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The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah—Appendix

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    II. SATANOLOGY AND FALL OF THE ANGELS.

    The difference between the Satanology of the Rabbis and of the New Testament is, if possible, even more marked than that in their Angelology. In general we note that, with the exception of the word Satan, none of the names given to the great enemy in the New Testament occurs in Rabbinic writing. More important still, the latter contain no mention of a Kingdom of Satan. In other words, the power of the evil is not contrasted with that of good, nor Satan with God. The devil is presented rather as the enemy of man, than of God and of good. This marks a fundamental difference. The New Testament sets before us two opposing kingdoms, or principles, which exercise absolute sway over man. Christ is the Stronger one who overcometh the strong man armed and taken from him not only his spoils, but his armour (St. Luke 11:21, 22). It is a moral contest in which Satan is vanquished, and the liberation of his subjects is the consequence of his own subdual. This implies the deliverance of man from the power of the enemy, not only externally but internally, and substitution of a new principle of spiritual life for the old one. It introduces a moral element, both as the ground and as the result of the contest. From this point of view the difference between the New Testament and Rabbinism cannot be too much emphasised, and it is no exaggeration to say that this alone—the question here being one of principle not of details—would mark the doctrine of Christ as fundamentally divergent from, and incomparably superior to, that of Rabbinsim. Whence hath this Man this wisdom? Assuredly, it may be answered, not from His contemporaries.LTJMBA 154.1

    Since Rabbinism viewed the great enemy only as the envious and malicious opponent of man, the spiritual element was entirely eliminated. 13An analogous remark would apply to Jewish teaching about the good angels, who are rather Jewish elves than the high spiritual beings of the Bible. Instead of the personified principle of Evil, to which there is response in us, and of which all have some experience, we have only a clumsy and—to speak plainly—often a stupid hater. This holds equally true in regard to the threefold aspect under which Rabbinism presents the devil: as Satan (also called Sammael); as the Yetser haRa, or evil impulse personified; and as the Angel of Death—in other words, as the Accuser, Tempter, and Punisher. Before explaining the Rabbinic views on each of these points, it is necessary to indicate them in regard to —LTJMBA 155.1

    1. The Fall of Satan and of his Angels. This took place, not antecedently, but subsequently to the creation of man. As related in Pirqé de R. Eliezer, ch. 13, the primary cause of it was jealously and envy on the part of the Angels. 14As a curious illustration how extremes meet, we subjoin the following from Jonathan Edwards. After describing how Satan, before his fall, was the chief of all the angels ... nay, ... the Messiah or Christ (!), as he was the Anointed, so that in the respect, Jesus Christ is exalted unto his place in heaven; and that Lucifer or Satan, while a holy angel ... was a type of Christ the great American divine explains his fall as follows: But when it was revealed to him, high and glorious as he was, that he must be a ministering spirit to the race of mankind which he had seen newly created, which appeared so feeble, mean, and despicable, of vastly inferior not only to him, the prince of the angels, and head of the created universe, but also to the inferior angels, and that he must be subject to one of that race which should hereafter be born, he could not bear it. This occasioned his fall (Tractate on The Fall of the Angels Works, vol. ii. pp. 608, 609, 610). Could Jonathan Edwards have heard of the Rabbinic legends, or is this only a strange coincidence? The curious reader will find much quaint information, though, I fear, little help, in Prof. W. Scott’s vol. The Existence of Evil Spirits London, 1843. Their opposition to man’s creation is also described in Ber. R. 8, although there the fall of man is not traced to Satanic agency. But we have (as before stated) a somewhat blasphemous account of the discussions in the heavenly Sanhedrin, whether or not man should be created. While the dispute was still proceeding God actually created man, and addressed the ministering Angels: Why dispute any longer? Man is already created. In the Pirqé de R. Eliezer, we are only told that the Angels had in vain attempted to oppose the creation of man. The circumstance that his superiority was evidenced by his ability to give names to all creatures, induced them to lay a plot against Adam so that by his fall they might obtain supremacy. Now of all Angel-Princes in heaven Sammael was the first—distinguished above. Taking the company of Angels subject to him, he came down upon earth, and selected as the only fit instrument for his designs the serpent, which at that time had not only speech, but hands and feet, and was in stature and appearance like the camel. In the language of the Pirqé de R. Eliezer, Sammael took complete possession of the serpent, even as demoniacs act under the absolute control of evil spirits. Then Sammael, in the serpent, first deceived the woman, and next imposed on her by touching the tree of life (although the tree cried out), saying, that he had actually touched the tree, of which he pretended the touch had been forbidden on pain of death (Genesis 3:3) 15The Rabbis point out, how Eve had added to the words of God. He had only commanded them not to eat of the tree, while Eve added to it, that they were not to touch it. Thus adding to the words of God had led to the first sin with all the terrible consequences connected with it.—and yet he had not died! Upon this Eve followed his example, and touched the tree when she immediately saw the Angel of Death coming against her. Afraid that she would die and God give another wife to Adam, she led her husband into sin of disobedience. The story of the Fall is somewhat differently related in Ber. R. 18, 19. No mention is there earlier of Sammael or of his agency, and the serpent is represented as beguiling Eve from a wish to marry her, and for that purpose to compass the death of Adam.LTJMBA 155.2

