKohen. It myth that God created and de-

is the
stroyed many worlds before making this one. The debris of these
previous worlds seems to be a kind of poison that infects our
now existent creation. 22
Related to this concept, surely, is another which pervades the
Zohar and all subsequent Cabala. Demons and evil beings in gen-
eral are known and Samael himself is some-
as Kelipoth, "husks,"
times called the Kelipah. This symbolism is most significant. For,
however dry, tasteless and bothersome the husk of a fruit or the

shell of a nut may be, it is part of a normal growth, and without
it there would be no ripened kernel. Evil, then, is declared to be
a kind of waste product which results from the processes of God's

world. This imagery is utilized with great precision by Moses
Cordovero, whose life was devoted to setting forth the Cabala of
the Zohar in systematic form and interpreting it in conformity
with Jewish monotheism. The most thoroughly bolted and puri-
fied flour, says Cordovero, when eaten and digested, leaves a
residue of excrement. Did the flour then contain filth? Certainly
not. The excrement was produced as a by-product of the process
in which the valuable nutritive elements were extracted from the
flour. A more exact analogy, adds Cordovero, is that of semen,
which according to his physiologv is derived from the brain. Cer-
tainly the mucus and slime that befoul a new-born baby were not
present in the brain itself. There is no evil in the ultimate Source
of Reality; it manifests itself only in the process of cosmic devel-
23
opment.
But the Zohar goes even farther in the attempt to penetrate this
process of cosmic development, or, to use the other symbolism,
of emanation both to right and to left. The earlier writers are
content to interpret the leftward emanation in moralistic terms— it
is to provide chastisement and warning and, if necessary, final
punishment for sinners. But this is a circular form of reasoning,

which does not account for the emergence of sin itself. The Zohar
pictures a sort of upheaval within the very Godhead. Evil results
from the division or, if you prefer, the differentiation, of the di-
vine powers. "Power and wrath were aroused on the left by divi-
24
sion, until they could not rest. Thus was Gehenna created."
This concept is closely related to the doctrine taught centuries
later by Jacob Boehme, the great Protestant mystic, who empha-
sized the existence of dynamic and negative aspects within God,
as the only possible explanation of the flux, the tensions and the
conflicts of life.
One may well question whether such dualistic concepts of
Deity are ultimately to be reconciled with the stubborn mono-
theism of Israel. And we shall see how Cordovero attempted this
synthesis and ran into difficulty. Indeed, all inquiries into the
processes, the natural history of divinity, such as are involved in
the doctrine of Sefiroth— good as well as bad— may be criticized
as incompatible with the true spirit of prophetic Judaism, which
does not seek to penetrate into the secrets of God's existence, but
only to discover His will and His commandments concerning us.
But one cannot lightly dismiss the struggle of the Jewish mystics
to find a satisfactory answer to the problem of evil. However
grotesque their forms of expression may be, and however unsat-
isfactory their conclusions, they did not simplify their own task
by minimizing the seriousness of the problem. They never failed
to reckon with the vast and terrible power of wickedness in hu-
man life.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
The Later Mystics
Zohar quickly achieved enormous influence

'he
T:and its teachings were widely accepted as authori-
tative. The doctrines of the "other side," "the husks," and the
fallen angels, and the general consciousness of a satanic element
in the world, are familiar in post-Zoharic Jewish literature. Even
those writings which are not primarily cabalistic are touched by
the mystical temper of the age.
Such, for example, are the Torah commentaries produced in
these centuries. We saw earlier that the medieval expositors, in-
fluenced both by rabbinic tradition and by philosophic rational-
ism, explained that the "sons of God" in Genesis 6 were human
beings distinguished for rank or for some physical or mental
superiority;and they gave "safe" interpretations to the Azazel
ceremony of Atonement Day. Now we find just the opposite. Such
well known commentators as the Italian Menahem Recanati
The Later Mystics • • •
187
(early fourteenth century), the Spaniard Abraham Saba and the

German Menahem Ziuni (both of the fifteenth century) take for
granted that the "sons of God" were fallen angels; and they give
a more frankly diabolic explanation of the Azazel ritual. Saba
admits unblushingly that the scapegoat is a sacrifice to Satan.
God advised us to appease the Accuser, that he may not attack
us too harshly when we appear before the divine court. 1
A curious variation of the Azazel story is preserved by Jacob di
Illescas, an Italian scholar of the fourteenth century: Azazel was
a prince of one of the angelic orders, who used to accuse Israel
on YomKippur and call for their complete annihilation. God de-
clared: Were you among them, you might be as sinful as they.
Azazel called for a test; but when he descended to earth, soon
fell prey to the charms of Naamah. Thereupon God proclaimed:
Since he has sinned, let him never return to heaven, but let him
dwell in the desert until the end of the world. In the long run,
Azazel's malice redounds to Israel's benefit: the punishment he
received deters other angels from accusing Israel with undue
harshness fe
The sixteenth century saw the rise of a new and creative mysti-
cal movement centered in the little Palestinian town of Safed.
Here, among other extraordinary personalities, lived Moses Cor-
dovero, who and systematized the cabalistic doctrine of
clarified
previous generations; at almost the same time Isaac Luria was
directing the Cabala into entirely new channels.
Cordovero was the great theorist of Jewish mysticism. In ex-
pounding the heritage of the past, especially of the Zohar, he
made a mighty effort to harmonize cabalistic teaching with the
fundamental concepts of Judaism. We have already seen his ex-
planation of the "husks," in which he is at great pains to deny
that the root of evil is in the Godhead. 3 In all his discussions of
evil, the mythological materials are an inheritance and— so to
speak— a problem. Cordovero's own contribution is the attempt
to fitsuch materials into the monotheistic scheme.
This effort proceeds along two lines. One is to limit the parallel
between the good and the evil emanations. This is already sug-
gested in the earlier sources, which state that the leftward emana-
tion proceeds from one of the Sefiroth, not from the En Sof. Cor-
dovero goes further and declares that the ten evil Sefiroth bear
the same resemblance to the real Sefiroth that an ape bears to a

man. Again, there are seven "chambers of impurity" which pro-
vide garments for the ten stages of evil, just as there are seven
chambers of purity which clothe the ten good Sefiroth. But there
is no basic impurity beyond the seven chambers of evil, whereas
above the seven chambers of purity are the different levels of

the divine throne. 4
We must not misunderstand aggadic passages which depict
the "husks" entering the realm of holiness while in an unre-
generate state— for instance, evil angels accusing Israel before
God. What is meant is that the accusations arouse God's wrath
and result in judgment against Israel, and thus it is said figura-
tively that the husks entered the holy presence. Elsewhere Cordo-
vero puts the matter differently: the husks can penetrate the
realm of holiness only in the world of Yetzirah ( Formation ) the ,
world of Metatron; but they are excluded from the higher levels
of Azilut (Emanation) and Beriah (Creation). 5
In addition, Cordovero repeatedly declares (and this is also
foreshadowed in earlier writings ) that the evil forces serve a use-
ful purpose of the divine economy. The "outside powers" exist
by divine Speaking figuratively, we may say that a por-
intent.
tion of the divine emanation, clothing itself in garment after
garment, is transmitted to them, and by this means they survive.
Were there no spark of divinity within the husks, they could
not exist at all. But their activity does not require us to impute
change or impurity to the First Cause. They are called "other
gods," impure, destroyers and similar names, not to suggest
that they are outside His will or act without His permission,
but because they are not united with Holiness in a bond of unity.
God willed them into being so that man might receive his moral
deserts, which would be impossible were he created (like the
angels ) without the capacity to do wrong. The "husk" is a neces-
sity of heaven, suitable for the righteous and suitable for the
world. Without it, there would be no possibility for man, by his
good or 6
evil actions, to influence the upper spheres.
One should therefore not minimize the value of the "outside"
powers. They may be compared to dust which, if fructified by
water, becomes the soil for the cultivation of plants. Thus the
sexual impulse, disciplined by the Torah, leads to the conse-
crated union of marriage. Jealousy can be sublimated (to use
The Later Mystics • •
189
a modern term) into zeal for the faith; the appetite for food is
transfigured at a festival celebration." "Though the husks are un-

8
clean below, they are pure on high."
This admirable indeed, whether or not it is adequate. Yet
is
the author of these philosophic statements is constrained by his

faithfulness to the tradition to reproduce the personalized names
of the evil Sefiroth and the gross legends about the two Liliths
and their several consorts. 9
Cordovero, however, exerted little influence on the subse-

quent development of the Cabala. It was the personality and
outlook of Isaac Luria which dominated the next century. Here
again, as in the case of German Cabala, one should distinguish
between the actual doctrine of the master and the atmosphere
of superstition which enveloped the masses. But both repre-
sent a challenge to the classic affirmations of Judaism.
Luria himself wrote little; the works of his disciples are volumi-
nous and difficult. We on Dr. Scholem's exposi-
shall rely chiefly
tion of the Lurian doctrine. The problem of evil is directly
connected with the basic concepts of Luria's system— namely
Tzimtzum, the contraction of the divine essence, and Shevirath
haKelim, the bursting of the vessels through which the divine
essence was channeled. Most interpreters have stressed this latter
event as the source of evil. The divine light should have been
contained in vessels, corresponding to the Sefiroth of earlier
Cabala. But the light overflowed and broke through these recep-
tacles. Thereupon sparks of goodness, scattered, detached from
the whole, moved about the universe in confusion. This is evil;
and the process of redemption must consist in the withdrawing

of the sparks from their mixture with the "husks" and the reinte-
gration of the divine goodness into a perfect and unmixed
unity.
Actually, Dr. Scholem declares, a more searching examination
of the Lurianic doctrine indicates that the beginnings of evil
existed even before the "breaking of the vessels," and were, in-
deed, "latent in the act of Tzimtzum!' For this "contraction"
means the withdrawal of the Infinite God into Himself, in order
to make room for the processes of Creation. And this is an act
of limitation, of "strict justice." Luria held, moreover, that the
withdrawal of divinity did not leave a complete vacuum; traces
of the divine, called reshimu, remained in the space actualized

through the withdrawal of the En Sof; and the origin of the
"husks" is connected also with this phenomenon.
Without probing more deeply into these difficult speculations,
it is sufficient to remark that there is an unmistakable connection
between Luria's doctrine of the "breaking of the vessels," and
the older notion that evil is a kind of waste product of the cosmic
process. In all these concepts, the root of evil is somehow in
and it consists not so much in rebellion
divinity itself; as in
detachment from the central purposes of the Godhead. 10
The ideas of Luria (of which we have mentioned only as

much as we need for our purposes) had a wide influence. But
the atmosphere of mystic awe, generated among the adepts,
spread more widely Like the earlier cabalists, the Lurian
still.
mystics revealed their doctrine only to those they deemed men-

tally and spiritually ready for it. Nevertheless, they greatly
stirred the imagination of the masses, as the German Hasidim
had done in their time. In the mild climate of the Holy Land,
Luria and his followers conducted many of their gatherings out
of doors; and their comings and goings were no doubt closely
and reverently observed by their fellow-villagers. Even more im-
portant was the new emphasis in the Lurian Cabala. The goal
of mystic effort was no longer the personal bliss of inner vision,
but the hastening of the Messianic redemption. This was an aim
that appealed directly to all Jews of every degree, learned and
unlettered. Lurian mysticism brought about considerable changes
in the liturgy of the synagogue; encouraged asceticism even
it
among those who were not cabalistic initiates; and it heightened

themood of uncritical faith in which superstitions could flourish.
However profound may be the concepts of Concentration and
the Fracture of the Vessels— by which Luria accounted for the
presence of evil— these processes were held to issue in a multi-
plicity of fiends and demons which were vividly real in the minds
of plain people.
Characteristically, the Lurian school revived an old Sabbath
ceremony which the rabbinic scholars had allowed to decline.
Two bouquets of myrtle were placed on the Sabbath table; the
celebrant walked twice around the table, carrying the bouquets
on the second circuit. The myrtle plant was generally thought
The Later Mystics • • •
191
to have supernatural
virtues; and this ceremony, among other
purposes, was intended to protect the household against evil
11
spirits.
Another evidence of the mood created by the Lurian Cabala

is the popular legend of Joseph della Reyna. This subject has
been investigated by our mentor, Professor Scholem, and in es-
sence it has nothing to do with Luria and his ideas. 12 The real
Joseph della Reyna was a cabalist who lived probably in Egypt
(certainly not in Palestine) a centuiy or more before Luria was
born. About the beginning of the fifteenth century a legend be-
gan to circulate about him, which has survived in several forms.
One tells that della Reyna, with ten associates, sought to gain
control over Samael and Ammon of No, his servant, in order
to destroy their power. The procedure they were to follow was
to force the devils to materialize, by the use of a ring engraved
with names, together with certain conjurations. Then each of the
mystics was to place a brass crown, engraved with the Forty-
Two Letter Name of God, upon the head of Samael, exclaiming:
Thy Master's name is upon thee! This would break the power of
evil. The preliminary procedures were efficacious; and amid nat-
ural convulsions the demons appeared in the form of serpents.

Della Reyna's associates fled in terror; he alone stood his ground
and placed the crown on the head of Samael. Samael informed
his captor that he might complete his conquest (since the others
had failed to do their part) by entering a certain house and
burning incense. But this was an act of idolatry. Della Reyna
succumbed to Samael's ruse; the demons regained their liberty;
and the exile, instead of being cut short, was prolonged forty
years.
A
second version of this tale states that Joseph sinned by
evoking the devils while he was in a waking state, instead of in
a dream. For demons cannot be materialized by a waking person
without the use of incense— which is forbidden as idolatry.
Later on the legend was completely recast into the form more
familiar to us. Here Joseph della Reyna appears in the Galilean
country as a member of the Lurian school; and the tale— written
in a self-consciously literary style— was published as an appen-
dix to a booklet, Likkute Shas, ascribed to Luria. The author,
in Dr. Scholem's opinion, was one Solomon Navarro, who
adopted the Christian faith in 1664!
According to this tale, R. Joseph hoped to bring about the

redemption at once by conquering Samael. He first came into
contact with Elijah, who discouraged him from the attempt,
but finally told him how to summon the angel Sandalfon. Sandal-
fon appeared amid awful terrors, and Joseph invited him to join
in fighting against Amalek and his "prince." Sandalfon replied:
"If you knew the heights which Samael and his host have at-
tained, you would not embark on this venture. None can prevail
against him save the Holy One, until the time set for his down-
fall arrives." But Joseph della Reyna was determined to press
on; and so Sandalfon, who did not know the secret of Samael's
power, explained how the angels Akteriel and Metatron could
be summoned.
The many misgivings, imparted the information
latter, after
which Joseph sought. He and his disciples were to perform
lengthy and arduous purifications, then go to Mount Seir, while
the angels (in company with his soul) were to parallel his prog-
ress in heaven. The use of imprecations and holy names would
drive off the dogs which defended the stronghold of evil. By
the same means Joseph and his fellows were to remove a moun-
tain of snow, dry up a sea and cut a door through an iron wall.
Having passed these obstacles, they would find Samael and Lilith
in the shape of black dogs hiding in a ruin. They were to cap-
ture them by means of two inscribed leaden disks; and were
to give no heed to their requests for food.
All these instructions were successfully carried out. But after
the demons had been leashed, R. Joseph was near to fainting
from his violent exertions and from the fasts which had preceded
them. He refreshed himself by smelling a grain of incense.
Samael pitifully asked that he too be given a sniff; and since no
food was involved, Joseph felt that he could grant the plea. At
once a spark issued from Samael's nostrils and consumed the
incense! R. Joseph had performed an idolatrous act. The demons
regained their freedom with savage glee; the whole undertaking
had proved futile. Two of the disciples died, two went mad,
only one returned to tell the tale. Joseph himself became the
paramour of Lilith, used his cabalistic powers to gratify his
bodily lusts, and came to a violent end.
In essence, this tale is un-Jewish. It draws upon popular tradi-
tions related to the Faust legend. In it we meet a Satan who is
The Later Mystics • • • 193
a mighty enemy of God and Israel, and who exults in evil;

moreover, he is to be overcome only by magical devices. The
fact that this story could become so popular, and that it could
be associated with the practitioners of Lurian Cabala (though
the doctrines of Luria had no resemblance or relation to it) is
extremely instructive. It indicates the extent to which dualistic
notions had penetrated into the lives and minds of Israel in
the sixteenth century.
The direct result of the later cabalistic development was the

Messianic movement of Sabbatai Zevi in the latter half of the
seventeenth century, and the Sabbatian heresy which persisted in
parts of Europe well into the nineteenth. This is not the place
to tell the story of the fascinating young Jew of Smyrna who
proclaimed himself Messiah in 1666, creating an uproar in world
Jewry which had many echoes among the Christians, and who
finally lost his nerve and saved his own life by adopting Islam.
But it is clear that the way and even more for those
for Sabbatai,
who continued his cult after he had become an apostate, had
been prepared by the cabalistic speculation that had preceded it.
One might argue that the Sabbatian heresy (in at least some
of its manifestations ) would have appeared even had there been
no Sabbatai. Not that Luria and his spiritual heirs intended any-
thing like the consequences which the heretical cabalists drew.
Undoubtedly they would have been horrified at the subversive
doctrine of the sectaries. Nonetheless, it was from both the
mood and the doctrine of Lurian Cabala that the followers of
Sabbatai drew many hints for their new system.
First and foremost, the final redemption which Sabbatai hoped
to achieve, and of which his successors did not despair, was the
basic aim of Luria's teaching. Second, the doctrine that "sparks"
of holiness have been dispersed among the "husks" and that the
process of redemption consists in drawing out the sparks and
uniting them with the central holiness was taken over bv the
Sabbatians—with an important addition. It is not enough for
pure personalities to exert— so to speak— a magnetic attraction
upon the sparks that have been scattered. So deeply are the
good elements embedded in the husks that, to release the sparks,
the righteous must enter the domain of evil. This, then, was why
Sabbatai adopted Islam— not out of cowardice or weakness, but
because as the redeemer he must enter the "side of evil" in order

to rescue the elements of holiness trapped therein. The result of
this doctrine was a more or less open antinomianism, a kind of
sacramental violation of the precepts of the Torah, and in the
case of extremists like Jacob Frank, an unrestrained licentious-
ness. It wasconsistent with all this that many Sabbatians fol-
lowed their messiah into Islam, while other heretical groups were
baptized en masse.
These messianists also elaborated a heretical theology. Like the
ancient Gnostics they distinguished between the Hidden God
and the Demiurge, whom they called "the God of Israel." But
whereas the Gnostics considered the Demiurge to be evil, and
the Hidden God alone worthy of worship by the enlightened,
the Sabbatians regarded the First Cause, the God of the philos-
ophers, as too remote for worship, which should be addressed
13
onlv to the "God of Israel."
We need not pursue this subject further. No critical eye is
needed to see that such doctrines are a repudiation of everything
essential and sacred in Judaism. The rabbis who hunted out the
Sabbatian heresy may have displayed a touch of fanaticism; and
their zeal in destroying sectarian documents has made the his-
torian's task more difficult. But their attitude was basically sound.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Mysticism for the Masses
he movement of Sabbatai Zevi was a natural out-

T
growth of Luria's Cabala; but the latter was not
discredited in the eyes of the faithful because of its monstrous
offspring. Jewish life continued to be dominated by the mystic
mood, in the dark ascetic version of the Safed school. Compara-
tively few were concerned with the speculative aspects of Luria's
teaching. Even for Luria himself, the interest in doctrine had
been subordinate to the practical purpose of hastening the Mes-
sianic redemption. The chief means to thisend were scrupulously
ethical conduct and self-effacing piety. It was to these values that
Luria's successors dedicated their efforts. R. Elijah di Vidas, a
Mysticism for the Masses • •
195
pupil of Cordovero, had already exerted great influence by his

book, the Beginning of Wisdom, a handbook of morals and devo-
tion. Though R. Elijah drew nearly all his material from talmudic-
midrashic literature, his method of selection and presentation
creates a darker atmosphere than that of the original sources.
In the next century, no work achieved greater prestige than The
Two Tables of the Covenant of R. Isaiah Horwitz. It is a sprawl-
ing compilation of counsels for every phase of the religious life,
pervaded by the Lurian spirit, and with no pretensions to meta-
physical system.
The seventeenth century saw likewise the wide distribution of
simpler manuals of piety, which circulated both in Hebrew and
in Yiddish translations. The Kab haYashar (Honest Measure) of
R. Zevi Hirsch Kaidanover, and the Shebet Musar (Rod of Re-
buke) of the Levantine R. Elijah b. Solomon Abraham quote
Luria and the Lurians, as well as the older classics of Cabala.
They often mention Satan, "the other side," "the husks" and the
demons, now euphemistically referred to as "outsiders." But these
popular writings do not attempt to explain the origin of evil or to
define its place in the divine economy. Their aim is to arouse
people— even to scare them— to repentance; and to this end they
speak, now of Satan's wiles, now of God's grim justice. As the
theoretical dualism of the great cabalists moves to the back-
ground, we hear again the suggestion that the forces of evil are
somehow an integral part of the divine plan.
Kaidanover, for example, relates a bizarre occurrence in Posen.
Some demons refused to vacate the cellar of a house, alleging
that the former owner was their father and they were but occu-
pying their inheritance. The case was actually tried before a
rabbinic court, and the defendants are said to have presented
their arguments within the framework of talmudic law! True,
they had to be constrained by powerful conjurations to accept the
jurisdiction of the court and to obey its decision; yet in some
measure they recognized the validity of the Torah. This tale does
not lead the author to any inquiry into the nature of demons
or the possibility of their mating with mortals. He cites it simply
as a warning against sexual license which, bad enough in itself,
may even lead a man into the embraces of a demon. 1
The Rod of Rebuke displays a similar moralistic approach. But
sometimes we meet the notion (we found it expressed most dra-
matically in the legend of Joseph della Reyna ) that Satan strives

to prevent, or at least delay, the messianic redemption. This
work quotes from Luria the opinion that one should follow his
own inclinations in choosing a branch of Torah for intensive
study. A strong desire to pursue a certain subject indicates that
this was the purpose of his present incarnation. R. Elijah adds
that one should disregard the critics who would persuade him to
study something else than the theme his soul desires. For Satan
is clothing himself in such persons in the hope that the man will
fail to accomplish the goal of his incarnation and so doom himself
to another needless death and rebirth. 2 In

such a case Satan is
not the tempter working within the framework of the divine
purpose, but an opponent on the outside. But this viewpoint is
not consistently maintained.
The popular pietism reflected in these writings was given an

entirely new character in the Hasidic movement which arose in
Eastern Europe in the middle of the eighteenth century. Jewish
mysticism, which had so long been gloomy and ascetic in tone,
was transformed by the spirit of joy and hope, rooted in simple
and confident faith. This transformation was accomplished by a
unique personality, R. Israel b. Eliezer, known as the Baal Shem
Tov (Besht). The title is itself instructive. Baal Shem (master of
the Name) was a term applied to those who could utilize the
divine names for supernatural purposes, especially to control de-
mons. The evil spirits who claimed the cellar in Posen submitted
to the authority of the court only under the compulsion of a
famous Baal Shem. R. however, was called "the good Baal
Israel,
Shem" as if to suggest that he was not a terrifying figure, like
the other adepts, but someone kind and genial. His message
brought light and vitality into the lives of masses broken by
poverty and oppression, and unable to acquire the rabbinic learn-
ing which previously had been the pre-requisite for honor within
the Jewish community. The Hasidic movement gave a heightened
importance to the emotional side of religion, engendered a fresh
awareness of the beauty of nature, stimulated the use of music
and dance for religious expression and provided a more human
and less bookish approach to the problems of daily living.
The Besht stressed the omnipresence of God almost to the
point of pantheism. Since God is evervwhere present and every-
where available, the proper mood of the pious man is one of
Mysticism for the Masses • • • 197
joyous enthusiasm. How can one not be happy when he is near

God? Gloom estranges man from the divine; even excessive anx-
iety over one's own sins be avoided, for it is a device of the
is to
3
evil inclination. Such an outlook was calculated to minimize
men's concern with the realm of active evil. The Hasidim, many
of them simple unlearned folk, were connoisseurs of superstition;
but (especially in the classic period of the movement) they had
little concern with a cosmic war between God and the Devil.
The Besht is reported to have raised the question how good

and evil can co-exist within the divine economy, which must
be a unity, and
have replied "Evil is a throne for the good."
to
This is immediately followed by moralistic examples: Suffering
brings us nearer to God; those who live lives of rectitude experi-
ence satisfaction when they observe wickedness and reflect that
they have escaped its temptations. Nay, by these means evil is
itself transformed so that it is raised nearer to God. 4
A Naphtali Zevi of Ropshitz, put the matter

later teacher, R.
in a different way. God is too pure to look upon evil ( Habbakuk
1.13)— how then can the Accuser present our sins before the
Divine Court? The answer is that even sin contains an element
of holiness— the seed of repentance. Accusation is made against
us in the form of a demand that we actualize the good potential-
ity of our evil deeds through penitence. 5
The Hasidim therefore sometimes show a sympathetic attitude
toward the forces of temptation, similar to that which we found
in talmudic sources. "How," asks the Besht, "can a man hearken
to the evil yezer to commit a sin? He ought to learn from the
example of the evil yezer itself, which constantly performs the
will of its Creator." 6 And he illustrates the matter with a parable:
A certain king wished to test the loyalty of his subjects. So he
designated a member and to
of his court to simulate a rebellion
urge others to join the revolt. The supposed rebel had some suc-
cess; but a wise man reflected that the king would not have
tolerated such behavior unless he had some deeper purpose in
view. This story is told by R. Jacob Joseph, one of the Besht's
early disciples, who finds the same truth indicated in the verse:
"The Lord appeared unto him at the terebinths of Mamre" (Gen.
18.1). The name Mamre is connected with marah, "to rebel"—
even in our rebellious instincts the divine reveals itself. 7
The Hasidic authors ( like most of their contemporaries ) avoid
the name Satan, speaking sometimes of the Accuser, the opponent
(baal davar), the other side, the husks, and especially of the evil
inclination. The latter term is applied not only to the tempter in
the breast of the individual, but to the power of sin in general.
The following legend is told of R. Elimelech of Leziensk, a leader
in the second generation of the Besht's disciples: The "evil in-
clination" warned R. Elimelech to give up his efforts at regener-
ating his fellow-men. Were he to reform the entire world, nothing
would be left for the evil yezer to do! Unless the rabbi desisted
from his endeavors, the evil yezer would cease to tempt the rest
of mankind and war against him alone. R. Elimelech replied:
Whatever I do, you will surely tempt me with all your might—
for you are no respecter of persons. And I too shall continue to
do my very best. 8
Sometimes, indeed, we meet suggestions that a malicious Satan
is seeking to delay the redemption. In his younger days, an old
legend reports, the Baal Shem had the duty of escorting children
from home to school and back again. On these walks he taught
the children to hymn God's praises with such fervor that Satan
became fearful that his destruction was at hand. So he took the
form of a Gentile enchanter, who appeared to the children as a
ravening beast. No one was actually hurt; but the daily trips to
school were interrupted until the Besht regained his self-confi-
dence and persuaded the parents to trust their children to him.
The next time the beast showed himself, the Besht struck him
dead with a blow on the forehead. The following day they found
the corpse of the sorcerer. 9
This story displays not the power of the Devil, but the great-
ness of the Baal Shem. But occasionally we observe a darker note.
The Baal Shems great-grandson, R. Nahman of Bratzlav, was a
gifted story teller. One of his tales concerns a young scholar who
was with rabbinic studies: they failed to nourish his
dissatisfied
soul. In his quest for spiritual fulfillment, he decided to visit a
certain (Hasidic) saint. But his father objected: the saint was
inferior to his son in ancestry and it was beneath
and learning,
But
their dignity to visit him. was so strong that
the son's desire
the father agreed to undertake the journey as long as no warning
omen stopped them. On the way one of the horses fell and the
cart was overturned; the father then decided that they must go
back. The son insisted on a second attempt; but the axle of the
cart broke, and again they turned homeward. On a third ven-
ture, they stopped at an inn; and there, in casual conversation,
Mysticism for the Masses • • •
199
a trader informed them that the so-called saint was really a sinful
fellow. Once more they went home, and soon thereafter the son
died. Then he appeared repeatedly to his father in dreams, urging
him to visit the saint; and on his mission.
at last the father set out
Stopping at the same inn, he met the trader again; and the latter
now revealed that he was responsible for the obstacles that had
prevented the young man from meeting the saint. For the saint
had attained the rank and the young scholar
of "great luminary,"
that of "lesser luminary." Had the two lights been joined, the
Messiah would have come. "Now that I have got rid of him,"
ended the trader, "you may continue your journey." 10
R. Nahman's story is obviously directed against the opponents
of Hasidism; the conclusion is reminiscent of the legend about R.
Joseph della Reyna. But nothing else of found in R.
this sort is
Nahman's stories, or in his recorded sayings. Under the heading

