Concerning the " devil and his angels," opinions were long diverse. Some supposed that it occurred through envy; others, through pride; and others again, through concupiscence and excess; some placed it before, and others after the seduction of Eve by the serpent. Several of the fathers for example, Augustine) believed that man was created to fill up the gap which had been caused in the kingdom of Christ through the apostasy of Satan and those whom he had led astray. Aleanwhile, the idea of the importance of the death of Jesus had been dogmatically elaborated. At first, Christians saw in that death a sacrifice, and in his blood a propitiatory power; but soon after, their thoughts reverted to the other scriptural representation of an actual victory over the D., a restoration of the Divine image in man, and the source and condition of holiness; whence was developed a very wonderful dogma concerning the devil. God having declared that whoever should transgress his law, should incur death and damnation; and man having done so, God's justice and veracity compelled him to keep his word. But inasmuch as Eve was beguiled into transgression, and fell as it were unwittingly, it did not seem for the honor or good of the Deity that rational beings, partakers also of his own spirit, should be lost through a trick of the fiend; wherefore Jesus offered himself to the D. as a ransom for the souls of men. The D. thinking " the man Christ Jesus" of mare value than all the rest of the race put together, closed the bargain imme diately. But deceived in his turn by the " appearance of flesh," he did not recognize the Deity concealed beneath it; and not being able to retain the latter (shrinking from it, in fact, horrified and dismayed) lie lost and man. The D. was, how ever, actually deprived only of Christians, in all other men lie dwelt and ruled through the force of original sin. In consequence of this he was formally " banished" (until the c.), not only from " demoniacs," but also from all converts from Judaism and hea thenism to Christianity; and when time practice of baptism had shaped itself into the dogma, that it was "a necessary preliminary to holiness," exorcism, or "driving out the devil," became a Christian "art," exercised on all new-born children. Those who died unbaptized, were (by that ruthless logic that frequently marks a barbarous theology) sent to hell; for although potentially Christ's, time church had not yet rescued them froin their satanic master, by the appointed rite, and so the conditions being unfulfilled, the D. carried off his prey. Yet the heart of humanity, stronger in its simple instincts than the most iron creed ever hammered out of the human brain, showed its holy presence even in so fearful a dogma; and although it could not deliver the lost infants from the region of eternal fire, it assigned them less painful pangs, and a less dreadful dwelling place. But while the power of the D. over all not guarded by Christian faith and rites, was supreme; over those who were so guarded it was utterly weak. No Christian, not even the weakest, could be forced by him to do evil. Thus far had the " doctrine of the devil" been developed at the 8th e., and at this point it lies essentially remained in the eastern or Greek church; but in the western it took yet another development: This was mainly occasioned by the writings of pope Gregory the great, who partly took up the popular notions himself, infused into them other then prevalent theological opinions, and elevated the result of the incongruous mixture to the dignity of Church doctrine. He calls the D. a " stupid beast," because be hopes for heaven, without being able to reach it, and entangles himself in his own net; but on the other hand, he admits him to have a potentia sublimitatis, and utters the profound idea that lie cannot comprehend our thoughts. In these three notions lie the essential germs of the Germanic Faust-devil. The old German and Norse mythologies poured a flood of heathen fancies into the " doctrine of the devil." Even I.Thilas, at a much earlier period, had translated theNew Testament word daimon or daimonion by i.e., she-devil or sorceress. because the old Germans believed in, female demons, while the Christain USW /oquendicontains no trace of such. The peculiarly German conception of a now malignant, now gentle female lives to this day in the German phrase, "The devil is beating his mother" (when rain and sunshine quickly alternate). In England and Scotland, too, the phrase is, or recently was current, "The devil and his dam." Time Germans have also the proverb, " Where the devil cannot come, there lie sends his grandmother." Soon, however, the word Waal's, in violation of the New Testament distinction between it and daimon, came to signify devils of every or any sort: The Gothic form of the word was diabulus, diabadlus; old Saxon, diubhvl, diubhal, diobol; old High German, diufal, tieval, tiubil, etc. The dwelling of the D. was, of course, hell, which, however, according to old Ger manic and Scandinavian notions, was placed in the dreary regions of the north. Although his mischievous powers are to be pretty well controlled till the coming of antichrist, when he expects to hold carnival, yet, like time ancient gods and demons, he occasionally appears on the earth. lie then assumes at times a purely human form, but, like Vulcan, who was thrown clown from heaven like himself, and the smith Wieland, of German mythol ogy, he is somewhat lame. lie is covered with a grey, green, or red cloak, like the Kobolds (q.v.) and dwarfs (q.v.), (time earth and house spirits of the suppressed heathen