    Critical ingenuity may attempt to find a symbolic meaning in many of the details of the Jewish legend of the Fall, although, to use moderate language, they seem equally profane and repulsive. But this will surely be admitted by all, that the Rabbinic account of the fall of the Angels, as connected with fall of man, equally contrasts with the reverent reticence of the Old Testament narrative and the sublime teaching of the New Testament about sin and evil.LTJMBA 157.1

    2. Satan, or Sammael, as the accuser of man. And clumsy, indeed, are his accusations. Thus the statement (Genesis 22:1) that God tempted Abraham is, in Jewish legend, transformed (Sanh. 89 b) into a scene, where, in the great upper Sanhedrin (Ber. R. 56), Satan brings accusation against the Patriarch. 16In Ber R. 56 the accusation is stated to have been brought by the ministering angels. All his previous piety had been merely interested; and now when, at the age of one hundred, God had given him a son, he had made a great feast and not offered aught to the Almighty. On this God is represented as answering, that Abraham was ready to sacrifice not only an animal but his own son; and this had been the occasion of the temptation of Abraham. That this legend is very ancient, indeed pre-Christian (a circumstance of considerable importance to the student of this history) appears from its occurrence, though in more general form, in the Book of Jubilees, ch 17. In Ber. R. 55 and in Tacchuma (ed. Warsh p. 29 a and b), the legend is connected with a dispute between Isaac and Ishmael as to their respective merits, when former declares himself ready to offer up his life unto God. In Tanchuma (u. s.) we are told that this was one of the great merits of man, to which the Almighty and pointed when the Angels made objection to his creation.LTJMBA 157.2

    3. Satan, or Sammael, as the seducer of man. This statement in Baba B. 16 a which identifies Satan with the Yetser haRa, or evil impulse in man, must be regarded as a rationalistic attempt to gloss over the older teaching about Sammael, by representing him as a personification of the evil inclination within us. For, the Talmud not only distinguishes between a personal Satan without, and evil inclination within man, but expressly ascribes to God the creation of the Yetser haRa in man as he was before the Fall, the occurrence of two `y `y in the word rcyyw (and He formed Genesis 2:7) being supposed to indicate the existence of two impulses in us—the Yetser Tobh and the Yetser haRa (Ber. 61 a). And it is stated that this existence of evil in man’s original nature was infinite comfort in the fear which would otherwise beset us in trouble (Ber. R. 14). More than this (as will presently be shown), the existence of this evil principle within us was declared to be absolutely necessary for the continuance of the world (Yoma 69 b, Sanh. 64 a)LTJMBA 157.3

    Satan, or Sammael, is introduced as the seducer of man in all the great events of Israel’s history. With varying legendary additions the story of Satan’s attempts to prevent the obedience of Abraham and the sacrifice of Isaac is told in Sanh. 89 b, Ber. R. 56, and Tanchuma, p. 30 a and b. Yet there is nothing even astute, only a coarse realism, about the description of the clumsy attempts of Satan to turn Abraham from, or to hinder him in, his purpose; to influence Isaac; or to frighten Sarah. Nor are the other personages in the legend more successfully sketched. There is a want of all higher conception in the references to the Almighty, a painful amount of downright untruthfulness about Abraham, lamentable boastfulness and petty spite about Isaac, while the Sarah of the Jewish legend is rather a weak old Eastern woman than the mother in Israel. To hold perversions of the Old Testament by the side of the New Testament conception of the motives of lives of the heroes of old, or the doctrinal inferences and teaching of the Rabbis by those of Christ and His Apostles, were to compare darkness with light.LTJMBA 158.1