Kelipah (husk), R. Nathan of Nemirov, R. Nahman's Boswell,
has listed a dozen remarks—but they are all commonplaces about
demons. 11
It should be added that, while the founders of Hasidism did
much to dissipate the atmosphere of terror which had been gen-

erated by the later Cabala, their successors did not always main-
tain the new mood of mystical joy. Some of the later Hasidim
were inclined to the asceticism of the Lurian school; but they
never abandoned entirely the hopeful and wholesome outlook
which the Besht had commended.
Above all, we must remember that the Hasidim never cast their
doctrine into systematic form. Their books are in considerable
part notes of the informal instruction which the Hasidic saints
gave their followers by word of mouth. In such collections, in-
consistent elements are the more likely to appear. The most pro-
found thinker of Hasidism, R. Shneor Zalman of Ladi, has little
to sav about evil forces. Dualistic ideas in Hasidic literature seem
to be a survival of earlier doctrines rather than an integral part
of Hasidic teaching. The key word of the latter is yihud, "unifi-
cation," which is applied to every phase of existence from the
creation of a unified fellowship in Israel to the uniting of the
Sefiroth one to another and to the Infinite. No place is left for an
independent area of the cosmos in rebellion against God. Satan
resumes his old roles as tempter and accuser. Evil is a means for
the revelation and triumph of the divine.
Fallen Angels
PART EIGHT
Christian Theology
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
The Devil of the Philosophers
e turn back to the Middle Ages to survey

Christian beliefs concerning the Devil. A real
development of the idea cannot be expected.
The New Testament writings and the opinions of the great
Fathers, notably Augustine, had fixed the doctrine of the Church
rather clearly; and the Fourth Lateran Council, in 1215, defined
the official teaching: "The Devil and the other demons were cre-
ated by God with a good nature; but they themselves through
their own agency became evil." 1 No change in this basic posi-
tion could occur within the Catholic Church; and the doctrine
was retained even by those who repudiated the authority of
Rome. Not until, at the end of the eighteenth century, a new
critical approach to both Hebrew and Christian Scriptures ap-
peared, could there be substantial revision of the doctrine of
Satan.
• • • 201
202 • • • Fallen Angeb
But though the idea underwent no inner development, it did
express itself in a variety of new forms, some terrifying, all of
them interesting.
The later Middle Ages saw the rise of great universities where
philosophy was cultivated with increasing interest and skill. Aris-
totle reappeared in Latin translations made by way of Arabic
and Hebrew; Moslem and Jewish interpreters likewise be-
his
came known in Christian Europe. The philosophers of this era—
whether Jewish, Christian or Moslem— did not attempt to con-
independent systems. Known as scholastics, they
struct original or
sought only by rational methods to clarify and defend the doc-
trines of their respective religions.
One of the most notable Anselm of Canter-
scholastics was St.
bury (1033-1109). With resolute courage and great independ-

ence, he attempted to justify the doctrines of religion, not by
appeal to the authorities of the past, but by reason alone. He
formulated a famous proof for the existence of God; and in his
Cur Deus Homo he attempted a rational account of the incarna-
tion. Not only did God become man, as related in the New Testa-
ment, but, argues Anselm, the divine plan had to work out in this
way and no other. The redemption of sinful mankind could be
brought about only through a being who united within himself
the human element (so that he shared the experience of those
needing redemption) and the divinity by which he could rise
above the fate of mankind. This thesis has some bearing on our
subject. It precludes the view (already condemned by the
Church ) that the Devil and his minions may eventually be saved;
for to redeem them, not a God-man, but a God-angel would have
been required. 2 Anselm also, in the course of his demonstration,
attacked the notion, held by several early Fathers, that the cruci-
fixion was in the nature of a ransom paid to Satan and argued
that "satisfaction" was due to God alone. 3
In a short Dialogue Concerning the Fall of the Devil, Anselm
makes plain the difficulties which this belief presented to the
trained thinker. The angels are disembodied intelligences, com-
pletely spiritual, subject to none of the accidents or passions of
the flesh. Their fall could not have been due to sensual impulse;
their sin must have been a spiritual sin. But how could angels,
created all good, have yielded to such sin? What was the differ-
The Devil of the Philosophers • • •
203
ence by virtue of which some from grace, while others stood
fell
firm? Either there was some weakness in the original nature of
the rebels— which means, God did not create them good— or else
He did not bestow on them the same grace through which the
others resisted temptation—in which case the fall was God's do-
ing, not Satan's. Moreover, it is generally held that Satan's sin
was the desire to usurp God's place. But even we mortals know
that such an ambition was, not only wicked, but ridiculous; could
not great angels, with their lucid minds, understand and refrain
from such tragic folly? 4
Anselm, it need hardly be said, stated the problems much more
effectively than he solved them. We need not follow all the de-
vious subtleties by which he and his successors— Peter Lombard,
Albert the Great, Duns Scotus— attempted to reconcile tradition
and reason on this point. Instead we pass at once to the man who
digested and synthesized the work of all predecessors in the field.
St. Thomas of Aquino, "the Angelic Doctor" ( 1225P-1274? ), is
still regarded by the Catholic Church as the authoritative ex-
positor of its philosophy and theology. He frequently quotes the

Jewish philosopher Maimonides; and there are many resem-
blances between the two. Both were rationalists, though not with-
out mystical qualities. Both, saturated with the Aristotelianism
of their age, re-interpreted in its light the received doctrines of
their respective faiths. A
comparison of the way these two men
treat the problem of evil therefore provides an excellent insight
into the essential divergence of the two religions.
Maimuni, it will be remembered, regards evil as something
negative, the absence of good. It cannot therefore be ascribed to
God the Creator. As for Satan and the demons, Maimonides
speaks of them only as far as Scriptural references require, and
explains such passages allegorically. 5
St. Thomas, too, when treating of evil in the abstract defines
it as a deficiency, not as a positive entity. Evil is "some absence
of good"— it consists in the circumstance that a "thing fails in
6
its goodness." In one passage he even finds it necessary to prove
logically that evil actions can occur, in the light of a statement
by Dionysius "that evil acts not save by the power of the good."
True, says St. Thomas, every action is good insofar as it has be-
ing. In this sense, too, God is the source of evil, since He alone
can confer existence; but every evil, insofar as it has positive
a
existence, is good. What makes an act evil, however, issome defi-

ciency, in order, measure, time, place and the like. Above all,
there is no first principle of evil, corresponding to and opposed
to the highest good. 7
Such argumentation derives from Neo-Platonism, which was
partly retained by the scholastics even after the rediscovery of
Aristotle. The Platonists had always held the doctrine that evil is
non-entity. St. Thomas, however, clings to it the more emphati-
cally because it provides a defense against extremes of dualism.
Several times he refers to these arguments as a refutation of the
Manicheans. 8
But what about the Devil and his wicked hordes? Here
Thomas, the faithful Churchman, must reconcile the old myth
with his sophisticated rationalism. The problems Anselm had
tried to solve must be reviewed and settled. St. Thomas proceeds
as follows:
Angels are immaterial intelligences; but they are created be-
ings, theyhave not always existed. 9 They possess free will—
point much emphasized by Christian thinkers. For free choice,
argues Aquinas, is part of man's dignity; and since the angels
surpass man, they must all the more have the power of free will.
Again the angels are devoid of irascible and concupiscible appe-
tites; for these instincts are assigned by Aristotle to the bodily
part of man, and the angels are bodiless. 10

"To be established or confirmed in the good is of the nature of
beatitude." The angels were not so confirmed from the moment
of their creation; for we know some of them fell. They were
indeed created in a state of intellectual perfection, but had not
yet attained the supernatural vision of God. To turn to Him as
the object of beatitude, they required divine grace. Exercising
this divinepower provided for his benefit, the angel might turn
to God; and he was beatified instantly after his first act of devo-
tion to God's service. Having once made this choice, the angel
was not further subject to sin. 11
But not all the angels made the same choice: some decided
wrongly. Here St. Thomas finds it necessary to introduce proofs,
from both Scripture and logic, that angels can be subject to sin.
They cannot indeed commit the gross mortal sin that comes
through ignorance or error, or through bodily passion. But there
is also another kind of sin, which results from choosing something
The Devil of the Philosophers • • • 205
good in itself, but not according to the proper measure or rule.

Such a sin does not presuppose ignorance, but merely the failure
to consider things which ought to be considered. An angel might
sin in this way, by turning freely to his own good without regard
for the divine will. As Augustine long since argued, angels can
have no other sin than pride or envy— sins in no way dependent
on body or sense. 12
When did the angels sin? The Fathers disagree. St. Thomas
rejects the view that they sinned in the very instant of their crea-
tion, for in the first moment the angels must have acted through
the agency of their Creator. He thinks it probable that the Devil
sinned in the first moment after his creation; and he inclines to
the view of Gregory that, previous to his downfall, the Devil had
been the most eminent of the angels. 13
From Isaiah 14.13-14, says Thomas, we have clear proof that
the Devil actually desired to be as God. But how could he have
wished such a thing? Surely an angel must know that for a crea-
ture to desire to equal the Creator is a logical contradiction!
True, says the wise doctor, the Devil did not desire to be abso-
lutely equal with God, not only because he must have known it
was impossible, but because it would have meant that he must
cease to be himself. But the desire to be like God can take two
forms. One is the proper desire to become godly through God's
help. "In another way, one may desire to be like God in some re-
spect which is not natural to one: e.g., ifone were to desire to
create heaven and earth, which is proper to God, in which desire
there would be sin. It was in this way that the Devil desired to
be God. Not that he desired to resemble God by being subject
as
to no one else absolutely; for he would thus be desiring his own
non-being, since no creature can exist except by participating
under God. But he desired resemblance with God in this: that he
desired as the last end of beatitude something which he could
attain by the virtue of his own nature, turning his appetite away
from the supernatural beatitude which is attained by God's grace.
Or if he desired as his last end that likeness to God which is
bestowed by grace, he sought to have it by the power of his own
nature, and not from the divine assistance according to God's
ordering. This harmonizes with Anselm's opinion, who says that
he sought that to which he would have come had he stood fast."
Moreover he wished dominion over others. 14
This is indeed an attenuated version of Satan's rebellion. It

seems hardly worth the trouble to sin for such limited objectives!
St. Thomas, however, is struggling to adjust an old crude myth
to his own highly developed philosophic outlook; one cannot but

admire how manfully he attempts a thankless and, indeed, ulti-
mately impossible job.
Thomas goes on to state that the sin of the Devil served as
an example and inducement for others to follow him; but the
number of angels who stood fast is far greater than that of those
who sinned. The fallen angels are identical with the demons. 15
These beings remain essentially intellectual. They retain that
knowledge of truth which derives from their original nature, and
as much of the speculative knowledge obtained through grace as
is needful. But they are utterly deprived of that grace-given
knowledge "which is affective, and produces love for God." 16

They are not subject to bodily feelings and passions. When we
ascribe fury or lust to the demons, we are speaking metaphori-
cally, just as when we ascribe anger or regret to God. 17 The de-
mons delight in carnal sin, but only as a means of hurting man.
They derive, so to speak, a spiritual pleasure from human sensu-
ality, not because it is pleasurable, but because it is wicked. 18
St. Thomas does not doubt the existence of incubi and succubi;
but he holds that an incubus can beget a child only by utilizing

human seed. 19
Just as the blessed angels are confirmed in goodness and can-
not sin, so the wicked angels, having chosen sin, are irreparably
committed to it. They are sorry for having failed, but they are
not sorry for having sinned. 20
In St. Thomas' thought, the fallen angels subject to punish-
ment are fully identified with the evil spirits now active in the
world. Because of their sin, they deserve to be But God,
in hell.
using their evil inclinations for his own purposes, keeps most of
them in the "cloudy atmosphere" as in a prison until the judg-
ment day. This is the teaching of Augustine. Some of the demons
are already in hell, where they torment those souls which they
successfully tempted— just as some of the good angels are with
the holy souls in heaven. After judgment day all the wicked, both
angels and men, will be in hell forever. 21
Meantime, detained in the cloudy atmosphere, the demons do
God's work by tempting men. True, their intention is entirely
)
The Devil of the Philosophers • • •

207
malicious; but God

it to good use, for it is morally benefi-
turns
cial for man with temptation. God, of course, knows
to struggle
in advance what will be our reaction to the Devil's wiles. The
temptation ordained of God is not really for the purpose of know-
ing, but rather making known, the moral stuff of which we are
made. Sometimes, however, the demons assault us, not for temp-
tation, but for punishment. In such cases— as when the lying
spirit was sent to lure Ahab to his death— we may say that the
22
demon sent by God.
is There is a sort of hierarchy among the
demons, based on the angelic status they possessed before their
rebellion. 23
In the sense that he instigated the sin of Adam, we may call
the Devil the source of all sin. But individual sins have a variety
of causes, and are not all Some of the causes
the work of Satan.
of sin are internal— ignorance, malice, passion. The external causes
of sin are said to be God, the Devil and human tempters. St.
Thomas denies that God can be the cause of sin. He is indeed the
cause of all acts, insofar as they possess being and activity; but
sinfulness is always in the nature of a deficiency, resulting not
from God's will, but from man's free choice. 24
Thomas also limits the role of the Devil as a cause of sin. The
sinswhich result from inordinate physical appetites could occur
without any diabolic intervention. Though St. Jerome says that
"as God is the perfecter of good, so the Devil is the perfecter of
evil," his words must not be taken too literally. For God can move
the will inwardly; but the Devil can only stir the imagination and
the bodily appetites, thereby darkening the reason. The Devil's
role is limited to proposing sin and persuading us to it, just as
25
human tempters might do. The root of sin is in man's freedom
26
of will.
We must likewise be cautious powers
in attributing miraculous
to the demons. God alone can perform true miracles. But men can
sometimes do astonishing works, and angels all the more. Some
of these performances are not illusory— as when the magicians
of Egypt, by demonic powers, produced real serpents and frogs.
( In such cases the demons do not actually transmute matter, but
utilize certain seminal principles resident in the material world.

The more radical wonders produced by the demons are only sem-
blance. They are accomplished either by working on man's imagi-
208 • • • Fallen Angeh
nation or senses, or by clothing the air with a corporeal appear-
ance. J7
Some features of this exposition of Thomas Aquinas were
criticized by his contemporaries, especially his great antagonist
Duns Scotus. 28
Nor has every detail been adopted by the Church.
But in its main outlines, the satanology set forth above is still
the doctrine of Rome.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
The Devil of the People
'he highly abstract conception of the Devil pre-
T sented in the previous chapter was of interest only

to a few exalted intellects; but the popular notions to which we
now turn were not confined to quaint villagers. They were shared
by laity and clergy alike; even men of vast erudition believed
in a most realistic sort of Devil, whose workings they were sure
they had experienced. Not a few were convinced that they had
seen him with their own eyes, in a variety of dreadful forms.
Medieval literature and art depict him as a horrible monster,
usually equipped with horns and with the wings and claws of a
dragon. He takes other forms, too, notably those of the goat and
pig. He blights all life with his malice; he is the source not only
of sin, but of every physical evil— sickness, storm, crop-failure,
emotional disturbance.
Surprisingly, the consciousness of Satan was not at its height
in the early medieval period, the so-called Dark Ages. The twelfth
and thirteenth which witnessed the building of the
centuries,
great cathedrals, the rise of the universities, and the flowering of
scholastic philosophy, were precisely the years in which the
awareness of the Devil and his powers rose to a new and terrify-
ing climax.
The belief in the reality and power of the Devil is indeed to
be found in every age of historical Christianity. Tertullian, for
example, was obsessed by the horror and danger of the spirit
world. But the violent intensity of his feeling was, for his age,
somewhat exceptional. More and more, however, as centuries
The Devil of the People • • • 209
went by, did this mood become characteristic. Bulky tomes were
compiled by monastic writers, setting forth in minutest detail
the innumerable activities and stratagems of the Devil and his
hosts.
Nothing is too trivial for Satan's direct intervention. If the
howling of the wind through the trees produces a momentary
fright, if a headache distracts a brother from his devotions, or if
an indolent mood prompts the postponement of some task, the
Devil is at work in person. An endless store of tales in which the
Devil appears visibly to torture the saints or to tempt the un-
steady are solemnly set forth. No one doubted that Satan had
unwisely approached St. Dunstan while the latter was working
at his forge, and that the doughty saint had grasped Satan's nose
with his red-hot pincers and forced him to an undignified retreat!
Such tales were part of the stock-in-trade of the preachers and
circulated freely among the people.
As in this last instance, there sometimes a comic note in the
is
1
stories about Satan. I suspect that this is partly an inheritance
from heathen antiquity. The relation between pre-Christian
paganism and the demonology of medieval Europe has not been
fullv settled. The Christian teachers, we saw, identified the
heathen gods and goddesses with the demonic fallen angels.
Some modern investigators have taken a similar view and inter-
preted medieval witchcraft and diabolism as survivals of the old
pre-Christian cults. 2 However this may be, we cannot doubt that
many an old Germanic tale of forest demons, trolls and giants
persisted after the tellers of the story had become Christian; and
the evil spirit of the story became Satan or one of his lieutenants.
Many of these old tales concern the outwitting of the demon by
some clever human device. They may be the source of some of
which Satan comes off second best.
the jollier stories in
But by and large, there was nothing funny about the Devil
in medieval Europe. A competent authority remarks: "It may al-
most be said that to the ordinary man during this period, the
Devil was a more insistent realitv J
than God Himself." 3 He
darkened men's lives with his terrors. The love of God was too
often obscured by the all-powerful fear of the Devil.
witchcraft. The consequences of this pervading terror were far

more serious than the generation of a gloomy mood. The belief
in witchcraft— universal in former ages— now took on a more

dreadful aspect. The view gradually emerges that a person can
enter into direct compact with the Devil, selling his soul in ex-
change for material benefits or supernatural powers. The earliest
instance of this belief is the story of Theophilus, which appeared
in a Greek writing of the sixth century and was retold later in
many different versions. 4 Theophilus had been disappointed in
his hopes of ecclesiastical preferment, and sold himself to the
Devil in order to gain power; but, in the end, the Virgin inter-
vened to release him from the power of Satan, and he died in
sanctity.
At a theme of a compact with the Devil became
later date this
much more The most famous example is the story of
popular.
Faust, which has had such great fascination for creative artists.
The older versions of this tale, incidentally, agree that Faust
remained unregenerate, and in the end the Devil carried him off.
So it is not only in the old folk-story, but in Marlowe's Faustus
and in the musical setting of Berlioz, La Damnation de Faust.
Even in Gounod's tuneful opera, Marguerite's soul is saved, but
Faust remains in the clutches of Mephistopheles. Only Goethe's
philosophic poem, and Boito's ambitious but not wholly success-
ful attempt to transform it into music-drama, permit Faust to
attain eventual salvation. Of course, to the modern writer it is
precisely the outwitting of the Devil which is the chief interest.

A beautiful instance is Stephen Vincent Benet's story, The Devil
and Daniel Webster.
But this notion, unfortunately, did not remain mere legend, to
be studied by folklorists and transfigured by poets. It is the root
of the medieval Christian conception of witchcraft and of all the
abominable deeds it brought forth. To comprehend this matter
the more clearly, let us turn back for a moment to the Jewish
views on the subject.
Sorcery, magic and divination are ancient beyond reckon- all
ing. By many peoples they are regarded as transactions with dark

and dangerous powers. In Israel especially they were condemned
as illegitimate. The law (Deut. 18.10 ff. and elsewhere) briefly
prohibits a number of occult practices. Some involved consulta-
tion of the spirits of the dead; other techniques can be illustrated
from non-Israelite sources. There is more than one hint in the
Bible that these practices are prohibited because they are akin to
idolatry. Special mention must be made of the brief law in

Exodus 22.17: "Thou shalt not suffer a sorceress to live." Later
commentators remark, no doubt correctly, that the law applies
equally to male sorcerers; but the Torah mentions women be-
cause they are specially addicted to this sin. It is reported that
Saul was energetic in purging the land of witchcraft, though in
desperation he himself finally resorted to it (I Sam. 28).
The Mishnah between witchcraft— the actual per-

distinguishes
formance of supernatural deeds— and illusion. If a man caused
the cucumbers in a garden to pluck themselves from the vine and
pile themselves in one spot, he would be liable to the death pen-
alty; if he merely made people think they had seen this trick
happen, he would be guiltless. 5 The Mishnah likewise reports
that Simeon b. Shetah (a leading Pharisee, c. 70 b.c.e. ) once
hanged eighty witches in Askelon on a single day. The episode
is mentioned as highly exceptional, since the Jewish criminal law
forbids not only mass executions, but even mass trials. Simeon
is said to have suspended the established laws because of emer-
gency. It should be added that the detailed account of the in-

cident in the Palestinian Talmud is altogether of legendary char-
6
acter; the real facts of the case are highly uncertain.
This is the only recorded instance, to my
knowledge, in which
Jewish authorities are reported to have invoked the death penalty
for witchcraft. From about the beginning of the Christian era,
it is true, Jewish courts rarely had the right to try or punish
major criminal offenders. But I have not encountered any case

where even an accusation of criminal witchcraft was made. Jew-
ish thought does not regard witches as constituting a special
category of human beings; it simply condemns certain types of
behavior.
During the Middle Ages, superstitious practices became some-
what more open and respectable. Even the talmudic sources,
condemning many procedures as "ways of the Amorite," list
others which are permissible, or at least pardonable. 7 The "prac-
tical Cabala" was a kind of magic; but as we have seen, it con-
sisted chiefly in the use of divine and angelic names. It is not a
rebellion against God, but a somewhat selfish and materialistic
use of divine powers.
Christians, too, knew of what is sometimes called "white
magic." One, Agrippa of Nettesheim, early in the sixteenth cen-
tury,wrote a massive defense of what he calls "natural" or "celes-

tial" magic. 8 But
it was generally agreed among Christians that
witches are persons who have made a compact with Satan, the
father of evil; they are enrolled in his legions and are the avowed
enemies of God and His people. They accomplish their super-
natural deeds through the agency of the demons. They can be
overcome only by the most alert resistance and the most ruthless
prosecution.
Once more, the marked divergence between Jewish and Chris-
tian viewpoints canbe illustrated by citing the two great rational-
ists, Moses ben Maimon and Thomas Aquinas. Maimuni sum-
marizes the talmudic laws concerning witchcraft in the section

of his code dealing with idolatry, and concludes as follows: "All
these things are lies and falsehoods with which the ancient idola-
ters deceived the peoples, that they might follow them. It is not
fitting for Israel, who are a truly wise people, to be attracted by
these vanities, or to suppose that they are of value; for it is said
(Num. 23.23) 'There is no enchantment with Jacob, neither is
there any divination with Israel/ And it is said (Deut. 18.14) Tor
these nations, that thou art to dispossess, hearken unto sooth-
sayers and unto Lord thy God had
diviners; but as for thee, the
not suffered thee to do so/ Whoever believes in these things and
the like of them, and supposes that they are genuine and a kind
of wisdom, but that the Torah forbids them, belongs to the fools
and the deficient in knowledge, in a class with women and chil-
dren whose mentality is incomplete. Those who are possessors of
wisdom and perfected in knowledge know by clear proofs that
all these things which the Torah forbids are not wisdom, but
empty vanity, after which the deficient in knowledge are drawn,

who in consequence cast off all truth. Hence the Torah, in warn-
ing us against these follies, says: (ibid. v. 13) 'Thou shalt be
whole-hearted with the Lord thy God/ " 9
No such forthright skepticism is expressed by the philosopher
of the Church. He is, indeed, far more cautious in relating the
works performed by sorcerers than the writers we shall shortly
mention. "It is averred," he says, "that at the mere presence of a
certain person all doors are unlocked, that a certain man becomes
invisible, and many like occurrences are related." And again, "It
is stated that by the magic art a statue is made to move of itself,
or to speak." Sometimes he is less wary. He remarks without

qualification that "answers are given about stolen goods and the
like." "Now in these apparitions and speeches that occur in the
works of magicians, it frequently happens that a person obtains
knowledge of things surpassing the capacity of his intellect, such
as the discovery of hidden treasure, the manifestation of the
future; and sometimes true answers are given in matters of
science." But these variations of language are not very important.
For even the items which Thomas mentions as mere reports are
used to reinforce his argument that the magic art cannot be
merely the employment of astral forces, that is to say, a kind of
scientific technique, but involves recourse to the demons— demons
whom he elsewhere has identified as the altogether depraved
companions of Satan in rebellion against God. 10
These two thinkers represent the maximum of enlightenment
in their respective religious policies. There were many medieval
Jews who did not doubt the reality of witchcraft and might have
censured Maimuni for denying it. But just as there is a great
difference between Maimonides with his flat denial and St.
Thomas with his cautious affirmation, so there is a comparable
gap between the most superstitious medieval Jew and the frantic
witch-hunters of Christendom. Here again, it should be noted
that the witch hysteria is a comparatively late development. It
swelled toward the end of the Middle Ages and was at its height
throughout the period of the Renaissance and Reformation. A
modern Catholic writer can point with some satisfaction to the
fact that Agobard, Bishop of Lyons in the ninth century, attacked
the credulity which led to witch-prosecutions. 11 At a later date,
Agobard might have suffered for his forthrightness. In 1453, the
Prior of St. Germain, William of Edelin, who had preached
against the reality of witchcraft, had to sue publicly for pardon;
he had to confess that he himself had worshipped Satan and had
renounced his faith in the Cross. His own sermons against the
belief in witchcraft, he was forced to declare, were preached at
the express command of the Devil, for the propagation of the

Satanic dominion. Even this recantation did not save him from
spending the rest of his life— a very short time— in prison. 12
This episode reflects a trend which had been growing for years.
The glorious thirteenth century witnessed the activity of Conrad
of Marburg, an inquisitor who ferreted out heretics and witches
throughout Germany with terrible ferocity. Another executive of
the "Holy Office," Hugo de burned a number of distin-