ism): sometimes, also, he appears black and sooty, as befits his dwelling-place, and his opposition to a pure God. But as the old deities, both classical and German, possessed the power of transformation to a most remarkable degree, the D., through his relationship with these, inherited this power when they vanished from the scene. The form he most frequently assumed was that of an animal, approximating, in this respect, to the Ger man forest-spirits and the Greek satyrs and fauns. At one time he shows the foot of a horse or goat with horns and tail; at another, he appears as a black horse, a he-goat, a, hog, a wolf, a hell-bound, a raven, a serpent, a worm, a dragon, or a fiy. The concep tion of the power of the D. was vastly enlarged by the influx of these new fancies. In fact, it rose almost to a new dualism; but on the other hand, also, many mild and friendly traits of the heathen gods passed over into the popular conception of the D., and gave to his nature a quite new, humorous, and even merry side. As, after the introduction of Christianity, offerings were still occasionally made to the old gods, the D. shared in these honors. A horse, a he-goat, or a hound was at times sacrificed to him; and to the present day the expression has survived, "To kindle a fire for the devil"—obviously an allusion to altar-flames. Various features of the old Norse gods, especially of Loki and Donar (Thor), the gods of fire and thunder, were also transferred to him. Hence the still current phrases in Germany when thunder is heard: " The devil must be striking," and " The runaway goose is gone to the devil." (Donner, "thunder," is the word used for devil in this case.) Every power, too, which, according to the older heathen belief, was lodged in the lesser demons, giants, etc, had now its proper center in the great fiend himself, who could perform all the pranks attributed to the more grotesque creations of the Norse mythology, and work all the evil of the more malignant spirits; but, in general, these beings were rather pressed into his service than absorbed by him, or incarnated in his person.
So did this great, originally Pcrsico-Judaic belief spread itself through all Christian lands, incorporating with itself, first, the kindred conceptions of the ancient classical world, and, ultimately, the rich and varied superstitions of our Teutonic and Scandi navian forefathers. Thus decked out in the costume of many different climes and ages, the image of evil passed into the light of the modern world. Every step forward that it now took robbed it of some potent spell that used to chill the blood and strike the heart with awful horror. Men first hist faith in the D.'s occasional incarnation; then medical science destroyed his claims to the origination of mental phenomena, which he was once supposed to have directly caused; natural science deprived him of his control over the elements; historical criticism plucked from him his borrowed feathers; while metaphysics and a deeper religious exegesis have combined, not, perhaps, to annihilate his personality or deny his influence, but certainly to realize the former under a more spiritual form, and to limit the latter by a reverential belief in the wisdom and goodness 'of God. See layer's Historia Diaboli (1780); Horst's Damonhmagk (1817) andZaaber bib/iothek (1826); and Grimm's Deutsche -ilythologie (2d edit. 1844); also Moncure Con way's Demonology and Devil Lore (1878).
At the outset of this article, it was stated that the "doctrine of the devil" had received little critical treatment from English scholars. The following appears to be the prevalent mode of regarding the subject in this country. The doctrine of the exist ence of a personal D., the chief of evil spirits, and directly or indirectly the author of at least all moral evil, is maintained by reference to the Bible, regarded as containing one revelation of truth harmonious in all its parts, and gradually developed. The Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments being thus regarded, and the supposition of conflict between the doctrines of their different books, or of error in any of them being rejected as inconsistent with a full recognition of their inspiration and divine authority, the doctrine in question is unavoidably deduced from them. It is assumed to appear in the narrative of the fall in Genesis, and the name serpent is again applied to the D. in the book of Revelation, where he is described as "that old serpent . . . which deceiveth the whole world" (Rev. xii. 9); he is believed to be repeatedly mentioned in the Old Testament. The hypothesis of an extra-national origination and development of the idea of the D. would, of course, be repudiated, and orthodox divines would con sider it more probable that the Persians borrowed from the Jews than that the Jews borrowed from the Persians. The mention of the D. in the New Testament is held to be conclusive, not only of his existence, but of the belief in that existence (even when not expressed or hinted at) among the older Jews. The warnings and exhortations addressed to Christians aro, it is also said, framed on the supposition of dangers arising from his violence, power, and subtlety. It is further argued, that the principal objec tions urged against the doctrine of the existence of a D. are substantially the same which present themselves to the mind as difficulties when we speculate on that which, however, is so undeniable—the existence of moral evil.