    The same remarks apply to the other legends in which Satan is introduced as seducer. Anything more childish could scarcely be invented than this, that, when Sammael could not otherwise persuade Israel that Moses would not return from Mount Sinai, he at last made his bier appear before them in the clouds (Shab. 89 a), unless it be this story, that when Satan would seduce David he assumed the form of a bird, and that, when David shot at it, Bath-Sheba suddenly looked up, thus gaining the king by her beauty (Sanh. 107 a). In both these instances the obvious purpose is to palliate the guilt whether of Israel or of David, which, indeed, is in other places entirely explained away as not due to disobedience or to lust (Comp. Ab. Zar. 4 b, 5 a).LTJMBA 158.2

    4. As the Enemy of man, Satan seeks to hurt and destroy him; and he is the Angel of Death. Thus, when Satan had failed in shaking the constancy of Abraham and Isaac, he attacked Sarah (Yalkut, i. Par. last lines p. 28 b). To his suggestions, or rather false reports, her death had been due, either from fright at being told that Isaac had been offered (Pirqé de R. El. 32, and Targum Ps.- Jon.), or else from the shock, when after all she learned that Isaac was not dead (Ber. R. 58). Similarly, Satan had sought to take from Tamar the pledges which Judah had given her. He appeared as an old man to show Nimrod how to have Abraham cast into the fiery oven, at the same time persuading Abraham not to resist it, &c. Equally puerile are the representations of Satan as the Angel of Death. According to Abod. Zar. 20 b, the dying sees his enemy with a drawn sword, on the point of which a drop of gall trembles. In his fright he opens his mouth and swallows this drop, which accounts for the pallor of the face and the corruption that follows. According to another Rabbi, the Angel of Death really uses his sword, although, on account of the dignity of humanity, the wound which he inflicts is not allowed to be visible. It is difficult to imagine a narrative more repulsive than that of the death of Moses according to Deb. R. 11. Beginning with the triumph of Sammael over Michael at the expected event, it tells how Moses had entreated rather to be changed into a beast or a bird than to die; how Gabriel and Michael had successively refused to bring the soul of Moses; how Moses, knowing that Sammael was coming for the purpose, had armed himself with the Ineffable Name; how Moses had in boastfulness recounted to Sammael all his achievements, real and legendary; and how at last Moses had pursued the Enemy with the Ineffable Name, and in his anger taken off one of his horns of glory and blinded Satan in one eye. We must be excused from following this story through its revolting details.LTJMBA 158.3

    But, whether as the Angel of Death or as the seducer of man, Sammael has not absolute power. When Israel took the Law upon themselves at Mount Sinai, they became entirely free from his sway, and would have remained so, but for the sin of the Golden Calf. Similarly, in the time of Ezra, the object of Israel’s prayer (Nehemiah 7.) was to have Satan delivered to them. After a three day’s fast it was granted, and the Yetser haRa of idolatry, in the shape of a young lion, was delivered up to them. It would serve no good purpose to repeat the story of what was done with the bound enemy, or how his cries were rendered inaudible in heaven. Suffice it that, in view of the requirements of the present world, Israel liberated him from the ephah covered with lead (Zechariah 5:8), under which, by advice of the prophet Zechariah, they had confined him, although for precaution they first put out his eyes (Yoam, 69 b). And yet, in view, or probably, rather, in ignorance, of such teaching, modern criticism would derive the Satanology of the New Testament and the history of the Temptation from Jewish sources!LTJMBA 159.1

    Over these six persons—Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Aaron, and Miriam, with whom some apparently rank Benjamin—the Angel of Death, had no power (Baba. B. 17 a). Benjamin, Amram, Jesse, and Chileb (the son of David) are said to have died (only) through the sin of the serpent. In other cases, also, Sammael may not be able to exercise his sway till, for example, he has by some ruse diverted a theologian from his sacred study. Thus he interrupted the pious meditations of David by going up into a tree and shaking it, when, as David went to examine it, a rung of the ladder, on which he stood, broke, and so interrupted David’s holy thoughts. Similarly, Rabbi Chasda, by occupation with sacred study, warded off the Angel of Death till the crackling of a beam diverted his attention. Instances of the awkwardness of the Enemy are related (Kethub. 77 b), and one rabbi—Joshua, actually took away his sword, only returning it by direct command of God. Where such views of Satan could even find temporary expression, superstitious fears may have been excited; but the thought of moral evil and of a moral combat with it could never have found lodgment.LTJMBA 160.1

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