Beniols,
guished persons at Toulouse in 1275. Among them was Angele,
Lady of Labarthe, then sixty-five years old. It was alleged that
she had been the paramour of Satan and had borne her lover a
monster, with a wolfs head and a serpent's tail, which ate noth-
ing but babies. 13 Such ghastly events were not infrequent; to
multiply citations would only serve to nauseate the reader.
Although the initiative in witch-hunting was taken by workers
"in the field"— sometimes the local clergy,
sometimes the Inquisi-
tors—they received substantial backing from headquarters. In
1437,Pope Eugene sent a circular letter to the Inquisitors, urging
them to act swiftly and efficiently in the prosecution of witches,
without the formalities of judicial procedure. Indeed, it was gen-
erally understood that the usual legal safeguards for the accused
did not apply to witch-trials. Asseverations of innocence were
regarded as prima facie evidence of guilt, and the flimsiest and
most nonsensical testimony was treated as fully valid— so long as
it served to condemn the suspects. In 1484, Pope Innocent VIII
issued the bull Summis Desiderantes, which greatly facilitated
the labors of Jakob Sprenger and his Inquisitorial colleagues who
were busy hunting witches in Germany, and who had encoun-
tered some opposition from secular authorities. Later on, the
successors of Innocent made similar pronouncements. 14
Three years after the issuance of the bull of Innocent, a monu-
mental work appeared entitled fclalleus Maleficarum ( The Witch
Hammer). It is very probably the work of Sprenger. Here the
various activities and characteristics of witches are described
with unlimited fantastic and full directions are provided
detail,
for the successful detection and prosecution of witchcraft. In
sum, the Inquisitor is advised to abandon all reason and justice.
With complete assurance the author of this book declares that to
deny the reality of witchcraft is the worst of all heresies. 15
Not long after The Witch Hammer appeared, the Abbot of the
Monastery of Sponheim, one Johann Trithemius, was requested
by the Markgrave of Brandenburg for an opinion on the whole
question. The reverend abbot accordingly devoted years of con-
scientious study to the subject and presented his findings in a four
volume work, which began to appear when the author had
reached the age of This Antipalus Maleficiorum distin-
sixty-six.
guishes four classes of wizards and witches: those who hurt and
kill by poison and other natural means; those who commit

others
injuriesby the use of magical formulae; those who converse per-
sonally with the Devil; and those who have actually entered into
a compact with him. And Trithemius gives his considered opinion
that there is not a village which does not harbor at least one of
the third and fourth classes! 16
Armed with such convictions, the witch-hunters put thousands
of victims to death, often with savage torments. The cruelty
evoked by the belief in witchcraft is the accurate measure of the
frantic terror which it inspired. Simple ignorance and normal
brutality do not suffice to explain the atrocities. Certain classes of
individuals were especially marked out for destruction. Those
with odd, especially disfiguring, physical characteristics; neurotic
and feeble-minded persons; old and solitary women; scientifically-
minded students who expressed disbelief in some superstition
were frequently the targets of denunciation, which almost in-
variably meant condemnation. At least occasionally, accusations
must have been leveled out of sheer malice, since there was
hardly a better way to get rid of an enemy than to charge him
with witchcraft. Probably the greatest number of the accusations
had no basis whatever except in the mental disease which was
chronic in the population and acute in the prosecutors. And the
root of the disease was dread of the Devil.
Yet it seems indubitable that the sins which the Church con-
demned so roundly and punished so terribly were not altogether
imaginary. There must have been practitioners of black magic.
It has been supposed that the cult of the Devil was a survival
of the old paganism, which went underground after the triumph

of Christianity. Perhaps the conventional picture of Satan with
horns and hooves is somehow connected with the figure of the
god Pan. It is easy to understand how those who continued to
worship the old deities in secret would cherish a bitter hostility
to the dominant religion, yet more and more they would accept
its presuppositions. Thus an ancient pagan cult would become
gradually a glorification of the Devil as the opponent of Chris-

tianity. This however, only a plausible hypothesis. 17
is still,
It has also been suggested that many a credulous soul may
have been attracted to witchcraft and Devil worship through

suggestions implanted enemies of these practices:
by the official
that, in short, the witch-hunters created the very terrors that

haunted them. Such an explanation seems to fit well in the case

of the famous Gilles de Rais ( 1404-1440 ) a scion of an ancient
,
and noble family and Marshal of France. He had won great glory
for his courageous support of Joan of Arc in the war of liberation
against the English. Then, apparently because of financial strin-
gency, he began to dabble in witchcraft in the hope of restoring
his fortunes, meanwhile protecting his spiritual interests by vari-
ous gifts to religious foundations. Gradually he became involved
in ghastly and truly diabolic undertakings in which dozens of
individuals were tortured to death. The detailed and voluminous
evidence which was presented at his trial seems to preclude any
doubt that the victims were actual sacrifices to the evil power
whose favor Gilles sought to obtain. 18 But there are still many
queer and unexplained things about the famous trial; and it
should not be forgotten that in the next century, when a priest
named Urban Grandier was tried on similar— though less sensa-
tional—charges, the original contract by which he disposed of his
soul, bearing his own signature and that of the Prince of Dark-
ness, was actually produced in court. 19
At all events, there is little reason to doubt that the Sabbat—
the gathering of witches for nocturnal rites, in which one of those
present impersonated Satan— and the Black Mass, in which the
central rite of the Church was obscenely burlesqued, were actu-
ally celebrated.
the devil'speople—the jews. Another tragic consequence of the

lively belief in the Devil was the demonic conception of the Jews
which evolved during the later Middle Ages. Here, again, the
roots of the attitude go back almost to the beginnings of Chris-
tianity. There are bitter anti-Jewish elements in the Synoptic
writings; and the Fourth Gospel explicitly identifies the Jews as
children of the Devil (John 8.44). There is a great deal to the
same effect in the writings of the Fathers.
When Rome became officially Christian, oppressive measures
against the Jews were introduced, and from time to time active
persecutions occurred. And yet, during the "Dark Ages" the Jews
enjoyed a substantial measure of security and freedom, and there
was often friendly social intercourse between Jews and Chris-
tians. Except in Spain under the Catholic Goths, who persecuted
The Devil of the People • • •
217
the Jews without mercy, this period was not altogether an un-
happy one.
A new and terrible era was ushered in by the First Crusade,
when in 1096 the Jewish communities of the Rhineland and else-
where were systematically butchered. Thereafter massacres and
expulsions became frequent and affected much larger numbers
of people; and during intervals when violence subsided, Church
and State collaborated in segregating and humiliating the Jews,
and in subjecting them to all kinds of oppressive and discrimina-
tory laws.
Concomitant with these overt acts was a new interpretation of
the Jewish character. It was no longer sufficient to condemn the
Jews for their rejection of the Christian gospel, to hate them for
their alleged responsibility for the death of the Savior, or to
charge them with all sorts of moral faults. They are now pictured
as entirely devoid of normal humanity. Since they deny the truth
of Christianity, they are obviously enemies of Christ. Therefore,
they are allies of Satan. Therefore they are themselves devils.
Such was the simple reasoning of the Middle Ages.
Dr. Joshua Trachtenberg, who has investigated this subject
thoroughly, has drawn his materials not only from books but
from the art and drama of the period. Jews were represented
with horns, claws and tails (to this day, there are rustics in our
own country who cannot be persuaded that Jews do not have
horns), and in other pictures Satan appears among the Jews
wearing the Jew-badge upon garments and joining with them
his
in the practice of usury. In the "mystery plays," the crucifixion
is the result of a conspiracy in which the Jews and Satan are
partners, and Jews and demons manifest equal glee over the
sufferings they occasion. 20
Particularly striking are the medieval Antichrist legends, for
they resemble tales we have already encountered in Jewish
sources of dubious authority. The idea found
of the Antichrist is
in New Testament writings; but a detailed legend about this

sinister figure is said to have taken form only about the tenth
century. The great scholastics, Albertus Magnus and Thomas
Aquinas, discuss the matter; and for reasons readily understood,
deny that the Devil himself is to sire the Antichrist, though they
agree that the birth of the latter will be in some way influenced
by Satan. But they could not eradicate the popular view. In one
of the French Antichrist plays, a Jewish prostitute offers herself

to Satan that she may
bear a child who will destroy Christianity
and restore Jewry to power. In another version of this drama, a
Jewish voluptuary gives his daughter to the Devil for the express
purpose that she may mother the Antichrist. 21
Further details— and they are consistently appalling— may be
found in Dr. Trachtenb erg's valuable study, The Devil and the
Jews. He has shown beyond challenge that the demonic concep-
tion of the Jew has European culture and pro-
greatly colored
vided a deep-rooted emotional prejudice for the modern anti-
Semites to exploit.
Once more, let us note a strange fact, which cannot be fully
explained. The intense awareness of the Devil, the fear of witch-
craft, and the dread of the Jew as a demonic being all reached
their climax toward the end of the Middle Ages and the begin-
ning of the Renaissance. These violent emotional disturbances
were at their height precisely during the period when European
culture and intellectual life were in a magnificent upswing.
the heretics. As in its earliest days, so in the Middle Ages, the

Church set limits to the degree of dualism that was allowable and
condemned extreme doctrines as heretical. And from time to
time the old Gnostic-Manichean themes were revived, generally
in combination with a radical opposition to clerical authority and
to the established institutions and rites of the Church. As early
as the fifth century, there was a sect in western Asia known
as the Paulinians or Paulicians, who distinguished between the
good Heavenly Father and the evil Demiurge, the God of the
Old Testament. (Yet they indignantly denied that they were
Manicheans, and are said to have anathematized Mani!) They
suffered fierce persecutions by the Byzantine emperors, but they
were never completely conquered; they were rediscovered in
the eighteenth century, after an underground existence of many
hundreds of years. 22
It is hard to trace the relationship of one heresy to another.
We have some record of incidents by which the Paulicians moved

westward into Europe; but it is not clear whether the Bogomils
of Bulgaria, the Cathari of western Europe, the Paterines who ap-
peared in Italy, and other
similar heresies represent the direct
continuation of Paulician influence or are parallel phenomena.
The Devil of the People • • •
219
The Bogomil movement is especially interesting for our pur-
pose because of highly developed dualistic mythology. The

its
Bogomils taught that God had two sons: the elder Satanel, the
younger Michael. The elder son rebelled and became the spirit
of evil. He created the lower heavens and the earth, but was not
able to create a living man. At length he persuaded God to
breathe a soul into Adam. Once
was accomplished, Satanel
this
set out to corrupt humanity. According to one version, he per-
mitted Adam to till the earth only on condition that mankind
should serve him (Satanel), the owner of the earth. Another ac-
count reports that Satanel seduced Eve and became the father
of Cain, the principle of evil in humanity. This principle pre-
vailed over Abel, the good principle. Satanel imposed himself on
the Jews as the supreme God, and beguiled Moses into accepting
the fatal gift of the Law. In the fullness of time, Michael, God's
younger son, was incarnated as Jesus. Though Satanel was able
to bring about the crucifixion, he lost the limitless power he had
hitherto enjoyed. The last syllable of his name was taken away,
as an indication that he had lost his former rank: he is now mere
Satan. Yet he was still able to father the whole orthodox com-
munity with its churches, priests, monks, vestments and sacra-
ments. 23
A little later, western Europe saw the rise of a sect who called
themselves Cathari, the pure ones. Teaching a doctrine less
crudely mythological than that of the Bogomils, they drew even
more radical consequences Opposed to the
from their beliefs.
true God, they held, is the evil God Satan, "who inspired the
malevolent parts of the Old Testament, is god and lord of this
world, of the things that are seen and are temporal, and espe-
cially of the outer man which is decaying, of the earthen vessel,
of the body of death This world is the only true purgatory
. . .
and hell Men are the result of a primal war in heaven, when
. . .
hosts of angels incited by Satan or Lucifer to revolt were driven

out and imprisoned in terrestrial bodies created for them by the
adversary."
Earthly being so essentially evil, one who dies unregen-
life
erate is reincarnated in the first body, animal or human, which

the soul can find, in order to escape persecution by the powers of
the air. The only escape from this impasse is the way of spiritual
redemption taught by the Cathari. Churches, creeds and sacra-
ments are of no avail. Only the ascetic life of purification will do.
Those who entered fully upon this course were known as per-
fecti; their sympathizers were known as credentes.
Such heresy was bound to evoke the fury of the Church, not
only because of its unorthodox theology, but because of its clear
It became very popular in
challenge to ecclesiastical authority.
southern France in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, where
its adherents were known as Albigenses. So serious did the threat
seem Popes that an Albigensian Crusade was launched in

to the
1209, and thousands of the heretics (together with many who
were innocent even of heresy) were ruthlessly massacred. 24
Less successful were the efforts to eradicate the Waldenses ( or
Vaudois), a related sect of northern Italy. Their doctrines were,
however, not so extreme as those of the earlier sectaries, and
their chief interest was in the reform of the Church. Under the
stress of persecution, they withdrew into the mountain fastnesses
of Piedmont, where they though with great diffi-
still survive,
culties. Ultimately they made common cause with Calvin and the
Reformers, and it is as a Protestant group that they exist today.
One of the many punitive expeditions against them called forth
Milton's magnificent sonnet On the Late Massacre in Piedmont:
"Avenge, O Lord, thy slaughtered saints, whose bones

Lie scatter'd in the Alpine mountains cold." 25
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Protestant Christianity
uther. The Protestant Reformation was not a

L:(modernist or liberal movement, though it eventu-
ally led to such developments. At the was a reaction
start it
against the corruption of the Catholic Church and a manifesta-

tion of the growing spirit of nationalism. Martin Luther was less
of a liberal than such Catholic humanists as Reuchlin and Eras-
mus. He challenged the authority of the papacy, and he drasti-
cally revised certain doctrines; but he retained many elements
Protestant Christianity • • •
221
of traditional Christian theology: among them, the belief in the

Devil.
There is little or nothing about the Devil in the most impor-
tant Protestant creeds, such as the Augsburg Confession, the
Thirty-Nine Articles and the Westminster Confession. The men
who composed these documents were not at all indifferent to
the belief in Satan, still less were they sceptical about it. But they
devoted their attention chiefly to controversial issues. Since every-
one agreed about the existence of the Devil, they felt no need
to discuss it.
A familiar legend tells that while Luther was confined in the

Wartburg, Satan appeared to him; whereupon the doughty monk
threw his inkwell at the fiend and drove him off. There seems to
be no basis for the tale; yet rarely is a legend so apposite. Luther
was not apparently subject to the grosser hallucinations. ( He does
report that Satan once kept him awake by tossing nuts at the
ceiling of his room in the castle; but the episode became much
more terrifying in recollection twenty-five years later than when
it actually occurred. ) Yet few men have been more conscious of
1
a personal Devil. Luther's emotional, impulsive and dramatic

nature was well adapted to such a belief. His conversation and
his letters were studded with references to Satan. After due
allowance for figurative and facetious allusions, the number made
in dead earnest is impressively large.
In his work on the Unfree Will ( in which Luther solemnly set
forth a basic element of his doctrine) he declared: "The human
will is like a beast of burden. If God mounts it, it wishes and goes
as God wills; if Satan mounts it, it wishes and goes as Satan
wills. Nor can it choose the rider it would prefer, nor betake itself
to him, but it is the riders who contend for its possession." 2 Dur-
ing the period of negotiations looking toward a reunion of
Catholics and Protestants in Germany, Luther wrote his lieuten-
ant, Philip Melanchthon: "I see they think this is a comedy of
men, instead of a tragedy of God and Satan, as it is. Where
Satan's power waxes, that of God grows rusty." 3 Such citations,
from his published works, his letters and his table talk, could be
multiplied endlessly. It goes without saying that the Pope and
the papacy were closely associated with the Devil and the Anti-
christ in Luther's mind; and his other opponents, both political
and religious, including Protestants with whom he differed, were
the victims, when they were not the allies, of Satan. Particularly
interesting is his view that gloom and discouragement, as well
as an excessive preoccupation with one's own sinfulness, are de-

vices of the Devil. Luther's exhortations to cheerfulness remind
one strikingly of the advice given two centuries later by the Baal
Shem. "Sometimes," writes Luther, "we must drink more, sport,
recreate ourselves, aye, and even sin a little to spite the Devil,
so that we leave him no place for troubling our consciences with
trifles."
4
We
have many reports of Luther talking to the Devil,
generally in a most abusive and insulting manner. 5
The crowning evidence is Luther's great hymn, "Ein Feste
Burg," which has become the musical symbol of the Reformation
and is still widely sung in Protestant churches. After four lines
praising God as the Mighty Fortress, the hymn turns to the
glorification of Satan: 6
"Der alt bose feynd

mitt ernst ers yetzt meint,
gross macht un vil list
sein grausam rustung ist,
auff erd ist nicht seins gleichen."
"Our ancient foe accurst

Now means to do his worst,
Great power and craft are his,
And armed with them he is
On earth without an equal."
Only against the background of the power and majesty of the
"Prince of this World" can Luther present adequately the re-
demptive power of the "righteous man."
As he retained the medieval conception of the Devil, so Luther
clung to the practical concomitants of this belief. He denounced
witchcraft repeatedly. Witches, he held, should be prosecuted
with vigor and without too many niceties of legal procedure;
though he was concerned that some positive evidence of guilt be
adduced. Four witches were burned at Wittenberg, in June 1540,
at the time when Luther's influence was dominant in that city.
Consulted by the authorities regarding an idiot child, he decided
that it must be a changeling, and recommended that it be
drowned, as a body without a soul. 7
There was a period in Luther's life when he adopted a sympa-
Protestant Christianity • • • 223
thetic attitude toward the Jews. His book That Jesus Christ Was
Born a Jew condemned persecution and slander of the Jewish
people, and explained their failure to accept Christianity by the
corruption of the Roman Church. It is apparent that Luther had
high hopes of winning the Jews to his gospel. After these hopes
were disappointed, he attacked the Jews with coarsest savagery,
by both the spoken and the written word. His pamphlet Concern-
ing the Jews and their Lies and his other anti-Jewish writings
indicate that Luther's bitterness was not merely the result of
personal pique. The whole medieval combination of hatred and
fear, which he had consciously put aside when he wrote his more
tolerant work, was again given full rein. He doubted that even
baptism could redeem the demonic Jew. A Jewish convert to
Christianity, Luther related, had his statue carved with a cat in
one hand and a mouse in other, to hint that as the cat and mouse
can never be at peace, so a Jew can never become a Christian.
For Luther, too, the Devil and the Jews are closely allied. 8
calvin. Luther's views about the Devil reveal in their expression

the stamp of his unique personality, though in substance they
are neither new nor distinctive. These same views were held by
his colleagues and successors movement, how-
in the Protestant
ever different their tone and manner We need not
of utterance.
examine tediously all that the Reformers wrote on the subject.
It will be sufficient to refer to John Calvin— next to Luther, the
most influential of the early Protestant leaders, and totally unlike

Luther in temperament. Luther's religious doctrines must be
sought through (literally) a hundred volumes, many of them
turgid, abusively polemical, unsystematic, permeated by the
scholasticism which he had repudiated but could not entirely
escape. Calvin's ideas are clearly and systematically expounded
in the comparatively small compass of his Institutes of the Chris-
tian Religion. He works with few tools except the authority of
Scripture and a simple, common-sense logic.
These qualities are manifest in his chapter on angels. Calvin
leaves no doubt that he considers speculation about angels a
futile occupation. Such matters are of little practical consequence
for religious living. The hierarchy of angels, their number and
their names are not suitable subjects for our inquiry. Angels are
not to be explained away as figures of speech; they are not merely
"the notions which God inspires into men, or those specimens

which He For such rationalism is contra-
gives of His power."
dicted by Scripture. and absurd notions
These "foolish were . . .
disseminated by Satan many ages ago, and are frequently spring-

9
ing up afresh."
By the same token, we should not regard devils as "evil affec-
tions or perturbations, which our flesh obtrudes on our minds." 10
There are really evil spirits, and we must guard against their
machinations. Indeed, this practical purpose pervades the Scrip-

tural treatment of the subject; for our theoretical information
about the demons is far from complete. 11
There are many demons; but Scripture frequently mentions
one Satan or Devil in the singular number to denote "that prin-
cipality of wickedness which opposes the kingdom of righteous-
ness. For as the Church and society of the saints have Christ as
their head, so the faction of the impious and impiety itself are
represented to us with their prince, who exercises supreme power
over them. He is everywhere called God's adversary and
. . .
ours." He is the villain of the drama of Eden; he is "naturally de-

praved, vicious, malignant and mischievous." 12
But this was not his nature from creation. It is the result of
corruption. He once had truth, but did not hold to it. When
Scripture calls him "the father of lies" (John 8.44), it is to pre-
clude the supposition that God caused his depravity, which in-
deed originated wholly from himself. "Though these things are
delivered in a brief and rather obscure manner, yet they are
abundantly sufficient to vindicate the majesty of God from every
calumny. And what does it concern us to know, respecting devils,
either more particulars or for any other purpose? 13 let us be . . .
content with this concise information respecting the nature of

devils; that at their creation they were originally as of God, but
by degenerating have ruined themselves and become the instru-
ments of perdition to others." 14
Calvin is careful to point out that Satan's evil acts occur with
the permission and intent of God. Satan's purpose is wholly evil
and rebellious. But whether he will or not, he must obey his
Creator, who so directs his evil actions that they have a useful
effect.
The activity of the evil powers, under God's direction, serves

to "exercise the faithful with fighting," and to "subdue and lead
225
captive the impious/' The faithful—that is, from the Calvinist

viewpoint, those whom the Divine Grace has foreordained to be
saved— can never be permanently defeated by Satan. The victory
of Jesus Christ over Satan is now, as always, complete; but in us,
because of the flesh, only partial. Christ by his death overcame
Satan, who had the power of death, and triumphed over all his
forces, that they might not be able to hurt the Church; for other-
wise it would be in hourly danger of destruction God permits . . .
not Satan to exercise any power over the faithful, but abandons
to his government only the impious and unbelieving, whom He
designs not to number among his flock. 15
It will be seen that Calvin, though he discouraged elaborate
speculation regarding the Devil and his nature, did not for a
moment doubt the existence of the Devil; and he had no hesita-
tion in acting on the practical consequences of this belief. In
1545, thirty-four witches were burned in Geneva, where Calvin
was an uncrowned monarch. 16 Calvin hoped for the ultimate con-
version of Israel— but had no dealings with the Jews of his own
time. Since, in the Genevan theocracy, even Christians were ad-
mitted only they accepted the Calvinist doctrines, Jews could
if
not even approach the sacred city. They did not constitute a
contemporary problem.
English literature. The basic belief in the Devil, as the enemy

of God and man and the source of all evil, continued unchal-
lenged in Protestant thinking to the end of the eighteenth cen-
tury. Itcould not be otherwise, since it is so clearly defined in
the New Testament. As long as the inerrancy of Scripture was
accepted as a fundamental premise, there could be no revision of
the belief in Satan and his evil hosts. Fundamentalist Christians,
both Catholic and Protestant, hold to the substance of these
still
doctrines. During the progress of this book, the author has dis-
cussed its content with many acquaintances; and some orthodox
Christian friends have expressed surprise that any one can doubt
the reality of the Devil in a world where his work is so manifest!
Our theme has been extensively treated by later Protestant
authorities. 17
But it may be more profitable to turn from the
works of professional theologians to general literature. The con-
sciousness of Satan became much more intense in English writers
after the rise of the Puritan movement: in earlier Anglican
thought the traditional views, though not challenged, were taken

somewhat more calmly. But it was precisely the Puritan authors
whose ideas on this subject had a profound effect on English
readers long after the struggle of Cavalier and Puritan was ended.
At the very start of our inquiry we referred to Milton's Para-
dise Lost. It unique among epic poems. Such writings are ordi-
is
narily classified as genuine folk epics, like the Homeric poems

and the Kalevala, or as literary epics like the Aeneid. Now it is
characteristic of the latter class that they deal with characters

and events of a distant past, without much relevance for the time
of the writer. They are thus invariably artificial and, with the
exception of Vergil's masterpiece, have rarely been successful.
Paradise Lost does not altogether belong to this class. For though
the events it describes were thought to have occurred at the
dawn were yet the stuff of the poet's own ex-
of Creation, they
perience. The struggle of God and Satan, the fall of man, the
redemptive power of the Savior, were all completely real and
vital to Milton, a man of deep religious convictions and a pro-
found, though somewhat heretical, theologian. Milton used liter-
ary devices to ornament the poem; but the poem itself is not a
literary contrivance. It is the utterance of genuine beliefs. If the
need to expound theological doctrine produces some dull pas-
sages in the epic, it also endows the poem with passionate
intensity. Had Milton followed an earlier plan to write an epic
about King Arthur, he would probably never have risen to such
heights of feeling.
It has often been remarked that Satan "steals the show" in
Paradise Lost. more He is far interesting than any of the angels
and arouses our sympathy by his indomitable will in fighting a
hopeless battle. Various explanations of this fact have been given
by poets and critics; but no profound psychological interpretation
seems necessary. It is almost always easier to create a plausible
villain than an interesting hero. But Milton's heroes are God and
the angels, whose very perfection renders them from
colorless
our standpoint; while Satan is invested with human weaknesses
and emotions.
If Paradise Lost has appealed to the more cultured English
readers, few books have enjoyed wider or more lasting popularity
than The Pilgrims Progress of John Bunyan. It is included among
lists of "popular classics" and decked out with colored illustra-
227
tions as a gift book for children. It was

be found, along with
to
the Bible, in many a home where books were few. Huckleberry
Finn, it may be recalled, discovered it on the library table of a far
from literary household and found it engrossing. It was "about
a man that left his family, it didn't say why," he reports "The . . .
statements was interesting, but tough."

A modern parent, schooled in contemporary psychology, might
hesitate to put the book into the hands of a child. He would
(perhaps mistakenly) attach diagnostic significance to the alter-
nations of depression and exhilaration that mark Christian's
journey.
Be this as may, the book displays a lively consciousness of
it
the Devil. The most important section for our purpose is that in
which Christian, crossing the Valley of Humiliation, encounters
a foul fiend named Apollyon, 18 who appears as a monster with
wings like a dragon. Christian, in answer to his question, admits
that he is from the City of Destruction, whereat Apollyon claims
him as a subject and accuses him of desertion. Christian replies
that he was dissatisfied with the wages paid by his former master
—for the wages of sin is death—he has therefore bound himself
to a new lord. In the discussion that follows, Apollyon represents
himself as a rival of God for the loyalty of men, and he argues
that those who have abandoned his service for that of God have
fared badly, while the faithful followers of the Devil have been
protected and rewarded. Most striking are his words: "I am an
enemy to this Prince, I hate his Person, his Laws, and People."
He and Christian engage in a violent duel, in which Christian is
nearly worsted. At one moment he loses his sword, but desper-
ately regains it and "And with that
thrusts Apollyon through.
Apollyon spread forth his Dragon's wings, and sped him away,
that Christian for a season saw him no more." Thereupon Chris-
tian sings:
"Great Beelzebub, the Captain of this Fiend,

Design'd my ruin; therefore to this end
He sent him harness'd out, and he with rage
That hellish was, did fiercely me engage:
But blessed Michael helped me, and I
By dint of sword did quickly make him fly."
Apollyon then, not Satan himself, but only his representative:

is
and elsewhere we read that Vanity Fair was set up long ago by
Beelzebub, Apollyon, Legion and their companions; and that

Beelzebub, "the chief Lord of the Fair," had even invited the
Prince of Princes to purchase his wares. The details of Bunyan's
symbolism are not important. The real point is that the intense
struggle between the powers of good and evil, between God
and Satan, was a central element in his thinking. 19
No doubt most of Bunyan's readers felt less violently about the
matter, but basically they were in agreement. Professor W. E.
Hocking, the American philosopher of religion (born 1873), de-
scribes the spiritual atmosphere of his own boyhood in the words:
"Bunyan and Milton were understood to be fanciful enough, but
not wholly false to the situation." 20
And this remains the position of those Protestants who accept

the literal inerrancy of Scripture. The witness of the New Testa-
ment is sufficient proof that the Devil exists; and this fact seems
to them abundantly confirmed in personal experience.
the witches. But the conclusions which medieval Christians

drew from this belief have been greatly modified in Protestant-
ism. Luther was the first and last Protestant leader of outstanding
importance who can be regarded as an active anti-Semite. Anti-
Semites, alas, have not been rare in the Protestant Church.
Johann Andreas Eisenmenger (1654-1704), whose bulky Ent-
decktes Judenthum (Judaism Unmasked) has served as a source-
book for anti-Semitic slanders ever since, and Pastor Adolf
Stocker, for many years court preacher at Berlin, are notable
examples; but they are notable only as anti-Semites. The great
figures in the Protestant Church, if they have concerned them-
selves with Jewish matters at all, either worked and prayed for
the conversion of the Jews, or else labored for their emancipation.
Some, it must be added, simply clung to old prejudices regarding
9
Though William Blake was manifestly influenced by both Milton
and Bunyan, his own outlook was diametrically opposed to theirs. Blake
saw the source of evil in cold rationalism and codified morality which
destroy the innocence of man's desires and choke the poetic and artistic
imagination. Curiously reviving Gnostic notions, Blake identified Satan
with "Urizen," the embodiment of reason, who is often associated with the
Ten Commandments. Blake's own ideal, set forth in The Marriage of
Heaven and Hell, is the harmonious union of reason and inspiration, in
which reason no longer dominates. In this work he remarks: "The reason
Milton wrote in fetters when he wrote of Angels & God, and at liberty
when of Devils & Hell, is because he was a true Poet and of the Devil's
party without knowing it."
229
Jews and Judaism, but made no special effort to inflame others.

If the notion of the "demonic Jew" has survived in Christian
circles, this is due to the persistent quality of folklore, rather than
to the policy of Christian leaders.
Altogether different is the history of witchcraft within the
Protestant Church. Consider Jean Bodin, one of the most re-
markable figures of the sixteenth century. He was a man of great
learning and intellectual brilliance, and his name appears in the
more extended histories of modern philosophy. One of his prin-
cipal works is a dialogue in which representatives of various
faiths and philosophies present their viewpoints; among them
is a Jew, who is depicted sympathetically and whose ideas are
set forth cogently and effectively. Bodin was one of the early
liberals. 21
But on the subject of witchcraft he was a fanatic of fanatics.
His views are expounded in a massive work, De Magorum Dae-
monomania seu Detestando Lamiarum et Magorum cum Satana
Commercio. He argued that strict proof of guilt in cases of witch-
craft should not be required— since by the very nature of these
cases it would be difficult to produce. Therefore, said Bodin,
no suspected person should ever be released, unless the malice
of his accusers was plainer than day. Otherwise scholarly and
critical, Bodin clung to every medieval superstition when deal-
ing with this subject. Sorcery is the work of those who have sold
themselves to the Devil. Witches and wizards can ride through
the air; and so on. Johannes Weier, who challenged some of
these views, was characterized by Bodin as "a true servant of
22
Satan."
The fact is that in his day therewas an increasing current of
skepticism about witchcraft, among both Protestants and Cath-
olics. Nevertheless, the dominant view for a long time upheld
the reality of witchcraft, and expressed itself not only in books
and speeches, but condemnation and execution of
in the actual
hundreds of alleged witches. These persecutions reached a climax
and conclusion in the seventeenth century, on the Continent, in
England and in America. The Salem witch trials were the last
of several such episodes in New England; and the mass hysteria
which produced them was largely stimulated by theology. In-
crease Mather and exemplars of Puritan piety,
his son Cotton, the
were the soul of the movement; and Cotton Mather published
a full account of the Salem trials. Later on, when a stop was put
to this activity, Cotton Mather bemoaned the decay of the re-

ligious spirit and, to his dying day, regarded disbelief in witch-
craft as an attack upon the glory of the Lord. 23 A century later,
when witches were no longer put to death, John Wesley could
still declare that giving up witchcraft meant giving up the
24
Bible.
Let us retrace our steps and see what had happened. Erasmus
of Leyden, the great Catholic humanist, had ventured the opinion
that compacts with the Devil were an invention of witch-hunters;
Montaigne, skeptical about everything, naturally voiced his
mild doubts on the subject of witchcraft. 25 More immediately
effective were the objections raised by jurists as to the validity
The question was not whether witchcraft is pos-
of witch- trials.
sible, but whether accused individuals were actually guilty.
Something of a storm was created when a Jesuit priest, Fried-
erich Spee von Langenfeld, declared publicly that among two
hundred condemned witches whom he had personally prepared
for execution, he did not believe one was guilty— this despite the
fact that Spee did not question the possibility of witchcraft. 26
About the same time, Johannes Weier, a Protestant, produced
a bulky volume in which he denied the possibility of compacts
with the Devil and of witchcraft based thereon. That the Devil
exists, Weier did not deny; but as we have seen, Bodin, "Satan's
attorney-general," regarded Weier's denial of witchcraft as evi-

dence that he was on the Devil's side. 27
Suddenly— considering how long the hysteria had lasted— the
outrages came to an end. Witch prosecutions were abolished in
Holland in 1610, at Geneva in 1632, in Sweden under the enlight-
ened Queen Christina in 1649. Louis XIV of France decreed in
1672 that all witch cases be dismissed; but later on he had to
make concessions to the still vigorous superstition. In England,
King James I had written in defense of the reality of witch-
craft and had committed to the flames the skeptical Discovery of
Witchcraft by Reginald Scot. Yet the capital penalty for witches
was abolished in 1682, a little less than a century later. The
trials continued in Germany, until the middle of the eighteenth
century, and the last victim in Spain was burned by the Inquisi-
tion about a hundred years later. 28
Even after the legal prosecution of witches was abolished, the
Protestant Christianity • • • 231
craze did not immediately disappear. We saw

Wesley still
that
stoutly insisted on the and by the same
reality of witchcraft;
token the representatives of the modern spirit felt the need of
continuing the fight. It is noteworthy that two of the most
important of these fighters on the Continent attacked not onlv
the prosecution of witches, but the basic idea by which it was
justified. In The Enchanted World (1691-3), Balthasar Bekker,
a Dutch clergyman of German descent, denied the existence of

a personal Devil. A little later, Christian Thomasius, at Halle,
denied the possibility that the Devil could be corporeal. Hence,
he argued, no signed compact with him could occur. Thomasius
developed this argument as part of his fight against the witch-
craft mania. 29
The psychology of this whole matter deserves more careful
exploration. Why was it that, after centuries of unchallenged
acceptance, the belief in witches took on such violent intensity
and expressed itself in such frenzied terror? Why again did this
violent feeling subside at a time when the authority of Scripture
(which seems to affirm the existence of witchcraft) was still
to all intents unchallenged? One can only guess that the influence
of the rationalistic and scientific spirit gradually permeated the
life of the people. Yet the dramatic contradictions in the mind
of Jean Bodin should make us dubious about any simple explana-

tion.
Of course, among the ignorant and superstitious these beliefs

still persist. Not many years since, in York County, Pennsylvania,
a man murdered neighbor in the belief that the latter was
his
"hexing" him. But such crimes are no longer given religious
sanction, even by the most Scriptural of Protestants.
The Catholic Church, indeed, has never denied the substance
of sorcery. Catholic writers have severely criticized those who
see in the prosecution of witches mere hysterical aberration.
Witchcraft, they have held, is rooted in apostasy and dis-
obedience. 30 The somewhat apologetic article on "Witchcraft" in
the Catholic Encyclopedia stresses the opposition of Agobard and
others to the craze, minimizes the influence of the bull Summis
Desider-antes, and reflects with some complacency on the atroci-
ties But the writer concludes
of the Protestant witch-hunters.
in these measured terms: "In the face of Holy Scripture and the
teaching of the Fathers and Theologians, the abstract possibility
of a pact with the Devil and of diabolical interference in human

affairs can hardly be denied, but no one can read the literature
on the subject without realizing the awful cruelties to which this
belief led, and without being convinced that in ninety-nine cases
out of a hundred, the allegations rest upon nothing better than
pure delusion." 31
Fallen Angels
PART NINE
The Devil in Modern Dress

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
The Century of Liberalism
domi-
ewish thought in the nineteenth century was
trends. This
nated by rationalistic and scientific
r was true not only
of Reform Jews in Germany and
minded. The scientific
America but even of the more traditionally
critical study of Jewish history and
lit-
spirit was manifested in the
as well as in the move-
erature (die Wissenschaft des Judentums)
,
which secular knowl-

ment of Enlightenment (Hashalah) through
the Jews of eastern Europe.
edge and modern ideas were brought to
despite romantic
The growing sentiment of Jewish nationalism,
supernaturalism. The Cabala,
overtones, was remote from all
thought, was vehemently
which had so long colored Jewish
save for a few scattered mystics
and for
rejected by all parties,
Hasidim of rural Poland.
the largely decadent and obscurantist
events, was a time of hope
This period, despite many tragic
American Revolutions ushered the m
for Israel. The French and
• 235• •
emancipation of the Jews. Hundreds of thousands fled from the

oppression of the Czars to the freedom of western Europe and
especially of the United States. The prevailing faith in progress
deeply influenced Jewish thinkers. Those who, under the impact
of the new anti-Semitism, lost faith in political emancipation
turned to socialism or Zionism as the hope of Israel—but hope
remained.
Under such circumstances, the idea of a world of spiritual evil
opposed to the realm of divine goodness was absent from Jewish
thought, even in its more conservative expressions. Such beliefs,
we have seen, were hardly typical of Judaism— save to some extent
in the Cabala. Jews had repeatedly experimented with the idea
of wicked or rebel angels, and had rejected the concept as in-
compatible with pure monotheism. Now in an age of enlighten-
ment, of optimism, and (in some quarters) of secularism, such
notions were altogether swept aside. If scholars mentioned them
at all, it was only from the historical standpoint, as evidences of
borrowing from Persian myth, as superstitions of a long dead past.
It was different with Christianity. Dualistic concepts were much
more deeply rooted in the daughter faith, and held an important

place in Christian teaching throughout all periods of Church
history. But Christianity, too, felt the impact of rationalism and
of the historical-critical method in the study of religion. How did
the Churches react to these new trends, insofar as they challenged
the doctrine of rebel angels?
The authoritarian groups stuck to their guns. The Catholic
Church maintains the doctrine defined by the Fourth Lateran
Council that the devil and other demons were created good and,
by their own free choice, became evil. For the interpretation of
this principle it abides substantially by the views of St. Thomas
Aquinas. Certain details may be modified. A modern Catholic
admits that Isaiah 14.12 refers originally to the King of Babylon,
but adds: "Both the early Fathers and later Catholic commenta-
torsagree in understanding it as applying with deeper significance
to the fall of the rebel angels." 1 Another Catholic writer regards
it such great schoolmen as St. Thomas and
as unfortunate that
St.Bonaventura accepted the belief in incubi and succubi. 2 But
though some of the picturesque trappings of the belief in demons
have been tacitly dropped by modern Catholics, the basic notion
of rebel angels and of a personal Devil remain unchallenged.
A striking evidence of this is the baptismal service. Before the
The Century of Liberalism • • •
237
infant even brought into the church, the priest breathes upon
is
its face and exorcises the evil spirit. And prior to the ablution,
the catechumen makes the triple renunciation of Satan, his

works and pomps. (The Anglican rite of baptism also requires
the candidate to renounce the Devil and all his works.) 3 Nor are
all these rites a mere survival from the past. In 1890 Pope Leo
XIII published a form of exorcism of Satan and the apostate

angels, first composed apparently for use in his own devotions. 4
Among Protestant teachers, likewise, the more conservative
have clung without flinching to the traditional concept of evil
angels. A nineteenth century Lutheran, Dr. Sartorius, declared
flatly: "He who denies Satan cannot truly confess Christ." 5
More recent handbooks of fundamentalist theology are not quite

so blunt; but they maintain stoutly the correctness of the doctrine
of Satan. 6 A confession of faith adopted in 1942 by a group of
"Bible-believing" Baptists in New
York State affirms the belief
"in the personality of Satan, that he is the unholy god of this age,
and the author of all the powers of darkness, and is destined to
the judgment of an eternal justice in the lake of fire." 7
Such utterances as these are frequently defensive. They are
directed not only against the unbelievers who have rejected
Christian theology as a whole, but even more against those who
have been attempting to reconstruct Protestant thought in the
light of the new science and philosophy. Among the first of these
was Immanuel Kant. Despite the sophistication of his philosophic
thought, he remained a loyal member of the Lutheran Church;
but he explicitly rejected the old-fashioned, realistic Devil. 8 In
this he was followed by Friederich Schleiermacher, one of the
most influential of modern Protestant thinkers. Without denying

absolutely the possibility that a Satanic power may exist, Schleier-
macher held that the question is not essential to Christian faith.
This he argued especially from the fact that some of the most
important New Testament statements about sin and atonement
make no mention of the Devil. Hence we infer that when Jesus
and his followers speak of Satan and of evil angels, they are
merely utilizing notions current in their time. 9
Schleiermacher's philosophical and practical arguments against
retaining this ancient belief were supplemented by an attempt
at historical analysis of the concept of Satan. This effort was
carried forward by other scholars. Study of Persian literature
238 • • Fallen Angeh
showed that the figure of Ahriman had greatly influenced Jewish,
and especially Christian, ideas about the Devil. The recovery of
the Babylonian epics revealed a dualistic myth still more ancient—
the struggle of Marduk, the god of light, with the primeval
dragon Tiamat. Along with the origins of the belief in the Devil,
men studied also the fortunes of this belief through the cen-
turies. 10 The history of witchcraft and satanism were also ex-
amined critically; famous historian of France,
Jules Michelet, the
was a pioneer in this field. Such studies were bound to have a
strongly negative effect on the actual belief in Satan. The heathen
origins of this belief and the fantastic horrors it had inspired
combined to discredit it to modern men.
While some Christian thinkers challenged the belief in Satan,
and others investgated it as a historical phenomenon, a good many
others simply disregarded it. Dr. Edward Langton has listed a
number of important doctrinal works, published during the past
which mention the Devil only in passing, in
seventy-five years,
connection with New Testament or patristic quotations. The
most remarkable instance concerns a distinguished Anglican,
Bishop Gore. In his Dissertations on Subjects Connected with
the Incarnation (1895), he argued strongly for the retention of
the belief in good and evil spirits, stressing both the authority
of the New
Testament and the practical religious value of the
doctrine. From 1921 to 1924, however, Bishop Gore published
three volumes on The Reconstruction of Belief. "In none of these
notable contributions to theological literature," reports Dr. Lang-
ton, "is any definite teaching given concerning the existence and
operations of Satan." Only in a few incidental allusions does the
Bishop touch on a belief he had once proclaimed to be essen-
tial!
n
There were, however, individuals who were unwilling to see
the liquidation of the belief by modernism, even though their
thinking was too advanced to tolerate a simple literal Satan.
Wide notice has been given the views of Bishop H. Martensen,
a Danish divine whose work on dogmatics appeared in the
middle of the last century. Martensen was apparently con-
cerned to raise the dignity of Satan to a higher level, in keeping
with the New Testament doctrine which calls Satan "the god of
this world" and other titles which are honorific in a negative
way. If Satan were no more than a disobedient underling, would
Epilogue • • • 239
it not be a ridiculous impertinence for him to try to tempt the

Savior? Yet no Christian can admit the existence of an evil deity
on a par with God the Father— that would be Manicheanism.
Martensen therefore described evil as an impersonal principle
in the cosmos, the origin of which is not clearly explained. This
evil tendency is in a sense unreal, but it is striving after reality
and, above all, after personality. Evil first entered into the free
personalities of certain angels, just as later it took possession of
human souls: by this means impersonal evil becomes personal.
The Satan of Scripture is the being who is so completely
identified with the cosmic principal of evil as to have become its
12
perfect embodiment and expression.
Such a doctrine seems to a non-Christian to be, if not Mani-
chean, at least decidedly Gnostic. Yet Bishop Martensen's ideas
met with considerable respect and some acceptance. 13 Such
speculations, however, had a limited vogue prior to World War I
and were entertained by individuals rather than by schools of
thought. For most Protestants, the choice was between a literal,
Scriptural Devil and a theology in which he played no important
part.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Epilogue
'his book was begun as a purely scientific inquiry
progressed,
T
I
into the beliefs of an earlier age.
became more and more aware that the issues in-
But as the study
volved are still current. Our world is not only wrestling with the
problems treated herein, but is increasingly turning back to the

old solutions of these problems. My presentation would there-
fore be incomplete if I did not indicate its present-day impli-
cations. But here the rigorous objectivity for which I have striven
will no doubt be breached. One cannot be cool and detached
about living issues. What follows is admittedly colored by per-
sonal convictions.
Our historical study has yielded definite findings. Jewish
thinkers, in seeking an answer to the problem of evil and suf-
240 • • •
Fallen Angels
fering, have from time to time experimented with dualistic myth.

They suggested and pain originated in the revolt of an-
that sin
gelic beings against the authority of God. But such explanations
have not been accepted as authoritative in Judaism. The classic
expositions of the Jewish faith have implicitly or explicitly re-
jected the belief in rebel angels, and in a Devil who is God's
enemy. The enormous influence of the rabbis of the Talmud
and of the medieval Jewish philosophers is on the anti-mythical
side. The Hebrew Bible itself, correctly interpreted, leaves no
room for belief in a world of evil powers arrayed against the
goodness of God. Even the Cabalists, some of whom adopted a
rather extreme dualistic position, usually declared that the emer-
gence of the destructive forces was somehow part of the divine
scheme; and this dualism had been largely liquidated by the
Hasidic teachers even before modern influences had undermined
the prestige of the Cabala.
Historical Christianity, on the other hand, has consistently
affirmed the continuing conflict between God and Satan. A doc-
trine which Jews took up hesitantly and which was repudiated
by their most respected teachers, has been universally upheld
by the Church, often in radically mythological forms. The Church,
moreover, acted on the logical consequences of this notion by
executing witches; and its consciousness of diabolic powers made
even more horrible the hatred and persecution of the Jews. The
issue of belief in a malignant Devil may therefore be regarded
as one of the basic differences between Judaism and Christianity.
Seventy-five years ago this distinction might have seemed
relatively unimportant. True, Christian fundamentalists, both
Catholic and Protestant, still clung to the belief in the Devil;
but they did so defensively, by uncritical adherence to the tra-
and most of them had ceased to draw prac-
ditions of the past;
tical consequences for conduct from the doctrine. Enlightened
rationalism had discarded such ideas; historical scholarship had
shown them to be survivals of pagan mythology. The more ad-
vanced and liberal among Protestant thinkers had quietly dis-
regarded the concept of the Devil, where they had not explicitly
rejected it.
This was the heyday of optimistic faith in progress through

science, technology and education. Men looked to the future
with assurance and hope. But the twentieth century has disap-
Epilogue • • • 241
pointed the rosy expectations of the nineteenth. Science, far

from opening the way to salvation, has given mankind the instru-
ments of self-destruction. Tragedy has piled upon tragedv until
most of us have grown morallv numb, callous to the suffering
of The
others. killing Jews at Kishinev in 1903
of fortv-five
aroused more active indicmation amons; Americans than the
slaughter of six million Jews during World War II.
As the lights of humanity and hope went out all over the
world, dark and dangerous beliefs again became popular. In
Europe, where the shadows gathered first, these ideas gained
favor sooner than in .America. Their influence has been growing
here as well. The change in spiritual climate mav be summed up
simplv. A brilliant popular essav published in 1ST1 by a French
Protestant was entitled The Devil: His Origin, Greatness, and
Decadence. In 1946, E. Langton issued a useful booklet, entitled
Satan: A with contemporary
Portrait. Its final chapter, dealing
trends, is headed "The Return of the Devil." Satan has once
again come to the fore of human consciousness.
Before examining; evidences of this trend in religious thought
proper, we mav note some curious resemblances between the
ideas we have been studying and certain elements in modern
secular culture. It is possible, without denying the importance
of Karl Marx's analysis of social and economic phenomena, to
speak also of the Marxist scheme as a kind of apocalyptic myth.
The revolutionary pattern is presented not as an objective to be
achieved but as an inevitable destinv. The will of God (read:
dialectic materialism ) cannot be resisted or changed. Apocalyptic
likewise is the mounting course of evils under the sway of capital-
ism, the "god of this world," until the cataclysmic revolution after
which the new heavens and new earth shall appear.
Certainlv popular radicalism sees in the struggle for the dicta-
torship of the proletariat a simple schematized myth. The war
between capitalism and communism is the war between God and
Satan, with Lenin and Stalin in messianic roles, and with a series
of Antichrists— Trotskv, for example— who are the incarnation of
even-thing abominable. Whereas to many modern Catholics,
communism is the Antichrist, in communist theology the digni-
taries are interchanged. Just so. the ancient Gnostics identified the
God of Judaism and the Devil, while the Catholics saw in the
Gnostic doctrine the very breath of Satan.
Again, one need not deny the scientific importance of Freudian

psychology to note some of its mythological overtones— a situation
fostered by the fantastic terminology which Freud himself in-
vented, drawing in many cases upon classical myth. It must be
remembered that analytic psychology has permeated many
levels of modern culture and has influenced, not only the intellec-
tuals, but plain people as well. Whatever may be intended by the
disciplined psychoanalyst, in the popular version of Freudianism
the "complex" behaves like an independent being with purposes
of its own. Beneath the mind of the individual, the self he knows,
lurks the "unconscious," savage, primitive, seeking an outlet for
its destructive energies— as in the figurative descriptions which
the rabbis gave of the evil inclination trying to encompass man's

ruin. 1 The current mythological temper has certainly been colored
by the Freudian approach with its determinism, its account of
dark subterranean forces beyond the control of intelligence or
moral power and its generally pessimistic estimate of man's nature.
The foregoing observations may seem unconvincing to some
and may evoke the indignation of others. But few will doubt
the mythological character of the National Socialist creed. Its
chief theoretical expositor, Alfred Rosenberg, liked to use the

term "mythos." Incidentally, the Nazi doctrines emerged in a
milieu which was influenced, if not by the actual teachings of
Marx and Freud, at least by the folklore of communism and
psychoanalysis. The apocalyptic expectation of a revolution which
should not merely reshape the structure of government but
fundamentally transform the character of human life was derived
from socialism. The stress on the basically irrational quality of
human behavior and the low evaluation of the worth of the indivi-
dual were influenced in some degree by the Viennese psychol-
must be added that whatever the Nazis borrowed from
ogists. It
any source, they distorted and defiled.
The Nazi myth, however, is a neo-Gnosticism. Ironi-
essential
cally enough, no one has stated it more clearly than the Jew,
Walther Rathenau: "The epitome of the histoiy of the world, of
the history of mankind, is the tragedy of the Aryan race. A blond
and marvellous people arises in the north. In overflowing fer-
tility it sends wave upon wave into the southern world. Each mi-
gration becomes a conquest, each conquest a source of character
and civilization. But with the increasing population of the world,
Epilogue ' • m
243
the waves of the dark peoples flow ever nearer, the circle of man-
kind grows narrower. At last a triumph for the south: an oriental
religion takes possession of the northern lands. They defend them-
selves by preserving the ancient ethic of courage. And finally the
worst danger of all: industrial civilization gains control of the
world, and with it power of fear,
arises the of brains and cunning,
embodied in democracy and capital." 2
Rathenau himself, maturer years, freed himself intel-
in his
lectually—if not altogether emotionally— from this racism of Gobi-
neau and Chamberlain. But it had meanwhile acquired an un-
paralleledpower in Germany. The Nazis adopted it in the most
extreme and vulgar forms, identified even more sharply the Ger-
mans with the noble blond folk of Ahura-Mazda, and the Jews
with the sly, dark, corrupt minions of Ahriman. Six million Jewish
dead testify to the destructive force of a mythological fantasy.
We need not study more deeply this most horrible of all
dualistic philosophies. Yet it helps us better to understand certain

recent trends in Christian thought. For Hitler revealed with a
fullness never before attained the possibilities of human de-
pravity. It is the consciousness of this vileness in man that ob-
sesses current Christian theology.
The reaction against the rationalism and optimism of liberal
thought did not indeed have to wait for the emergence of Na-
tional Socialism. It goes back at least to Soren Kierkegaard ( 1813-
1855 ) , the Danish critic of Hegel. In his time he was an isolated
figure, but the number of his followers has grown until today he
is the patron saint of the new theology. Kierkegaard discovered
through his own inner experience the superficiality of the belief
in progress. Less searching intellects have learned the same thing
through the massive, tangible events of outer history. Mankind
has not been made happier and better by science and popular
education. Economic disasters, class hatreds, wars of unparalleled
savagery— these brute be denied. The more sensi-
facts are not to
tive religious thinkers of our age had faced them, even before the
threat of atomic annihilation gave pause to the dullest spirit.
A characteristic reaction to these realities in present-day
Christianity has been to repudiate liberalism and to adopt some
form of neo-orthodoxy. We shall mention only a few represent-
atives of this trend, and of their doctrine we shall supply only
such items as are germane to our theme. None of them— and they
differ greatly among themselves— is an old-fashioned fundamen-

talist, clinging with unsophisticated simplicity to the teachings
of the past. They are permeated by modern scientific culture and
have repudiated its presuppositions out of knowledge, not out of
ignorance. They are convinced that the rationalistic, scientific,
liberal foundations of modern society have collapsed, had to
collapse because of their inherent insufficiency. They agree that
man lacks both the intellectual and moral strength to solve his
own urgent problems.
In some respects, the most moderate of these thinkers is Jacques
Maritain, a Protestant who entered the Church of Rome and has
devoted his great philosophic gifts to the defense of the Catholic
faith.In accordance with Catholic tradition, he assigns a place
of some dignity to the intellect. But he insists that valid and
constructive results can be achieved only through the insights
and interpreted by St. Thomas Aquinas
of Aristotle, as modified
and guided by the revealed doctrine of the infallible Church.
The atomized intellectualism of our time
secular, independent,
can only lead us into ever deeper confusion. As long as he is
criticizing contemporary culture, Maritain is a modern of the
moderns. But this criticism is only a preliminary. It leads back,
by a new and inscrutable Catholic dogma,
route, to changeless
including the pronouncement of the Fourth Lateran on the nature
of Satan.
A parallel trend be noted in the Protestant theologians,
is to
whose most eminent representative in Europe is Karl Barth,
and whose best known spokesman in the United States is Rein-
hold Niebuhr. Out of their disappointment with modernism, they
have made their way back to the tradition of Paul, Augustine,
Luther and Calvin. This is a more extreme position than that of
the Roman Church, which allows some room within its scheme
for the achievement of intellectual and moral gains. The radical
Protestant doctrine, however, has no confidence in either the
mind or the soul of man, affirms more or less bluntly the total
depravity of human nature, and sees no hope whatever for man
save through the spontaneous working of divine grace. Depicting
man as so thoroughly diabolic, this kind of thinking leads to a
revival of belief in the Devil.
Of special interest for our study is a little book by Gustaf
Aulen, written about two decades ago, and published in English
Epilogue ' • •
245
under the title Christus Victor. The author, who later became a
Bishop of the Swedish Church, was at one time a professor of
theology; and in form the work is an historical inquiry into theo-
ries of the atonement.
For centuries, conservative theologians have held to the doc-
trine of legal satisfaction, associated with Anselm, though its
origins are earlier. This theory holds that Jesus paid by his suf-
fering for the sins of mankind, the payment being due God for
the violation of His law. Liberal tiieologians have preferred a
"subjective" theory of the atonement— the thought of the self-
sacrifice of Jesus inspires moral and spiritual regeneration in the
soul of the individual. Aulen, however, draws attention to what
he calls the "classical" theory of the atonement— that which we
found taught by Irenaeus, Origen and Gregory the Great. Ac-
cording to this doctrine, the death of Jesus was a ransom paid
to the Devil, or a device by which the Devil was in some way
entrapped or outwitted. The expressions of the doctrine vary:
what is common to them all is the dramatic element. The atone-
ment is a divine conflict and and subdues
victory: Christ fights
the evil powers, the tyrants who hold mankind in bondage and
suffering; and in Christ, God reconciles the world to himself. 3
Scholars have been too quick, Aulen holds, to brush aside this
view because of the grotesque imagery in which it has been
clothed. Even the latter, on careful examination, proves to be
significant. The chief concern, however, is the basic concept— the
atonement as the victory of Christ over evil. Bishop Aulen argues
that this doctrine was widely held by the greatest Fathers of the
Church prior to the rise of the "legalistic" theory; that it is in
accord with Scripture; and that it was maintained by Luther,
though not by his successors. While the form of his presentation
is that of historical scholarship, Aulen does not conceal his pre-
dilection for the "classic" view. Anselm's doctrine is too ration-

alistic and moralistic to suit him, the "subjective" theory too
superficial. Without taking literally the mythical tales of Origen
and Gregory, Aulen clings to the belief which those tales sym-
bolize—that through the Cross, Jesus triumphed over the power
of darkness.
In one passage of this work, the dualism of historical Chris-
tianity is admirably characterized. It is not "a metaphysical
Dualism between the infinite and the finite, or between spirit
and matter; nor again . . . the absolute Dualism between good and
evil typical of the Zoroastrian and Manichean teaching, in which
Evil is treated as an eternal principle opposed to Good. It is . . .
the opposition between God and that which in His own created
world resists His will; between the Divine love and the rebellion
of created wills against Him. This dualism is an altogether radical
opposition; but it is not an absolute Dualism, for in the Scriptural
4
view, evil has not an eternal existence." To which one may add,
that it may make a difference to philosophers that evil is not
eternal; but to the plain man, this doctrine means that the Devil
existsnow, in "radical opposition" to God.
Aulen's book reached only a specialized audience. Much more
widely read is Reinhold Niebuhr's Nature and Destiny of Man,
which will serve us as an excellent sample of the new Christian
orthodoxy. Like Barth, Niebuhr is not concerned to defend the
literal inerrancy of Scripture. The findings of biblical criticism
may be correct; but the underlying truth of the Bible, as Niebuhr
apprehends it, is vindicated both by logic and experience. Nie-
buhr speaks of the Garden of Eden story as "the myth of the
Fall," and admits that Christian satanology has drawn on Per-
sian and Babylonian sources. "The story of the Fall," he concedes,
"is innocent of a fully developed satanology; yet" he insists,
"Christian theology has not been wrong in identifying the serpent

with, or regarding it as an instrument or symbol of, the devil.
To believe that there is a devil is to believe that there is a prin-
ciple or force of evil antecedent to any evil human action. Before
man fell the devil fell. The devil is, in fact, a fallen angel. His
sin and fall consists in his effort to transcend his proper state and
to become like God." And characteristically, Niebuhr cites at
this point Isaiah 14.11 ff., though he knows it refers primarily to
Babvlon.
Two he continues, are to be stressed. "(1) The devil
points,
is not thought of as having been created evil. Rather his evil
arises from his effort to transgress the bounds set for his life, an
effort which places him in rebellion against God. (2) The devil
fell before man fell, which is to say that man's rebellion against
God is not an act of sheer perversity, nor does it follow inevitably
from the situation in which he stands. The situation of finiteness
and freedom in which man stands becomes a source of tempta-
tion only when it is falsely interpreted. This false interpretation
Epilogue • • 247
is not purely the product of the human imagination. It is sug-

gested to man by a force of evil which precedes his own sin.
Perhaps the best description or definition of this mystery is the
statement that sin posits itself, that there is no situation in which
it is possible to say that sin is either an inevitable consequence
of the situation nor yet that it is an act of sheer and perverse

individual defiance of God." 5
This means— put crudely— that the source of moral evil is out-
side man. Though the biblical Devil be only a symbol of the
abstraction that "sin posits itself," sin is not regarded merely as
the personal failure of the individual or the collective failure of

the group or nation. "Before man fell the devil fell." Niebuhr
is particularly fond of the adjective "daemonic" to describe man's
behavior, individual and collective. "Contemporary history," he
writes, "is filled with the manifestations of man's hysterias and
furies;with evidences of his daemonic capacity and inclination
to break harmonies of nature and defy the prudent canons of
6
rational restraint."
Denis de Rougemont is a young man of Swiss birth, who
fought Hitlerism as a publicist in Paris and later served with
the French underground. He now lives in the United States,
where in 1944 he published a new version of his book, La Part du
Diable. ( Soon after it appeared in English as The Devil's Share. )
It is an incisive critique of modern life, written out of deep re-
ligious conviction. For de Rougemont, the Devil is not merely

a literary device. De Rougemont is concerned that the reader
take him seriously. He is not to be put aside by accounts of the
historical development of the concept of the Devil: they explain
only the externals of the matter. "If someone tells me: the devil
is only a myth, therefore he does not exist— a rationalistic formula
—I answer: the devil is a myth, therefore he does exist and is

unceasingly active For a myth is a story which describes
. . .
and illustrates, through a dramatic form, certain profound struc-

7
tures of reality."
These structures are literally fundamental, prior to our dis-
tinction between matter and spirit. "To speak of the devil will
not be in this book an easy means of illustrating ideas. Reality
is not composed of ideas and matter. I conceive it to be governed
by structures of force or dynamic combinations anterior to every

material form, to every idea which we can elucidate. The specific
dynamism which I should like to describe in this book bears the

traditional name of the devil." Freedom and its consequences
imply "the existence of a good, and of something other than
good. Otherwise, where could there be choice, tragedy, liberty?
When this not-good, this evil acquires significance, we call it
8
the devil— and I accept this name."
In describing the Devil's activity, de Rougemont makes many
penetrating observations on morals and manners, which are worth
considering even though we do not accept his fundamental as-
sumption. He shrewd explanation of our skep-
has, moreover, a
ticism, derived from a remark of Baudelaire: "The cleverest trick
of the devil is to persuade us that he does not exist."
Aulen's book was read chiefly by professional theologians. The
writings of Maritain, Niebuhr, de Rougemont and their fellows
reach a somewhat larger, but still restricted, circle of intellectuals.
But the kind of thinking they represent is being made more and
more accessible to the plain man, as a few random examples
will show.
A recent * radio broadcast over a nation-wide network was
entitled "The Supreme Sorrow." The speaker was the Rev. John
C. Murry, S.
J.,
professor of theology in Woodstock College; the
subject, the inward struggle of Jesus in the Garden of Geth-
semane. The radio preacher pictures Satan as renewing his
temptation of the Savior; and here is the climax of his narrative:
"At. this point, perhaps, Satan struck into our Lord's mood of
loathing and disgust with his last desperate blow. It was the
Accuser's hour, in which to use the darkest of his powers. He,
then, the Accuser, drew up his pitiless indictment of the human
nature whose enemy he is And at the end he appeals to the
. . .
justice of God and claims the verdict that is his own triumph
and man's eternal despair: Guilty, unforgivably guilty, worthy
of death. Give up, then, he says to our Blessed Lord, give up . . .
You who are innocent, save yourself and let them die." And the
preacher adds: "Only the intelligence of a fallen angel could have
conceived such a temptation." 9
A different phase of the matter appears in a story which
reached the vast public of The Readers Digest. (It was first
* The present work was completed several years before publication, so
that "recent" items are no longer brand new. But the instances cited are
typical of an outlook still the same in 1952.
Epilogue • • •
249
published in a periodical of the Passionist Missions.) Written by

the well known journalist Fulton Oursler, it tells how Bishop
Fulton J.
Sheen, when a young priest, succeeded in reaching
the heart of a bitter and rebellious young sinner. Our interest
is in her story as she first told
it defiantly to the priest. She had
been sent Reformatory and wanted above every-

to the State
thing else to be released. She went to the chapel and prayed to
God for help in gaining her liberty; but nothing happened. There-
upon she turned to the Devil, promising "that if he would only
get me would make nine sacrilegious com-
out of that place, I
munions. I did, too. I took communion and I cursed God! Plenty!
And you know what? After the eighth time I got paroled." 10
We see, then, how vivid is the reality of the Devil to plain un-
educated Catholics. The notion of Devil-worship— the kind of
thinking that produced the Black Mass— still persists. We see,
moreover, that the leaders of the Church feel that such materials
are not unsuitable for presentation to the non-Catholic public, in
the present state of the world's mind.
Our final item likewise is drawn from a highly popular mass
medium— the magazine When
appeared in February 1948,
Life. it
the author had to be identified as one of the editors of Time.

Since then he has attained national notorietv. He is Whittaker
Chambers. Called simply "The Devil," his article relates a conver-
sation between Satan and a pessimist, during the New Year's
Eve celebration in a swanky night club. The conversation turns
rather fully on de Rougemont, Niebuhr, and C. S. Lewis, and
more on other contemporaries who are interested in the
briefly
Devil. The style is satiric and self-consciously clever; but the
author clearly wants us to believe in his essential seriousness.
Scientific liberalism has dulled men's minds to the enormity of
evil. The Devil's cleverest ruse is to make us doubt his existence.
He is the spirit of sterility and death. He cannot love and he

cannot create, because he cannot suffer. His envious desire is
the extinction of mankind; and to judge by present indications,
he has an excellent chance of success. 11
One wonders how the readers of Life reacted to this extraordi-
nary performance. Many of them must have found it baffling. But
the very fact that it was published, not in one of the "little" re-
views, but in a magazine designed for mass circulation, indicates
how much times have changed.
I cannot attempt here a thoroughgoing critique of the new

Christian theology. The effectiveness of the attack on modern
positivism and rationalism cannot be disputed. The reality of
evil, in particular of human wickedness, must be fully recognized.
We are no longer convinced by the easy confidence of the mel-
iorists that social evil can be eliminated by increased industrial
production and by governmental reforms, or that personal sin

can be dissolved by psychiatry and education. But the neo-
orthodox substitutes for liberal theology, for all their fascination,
are extremely dangerous. Just so, the totalitarians of right and left
have made telling criticisms of economic liberalism and political
democracy— and have offered us something much worse instead.
Through the centuries Judaism has had to struggle with two

basic realities: the absolute oneness of God and the existence of
evil in His universe. Sometimes Jewish thinkers, in their devotion
to the belief in God's unity, have minimized the extent of the
problem of evil. Sometimes their experience of the world's wicked-
ness has tempted them to mythological explanations. But by and
large they have avoided both traps. The Bible, for all its keen
awareness of sin and wrong, will not derive them from an area
of reality remote from and opposed to all-pervading God.
This, indeed, is the tragedy and the heroism of Job, who will
neither blink the facts of actual experience nor surrender his
confidence in God's goodness. Job's challenge to God is rooted in
faith:he appeals, so to speak, from God to God himself. This
phenomenon has been repeated many times in Jewish history 7
.
One thinks of Honi, the Circle-Drawer, bluntly demanding that

God send rain to His suffering people; of the Hasid Levi Yizhak
of Berditchev berating the Almighty because He is too severe
12
with Israel. Like Job, these saints of later days would not
abate one jot of their faith in God, yet they would not distort
the facts to reconcile them with that faith. As the Talmud puts
the matter in another similar instance: "Because they knew
that theHoly One (blessed be He! ) is a true God, therefore they
would not lie on His behalf." 13
This is a difficult, paradoxical kind of faith. Men like to have
things neatly explained and ticketed and systematized. It takes
spiritual grandeur to admit that we cannot synthesize the deep-
est realities of our experience, and yet cling to all of them.
Epilogue • • •
251
Surely the Jewish people, more than any other, has beheld
the daemonic in man. It seems impossible that all the hate, the
ingenious devices of torture and mechanized extermination, the

shameless espousal of sub-feral brutality, should emerge from
simple human reactions. In the face of this massive wickedness,
the belief in some malignant deity or rebel angel is not implau-
sible. Yet, to my knowledge, nothing of this sort has manifested
itself among present-day Jews. The teachers of Judaism have
learned their lesson. They see in such doctrines a surrender to
fear. The doctrine of the Devil is too easy an excuse for human
failure; it tempts us to leave this world to the control of the "god
of this world," and to wait for salvation through some super-
earthly power. Or else it sunders the unity of mankind, the
children of God. Those who recognize a Devil often hold that
some group or nation or sect are the Devil's own— the witches,
the heretics, the Jews, the capitalists, the communists— and these
enemies of God are no longer entitled to the rights, the just
dealing, the simple humanity which are the heritage of all created
in the divine image.
It remains for the "remnant of Israel" to uphold with unflagging
zeal the basic intuition that ours is a moral universe. To make
truth and right prevail in human affairs is not arrogant meddling
with things beyond our competence; for man is God's partner
in the work of creation. 14 His distinction should not make him
proud, but should save him from inertness, sloth and despair.
it
This ancient Jewish message has come to us with renewed

power out of the concentration camps. It has been made visible in
creative deeds on the soil of Palestine. It has been voiced with
moving eloquence by Rabbi Leo Baeck, the saint of our genera-
tion, tested in the crucible of affliction, who calls on the Jewish
people to give vision and courage to a world that has lost both.
In the glow of such a faith, the Devil and his hosts fade and
disappear.
Fallen Angels
Bibliography
Abbreviations.
This does not include the customary abbreviations of the names

list
of biblical booksand other familiar and obvious abbreviations. For the

abbreviations used in citing Midrashim and other aggadic works see
the Bibliography, section B. 3.
Ant. Antiquities
Bar. Baruch
Bel. Jud. The Wars of the Jews (Bellum Judaicum)
CE Catholic Encyclopedia
Ecclus. Ecclesiasticus
En. Enoch
HUCA Hebrew Union College Annual
ICC International Critical Commentary
JBL Journal of Biblical Literature
JE Jewish Encyclopedia
JQR Jewish Quarterly Review
Jub. Jubilees
JZWL Judische Zeitschrift fur Wissenschaft und Leben
• • • 253
Mac. Maccabees
MGWJ Monatsschrift fur Geschichte und Wissenschaft des Juden-
tums
ns. new series
os. old series
PG Patrologia Graeca
PL Patrologia Latina
RB Revue Biblique
REJ Revue des Etudes Juives
RSPT Revue des Sciences Philosophiques et Theologiques
SCG Summa Contra Gentiles
ST Summa Theologica
A. Works constantly cited by the authors name.
cahana = cahana, a., ed. Sefarim Hizonim. 3 v., Tel Aviv, 1936-1937.
charles = Charles, r. h., ed. The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha
of the Old Testament in English. 2 v., Oxford, 1913.
ginzberg = ginzberg, l., The Legends of the Jews. 7 v., Philadelphia,
1909-1938.
grunbaum = grunbaum, m., "Beitrage zur Vergleichende Mythologie
aus der Hagada," in Gesammelte Aufsatze zur Sprach- und
Sagenkunde, ed. F. Perles. Berlin, 1901.
jung = jung, l., Fallen Angels in Jewish, Christian and Mohammedan
Literature. Philadelphia, 1926. (Originally in JQR, ns. XV
and XVI.)
lods = lods, a., "La Chute des anges. Origine et portee de cette specu-
lation," in Revue d'Histoire et de Philosophie Religieuses, VII,
295-315. Strasbourg.
robert = robert, c, "Les Fils de Dieu et les Filles de l'Homme," in
RB, IV, 340-373, 525-552.
scholem = scholem, g. g., Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism. Jeru-
salem, 1941.
B. Ancient and Medieval Sources.

Jewish
1. Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha.
See above, under Cahana and Charles.
the apocalypse of Abraham, trans. G. H. Box and J. I. Landsmann.
London, 1918.
the testament of Abraham, trans. G. H. Box. London, 1927.
the biblical antiquities of PHiLO, trans. M. R. James. London,
1917.
the book of enoch, ed. R. H. Charles. Oxford, 1912.
documents of jewish sectaries, ed. S. Schechter. v. I: Fragments
of a Zadokite Work. Cambridge (England), 1910.
Bibliography • • •
255
m enoch, or the Hebrew book of Enoch, ed. H. Odeberg. Cam-

bridge (England), 1928.
die hebraische elias— apocalypse, ed. M. Buttenwieser. Leipzig,
1897.
2. Hellenistic Writings.
septuaginta, ed. A. Rahlfs. 2 v. 3rd ed., Stuttgart, 1949.
josephus, works, trans. W. Whiston. N.Y., n.d.
phelo, trans. F. H. Colson and J. E. Whittaker (Loeb Classical Li-
brary). 9 v., London, 1929-1941.
3. Rabbinic Writings.
The Mishnah and the Babylonian and Palestinian Talmuds are cited
in the usual manner from the standard editions.
tosefta, ed. M. S. Zuckermandel. Passewalk, 1881. Cited by ch. and
halakah.
abba gorion. In sifre de-aggadata al megillath ESTHER, ed. S.
Buber. Vilna, 1886. Cited by p.
AGGADATH Esther, ed. S. Buber. Krakau, 1897. Cited by p.
arn. aboth d'rabbi nathan, ed. S. Schechter. Vienna, 1887. Cited by
ch. and p.
bm. batte MiDRASHOTH, ed. S. Wertheimer. New ed., Jerusalem,
1950.
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Fallen Angels
Notes
Cross references are always given by
chapter and note. They often refer, how-
ever, not to the note only, but also to
the corresponding passage in the text.
NOTES TO CHAPTER TWO
Pp. 7-13
1.See Job 1.6, 2.1, 38.7; Ps. 29.1, 89.6 f. and the full discussion by Rob-
ert,RB, IV, 341-8. See also U. Cassuto, 'Ma'aseh B'ne haElohim uV'noth
haAdam,' in Essays in Honour of . Hertz, Hebrew section, 35 If. Cassuto's
. .
views are similar to those presented in the text. Gen. 6 relates not angelic
sin, but the origin of the giants. It is not so much a survival of mythology as
a reply to it. It is not a fragment: the biblical author disposes of a distaste-
ful subject as quickly as he can. The title "sons of God," applied in Ugaritic
to various deities, here designates a grade of angels inferior to those called
"messengers of God."
2. So Lods, 304-5. He holds that Gen. 6.3 refers to the gibborim, not to
mankind (reading bam instead of ba-adam) and means: Though there is a
divine strain in these beings, they will not live forever, since they are of
part human descent. This parallels the Gilgamesh epic, whose hero, though
of partly divine parentage, seeks immortality in vain. Cassuto (op. cit.),
41 f., contends that the traditional rendering of xjadon has good philological
justification. The v. means that angelic paternity will not make the giants
immortal, since they are partly flesh. (But this does not fit the phrase "My
spirit.") "His days shall be 120 years," C. holds, means that the life span of
men will graduallv dwindle to that maximum. Cf. the view of Abrabanel
cited below, Ch. XX.
• • • 263
.
3. Montgomery and Harris, 76 f

4.Morgenstern, HUCA, XIV, 85. Cf. Num. 13.33; Deut. 2.20 ff.
5. Cf. Ch. XIV n. 20; Ch. XXIX n. 1.
6. So also Ez. 28.11 ff.
7. Morgenstern, op. cit., 29-40, 114 ff.
8. Ibid. 76-83, 114 ff. M. supposes further that the author of Ps. 82 knew
both myths, the rebellion of Helel b. Shahar and the marriage of angels and
men. The nefdim were Helel and his followers, the fallen ones who were al-
ready on earth in the days when the angels sought mortal consorts. For the
difficult half-verse "as one of the princes (ha-sarim) ye shall fall," he would
read "as Helel b. Shahar ye shall fall." Though ingenious, this seems to me
unfounded. It assumes that the myths contained in II En. and the Adam
Books (below, Ch. VII and VIII) are implied in the biblical texts; in fact,
these stories are midrashic elaborations on the biblical words. M. even sup-
poses (ibid., 95) that the first star which fell to earth in I En. 86.1 was
Satan-Helel, and tire stars which followed were the angels that took mortal
wives: the more natural explanation is that the first star was Azazel, setting
an example to his followers. Below, Ch. V, n. 2.
9. PR 43, 179b; Midrash Samuel 2.4; Mishnath R. Eliezer 29.
10. The imprisonment and ultimate punishment of sinners resembles the
judgment on Azazel and his host (below, Ch. Ill, nn. 7 f ), but Is. 24.22 .
may refer to human sinners. Morgenstern ( op. cit., 124 f ) overlooks the .
difference between rebel angels and national sarim.

11. Montgomery and Harris, 78.
12. Is. 30.7; Ps. 87.4. Cf. Is. 51.9; Ps. 74.4, 89.11; Job. 9.13, 26.12,
NOTES TO CHAPTER THREE

Pp. 16-21
1. Charles, II, 171 ff.
2. Ibid., 170-1.
3. "Heaven" is a substitute for the name of God: the phrase is equivalent
to "sons of God," Gen. 6.2.
4. But the roster of the "chiefs of tens" includes only 19
names; Samiazaz
is first, Asael tenth:
En. 6.7. I
5. The rabbis also taught that animals became immoral before the Flood:
Ginzberg, I, 160 and n. 32.
6. Here the story is interrupted by a variant account of the wicked prac-
tices taught by the angels, including the manufacture of weapons and
jewelry and the cosmetic arts. The chief malefactor is Azazel, Semjaza takes
second place. On the names of the fallen angels, see Ginzberg, V, 152-3.
7. See Dan. 4.14.
8. I En. 65-7; see Charles, II, 168. The fragments in Ch. 54-5 and 60
yield nothing for our purpose. Ch. 106-7 state explicitly that the flood re-
sulted from the intermarriage of angels and mortals and the engendering of
the giants.
9. En. 69. 1-13. The mention of Gadreel is the only ref. in I. En. to the
I
Eden The author disregarded the problems raised by his statement,
story.
which other writings of the sort treat at length. See below Ch. VIII.
10. I En. 69.13-25. The sinful angel is named Kasbeel; according to
Charles, the oath is called Biqa and Akae. Cahana and Faitlovitch take
Biqa as the original name of the angel (it means "a good person" in Am-
haric); after his fall he was named Kazbiel, "he who lies to God." This
faintly suggests a medieval version, below, Ch. XIX n. 7.
Notes • • • 265
11. Lods, 298 and Charles, II, 168 n. 1 speak of a "conflation" of myths:
this overstates the case.
12. Mishnah Yoma but the text is not certain: Jastrow, Dictionary,
6.8,
333 top. The was first suggested by Geiger, JZWL, III, 200 f.
identification
13. So explicitly I En. 15.3-7; below, Ch. IV n. 1.
14. Writing was one of the marvels created by God on the eve of the
first Sabbath: Abot 5.9. Before Creation, the Torah was written in black
fire on a scroll of white fire: Tehillim 90, 91, etc.
15. See the excellent analysis of Lods, 304 ff. Though written before the
Ras Shamra lit. was known, this account recognizes the close connection of
the tale with the Palestinian terrain.
NOTES TO CHAPTER FOUR

Pp. 21-23
1. I En. 12-16, the direct quotations from 15.3-7.

2. Ibid., 68.4, a Noah passage.
3. 16.1-2, 19.1-3. Lods, 311, remarks that the ref. to sirens
Ibid., 15.8 ff.,
in 19 does not prove Greek influence. It may be only the Greek rendering of
lilin or a similar word. Zohar, III, 76b (Ch. XXIII n. 9 below) is too late
to be a useful parallel. On the characteristics of demons, see Ch. XVI n. 68.
4. I En. 18.12-6.
5. Griinbaum, 67-8; independently A. Smythe Palmer, Hibbert Journal,
XI, 766 ff. Lods, 309, says that I En. closely associates fallen angels and
rebel stars. In fact, the two topics are mentioned in the same ch., but are
in no way combined. The punishment of the stars is more like the rabbinic
story of the punishment of the moon: Ginzberg, V, 34-5.
NOTES TO CHAPTER FIVE

Pp. 23-26
1. I En. 85-90. Preceding this is a vision in which the sin of the angels
seems to be the cause of the Flood and of continuing human guilt. See
esp. I En. 84.4.
2. I En. 85-8. On the identification of the stars, above, Ch. II n. 8.
3. The biblical story, ibid., 89.1-50. The appointment of the shepherds,
w. 51-67. The reports, v. 70 f., at die end of the exile; vv. 76 ff., probably
at the end of the Persian period; 90.5, perhaps at the beginning of the
Seleucid rule over Palestine (Charles).
4. Ibid., 90.13 ff.
5. O. Gebhardt, "Die 70 Hirten des Buches Henoch;" Charles, especially
in his separate ed. of I Enoch (Oxford, 1912). Cf. Ch. II n. 10.
6. I En. 54.1-6, 55.3-56.4. Ch. 64 is out of place.
7. Ibid., 92.1-5, 91.1-10, 18, 19. "All those who brought down sin"
( 100.4 ) could refer to human tempters; if to the fallen angels, it may be a
harmonistic insertion.
8. Satan is a person only ibid., 54.6. "Instruments of Satan" (53.3)
means simply instruments of torture. In 40.7 an archangel is to fend off the
"satans," preventing them from accusing mankind before God.
NOTES TO CHAPTER SIX

Pp. 26-32
1. Zeitlin has recently argued (JQR, ns, XXX, Iff.) that it is the old-
est of the Pseudepigrapha, composed in the Persian period. Albright, From
. .
266 • • •
Fallen Angels
the Stone Age to Christianity, 266 f., places it at the beginning of the 3rd
cent. B.C.E., perhaps a little earlier. I am still inclined to accept the dating
of Charles in the 2nd cent. B.C.E., a data accepted by Kohler (JE, sv,
Jubilees, Book of ) and Finkelstein, The Pharisees, 600 f
2. Charles, II, 289.
3.Controversy on this subject has recently flared up, because this work
is undeniably related to some of the newly discovered "Dead Sea Scrolls."
Zeitlin, who regards the latter as medieval, maintains the view first ad-
vanced by Biichler that the "Zadokite" Work is actually Karaitic: see JQR,
ns, III and XLI, 35 ff. But a pre-Christian date was maintained by Charles,
E. Meyer, Kohler, Ginzberg, and other important authorities. See Charles,
II, 788; Moore, Judaism, I, 201-4, III 58-9. The fact that this document
calls the fallen angels "Watchers" (below, n. 14) seems to me strong evi-
dence for an early date; this term for the fallen angels does not appear in
medieval Hebrew literature.
4. Jub. 4.15-5.10. See also 7.20 ff., ace. to Charles taken from an old
Noah-book. The statement that the giants were "all unlike" may have origi-
nally meant "they were of monstrous form" (meshunim). Naphidim and
Naphil are variants of Nephilim; what Eljo means is unknown. Cf. also
Jub. 20.5.
5. Ginzberg, V, 149-50.
Ibid., 8.1-4. Parallels,
6.Jub. consistently avoids the use of angelic names, hence it never spe-
cifically mentions Shemhazai and Azazel.
7. Jub. 10.1-14, according to Charles from a Noah-book. This passage ap-
pears almost verbatim in a medieval Hebrew Noah-book (Jellinek, Beth
haMidrasch, iii— not iv, as Charles has it— p. 155) Eisenstein, OM, 400. Cf.
Ginzberg, V, 196.
8. Jub. 17.16-18.12; 12.19 f. Cf. below, Ch. XVI n. 22, Ch. XIX nn.
24-28.
9. Jub. 49.2. Cf. below Ch. XVI n. 84, Ch. XIX nn. 39-41.
10. Above, n. 7; cf. Ch. XIV nn. 10 f
11. Jub. 15.31 f. Charles explains "to lead them astray from Him: the
ultimate result treated as if it were the immediate purpose of God's action."
Cf. Ecclus. 17.17: "For every nation He appointed a ruler, but Israel is the
Lord's portion."
12. Fragments of a Zadokite Work 6.9 f., 9.12.
13. Ibid., 7.19 (cf. II Timothy 3.8, Menahot 85a), 14.5, 20.2.
14. Ibid., 3.4 f.; above, n. 3.
15. Cf. below, Ch. XVII n. 8.
16. E.g., Reuben 2-3, which Charles considers an addition composed un-
der Stoic influence.
17. Simeon 3.1 ff.; Judah 13.3, 14.2, 16.1; Issachar 4.4; Dan 1.6-7, ch.
2-4, 5.5; Naphtali 3.3; Gad 1.9, 6.2; Asher 1.9, 6.2; Benjamin 5.2.
Other allusions to Beliar, Satan, and the evil spirits: Reuben 4.7, 11;
Issachar 6.1, 7.7; Zebulon 9.8; Dan 1.6 f., 3.6, 5.1-6, 6.1 ff.; Naphtali 8.6;
Gad 4.7, 5.2; Asher 1.8, 3.2; Joseph 7.4; Benjamin 3.3 f., 3.8 (is this pas-
sage Christian?), 6.1, 7; 7.1 f.
18. Further: Simeon 6.6; Judah 25.3; Dan 5.10 f., 6.4; Levi 4.1. Asher
7.3, where the Most High breaks the head of the dragon upon the water,
may be a Christian interpolation, even though the slant serpent is very
ancient. Cf. Ch. II n. 11 and XIV n. 3 ff.
19. Levi 5.6; Dan 6.2; cf. above, n. 11. But the medieval Hebrew Testa-
ment of Naphtali emphasizes that only the Gentiles have guardian angels;
the destinies of Israel are directly supervised by God.
Notes • • • 267
NOTES TO CHAPTER SEVEN

Pp. 32-35
We shall cite II En. from Charles' texts A and B, and from the Sokolow
text (C) used by Cahana for his translation. Where necessary, we shall
render Cahana'sHebrew into English.
1.A-B 7; C 4.1-7. Note A 7.3: "took counsel with their own will, and
turned away with their prince, who is fastened in the fifth heaven;" C 4.5:
"followed the stubborn impulses of their hearts, they and their prince and
they who are set in the fifth heaven." See next n. and Ch. IV n. 1.
2. A 18; C 7.1-13. A speaks of only 3 angels who descended on Hermon,
C of 2 million! All the sources state that the gloomy beings in the fifth
heaven are But there are many difficulties. Why should
also sinful angels.
some of the Watchers be punished in the second and others in the fifth
heaven? A
7.3 places Satanail in the fifth heaven, but Enoch does not find
him we learn that he is flying about at liberty (see next n.).
there; later
Not all the Watchers sinned; but if those in the fifth heaven were culprits,
no place is left in the scheme of II En. for the loyal members of the order.
Why moreover should En. have urged those who were already undergoing
eternal punishment to hymn Gods praise, lest His wrath against them in-
crease? What more could they have feared? Besides, it has been already
stated that God would
not accept the prayer of the fallen angels.
The error arisen out of confusion over the meaning of
must have
"Watchers." Because the sinful angels were of this category, the scribes
began to take the word "Watcher" itself to mean "fallen angel."
3. A 29; C 11.34-40. The creation of the angels on the second day,
BR 3.8.
4. A 31.3-8 (very corrupt text); C 11.73-8. Cf. esp. A 31.7 f., "I cursed
ignorance, but what I had blessed previously, those I did not curse, I
cursed not man, nor the earth, nor other creatures, but man's evil fruit,
and his works;" C 11.76-7: "And because of their ignorance I cursed them.
But what I had blessed previously, those I did not curse; and even what
I had not blessed previously, I did not curse. And I did not curse man or the
earth or the other creatures, but the evil seed of man; and therefore a good
creation is the fruit that follows upon labor."
5. A 30.16; C 11.66.
6. A 33.7 ff. C 11.90 ff.
;
7. As Charles did in his n. on 29.5.
NOTES TO CHAPTER EIGHT

Pp. 35-37
1. On the various texts, see the inrro. of Wells ap. Charles, II 123 ff.
Wells agrees that it is difficult to determine how much of the extant material
belongs to the original Jewish kernel, and suggests some doubt as to the
soundness of Ginzberg's method (JE, sv Adam, Book of) of reconstructing
the story. According to Jagic, editor of the Slavonic version, Ch. 33-5 of
this text are an insertion by a Bogomil; but this section is not strikingly
different from the rest of the work.
2. Vita Adae et Evae 5-10; in the Slavonic, Eve recognizes the Devil and
does not respond to his blandishments.
3. Vita 12-17.
4. Below, Ch. XVII n. 2.
5. Apocalypsis Mosis 15-6.
.
268 • •
Fallen Angels
Apoc. Mos. 17.1-3, Satan waits till the angels have left Paradise to
6.
hymn God's praise on high (so also Vita 33), then appears outside the wall
in the guise of an angel chorister and Eve does not recognize him. In 17.4
and Ch. 18, the serpent (or the Devil speaking through the serpent) urges
Eve to eat the forbidden fruit. In 19.1 Eve opens the gate to Satan, which
seems needless if his agent were already successful.
7. Ibid., 19.3. Cf. Ch. XVI n. 55 below.
8. Ibid., 21.3.
9. Ibid., 23.5; 25.1, 4; 26; 28.4.
10. Ibid., 39.
NOTES TO CHAPTER NINE

Pp. 37-42
1. For bibliographical details see Cahana's Intro, and Kohler, IE, sv Job,
Testament of. James doubted that the work is entirely Jewish; Charles did
not include it in his ed. of the Pseudepigrapha. But Kohler, Cahana, and
Ginzberg accept it as Jewish; the latter ( V, 383 f ) cites parallels in the .
later aggada. The book seems to be in the Palestinian tradition— note esp.
the emphasis on resurrection— but the figure of the wrestler (4.11; 27.3, 4)
suggests Hellenistic influence. The original language and date remain
uncertain.
As to the purpose of the book, Cahana, II, 516, regards it as propaganda,
showing how the power of Judaism could transform an Edomite into a saint.
But Job is a saint while still an idolater; he becomes a monotheist, but is
not formally converted to Judaism. Nor would a book addressed to the
heathen world have stressed the injunction against intermarriage (45.3).
Kohler considered the book an exposition of Hasidic ideals. But Job, fabu-
lously wealthy, gives charity on a scale much too lavish to serve as an
example to ordinary people. Other important aspects of Hasidic piety,
notably Sabbath observance, go unmentioned. Our author most likely had no
clear intent except to write an interesting and edifying tale.
2. Other instances are the stories by Artapanus about Moses (Ginzberg,
V, 407 ff.), the Testament of Abraham, and the Martyrdom of Isaiah. The
pseudo-Philonic Biblical Antiquities (below, Ch. X) provide an even closer
parallel: here much traditional lore is combined with inventions of the
author. The Psalm there ascribed to David is analogous to the poetical
insertions in the Test, of Job.
3. "Satan as a beggar occurs frequently in Jewish legends:" Ginzberg, V,
384 n. 15. But usually he entraps someone in an act of indifference or
unkindness to the poor. Here Job defeats Satan by refusing him hospitality!
4. Assumptio Mosis 10.1; cf. above, Ch. VI n. 18. For the legend about
the body of Moses, see Jude 9; Charles, II, 408 n. 2; Ginzberg, VI, 159.
5. Similar legends in rabbinic lit. Ginzberg, VI, 373 f
:
6. Martyrdom of Isaiah 1.
7. Ibid., 2.1-4.
See below, Ch. XVI n. 15.
8.
9. below, Ch. XIV nn. 15, 31; Ch. XV n. 35.
II Cor. 4.4;
10. Above, Ch. VI n. 11.
11. Test, of Abraham 16-17 describes the Angel of Death in gruesome
terms; some of the details may have been of Egyptian origin and added
by the Greek translator ( so Box in his ed. p. xxi f .
) . In any case, the Angel
is God's agent, not a wicked being.
12. Morgenstern, in HUCA, XIV, 93, refers to Wisdom of Solomon 14.6;
Notes • • •
269
Judith 16.7; III Mac. 2.4; I Baruch 3.26 ff. These passages mention God's
defeat of the giants; but they do not mention the ancestry of the latter,
nor is there reason to assume that these authors accepted the story of the
fallen angels. Quite the contrary is true of Judith, which never mentions
angels. Sybilline Oracles 5.512 ff. is probably not pertinent to our theme.
NOTES TO CHAPTER TEN

Pp. 42-45
1. This notion is foreshadowed in Jub. 4.20 ff.; Test. Reuben 5; above,

Ch. VI nn. 4, 15. The fact that fallen angels are mentioned in II Bar. only
in this section supports Charles' view that the work is composite and the
vision in Ch. 56 a separate unit.
2. Ginzberg, V, 197 f.; VI, 184 n. 19.
3. James, The Biblical Antiquities, Intro. 58-9. For a radically new ap-
proach to this work, see A. Spiro, in Proceedings of the Amer. Academy for
Jewish Research, XX, 279 ff.
4. Ibid., 18.5, 32.1: the sacrifice of Isaac was suggested craftily by angels
who were jealous of Abraham. This view is not related to the idea of rebel
angels and is found also in rabbinic lit. Below, Ch. XVI n. 19.
5. Ibid., Ch. 34.
6. Ibid., 11.12, 13.6, 15.5, 59.4.
7. Ibid., 45.6, where the Latin reads Anticimus. James thinks this may
correspond to Mastemah in the original, but Satan is more likely.
8. Ibid., 25.9.
9. Ibid., 53.3, 4.
10. Ibid., Ch. 60. See James* n., citing parallels from Christian and
magical On the time when the demons were created, below, Ch. XVI
texts.
nn. 58, 67. The offspring of David who is to rebuke the demons may be
Solomon (so James) or the Messiah: cf. above, Ch. VI n. 18.
NOTES TO CHAPTER ELEVEN

Pp. 46-49
1. It is not included in the collections of Kautsch, Charles, or Cahana;
Jung disregards it.

2. See Ginzberg in IE, sv Abraham, Apocalypse of. Rationalistic elements
also appear in the apocalypse proper: the discussions ch. xx, xxiii-xxv, and
especially the prayer ch. xvii.
3. This is a midrash on Gen. 15: Abraham and Jaoel ride on the dove
and pigeon which A. did not split (15.10); Azazel is the bird of prey that
swooped down, v. 11.
4. Cf. above, Ch. VIII n. 10.
5. Cf. below, n. 8, and Ginzberg, V, 97 n. 70.
6. Cf. Ch. VIII nn. 5 ff.
7. Box, Apoc. of Abraham 77 n. 5.
8. The computations of the end of days can no longer be interpreted with
assurance, but seem to indicate that the Messiah was expected at a date
earlv in the Christian era. Ch. xxix contains an odd Christian interpretation,
in which Azazel worships and kisses Christ. A passage in ch. xix (see Box,
64 n. 3) seems to deny the reality of angels, but probably should not be so
interpreted.
The small book known as III Baruch must date from about the same
time as II Bar. and Apoc. Abr. Note the following passages from it: Baruch
270 • Fallen Angels
sees Hades and a dragon that consumes the bodies of the wicked. He
learns that the forbidden fruit of Paradise was the vine, which Samael had
planted and which God
cursed along with Samael (above, n. 5): 4.4-9.
The moon saw Samael taking the serpent as a garment; she should have
hidden herself because of the crime, but instead she increased— therefore
God reduced her original splendor: 9.5-7, cf. Ginzberg, V, 34 n. 100. The
guardian angels of wicked men seek to be relieved of their painful respon-
sibility, but Michael keeps them at their posts "in order that the enemy
may not prevail to the end": 13.3. By Michael's ordinance the demons af-
flict the wicked: 16.3.
NOTES TO CHAPTER TWELVE

Pp. 51-54
1. See RahhV ed. ad loc., and below, n. 7. Frankel Ueber den Einfluss>
46, regards the reading "sons" as primary. He suggests that toutois, v. 3
(which corresponds to no word in the Heb.), was added to suggest that the
sons of God were not angels but mortals; but he admits that other explana-
tions are possible. Sept. Deut. 32.8 reads: "He set the boundaries of the
Eeoples according to the number of the sons of God," which has generally
een interpreted as a reference to the guardian angels of the nations, whose
number equals that of their proteges. But cf. Frankel, Vorstudien, 66 f.
2. Josephus, Ant. 1.3.1; Ginzberg, V, 177-8.

3. Ant. 6.8.2.
4. Ibid., 8.2.5.
T5. Bel. hid. 7.6.3.
6. Bentwich, Josephus, 114, 131.
7. Philo, De Gigantibus 6-11; cf. De Somniis, I, 133 f. On the Septuagint
text, cf. n. 1 above.
8. De Gig. 12-18.
9. Ibid., 58-60.
10. Frey, in RSPT, V, 100. But Wolfson, Philo, I, 383 ff., ascribes to
Philo a more realistic notion of fallen angels.
11. De Gig. 12-15; cf. Plato, Phaedrus 246 ff.
NOTES TO CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Pp. 54-59
1. Scholem, Major Trends, 34 ff. For a different view, Buber, "Myth in
Judaism" (English trans, in Commentary, June 1950).

2. The literature on Gnosticism is endless. See Moore, History of Reli-
gions, II, 154 ff., McGiffert, History of Christian Thought, ch. IV. The
Jewish aspect, Scholem, ch. II; Graetz, Gnosticismus u. Judenthum.
3. Scholem, 49.
4. "The prince of the world," Hullin 60a; "the prince of the presence,"
Tan. N. Mishpatim 18; "Metatron," Hagigah 15a, Sanhedrin 38b; "Jaoel,"
above, Ch. XI. See, further, Scholem, 67 ff., Ginzberg, V, 28-9.
5. Ginzberg, V, 163: "The Babylonian Nebo, the heavenly scribe, gave
Enoch to the Palestinian Jews, Metatron to the Babylonian Jews, and noth-
ing could be more natural tiian the final combination of Enoch-Metatron."
But if, as is possible, the name Metatron comes from the Greek, it Mould
have come to Babylonia via Palestine. Moreover, Jaoel, who differs from
Metatron only in name, is doubtless of Palestinian origin.
6. Ginzberg, V, 156-7.
.
Notes • • •
271
NOTES TO CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Pp. 61-72
So Kohler in JE, sv Revelation, Book of. See also the radical theory of
1.
M. Mieses that the original apocalypse was composed by R. Johanan b.
Zakkai: MGWJ, LXXIV, 345 ff. and LXXV, 67 f. I prefer the view of
Charles in his commentary on Revelation (ICC).
2. The visions are preceded by letters to seven churches in Asia Minor.
The angel who dictates them mentions a "synagogue of Satan" in Smyrna
and Philadelphia (2.9, 3.9) and a group at Thyatira who professed to
fathom the deep mysteries of Satan (2.24).
3. Ch. 13 speaks of 2 beasts, one from the sea, the other from the land.
The first beast derives his power from the dragon, and transmits power to
the second beast. Elsewhere Rev. mentions only one beast. Andrews ( Peake,
Commentary ad loc.) suggests that the first beast is the Roman power, the
second the spirit of idolatry, esp. emperor-worship. But he admits that the
first beast may be a direct ref. to Nero, to whom the cipher at the end of
the ch. probably alludes. Also baffling is the symbolism of the froglike spir-
its in 16.13 ff., and the relation of this passage to the conflict in ch. 19 is
obscure.
4. The reader should clearly distinguish between the Dragon— Satan— and
the Beast— the Antichrist. On the Antichrist see below, n. 7. This concept
appears clearly for the first time in these NT
passages. Ginzberg (JE, sv
Antichrist) points to the biblical and other Jewish components of the idea
and concludes that the concept is of Jewish origin. But the combination of
these elements into die new figure of the Antichrist is not found in Jewish
lit. of this period. The only exceptions are the Sybillines (IV, 119 ff.;
V, 28 ff., 363 ff.), and from this source no safe conclusions can be drawn.
The books in question are predominantly Jewish and date from the begin-
ning of the Christian era; but they contain additions by many later hands,
Jewish and Christian.
5. Cf. nn. 15, 31.
•
6. This consciousnessalmost entirely absent from the early letter to
is
Galatia, much more markedin the letters to Thessalonica (which are prob-
ably next in order), at its height in the correspondence with Corinth.
Romans lacks this element, except for the personification of sin in 7.14 ff. If
genuine, Colossians, Ephesians, and Philippians are Paul's latest extant writ-
ings; references to the world of evil spirits are mild in Col., vehement in
Eph., totally absent in Phil. It is not surprising that Paul mentions the
Antichrist only in II Thess., for this is the only Pauline work which deals
with the future of mankind as distinguished from die future of the individ-
ual soul.
7. II Thess. 2; above, nn. 4, 6.
8. Rom. 16.20. Cf. above, Ch. VI n. 18.
8a. There is voluminous scholarly discussion on "elemental spirits" in
Paul. See the commentaries, and for a recent viewpoint JBL, LXX, 259 ff.
9. Eph. 1.20 f., 3.10. Cf. Yerushalmi Rosh haShanah 1.3, 57b and
OcircillGls
Mk. 1.23-8 (Luke 4.33-7); Mk. 1.32-4 (Mat. 8.16; Luke 4.40-1);
10.
Mk. 1,39, 3.11-12; Mk. 5.1-20 (Mat. 8.28-34; Luke 8.26-39); Mk. 7.25-30
(Mat. 15.22-8); Mk. 16.9 (Luke 8.2).
11. Mk. 3.22-9 (Mat. 12.22-9; Luke 11.14-22 add the argument^ If I
cast out demons by Beelzebul, by whom do your sons cast them out?" )
12. Mk. 3.15; 6.7, 13; Mat. 10.1; Luke 9.1. An unauthorized man cast
out demons in Jesus' name: Mk. 9.38-40 (Luke 9.49-50).
Mk. 16.17.
13.
Mk. 9.14-29 (Mat. 17.14-20; Luke 9.37-42).
14.
15. See Mark 16 in Moffatt's translation.
16. Mk. 1.12 f.; Mat. 4.1-11; Luke 4.1-13.
17. Mat 11.18 (Luke 7.33). Ref. to exorcism in Mat. 4.24, 7.22, 9.32-3.
18. Mat. 25.41. Cf. 13.38-9 and Mk. 4.15 (Mat. 13.19; Luke 8.12). Jesus
calls Peter "Satan," i.e., tempter: Mk. 8.33 (Mat. 16.23).
19. Mat. 12.43-5 (Luke 11.24-6). Instead of "dry places," the text
should probably read "ruins," for the latter are the usual abode of demons
(Berakot 3ab). The Aramaic horba can have either meaning.
20. Luke 10.17-20, obviously referring to Is. 14.12. Cf. below Ch.
XXIX n. 1.
21. Luke
22.3; below, n. 30.
22. Luke
22.31; cf. above, n. 5.
23. Acts 19.13-17. Other ref. to demons and exorcism: 5.16, 8.7, 10.38,
16.16.
24. Jude 6 (cf. 8). It is improbable that the passage refers to the rebel-
lion and downfall of Satan, as argued by Robert, RB, IV, 546 ff., all the
more since Jude 14 f. cites I En. 1.9. Paul (I Cor. 11.10) ordered women to
veil themselves in church "because of the angels." Some expositors (so
Peake, Commentary, ad loc.) suppose this was to prevent angels present in
the church from being attracted by female worshippers as their forebears
had been tempted. But this is doubtful; by all accounts, the angels who
with cf ood the original temptation are immune. Conybeare, "The Demonol-
ogy of the NT" (JQR, os, VIII, 579) thinks Paul's rule was intended as
protection against evil spirits.
25. above, Ch. IX n. 4.
Jude 9:
26. Heb. 11.5
ff.; above, Ch. XIII nn. 4-6.
27. I Peter 3.19. The insertion of Enoch's name was suggested by Rendel
Harris and adopted by Moffatt in his translation; but many scholars question
the emendation. See commentaries. On the harrowing of hell, below, Ch.
XV n. 45.
For a different view, see Goodenough in JBL, LXIV, 145 ff.
28.
29. John mentions demons only in passages where the enemies of Jesus
say "He has a demon," i.e., is insane: 7.20, 8.48, 10.20 ff.
30. John 13.2, 21-30; above, n. 21.
31. Cf. above, nn. 5, 15.
32. I John 2.18 ff. Cf. above, nn. 3, 4, 7.
33. Cf. above, Ch. XIII n. 4. Baal Zebub appears as the god of Ekron,
II K. 1.2 ff., but I do not know any Jewish source that applies this name to
Satan.
NOTES TO CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Pp. 73-86
1. Cf. Ch. XIV n. 24 f.
2. 7 Apology 5, 14, 57; cf. Dialogue 18.

3. 77 Apology, makes the demons offspring of
5, fallen angels; ibid.,
I, 5, angels and demons seem to be identical.
4. 7 Apology 5, 64; Dialogue 30.
5. 7 Apology 54 ff., 65-7; Dialogue 69 f.
6. Dialogue 76, 88, 141.
Notes • • •
273
7. Ibid. 79.
8. Tatian, Cohortatio ad Graecos 7-9, 14.
9. Athenagoras, Legatio pro Christianis, 24-6.
10. Irenaeus, Adv. Haereses IV, 16.2, 36.4.
11. Ibid., I, 15.6.
12.Clemens Alexandrinus, Paedagogus 3.2 end, Stromata 3.7, 5.1, 7.7.
Cyprian, De Disciplina et Habitu Virginum 14; De Singularitate Clericorum
(Migne, PL, IV, 857c). Minucius Felix, Octavius 26; Commodian, Instruc-
tiones 3; Methodius, De Resurrectione III 7.
13. Tertullian, Adv. Marcionem 5.18 end.
14. De Cultu Feminae 1.2; cf. ibid., 2.10; De Virginibus Velandis 7.
De Idolatria 9 ascribes the invention of astrology to fallen angels.
15. De Cultu 1.3, referring to IV Esdras 14.37 ff.
16. Apologia 22.

17. Lactantius, Instituta 2.15 ff., 4.27.
18. For the status the "higher criticism" of the Clementina, see
of
Schoeps, Theologie u. Geschichte, 37 ff.
19. Clementine Homilies 8.12-18; cf. Recognitiones 4.26. Recog. 1.23»
tells of the downfall of righteous men who had hitherto led lives of angelic
purity: the text here may have been changed slightly to bring it into con-
sonance with the view that became standard later: below, nn. 23 ff.
20. Homilies 9.10.
21. Recognitiones 4.24-5. According to the analysis in Schoeps, op. cit.,
52, this passage is the only one we have cited which belongs to the later
strata of the Clementines; the others are from a second century Ebionite
source.
22. Eusebius, Praeparatio 5.4 end. Sulpitius Severus, Historia Sacra 1.2.
Ambrosius, De Noe 4.8; De Virginibus I, 8.53; In Ps. CXVIII Expositio,
8.58; but ibid., 4.8, he seems to think the ref. is to men who led angelic
lives.
23. Julius Africanus, Chronographia fragment 2 (Ante-Nicene Fathers,
VI, 131). The expression "by whose power the giants were conceived,"
avoiding the actual statement that there was intercourse between angels
and humans, is significant; cf. above, Ch. VI n. 15.
24. Josephus, Ant. 1.3.1, mentions the erstwhile virtues of the Sethites,
later corrupted; but goes on at once to tell of the fallen angels. For Gnostic
glorification of Cain, cf. Moore, History of Religions, II, 156; of Seth, Ginz-
berg, V, 149.
25. Origen, Contra Celsum 5.55; cf. In Joannem 6.25.
26. De Principiis I, 3.3; IV, 35.
27. Contra Celsum 5.54-5.
28. Opp. II, 477; Griinbaum 88; cf. above, n. 19.
29. Hilarius, In Ps. 132.2 (Migne, PL, IX, 748-9).
30. Hieronymus, Lib. Hebraicarum Quaestionum in Gen. 6.2; Breviarum
in Ps. 132; De ad Titum I, 12 (PL, XXIII,
Viris Illustribus 4; In Epist.
573-4).
31. Philastrius, De Haeresibus 108; John Chrysostom, Horn, in Gen. 22;
Cyril of Alexandria, Glaphyra in Gen. II (Migne, PG, LXIX, 51 ff.). In
Julianum beg.; Adv. Anthropomorphitas 17. Caesarius, Dialogus I, Interro-
gate XLVIII (apparently not in Migne) is cited by Robert, RB, IV, 365.
32. Augustine, In Gen. Quaestionum 3.
33. De Civitate Dei XV, 22-3, XVIII 38; cf. IX, 4.
34. John Cassian, Collatio VIII (denies that incubi exist). Theodoret,
Quaestiones in Gen. Interrogatio XL VII. A Syriac work probably of the
sixth cent., The Cave of Treasure, narrates in great detail the gradual cor-
ruption of the Sethites and their final downfall, then explicitly rejects the
older interpretation of Gen. 6. This author denies that demons have sex;
since their apostasy they have not multiplied. Could they consort with
women, they would not leave a single virgin undefiled. Schatzhohle, pp.
14 ff., esp. 18.
34a. Dillmann, Genesis, I, 234.
35. Ignatius, Ephesians 10.3, 13.1, 17.1, 19.1; Trallians 4.2, 8.1; Smyr-
neans 9.1; Philadelphians 6.2; Magnesians 1.2; Romans 5 end, 7.1.
36. Barnabas 18.1-2; cf. 2.1, 4.9, 15.5, 21.3. See also Shepherd of Hermas,
Mandate IV V
1.3; VII; XII 4.6, 7.
3.4, 6;
37. Dialogue 69 above, n. 5.f.;
38. Ibid., 103 (Justin explains Satanas as derived from sata, "apostate,"
and nas, i.e., nahash, "serpent"); cf. 124. See above, Ch. VIII nn. 5 ff.
Justin, ibid., 100, states that Eve "conceived the word of the serpent and
bore disobedience and death." Cf. below, Ch. XVI n. 55; Ch. XIX n. 16.
39. Cohortatio 7.
40. Above, Ch. VII nn. 3 f.
41. Legatio 24-5.
42. What follows is based on McGiffert, Christian Thought, I, 134 ff.
43. Ibid., 136.
44. Ibid., 226 n. 1, 212.
45. Text in Ante-Nicene Fathers, VIII, 436-7. Cf. above, Ch. XIV n. 27.
46. McGiffert, II, 154.
47. Below, Ch. XXX nn. 3 f.
48. McGiffert, I, 297.

49. De Civ. Dei, Book IX, discusses devils in general, esp. heathen views.
Book XI, ch. 11 ff., treats of fallen angels. Ch. 12-15 argue against the
Manicheans that Satan was created good. The serpent was Satan's tool:
XIII, 10. A very clear exposition is given by John Cassian, Collatio VIII:
Satan fell originally through pride, and again through envy of Adam and
Eve.
50. De Civ. Dei, XXII, 1; Enchiridion 29. See Jung, 160 f.; and for
Anselm, McGiffert, II, 196.
51. CE, XI, 310.
NOTES TO CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Pp. 89-111
1. Yoma 67b (Tannaitic); Ginzberg, V, 170.

2. Niddah 61a.
3. So also Sifre N. 86; cf. BR 26.5, WR 23.9, Tan. B. I 23 f. For the
Targumim, below, Ch. XIX n. 4.
Palestinian
4. BR 26.5. I find no basis for Finkelstein's notion (The Pharisees, 182)
that R. Simeon rejected the belief in "personalized angels." He held the
usual opinions of his age. See Sifre Z. to Num. 6.26 (p. 249), BaR 11.7,
Shir 2.5. If R. Simeon had a specific target in view, it may have been
Aquila, who— as Jerome and others attest— translated with his slavish literal-
ness hyioi ton theon, "sons of the gods."
5. Tan. B. I 30, BR 27.4.
6. Above, Ch. XV n. 7.
7. Sabbath 88b-89a.
8. Tehillim 8, 74; PR 25, 128a; Shir 8.11.
Notes • • • 275
9. Above, Ch. XIII nn. 4-6; Ginzberg, V, 156. Actually, Enoch is men-
tioned (but just mentioned) in SOR 1 beg.
10. BR 25.1.
11. Hagigah 4b, BR 50.9.
Sanhedrin 38b, etc.; Ginzberg, V, 69.
12.
13. Ginzberg, ibid.; Philo, De Opificio Mundi 72 ff.
14. BR 8.10; Kohelet R. and Z. 6.10. Below, Ch. XVII n. 2.
15. See Conybeare, JQR, os, VIII, 576 ff. On Samael, see above, Ch. IX,.
nn. 7 f. Samael is a name for Satan, e.g., Sotah 10b and regularly in PRE;
for the Angel of Death, Ch. XIX nn. 29 f.; for the guardian angel of Rome,
Ch. XVIII nn. 23 f.
16. Ginzberg, V, 94 n. 60, regards the rabbinic nahash hakadmoni as.
only a verbal parallel to "the old serpent" of the NT. It means, not "the
primeval dragon," but merely "the original snake." Bonsirven, Judaimie
palestinien, I, 246 n. 4, asserts the contrary view, but without proof.
17. Baba Bathra 16a.
18. Ibid. Kohut, Jiidische Angelologie, 62 ff., tries unsuccessfully to prove
from this passage that Satan has the qualities of Ahriman. See Griinbaum,
116.
19. Cf. Sanhedrin 89b with BR 55.4. In Tan. N. Vayera 18, God before
creation foretells Abraham's faithfulness. An unknown Midrash, Yalk. I 96,
has the Middath haDin arguing with God: "All the trials to which Thou
has subjected him involved only his wealth: now try him personally, tell
him to sacrifice his son!"
20. Cf. BR 67.2; Tan. B. I 131 and 136 with Tan. N. Toledoth 11. The
tale of the attack on Mcses at the inn ( Ex. 4.24 ff ) was a source of per-
.
plexity to the rabbis. In defiance of the Bible text, rabbinic sources usually-
explain that the attacker was an angel: Mekilta Amalek on Ex. 18.3; ShR
5.8; Yerushalmi Targumim Ex. 4.24 ff.; Yerushalmi Nedarim 3.14.38b; R.
Judah b. Bizna in Nedarim 32a. But the printed text of Nedarim 31b-32a
makes Satan the attacker. See Rabbinovicz, Variae Lectiones, ad loc.
21. Abba Gorion 32-3; Esther R. 7 (on Esth. 3.9); Aggadath Esther 38;
OM 52a, 55b, 58a.
22. BR 56.4, 5; Tan. B. I 114; Tan. N. Vayera 22-3 (and see the Intro, to
Tan. B. p. 166); PR 40, 170b; Sanhedrin 89b; Mann, The Bible as Read
. . ., Hebrew sec, p. 63.
23. Sotah 10b. Cf. below, Ch. XIX n. 36.

24. BR 57.4; cf. ShR 21.7.
25. Baba Bathra 15b-16a.
26. Tan. B. II 113; Tan. N. Tissa 19; ShR 41.7; Sabbath 89a. The last
source contains a legend in which Satan, after the Revelation at Sinai, comes
first to God, then to Moses, inquiring where the Torah is to be found. He
is put off with evasive answers; but it is not clear what harm Satan could
have done had he known the whereabouts of the Torah. Tosafot, ad loc,
cite a Midrash that God exiled the Angel of Death (i.e., Satan) before
giving the Torah, lest the Angel object that Israel would soon worship the
Golden Calf. This would fit with the statement (Sanhedrin 26b; Kallah
Rabbati 8) that the Torah is called Tushiah because it was given in secret
(beliashai) on account of Satan.
27. Sanhedrin 95a, 107a. The Palestinian parallels do not mention Satan.
28. Sifre D. 218; Sifre N. 42 (cf. BR 38.6); Pesahim 112b and Rashbam,.
ad loc.
29. Yoma 67b; Sifra on Lev. 18.4
30. Yerushalmi Berakot 1.2.2d.
31. BR
38.7; cf. Sifre N. 131; Sifre D. 43; ShR 41.7.
32. BR
84.3. Ibid., 17.6, states that the letter samek is not used in the
Torah until Gen. 2.21; for when woman was created, Satan (beginning
with samek) was created with her: this is probably a clumsy witticism.
33. Tosefta Sabbath 17(18).2, 3 and Abodah Zarah 1.17-8; Tan. N.
Vayishlah 8. "Angels of Satan" are not, to my knowledge, mentioned else-
where by the rabbis; the expression was probably used for literary sym-
metry.
34. Sabbath 32a.
35. "Break Satan" is the version of Rab Amram ( cited in Ozar haTefillot,
544); the second version is that of recent prayerbooks. See Mishnah Bera-
koth 1.4; Yerushalmi, ibid., 4.5.8c; Elbogen, Jiidische Gottesdienst, 101-2.
36. Berakoth 46a. In Rabbi's personal prayer, ibid., 16b, bot, the phrase,
"from the destructive Satan," does not appear in the Munich ms. and other
sources cited by Rabbinovicz.
37. Yerushalmi Sabbath 2.6.5b (Babli Sabbath 32a suggests that our sins
catch up with us in times of danger, but does not mention Satan); BR 91.9;
Tan. N. Vayiggash 1. Ibid., Vayishlah 8: "If one lives in a rickety house,
Satan accuses him and his record book is opened," but in the parallel case
of one who reneges on a vow, it is angels who demand his punishment.
38. Berakoth 19a, 60a; Ketuboth 8b.
39. Morgenstern, AJSL, LV, 1 ff.
40 Sifra Shemini 1 on Lev. 9.2 (Weiss 43c).
41. Lauterbach, HUCA, IV, 173 ff.
42. Rosh Hashanah 16ab.
43. Yoma 20a; cf. PRE 46.
44. PR 45, 185b-186a.
45. Kiddushin 81a.
46. Ibid., 81ab.
47. Gittin 52a.
48. Yoma 69b.
49. Baba Bathra 16a; Kiddushin 30b; BR 9.7; Mishnah Berakot 9, end.
See, in general, Porter, The Yeger Hara.
50. Kiddushin 81a.
51. Sukkah 52a; Griinbaum, 117.
52. Sukkah 52ab; cf. 4, 20. ER
53. ff.; Ch. XI n. 6; Ch. XV n. 38.
Above, Ch. VIII nn. 5
54. Ginzberg, 71 f., V, 124.
I,
55. Sabbath 145b-146a; Yebamoth 103b; Abodah Zarah 22b; above, Ch.
VIII n. 7.
56. Ginzberg, V, 133.
57. Sabbath 146a. The statement (ibid., 55b; Baba Bathra 17a) that
4 men died only by the counsel of the serpent means that they were of spot-
less character and would not have died but for the fall of Adam. In this the
serpent— as serpent— had a part.
58. Abot 5.9.
59. Mishnah Sabbath 2.5. No ref. to this point in Tosefta or Gemaras: is
this significant? Maimonides (Mishnah Commentary, ad loc, explains "evil
spirit" rationalistically as mental illness.
60. Mishnah
Gittin 6.8; Yerushalmi ibid., 48b.
61. Berakot 6a.
62. Gittin 68a; see Griinbaum 46 ff., refuting Kohut.
63. Berakoth 6a; Sabbath 67a; etc. A
few passages state that witchcraft
is performed with the aid of demons: Sanhedrin 67b; ShR 9.11.
Notes • • • 277
64. Sifre N. 40; Sifre Z. on 6.24.

65. PK 4, 40ab; PR 14, 65a; Tan. B. IV, 118-9; Tan. N. Huk. 8; BaR
19.8. Other references to possession: Sifre D. 318, 321 (Finkelstein 364,
368); Tannaim 195; below, n. 81.
66. Tosefta Sabbath 7(8). 23.
67. Above, n. 58; BR 7 end; ibid., 11.9 in name of later teachers. The
demons are here called meriim (so London ms. in both places; modern
printshave shedim in 7, meriim in 11.9), the meaning of which is not en-
tirely See Kohut, Aruch Completum, V, 237b. Tan. B. I 12 (R.
certain.
Benaya) gives the legend followed by statements implying that demons
have bodies: see next n.
68. Hagigah 16a; ARN 37, 55a adds that they can change shape or be-
come invisible. Cf. second recension 43, 60b.
— 69. "One who has intercourse with a female demon has demon children.
Whence do you learn this? From Adam, who had children from the spirits":
Tan. B. I 12.
70. BR
20.11; Tan. B. I 20; Erubin 18b.
"
71. Below, Ch. XIX nn. 52 ff.
72. Berakot 43b; Pesahim 112b bot.; Sabbath 151b; and n. 74.
73. Berakot 33a; Pesahim 112b; n. 78.
74. Berakot 62a.
75. Sifre N. 40; Sifre Z. on 6.24; BaR 11.5. In Mekilta RS 116, 164;
Tosefta Baba Kama 7.6 (cf. Sifra Kedoshim perek 11) mazzikin probably
means dangers in general, not excluding danger from demons.
76. BR 20.11, 24.6. From the readings given by Theodor, I have adopted
the one that makes the best sense.
77. Ibid. 36.3. Shamdan is elsewhere regarded as the father of Ashmedai.
78. Pesahim 112b. Agrat uses the same language as Satan, above, n. 45.
79. Yerushalmi Berakot 5.1.9a; Babli Pesahim 110a.
80. WR
24.3; Tan. B. Ill 77; Tan. N. Kedoshim 9; Tehillim 20, 176.
81. Meilah 17b. Demons and spirits aided in the building of the Temple;
Shir 1.1; ShR 52.4.
82. Sifra Behukkothai, perek 2, on 26.6. The beginning of this passage
refers to wild beasts; the latter part, citing Ps. 92, may refer to demons.
Cf. Tehillim 92, 405 and above, n. 75; Ch. VI n. 18. Demons disappeared
when the Tabernacle was built (PK 1, 6b; PR 5, 21b; Tan. B. IV 39) but
apparently only for the time being.
83. Above, Ch. Ch. V nn. 3-5.
II n. 10;
on 15.1; Mekilta RS 58-9; Tan. N. Beshallah 13.
84. Mekilta Shiratha 2,
85. DR 1.23. See further ShR 15.15, 21.5 (which states tbai the guardian
of Egypt is named Mizraim; in later sources he is generally called Uzza:
below, Ch. XIX nn. 39 ff.), 23.15; DR 1.22; Tan. N. Mishpatim 18; Shir 8
end. Tehillim 82, 369, very exceptionally, applies Ps. 82.7 to the national
sarim.
86. Yoma 77a; Ginzberg, VI, 434.
87. Above, Ch. VI nn. 11, 19. Ginzberg's remarks on ihis point (V,
204-5) are not entirely clear.
88. PK 23, 150b, WR
29.2; Tan. N. Vayeze 2; in TehiKim 78, 347, this
view is confused with that of R. Samuel b. Nahman. A similar interpreta-
tion of Jacob's dream BR 68 end, is found only in modern prints arid in
one Yemenite ms., but not in Theodor's other sources.
89. Shir 2.1.
90. BR 56.5.
.
91. Ibid. 77.3, 78.3 (without the parable). The opponent was Samael
the guardian angel of Edom: Tan. N. Vayishlah 8; below, Ch. XIX n. 34.
92. Makkoth 12a.
NOTES TO CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Pp. 111-117
1. Above, Ch. XVI n. 12; below, Ch. XIX n. 14.

2. Koran 7.11-24; more briefly 2.30-6, 15.28-44, 17.61-5, 18.50, 20.116-
23, 38.71-8. Cf. Schatzhohle, 4.
3. But Muhammed "But the devils disbelieved, teaching
Ali translates:
men enchantment, and it was not revealed
to the two angels Harut and
Marut at Babel, nor did they teach (it to anyone), so that they should have
said: We are only a trial, therefore do not disbelieve." In his n., Muham-
med Ali states that the story of Harut and Marut was derived by the Jews
from Persian sources; the Koran discredits the tale, denying both that the
methods of sorcery were revealed to the angels it question, and that they
taught these secrets to men. But strongly apologetic motives seem to color
his interpretation.
4. Jung, 131 f.
5. Griinbaum, 44.
6. The ensuing presentation is derived from E. Littmann, "Harut und
Marut," in Andreas Festschr., 70-87. See, further, Griinbaum, 61 ff.; Jung,
124 ff.; B. Heller, in REJ, LX, 202 ff.; and Encyclopaedia of Islam, II,
272-3 (Wensinck).
7. Littmann, 85.
8. Cf. Ch. VI n. 15; Ch. XV nn. 20, 23.
9. Cf. Ch. XV nn. 9; 19 end.
10. Cf. Ch. IV n. 1; Ch. VII n. 1.
11. Littmann, 80-1.
\ 12. Heller, op. cit., 209 ff The Persian poet Schahin calls the leader of
.
the fallen angels Azazel; the Jews of Persia apply this name to the angel who
refused to bow before Adam and who was henceforth called "accursed
Satan."
13. Littmann, 70-2.
14. Ibid., 79, 82; Jung, 128 f
NOTES TO CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Pp. 117-127
1. Bamberger, HUCA, XV, 425 ff.

2. PR 36, 161b.
3. Below, n. 23; Ch. XIX nn. 32 ff.
4. PR 34, 159a.
5. Buttenwieser, Outline of the Neo-Hebraic Apocalyptic Literature, is
stillthe best account of this material. Buttenwieser (p. 30) dates the Book
of Elijah in the 3rd century, but it is hard to believe it so much earlier than
the other works it so closely resembles. Ginzberg (VI, 331) places it in the
middle of the eighth century.
6. Buttenwieser, Die Hebraische Elias- Apocalypse; OM 26b. B's ms.
reads Gigith sh'mo; but I think it likely that Gigith is properly the name of
the king's mother, not of the king. The form of die noun is feminine; and
another source tells that Ishmael's wife was named Gigit: Ginzberg, V, 146.
Notes • • • 279
7. OM466a. The date of this work is fixed by recognizable allusions to
the Caliphs Hisham and Walid II (reigned 724-743 and 743-744). A simi-
lar account in the Book of Zerubbabel, OM
160a, 161b. Here the mother of
the true Messiah, Menahem b. Amiel, escapes to the wilderness, as in Apoc.
John 12.1 ff. A date in the present text indicates that this work is from the
11th century; but it may be an interpolation: Buttenwieser, Outline, 33.
8. Sukkah 52a, which does not specifically name Gog and Magog; but so
Rashi interprets, no doubt correctly.
9. OM 556a. Buttenwieser's emendation (Outline, 34) does not seem an
improvement.
10. OM 155b.
11. OM 554b. The text refers to the Crusades: Buttenwieser, Outline, 41.
12. The two texts, OM
390 and 394, are essentially the same; they pro-
vide little evidence to detennine the date. The Persian Daniel Apocalypse
(OM 102a) mentions a false Messiah, but he is not the Antichrist, not being
sufficiently ferocious.
13. Targum Yerushalmi, Deut. 34.3; Targum Is. 11.4; Emunot veDeot,
VIII, 5-6.
14. See IE, II, 119-120. Several of the Jewish scribes identify Armilus
with him "whom the Gentiles call Anticristo": OM
390-1; Buttenwieser,
Outline, 38; Ginsburger's n. to Targum Yerushalmi, Deut. 34.3.
15. OM 84-94, 212.
16. Perek R. Josiah, OM 203a; Pirke Mashiah, OM
392b. Ibid., 392a,
states that God Edom and then turn him over to Israel.
will flog the sar of
17. Ill En., ed. Odeberg; excerpts in OM
183 ff. Odeberg, following But-
tenwieser ( Outline, 9 ff. ) assigns this part of the book to the third century.
But the arguments are weak and are rejected by Scholem, 354 n. 14. The
florid style is that of the Gaonic period. The use of pulsa as a Hebrew word
(III En. 16.5, 20.2, 28.10) is without parallel and indicates direct depend-
ence on the Aramaic story in Hagigah 15a.
18. Ill En. ch. 1-15 and 48c.
19. Hagigah 15a; Sanhedrin 38b.
20. Ill En. ch. 4; cf. ch. 6. Azza and Azzael appear quite exceptionally
as the angels who reveal secrets to Solomon in OM
530a. Abkir, in Yalk.
I, 166, explains Ex. 2.6 to mean: The angel who accompanied Moses wept;
from Zech. 2.8 we learn that an angel may be called "lad."

21. Ill En. ch. 5. On the generation of Enosh, Ginzberg, I, 122 ff.
22. Ill En. ch. 13; above, n. 17.
23. Ibid., ch. 14; Ginzberg, V, 164.
24. Ibid., ch. 26. The Dobiel and the failure to mention a prince
ref. to
of Ishmael imply a pre-Islamic date. Satan is mentioned among the winds in
ch. 23. Ch. 30 speaks of 72 angelic patrons of the nations. Ch. 40 and 47
relate the dire punishment that befell certain angels because they did not
chant the Kedushah properly: this probably has nothing to do with our
main theme.
25. Text in OM
111b ff.; Batte Midrashoth 63 ff. See Scholem, 44.
26. Scholem, 49.
27. OM 121a; BM 111.
28. OM 113 f.; BM 74-81.
29. OM 121a bot.; BM 113.
30. OM440b ff. gives four versions. The most familiar poetic form is
the piyyut mentioned in the text, found in the Yom Kippur Mussaf accord-
ing to the Ashkenazic rite. See Zeitlin, JQR, ns, XXXVI, where previous
.
discussions of the legend are cited in connection with a somewhat new

viewpoint.
31. Scholem, 67, 361 n. 100. I have used the Jewish Theological Semi-
nary Ms. Maggs 419. Dated 1413, it is a beautifully written ms. from
North Italy, containing various cabalistic items. The Habdalah shel R.
Akiba comprises pp. 66-70. The blessing over the spices is omitted, prob-
ably by scribal error.
32. Ms. p. 68a.
33. Ibid., 67b, a list of angelic names ends:
winm rmV'y pdpdh )i-ibbd wit nn jvibbd m ^nma jvibbd Kin nr âvna
<r. p) pa Vtnar *n^» mrr b»HDn lay .Vs'nm im» y~\ip vtm pamiw nan«oi
•pan rrn' iidd' pa'an ronfr KTmsa npm nî iddit k"? btw btnV nm-i rn wn
pmaaa pnir nwaa d'jnVd nyaan pyaw (!>nin waVy^ p» pyava mm na»na it p
'31 »n Kna mân&Ki win'' pmraoa jinn navim 1
34. Ibid., 69a: pnm nVmi prima p pniw mpai p'Va prmm «n Vwyi «ny
Vwyi «nyi mnxy nam *a pn nyc pmaK Vy (?)»3B>3d snni prn nV npdp Vnp
"?:>
d d 6 n « n i"7 yin ?! lVapV pa«pi

1
mm dik »aa Vai mmry cr.nan*) mm «in

Recanate, Gen. 6.1 reads: pmTrlJ )0 'inn' ap3i
1
j" ?) 'innm »n *7Nryi «ry
nytp Vai pr â pmsN 'tn «a»i «"7 «nm prn ^ k&bbh "rap maa prm «Vm
1
This reading means that the prisoners were deprived of a refreshing breeze;
the ms. suggests that a constant wind blows on them as torment. See
Griinbaum, 72.
35. See Lauterbach, HUCA, XV, 367 ff. and cf. Ch. XVI n. 78.
NOTES TO CHAPTER NINETEEN

Pp. 128-145
1. Pirke d'Rabbi Eliezer, Intro., p. xiii.
2. Ch. XVIII n. 4; cf. Ch. XVI n. 1.

3. DR 11 end; the version in OM 368a is briefer; other versions make no
mention of the two angels.
4. Cf. Ch. XVI n. 3.
5. EZ 25, 49.
6. Aggadath Bereshith p. 30 f Cf Ch. XV, nn. 9, 19; Ch. XVII nn. 6 ff.
. .
Hadar Zekenim Gen. 6.2 and 28.12 cites from a Midrash die story of the
angels who sued for the favors of "a righteous virgin." She demanded first
that they give her their wings, and by these made good her escape to
heaven, where she became the constellation Virgo. The angels could not
return to heaven until they found the ladder which Jacob saw in his dream.
7. Yalk. I 44 (in early editions cited as "Midrash," only later prints men-
tion Abkir), Bereshith Rabbati 29-30; Yerahmeel ch. 25.
8. Cf. Ch. XVII nn. 6-13.
9. Ginzberg Jubilee Volume, English Section, 341 ff.
10. PRE 22; brief ref. ibid., 7.

11. Ibid., 22; cf. above,Ch. Ill n. 8.
12. Yashar Bereshit, end, p. 15.
13. Yerahmeel 24. Cf. above, Ch. XV nn. 23 ff.
14. PRE 13. Cf above, Ch. VIII nn. 5 ff

.
15. PRE 14, 27.

16. PRE 21, the source of Targum Yerushalmi Gen. 4.1, 5.3. The earlier
. .
Notes • • • 281
sources cited by Ginzberg, V, 133 n. 3, do not refer to Satan or the pater-

nity of Cain. Only MHG
I, 88-9, states that the serpent defiled Eve and
Cain was the offspring; ibid., 105, states that Cain was born after both the
serpent and Adam had relations with Eve. The child had a heavenly rather
than an earthly appearance. A variant reading of Targum Job. 28.7 implies
that Samael was responsible for Eve's fall.
17. ARN
p. 164. This very late document shows Christian influence. It is
dependent on the Babylonian Talmud (above, Ch. XVI n. 25). See also
Ginzberg V, 389 f
18. Bereshith Rabbati 24-5; Epstein, Eldad haDani, 66 ff.
19. Cited in Eldad haDani, 68 f
20. Yerahmeel 23.6; Hadar Zekenim Gen. 4.26; cf. Ch. XVIII n. 21.
21. PRE 45.
22. Abkir in Yalk. I, 61; Tan. N. Noah 13. Cf. Ch. XVI n. 77. The legend
is examined in Griinbaum, 435 ff.
23. OM 3b, 6ab.
24. Above, Ch. XVI n. 19. Divergent opinions are given in Abkir and an
unknown Midrash, both cited in Yalk. I, 96.
25. Yashar Vayera p. 74-5.
26. Ibid. 75-80, unknown Midrashim in Yalk. I 98-9, 147a. OM
27. PRE 31; Yashar, p. 81.
28. PRE 32; Yashar, p. 81-2. See also Ginzberg, V, 256 top.
29. OM 367-8.
30. OM
369a-370b. DR 11.10 combines elements from this and the pre-
ceding citation. Further details, ARN, pp. 156 ff.; Ginzberg, VI, 159 f.
31. Abkir in Yalk. I 161; OM
457b. Cf. Ginzberg, V, 147 n. 45. I, MHG
118, states that Naamah's beauty led the angels astray. Schechter, ad loc,
infers from Nahmanides, Gen. 4.22, that a similar statement was contained
in N.'s text of PRE. Targum Yerushalmi, Gen. 4.22, merely says Naamah
was adept at laments and joyous songs.
32. PRE 46; above, Ch. XVI n. 43.
33. Above, Ch. XVIII nn. 14, 23.
34. Tan. N. Vayishlah 8; Yalk. Machiri, Prov. 20.25. Cf. Mann, The
Bible ... in the Old Synagogue, Hebrew section, 325.
35. See Aptowitzer in HUCA, VIII-IX, 410 ff.
36. Rashi, Sotah 10b and Makkot 12a (above, Ch. XVI n. 23) identifies
Samael as the sar of Edom, following the later view; it is not implied in the
Talmud.
37. Abkir, in Yalk. I, 110.
38. Ibid., 234. See also Abkir, Yalk. 133; Ginzberg, V, 311-2; above,
Ch. XVI n. 92.
39. Above, Ch. VI n. 9; Ch. XVI n. 84.
40. Abkir, Yalk. I, 243; Vayosha, OM
148. In Jellinek's ed. of Vayosha,
Beth HaMidrasch, I, 46 f., Rahab, the Prince of the Sea, protests that the
Egyptians should not be drowned. God smites Rahab and his host: it is
their corpses which give the sea its peculiar smell.
41. Abkir, ibid.
42. Abkir, Yalk. I, 120.
43. Hullin 91b; BR 68.12; above, Ch. XVI nn. 11 ff.

44. Abkir, Yalk. 132; cf. BR 78.2; Ginzberg, V, 306 n. 249.
45. OM 451.
46. OM 418b.
47. OM 259ab, 492a.
48. OM 191-2 and 193b.
49. PRE 8 and 40; OM 461b.

50. Aggadath Bereshith p. 30.
51. OM 421b; cf. 410a, 417a, 494a.
52. Above, Ch. XVI nn. 69-71.
53. OM
47a.
54. Blau, in JE, VIII, 88.
NOTES TO CHAPTER TWENTY

Pp. 147-161
1. See Husik, Jewish Philosophy, 53 if., 124, 148 f., 394; below, n. 16.
2. Oeuvres . de R. Saadia, I, 8-9; Lekah Tob and Midrash Aggada
. .
Gen. 6.1 ff.; Joseph Bekor Shor, Torali Commentary, p. 14; Maimonides,
Moreh Nebuchim, I, 14; Biur Shemot Kodesh v'Hol, Debit, I, 196. Cf.
Moreh, I, 7: Seth was the first son of Adam created in his likeness, i.e„
with intellectual and moral perfection. The earlier sons lacked these quali-
fications, hence the Midrash calls them spirits (above, Ch. XVI n. 70). On
Bahya, see below, Ch. XXII n. 7. The other commentators mentioned deal
with the matter in their remarks on Gen. 6.
3. Aaron b. Joseph, Sefer haMibhar, Gen. 6; Mann, "Early Karaite Bible
Commentaries," in JQR, ns, XV, 365, 378-9. This author mentions Shem-
hazai and Azzael and argues that they could not have been angels.
4. See Albeck, Bereshith Rabbati, intro., 6 ff.
5. Abrabanel mentions the Talmud, Midrash and PRE. What Midrash
he had in mind is not known— perhaps Bereshith Rabbati.
6. Anatoli, Malmad haTalmidim, 4b-6b.
7. Akedath Yizhak, I, 86b f.
8. Above, Ch. VI n. 10. The controversy of R. Akiba is not mentioned
in any classic source.
9. See previous n. and Ch. XIX n. 50.
10.Ch. XVI n. 40.
11.Ibn Ezra, Lev. 16.8.
12. See Solomon haKohen of Lissa, Abi Ezer, ad loc. (in Pentateuch
Lemberg, 1909). Krochmal adopted the explanation of Nahmanides: Kitbe
RNK, 341.
13. BR 65.9; PRE 46.
14. Cited by Ibn Ezra, ad loc.; Bahya (below n. 17) and, without men-
tioning his name, by Masnuth, Ma'yan Ganim, ad loc.
15. Moreh, III, 22-23; above, Ch. XVI n. 18.
16. Ibid., 10-12. Cf. n. 1, above.
17. Bahya, Kad haKemah, 27a ff.
18. Tagmule haNefesh, 52b-55a.
19. Moreh, II, 26, 30.
20. BR 10.6. Cf. Tehillim 104, 440.
21. Above, Ch. n. 50. XV
NOTES TO CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Pp. 163-168
1. Scholem, 79-82.
2. Sefer Hasidim, par. 11, 31, 305.
3. Ibid., 361.
4. E.g. Sefer Hasidim, 327.
Notes • • • 283
5. Ibid., 324-327.
6. Ibid., 381.
7. Ibid., 939.
8. 733, 1763. Cf. 1648: the angels and demons that accompany
Ibid.,
man do not sing the Kedushah at night.
9. Ibid., 371.
10. Ibid., 1871.
11. Ibid., 210-212, 1983.
12. Ibid., 1452.
13. Scholem, 89 ff., stresses the dualistic character of the doctrine taught
by Eleazer of Worms, citing among other things the statement: "Man is a
rope whose two ends are pulled by God and Satan, and in the end God
proves the stronger." (Cf. below, Ch. XXVIII n. 2.) But a careful exami-
nation of the passage (Sode Razayya, 39) shows that its real subject is
man's free will, and Satan's weakness in the tug of war is especially stressed.
This is not to deny an occasional dualistic touch in Eleazer's thought; it
may have been strengthened by his experience of the horrors of that age of
persecution.
14. Trachtenberg, Jewish Magic, ch. 2, esp. pp. 15 f. On p. 14 ref. is
made few Jewish writers, notably Menasseh ben Israel, who borrowed
to a
the idea of a compact with Satan from the Christian environment. See Ch.
XXVII, below.
NOTES TO CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Pp. 168-176
1. Scholem, 74. Masseket Azilut, formerly regarded as one of the earliest

cabalistic documents, has now been assigned to the post-Zoharitic period by
Scholem, Tarbiz, III, 61 ff.
2. Cf. above, Ch. XIII.
3. Bahir, par. 53-55. Par. 53 also tells that Satan tried to seduce Israel at
Marah. The end of this work reproduces almost verbatim die Eden story of
PRE: above, Ch. XIX n. 14.
4. Bahya, Gen. 3.21 end, p. 14d ff.
-5. Ibid., Gen. 3.6, p. 14a; cf. Job 4.18; Tan. B. II 88; Tan. N., Mishpa-
tim 18.
06. Ibid., Gen. 3.14, 15, p. 14c.
7. Ibid., Gen. 5.1 ff., p. 17a; the non-mythical interpretation ibid., Gen.
6.2, p. 17c. 13.33 (p. 179a), Bahya explains that the Nefilim were
On Num.
heads of the family called 'sons of God." They were so called because
terror fell on those who saw them. As the virility of the stock declined, they
were called Anakim and later Refaim. Ibid., Hukkat, end, p. 192a, he cites
a Midrash that Sihon and Og were children of Shemhazael, who were of
the sons of God. Shemhazael assaulted the wife of Ham just before she
entered the ark, and Sihon was born during the flood. Cf. above, Ch. XVI
n. 2.
8.Bahva, Gen. 4.22, p. 16d.
9.Ibid., Gen. 3.22 (p. 15d); 4.2 (p. 16a).
10. Scholem, 175.
11. Cited in Yalk. Reubeni, Gen. 6.2, p. 27a.
12. Scholem, "Kabbalot R. Jacob vR. Isaac B'ne R. Jacob haKohen," in
Madae haYaJmdut, II, 164 ff.

13. Ibid., 248-252, a different version, 260.
284 • • •
Fallen Angels
14. Ibid., 252.

15. Ibid., 254-5.
16. Ibid., 262 f., cf. 258.
17. Ibid., 259.
18. Scholem, "L'Heker Kabbalat R. Isaac b.R. Jacob haKohen," in
Tarbiz, II-V. Text of Moses' Amud haS'moli, in IV, 208 ff.
19. Ozar haKabod, 17b. See Scholem, in Mada'e haYahadut, II, 185 ff.,
citing unpublished writings of Abulafia.
NOTES TO CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Pp. 176-186
Scholem, Major Trends, Lecture 5.

1.
Zohar Hadash, Midrash haNeelam, Bereshith, end. Zohar, I, 117b-
2.
118a (also Mid. haNeelam) seems to refer to human sinfulness; cf. I 62b.
3. Zohar, I, 25ab, 37a, 58a (the fallen angels teach magic); III, 159a.
More cryptic ref., Zohar, II, 178b-179a; III, 60b, 144a.
4. Zohar, I, 23a.
5. Zohar Hadash, Ruth, 95c.

6. Zohar, III, 212ab; another version, 208a, displays the exegetical virtu-
osity of the author.
7. Zohar, III, 233ab.
8. Zohar, I, 19b.
9. Zohar, I, 55a; IH 76b-77a.
10. See previous n. and cf. Zohar, III, 19a, Ginzberg, V, 87. Yalk. Reu-
beni, Gen. 4.8, cites from Mishkan haEduth (an unpublished work of
Moses de Leon) that Adam consorted with Naamah and Lilith: They are
the two "women" who appeared before Solomon (I K. 3.16). See Zohar,
U, Ilia.
11. Zohar, I, 9b; Ginzberg, V, 143.
12. Above, Ch. XIX n. 16.
13. Zohar, I, 125a-127a. The passage also reports various means used by
Balaam (aside from meeting the fallen angels) to obtain magical knowl-
edge "from the side of the primeval serpent."
14. Zohar Hadash, Shir haShirim, cited in Yalk. Reubeni, Gen. 4.1, p.
20ab. Cf. Zohar, III, 76b.
15. Zohar, I, 126b. Ps. 82.9 refers to the reinfection of Israel with the
filth of the serpent when they worshipped the Golden Calf: Zohar, I, 131b,
228a; II, 236b.
16. Zohar, I, lOb-lla.
17. Zohar, I, 35b.
18. Cited in Yalk. Reubeni, Gen. 32.25, p. 56d.
19. Zohar, I, 146a, cf. 170a. But Ra'ya Mehemna (Zohar, II, 41b-42, by
a later author) says Jacob wrestled with Gabriel, who is identified with the
good impulse.
20. Zohar, II, 51ab.
21. Zohar, I, 161b; see Scholem, in Tarbiz, III, 276. According to Ginz-
berg, JE, III, 468, the theory of double emanation is also found in Sefer
Temunah and in another major work of this period, Maareket haElohut.
Because scholars still debate the relation of this massive work to the Zohar,
I have not considered it further.
22. This concept is generally expressed in metaphorical allusions to the
"kings of Edom" (Gen. 36.31) who reigned before there was a king in
Israel: Zohar, I, 177a, 223b etc. Cf. II, 242-244b, which seems to reflect the
Notes • • • 285
symbolism of R. Isaac haKohen, and see Scholem, in Madae haYahadvt,
II, 193 ff.
23. Horodetzky, Torat haKabbalah, 215 f.
24. Zohar, I, 17a-18a; Scholem, Major Trends, 232, 398, n. 108.
NOTES TO CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Pp. 186-194
1. Saba, Zeror haMor, 8a, states that the sin of Adam, who prior to his
fall was immaterial, was identical with that of the evil angels: ambition to
rise above their proper station caused them
to fall below it; but on p. 11a
he gives the traditional explanation of Gen. 6. See, further, Kaneh, 102d,
the story of Shemhazai and Azzael, but also the statement that the "mighty
men" were Cainites; Peliah, 68b, gives a more sophisticated mystical color-
ing to the translation of Enoch and the fall of the angels. For another
instance of post-Zoharitic dualism, Ch. XXIII n. 19.
2. Imre Noam, Ahare, end. Jacob's antagonist was Salmael ( sic ) ibid., :
Gen. 32.25. This work also quotes an unknown Midrash that Satan seized
the High Priest by the throat as he entered the Holy of Holies on Yom
Kippur: to Ex. 28.32 (not 38.32, as in Ginzberg, VI, 78).
3. Above, Ch. XXIII n. 23.
4. Horodetzky, Torat . . . R. Mosheh Cordovero, 216.
5. Ibid., 222.
6. Ibid., 219-220.
7. Ibid., 218 f.
8. Ibid., 220.
9. 216-18 and 223 ff.
Ibid.,
10. Scholem, 261-5. The followers of Luria combine his new explanation
of the origin of the Kelipot with the Zoharic teachings. Hayyim Vital, his
chief disciple, gives a rather technical and sophisticated account of the
subject in Ez Hayijim, Shaar 48 and 49. The Zoharic material is repro-
duced more simply by Azulai, Hesed V Abraham, Ma'yan 7. Azza and Azzael
are mentioned in Kanfe Yonah (ascribed to Azariah da Fano), Yalk.
Reubeni, 27a, and in several passages of Emek haMelek by Jacob Elhanan
Bacharach. This work states (107c, cf. 68a) that the two angels accused
Adam and were sent down to earth for testing. They fell prey to the beauty
of women; having remained on earth 7 days, they could not divest them-
selves of the materiality they had put on. ( None of the ten orders of angels
can become so material as those known as ishim and sons of God. Cf. above
Ch. XV n. 9. ) They could not return to heaven even when they pronounced
the divine Name and were banished by the forces of strict justice to the
mountains of darkness. Azza has one eye open and one eye shut. He is
constantly falling but never touches the earth: his one eye remains open
that he may perceive his plight and suffer the more. Azzael is suspended
by his eyelids. Balaam derived his prophetic powers from them. AnotheT
passage (cited Yalk. Reubeni, 20b) states that when Eve ate of the tree
of knowledge, good and evil were confoimded. Abel was born from the
spark of goodness, Cain from evil. But since all holiness was intermingled
with husk, this paradox resulted: Jethro the convert was descended from
the element of holiness in Cain, Balaam the wicked from the husk in Abel!
11. Lauterbach, in HUCA, XV, 404 ff., especially n. 74.
12. Scholem, "LeMaaseh R. Joseph della Reyna," in Zion, os, V, 124 ff.
13. Scholem, Major Trends, 295-320.
.
NOTES TO CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Pp. 194-199
1. Kav haYashar, 69.
2. Shevet Musar, ch. 1, p. 10 f.
3.Zavaot haBesht, in Abrahams, Hebrew Ethical Wills, II, 299.
4. Kether Shem Tov, 8ab.
5. Israel b. Isaac Simhah, Esser Zahzaliot, 94.
6. Kether Shem Tov, 58a.
7. Jacob Joseph, Tokloth Jacob Joseph, Vayera, 14b.
8. Esser Zahzahot, 29.
9. Shibhe haBesht, p. 13.
10. Sippure Maasiyoth, no. 4.
11. Sefer haMiddoth, 139 f.
NOTES TO CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Pp. 201-208
1. CE, IV,
764.
2. McGiffert, II, 197.
3. CE, IV, 767; cf above, Ch. .XV nn. 42 ff.
4. Anselm, Opera, II, 94 ff.; Langton, Satan, 65 f.
5. Above, Ch. XX nn. 15 f

6. Aquinas, ST, I. 48.1, 2 SCG, III, 4-15. =
7. ST, first of II. 18.1 SCG, III, 15. =
8. SCG, III, end of Ch. 7, 15, and 107.
9. ST, I. 61.2.
1©. Ibid., 59.3, 4.
11. Ibid., 62.1, 2, 5, 8.
12. Ibid., 68.1, 2 =
SCG, III, 109.
13. ST, I. 68.7.
14. Ibid., 68.3.
15. Ibid., 68.8 f.= SCG, III, 109. The demons are not bad by nature:
ST, 68.4
I. SCG, = III, 107.
16. ST, I. 64.1.
17. Ibid., 59.4.
18. Ibid., 68.2.
19. Ibid., 51.3. Here St. Thomas states that Gen. 6 refers to the Sethites
and Cainites.
20. Ibid., 64.2, 3.
21. Ibid., 64.4.
22. Ibid., 114.1, 2.
23. Ibid., 109.1, 2.
24. Jfctd., 114.3, first of Part II. 76-79.
25. ST, first of Part II. 80.1, 2, 4.
26. Ibid., 74.1.
27. ST, I. 114.4 = SCG, III, 101-3.
28. CE, IV, 765.
NOTES TO CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Pp. 208-220
1. Carus, History of the Devil, ch. 13, esp. pp. 282 ff., citing Abbot
Richelmus and Caesarius of Heisterbach (13th cent.). The Ingoldsby
.
Notes • • •
287
Legends retell these stories in a facetious tone foreign to their original
character.
2. Below, n. 17.
3. Cited by Langton, Satan, 72, from G. G. Coulton, Five Centuries
of
Religion.
4. Cams, 416 ff.; Lexikon fiir Theologie und Kirche, X, 85.
5. Mishnah Sanhedrin 7.11.
6. Ibid., 6.4; Yerushalmi, ibid., 23c.
7. Mishnah Sabbath 6.10; Tosefta 6(7); Yerushalmi 8cd; Babli 67ab.
8. Cams, 275 ff.
9. Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, Hilkoth Avodah Zarah 11.16.
10. SCG, III, 104 ff.
11. CE, XV, 675 ff.
12. Cams, 318.
13. Ibid., 310 ff.
14. Ibid., 317, 321 f.
15. Ibid., 322 ff.
16. Ibid., 325 f.
17. M. A. Murray, The Witch-Cult in Western Europe; but this view has
been challenged by other scholars.
18. Encyclopaedia Britannica, sv. "Rais, Gilles de."
19. Cams, 364 f.
20. Trachtenberg, The Devil and the Jews, esp. 22 ff.
21. Ibid., 32 ff.
22. Encyclopaedia Britannica, sv. "Albigenses." Gibbon's treatment of the
subject, Decline and Fall, ch. XIV, can still be read with profit.
23. Encyclopaedia Britannica, sv. "Bogomils"; Encyclopaedia of Religion
and Ethics, II, 784 f.
24. Encyclopaedia Britannica, sv. "Cathars."
25. Ibid., sv. "Waldenses."
NOTES TO CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Pp. 220-232
1.Smith, Martin Luther, 125 f

2. Ibid., 208. Cf. above, Ch. XXI n. 13.
3. Ibid., 393.
4. Ibid., 324. Cf. above, Ch. XXV n. 3.
5. Ibid., 339; Cams, History of the Devil, 342 f.
6. Text and translation in Smith, Martin Luther, 232.
7. Ibid., 340 f. Cf. Smith, Age of the Reformation, 655 f.
8. IE, VIII, 213 ff. Smith does not discuss this aspect of Luther's career,
except for a reference to some "beautiful" letters to Katie; in one of these
Luther announces his decision to unleash vigorous attacks against the Jews:
Smith, Martin Luther, 418 f.
9. Calvin, Institutes, Book I, ch. XIV, par. IX.
10. Ibid., par. XIX.
11. Ibid., par. XIII.
12. Ibid., par. XIV f.
13. Is this "other purpose" witchcraft?
14. Ibid., par. XVI.
15. Ibid., par. XVII f.
16. Smith, Age of the Reformation, 656.
17. Langton, Satan, 91-96.

and above, Ch. XIV, after n. 2.
18. Cf. Revelation 9.11,
(Everyman's Library ed.), pp. 65-70. This theme
19. Pilgrim's Progress
is developed more systematically by Bunyan, in The Holy War; but we have
quoted the book which has been more widely read.

20. Contemporary American Philosophy, I, 385.
21. Guttmann, "Ueber Jean Bodin" etc., in MGWJ, XLIX.
22. Carus, History of the Devil, 360; Smith, Age of the Reformation,
657 ff.; Langton, Satan, 76, 82 f.
23. Carus, 367 ff.

24. Smith, op. cit., 656.
25. Cams, 371; Smith, 660.
26. Carus, 370 ff., 374 ff.
27. Ibid., 373.

28. Ibid., 378 f. Smith, 659.
;
29. Carus, 381 ff.

30. Ibid., 398.
31. CE, XV, 677.
NOTES TO CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Pp. 235-239
1. CE, IV, 764.

2. Ibid., XV, 675.
3. Ibid., II, 273; The Book of Common Prayer: The Ministration of Holy
Baptism.
4. Carus, History of the Devil, 401.
5. Ibid., 397.
6. Berkhof, Reformed Dogmatics, I, 135 f.; Strong, Systematic Theology,
II, 443 ff. and esp.460 ff.
7. Printed in The Empire State
Baptist, October 1948. The Rev. Kenneth
G. Ohrstrom of Yonkers, editor of this periodical, writes me that this docu-
ment is a development of the so-called "New Hampshire Confession,"
adopted in 1833 and revised on several subsequent occasions. "The article
on the devil was evidently added after 1900 to clarify our position on this
subject."
Carus, 395.
8.
Langton, Satan, 96 ff.
9.
10. The fullest study is still Roskoff, Geschichte des Teufels. See also
Reville, The Devil: His Origin, Greatness and Decadence. In the present
work we have constantly cited the more popular volume of Carus. Langton's
brief outline is extremely valuable so far as Christian sources are concerned;
his treatment of rabbinic materials is altogether unsatisfactory.
11. Langton, Satan, 110 ff. esp. 113-4.
12. Ibid., 100 ff.
13. Ibid., 109.
NOTES TO CHAPTER THIRTY

Pp. 239-251
Above, Ch. XVI n. 52.

1.
Kessler, Walther Rathenau, 37.

2.
3. Aulen, Christus Victor. Above, Ch. XV nn. 43-7. In addition to the
Fathers there discussed, Aulen quotes also from Gregoiy of Nyssa.
Notes • • • 289
4. Op. cit., 20, footnote.

5. Niebuhr, Nature and Destiny of Man, I, 180 f.
6. Ibid., 94; cf. 51, 59, 80 etc.

7. De Rougemont, La Part du Diable, 27. The translation is mine.
8. Ibid., 30. A
curious error occurs on p. 34 n. 2. Referring to the myth
of the fallen angels, De R. cites the book of Enoch as "anterior to Genesis."
Characteristically, the advocate of myth overstates the age and importance
of a work where such myths may be found.
9. "The Supreme Sorrow," broadcast on the "Hour of Faith," March 21,
1948, over the network of the American Broadcasting Co.
10. "A Bargain in Brimstone," in Reader's Digest, June 1947, pp. 8 ff.
11. "The Devil," Life, February 2, 1948, pp. 77 ff.
12. For Honi, see Mishnah Taanith 3.8. Levi Yizhak's complaint is found
in his Kaddish, one of the classics of Yiddish folksong.
ADDITIONAL NOTE:
THE DATE OF II ENOCH
Jung (p. 93 and n. 144) dismisses II En. from consideration on the au-
thority of Mrs. Maunder, who regards it as a Bogomil work composed be-
tween the 12th and 15th centuries. (On the Bogomils, cf. Ch. XXVII.)
The exact ref.— kindly furnished me by Dr. Jung— is to an article, "The
Date and Place of Writing of the Slavonic Book of Enoch," which appeared
in a British journal of astronomy, The Observatory, XLI, 309 ff. One might
cite against this lady the impressive authority of Charles, Kohler, Ginzberg
and Cahana, all of whom
held the book to be pre-Christian. But since it is
unlikely that these savants saw her article, it seems proper to examine her
argument.
She argues first that the Slavonic text cannot, for linguistic reasons, have
originated till long after the 9th century. She finds it hard to believe that a
Greek text could have been in existence for a thousand years, then disap-
peared completely. But habent sua fata libelli. The same considerations
apply likewise to the Apocalypse of Abraham, which also survived only in
Slavonic. (The Christian interpolations in the latter work make its original
Jewish character all the plainer.) Mrs. M. herself recognizes that this argu-
ment is not conclusive.
The decisive evidence, to her mind, is the astronomical material in the
description of the 4th heaven. The author follows the Julian calendar, which
a Jewish author would not have regarded as divine. He mentions the lunar
epacts, to which there is no reference before 243 C.E., and describes the
Great Cycle of 452 years, which was first proposed about the year 457.
(Charles had already held this reference to be interpolated, and Mrs. M.
challenges this explanation. ) II En. makes frequent reference to the Bogomil
myth of Satanel.
These arguments are not as impressive as they seem. Of the astronomical
evidence, only the ref. to the Great Cycle is important. The lunar epacts
(i.e., the excess of the solar over the lunar year) are a regular part of Jewish
calendation.
Both linguistic and astronomical aspects were complicated by the publi-
cation of a fuller Slavonic text by Sokolow, which differs much from the
version used by Morfill and Charles, on which Mrs. Maunder based her
arguments. (Cahana's translation was made from this text.) This version
(ch. 24.7, 9) mentions the months of Iyyar and Nisan by their Hebrew
names. Cahana (I, 103) adduces other reasons for assuming a Hebrew
original.
Despite occasional references to Satanel, there is nothing of Christian
thought in general, or Bogomil thought in particular, in the book. The
defeat of Satanel by Michael-Christ is nowhere foreshadowed. The anti-
clericalism of the Bogomils is entirely lacking. The long ethical section is
thoroughly Jewish in spirit, devoid of Bogomil asceticism. The doctrine of
the heavenly throne and the apotheosis of Enoch belong to the quasi-
Gnostical development in Judaism, not to Bogomilism. The work implies
that the Temple was still in existence.
Our present texts of II En. surely contain some later additions. Because
some passages make sense only on the assumption of a Greek original,
Charles inferred that the entire work was composed in Greek; but Cahana's
view that diese passages were additions to the Greek translation of a He-
brew original is just as plausible. The reference to the Great Cycle, as
Charles argued, may well be the interpolation of a Christian scribe. The
Satanel passages, whatever their origin, seem to have been inserted awk-
wardly into their present place.
There is, in short, no good reason to doubt that II En. was composed
shortly before the Christian era, probably in Palestine. It contains some later
insertions, a few of which may possibly come from Bogomil scribes.
.
Index
(Names or titles of angels and demons
are marked by an asterisk °.)
Abraham, 29, 46 ff., 95 f., 110, 129 f., Amram Gaon, 98.
136 f„ 183. Anahid, 115, 131.
Abrabanel, Isaac, 150 f., 153, 155 f. Anatoli, Jacob, 151 f.
Abulafia, Todros, 176. * Angel of Death, 93-5, 102, 137 f.,
Adam, 34-37, 43 f., 48, 83, 94, 102, 156, 268, 275.
112 f., 132, 142 f„ 150, 170 f., 174, Anselm of Canterbury, 84 f., 202 f.,
178, 180, 182, 219, 278. 204 f., 245.

* Adversary, 36, 45, 48. Antichrist, 63 f., 66, 72, 120-3, 139,
c 217 f., 241. See Armilus.
Afrira and *Kastimon, 181 f.
Agobard, 213, 231. *Appolyon, 63, 227 f
Agrippa of Nettesheim, 211 f. Aquinas, Thomas, 203-8, 212 f ., 217,
*Agrat bat Mahlat, 106 f ., 171, 181. 236, 244.
*Akteriel, 192. Arama, Isaac, 152.
Albertus Magnus, 203, 217. °Armilus, 121-3, 139. See Antichrist.
Albigenses; see Cathari. *Asbeel, 19.
Ambrose of Milan, 78. Ashamdon; see Shamdan.
"Amnion of No, 191. 'Ashmedai, 104, 170 f., 174.
• • • 291
. . . .
292 Index
*Asmodeus, 42. Demiurge, 58, 86, 194, 218.

Athenagoras, 75 f ., 82. Demons, 22, 26, 28-30, 32, 42, 45,
Atonement, Day of (Yom Kippur), 52 f., 58, 67 ff., 71, 74-8, 103-8,
20, 91, 99 f., 127, 131 f., 139, 154- 113, 125, 127, 134, 143 f., 155,
6, 186 f. 166 f., 174 f., 180 f., 190 f., 195 f.,
Attribute of Justice (Middat haDin), 201, 203, 206-8, 213, 224, 270, 274.
95 f., 126, 136, 141, 165, 275. * Devil, 26, 31, 42, 52, 56 f., 62-71,
Augustine of Hippo, 80 f ., 84 £F., 201, 76, 81-5, 131 f., 134, 197, 201-32,
205 f., 244. 236-41, 244-9. See Satan.
Aulen, Gustaf, 244-6, 248. Dionysius (Pseudo-), 84, 203.
*Azazel, 17-21, 24, 26, 46-9, 56, 75, •Dobiel, 109 f., 124.
91, 116, 130 f., 139, 154-6, 186 f., Dragon, 63 f ., See Leviathan, Ser-
278. pent.
Azriel, 169. Dudael, 18, 20.
*Azza and *Azzael, 91, 120, 124, 127, Duns Scotus, 203, 208.
129, 131, 133, 150, 174, 178-81,
282, 285 f *Edom, Guardian angel of, 183. See
*Azziel, 124. Rome, Guardian angel of.
*Egypt, Guardian angel of, 108 f.,
Baal Shem Tov (Besht), 196-8, 222. 139-41, 184, 277. See Mizraim,
Bahya ben Asher, 150, 157 f ., 169-72. Uzza.
Balaam, 179 f., 285. El, 8 ff.
Baptism, 76, 236 f. Eleazar Rokeach of Worms, 165.
Barth, Karl, 244, 246. Elemental Spirits, 66.
Baudelaire, Pierre C, 248. Elijah b. Solomon Abraham, 195 f.
Beduht, 115. Elijah di Vidas, 194.
*Beelzebub (Beelzebul), 67, 72, Elimelech of Lesiensk, 198.
83 f., 94, 227 f. Elyon, 9 ff.
Bekker, Balthasar, 231. Enoch, 17 f., 21-3, 28, 33 f., 59, 70,
Bekor Shor, Joseph, 150. 75 f., 92 f., 114, 123-5, 142, 152-4.
*Belial (Beliar), 28, 30 f., 41, 72, 94. Ephraem Syrus, 79.
Benet, Stephen Vincent, 210. Erasmus, Desiderius, 220, 230.
Berlioz, Hector, 210. Erskine, John, 144.
*Biqua and *Kasbiel, 264. Eugene IV, Pope, 214.
Blake, William, 228. Eve, 19, 34-7, 48, 82, 102 f., 112 f.,
Bodin, Jean, 229-31. 134, 143, 150, 170 f ., 174, 178, 180,
Bogomils, 218 f., 267, 289 f.
182, 219.
Boehme, Jakob, 185 f Evil Inclination, 92, 95, 97, 101 f.,
Boito, Arrigo, 210. 130, 156, 170 f ., 183, 197 f ., 242.
Browning, Robert, 143 f *Evil One, 66 t 72, 94.
Bunyan, John, 226-8.
Buxtorf, Johannes, 143. Faust, 4, 193, 210.
France, Anatole, 4 f
Caesarius of Aries, 80. Frank, Jacob, 194.
Caesarius of Heisterbach, 287. Freud, Sigmund, 242.
'Cain, 48, 132, 134, 171, 180-2, 219.
Calvin, John, 220, 223-5, 244. *Gabriel, 12, 18, 96, 109 f ., 137, 140-
Cathari, 218-20. 2, 285.
Chambers, Whittaker, 249. *Gadreel, 19.
Clement of Alexandria, 84. Gersonides (Levi ben Gerson),
Conrad of Marburg, 213. 150 153, 155, 157.
f .,
Cordovero, Moses, 185-9, 196. Ghosts, 53, 166.
Crescas, Chasdai, 148- Giants, 17, 22, 24, 31, 44, 52, 75, 77-
. . .
Index 293
80, 105, 131, 133, 266. See Gib- Jacob di Illescas, 187.
borim. Jacob Joseph of Polonoye, 197.
Gibborim, 9, 152. °Jaoel (Jahoel), 46, 581 f., 270.
Gigith, 120 f ., 278. Jared, 17, 27, 152.
Gilgamesh, 263. °Jekon, 19.
Gilles de Rais, 216. Jerome, 79, 207.
Gnosticism, 46, 57 ff., 75, 77, 79, 83, Job, 6, 37, 39-41, 96, 134 f., 156-8,
85, 93, 125, 169, 172 f., 194, 218, 250.
228, 239, 241 f. Joseph della Reyna, 191-3, 196, 199.
*God of this world, 65, 237 f. See Judah the Pious, 163, 165.
Ruler of this world. Julius Africanus, 78 f
Goethe, Johann W. von, 143, 210. Justin Martyr, 74 f., 82.
Gog and Magog, 121 f.
Gore, Bishop, 238. *Kafkefoni, 174.
Gounod, Charles, 210. *Kafzefoni, 174.
Gregory the Great, Pope, 84 f., 205, Kaidanover, Zevi Hirsch, 195.
245. Kant, Immanuel, 237.
Gregory of Nyssa, 289. *Kasdaye, 19.
Guardian angels, 7, 12 f., 24 f., 32, * Kelipot; see Husk (s)
42, 108-11, 120, 124 f., 139-41, Kierkegaard, Soren, 243.
159 f ., 183. Kimhi, David, 150, 153.
Kirkisani, 118.
*Harut and Marut, 113-7, 129.
Hasidism, 196-9. Lactantius, 76, 81.
*Hayyot, 134. *Lahash, 138.
Helel ben Shahar, 9 f
Langenfeld, Friederich Spee von,
Hell, Harrowing of, 70, 83 f. 220.
Hermon, Mount, 17, 19, 21, 33. Left Side, 168 f., 172-6, 178, 181 f.,
Hiva and Hiyya, 131 f. 184 f ., 187.
Hillel ben Samuel of Verona, 149,
Leo XIII, Pope, 237.
158-61. Leviathan (Lothan), 12 f., 47; Clean
Hizkuni, 150. and unclean L., 175.
Hilary of Tours, 79. Lewis, C. S., 249.
Hocking, W. E., 228. *v - *Lilith, 106, 142-4, 171, 174-6, 181,
Horowitz, Isaiah, 195. 189, 192; Lesser L., 174.
Hugo de Beniols, 214. Luria, Isaac, 187, 189-91, 193-6.
*Husk(s) (Kelipah, Kelipot), 180, Luther, Martin, 220-3, 228, 244.
185, 187-90, 195, 198 f
Maimonides, Moses ( Maimuni, Moses
*Iblis, 36, 94, 112 f.
ben Maimon), 129, 148-50, 153,
Ibn Ezra, Abraham, 148, 150, 153 f.,
156 f., 158, 203, 212 f.
156.
*Malchira, 41 f.
Ignatius, 81.
Mani, Manichaeism, 86, 204, 218,
*Incubi and *Succubi, 80, 106, 181,
239, 246.
195, 206, 236, 273, 277.
Maritain, Jacques, 244, 248.
Innocent VIII, Pope, 214.
Marlowe, Christopher, 210.
Irenaeus, 57, 75, 82 ff., 86, 245.
Martensen, H., 238 f.
Isaac haKohen, 173-6, 185.
Martini, Raymundo, 135.
*Ishim, 285.
Marx, Karl, 241 f.
Israel b. Eliezer; see Baal Shem Tov.
*Mastema, 28-31, 94, 140.
Istahar, 131.
*Matanbuchus, 41 f.
Jacob, 110 f., 139, 141, 183 f ., 277, Mather, Increase and Cotton, 229 f.
281. *Mazzikin; see Demons.

. . .
294 Index
Messiah, 23, 32 f., 48, 63 f., 103, 119- * Prince of the sea, 139 f.
23, 190, 193 f ., 199, 269. * Prince of this world; see Ruler of this
Messiah son of Joseph, 121-3. world.

•Mesukiel, 173. Prometheus, 3, 20.
•Metatron, 59, 123, 125, 127, 131,
142, 153, 188, 270. Rahab, 13; *R., Prince of the sea,
•Michael, 12, 18 f., 22, 25, 32, 36, 41, 282.
63, 70, 109 f ., 122, 134, 137, 139- •Raphael, 18.
42, 219, 227, 270. Rashi (R. Solomon Yitzhaki), 148-50,
Michelet, Jules, 238. 152, 154, 157.
Middath haDin; see Attribute of Jus- Rathenau, Walther, 242 f
tice. Recanati, Menahem, 186 f.
Milton, John, 4, 220, 226, 228. Richelmus, 287.
•Mizraim, 277. •Rome, Guardian angel of, 110 f.,
Montaigne, Michel de, 230. 124, 126, 139. See Edom.
Moses, 30 f., 41, 70, 97 f., 137 f., 275. Rossi, Azariah dei, 44.
Moses of Burgos, 175 f., 184. Rougemont, Denis de, 247-9.
Moses haDarshan, 135, 150. •Ruler of this world, 41 f., 68 f., 71 f.,
Moses de Leon, 177. 76, 81 f. See God of this world.
Moses ben Maimon; see Maimonides.
Mujahid, 115 f. Saadia ben Joseph, 118, 122, 148 f.,
Murry, John C, 248. 154, 156 f

Mushtari, 116. Saba, Abraham, 187.
Sabbatai Zevi, 193 f
•Naamah, 138, 170 f., 178, 180 f. •Salmael, 285.
Nahman of Bratzlav, 198 f. •Samael, 41 f., 94, 96, 124, 126 f.,
Nahmanides (Moses ben Nahman), 132, 134, 136-9, 171, 173-6, 183 f.,
148-51, 154 f., 169 f., 173. 191 f., 270, 275, 281.
Naphtali Zevi of Ropshitz, 197. Samuel ibn Hofni, 154.
Nathan ofNemirov, 199. Samuel b. Masnuth, 157.
Navarro, Solomon, 191. •Sandalfon, 192.
•Nefilim (Nephilim), 8 f., 20, 129 f., •Sar, Sarim; see Guardian angels.
151 f., 178. •Sar haOlam ( *Sar haPanim), 58 f.
Niebuhr, Reinhold, 244, 246-9. Sartorius, 237.
Noah, 4, 17 ff., 28, 52, 107, 136, 142, •Satan, 4, 6, 9, 12, 18, 30 ff., 34-7,
170 f. 39-41, 47 f ., 55-7, 63-72, 74-6, 78,
81-6, 94-100, 102, 104, 108 f.,
Origen, 79, 81, 83 ff., 245. 112 f., 116, 119 f., 121-4, 133-9,
"Other Side"; see Left Side. 156-8, 165, 169 f., 172, 182, 183 f.,
Oursler, Fulton, 249. 187, 195 f., 198, 201-32, 237, 265.
See Beelzebub, Beliar, Devil, Mas-
Paterines, 218. tema, Ruler of this world.
Paul, 43, 55, 64-6, 69 ff., 81, 245. •Satanel (Satanail), 34, 219, 267,
Paulicians ( Paulinians ) 218. , 290.
•Penemue, 19. Schahin, 278.
'Persia, Guardian angel of, 109 f. See Schleiermacher, Friederich, 237.
Dobiel. Scot, Reginald, 230.
Persian religion, 5, 100, 122, 246. Sefiroth, 168, 171-3, 175 f., 189.
Philastrius of Brescia, 80. •Semjaza (Semiazaz, Shemhazai),
Philo, 44, 53 f., 79, 93. 17, 19, 24, 26, 91, 116, 129-31, 133,
* Power of darkness, 65. 282, 285.
* Prince of the air, 65, 72. •Seraphim, 125, 134, 171.
.
Index • • • 295
Serpent, 12, 27, 35-7, 48, 82, 94, Tiamat, 13, 238.
102 £., 134, 170 f., 246, 266, 274-6, Trithemius, Johann, 214 f.
181-3.
Sethites and Cainites, 78 ff., 130, *Uriel, 18.
132 f., 150-2, 274, 286. *Uzza (Uzzi),91, 124, 127, 129, 130,
*Shamdan (Ashamdon), 107, 170 f. 140 f.
Shahar, 9 f. *Uzzael, 130.

*Shedim; see Demons.
Shekinah (Divine Presence), 135, Vigny, Alfred de, 4.
178.
Sheen, Fulton J., 249. Waldenses, 220.
Shemhazael, 284. *Watchers, 18, 20 f., 27 f., 31, 33 f.,
Shemhazai; see Semjaza. 45, 75, 266 f
Sin, original, 43 f ., 65, 102 f. Weier, Johannes, 229 f.

Solomon, 113 f., 171, 178, 180. Wesley, John, 230 f.
*Sons of God, 8, 37, 51, 53, 78, 80, William of Edelin, 213.
91, 129 f., 149-52, 156-8, 170 f., Witchcraft, 5, 45 f., 75 f., 113-6, 127,
177 f., 186 f., 264, 270, 285. 129 f., 166-8, 179 f., 182, 198,
207 f., 209-16, 222, 225, 228-32,
Spirits, evil; see Demons.
277.
Sprenger, Jacob, 214.
Stars, falling, 23 f.
Yezer, Evil ( Yezer hara ) ; see Evil
Inclination.
Tabari, 114-6. *Yofiel, 174.
Tatian, 75, 82. Yom Kippur; see Atonement, Day of.
*Temalyon, Ben, 107.
Ten Martyrs, 126 f. *Zanzagiel, 137.
Tertullian, 75 f., 81, 84, 86, 208. *Zefonith, 174.
Theophilus, 210. Ziuni, Menahem, 187.
Thomasius, Christian, 231. Zuhra, 115 f., 131.
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-531 5-

San Francisco is, California

This book presents the fantastic myths about

THE JEWISH PUBLICATION SOCIETY OF AM ER IC \

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

new york • Designed by Sidney Feinberg

Work on the studies here presented was greatly facili-

tated because the resources of the following libraries

ica, Seminary of St. Anthonv on the Hudson and Union Theological

Seminary. I am grateful for the courteous help received in each

At the start of the inquiry I had the privilege of consulting my

Prof. Shalom Spiegel and Dr. Joshua Trachtenberg for informa-

part one: Gateway

I Introducing the Theme 3

part two: The Outside Books

viii The Adam Books 35

part three: Crossroads

part four: The Early Christian Church

xrv The New Testament 61

The Limitations of Christian Dualism

part five: The Rabbis

xvi Talmud and Midrash 89

of Angels The Character of Satan . The Evil

Inclination The Serpent The Demons . . . . . . . . .

The Princes of the Gentiles

Patron Angel of Egypt The Guardian Angels . . .

of the Nations . . . Enoch . . . Lilith . . . Sum-

part six: Medieval Judaism

xx The Rationalists 147

part seven: Jewish Mysticism

xxi The German Cabala 163

xxrv The Later Mystics 186

part eight: Christian Theology

xxvi The Devil of the Philosophers 201

part nine: The Devil in Modern Dress

xxix The Century of Liberalism 235

veryone likes tales of adventure. A more mature

staunchly defying the omnipotent Zeus, even though he is fore-

heightened when the rebel against Deity is not a human being,

the massive epic of John Milton. The depiction of Satan is one of

pity, £loa is obsessed by vague reports about an exiled rebel

advance the cause of social and spiritual revolution. The ancient

or defeat the spirits of evil. Of course one had to deal cautiously

at our hearts; it was soon perceived by Israel's more thoughtful

was put thus: Why do the righteous

are adjusted by reward and punishment in the life beyond the

God, they said, created everything good. But certain angels

posed to God and an enemy of man, especially of Israel, but

somewhat different. It holds that each nation on earth has a

light—the literature of a people who were the nearest neighbors

greatly err if we suppose that the Jewish mythographers drew

The post-biblical authors who told the stories of

The passages we must consider are few and brief, so we may

1. And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the

Shahar and Shalim on mortal women. 3 Of course the Bible repre-

The second passage is from a doom-song upon the King of

How thou fallen from heaven

This would be a parallel to the Greek legend of the revolt of

The last passage we must consider is Psalm 82:

1. God standeth in the Congregation of God (El);