DEVIL, or (OE. Lat. diaboitts. Ok. 3,4 ioX0e, din botos, slanderer. fr.int Sra, din, across 4- bollein, to throw; 1 leb. sr/frit?, adversary, from ...ohm, to perseentel. In the Old and New• Testaments, a mighty spirit of evil who Ims, during unknown rige•, ruled over a kingdom of evil and is in con.laill :111.1 restlessly active opposition to God. This belief, however, Nvas very gradually developed in the mind: and it is beyond all question that it aequired clearness and prominence throw-di extra national influences. The older llebrews \\lin lived before the Ilerind t lie Bally Inn cap• tivity judging from the silence of Seripture kn•w nothing. and certainly taught nothing. of evil spirits in the later sense—i. e. of beings separated from Cod. who were evil in the essence I if their nature. and 'worked evil only. nom/ evil was rather looked upon as properly the net twin: pifavieft/ evil, or on the other hand, it• punishment merited throneli sin, and inflicted by just and holy ;041. who was thus necessarily ...meek ed as the true source of all calamity. The angels who foretold God's pur poses, and executed 1 I i• home% er g,rellt Might. be the 1.113 sieal evil they occasioned, 11 re lieNer accused of mond evil. EN•n in the .Nlosaic ac vomit of the seduction of Eve, is to induce us to belieNe that the author regarded the serpent other than as 'the most subtle of all the beasts of the field,' or that lie meant to con ceal under so plain a statement an allusion to Satan. It is 111111 la howexer, that at some early in their history the popular faith of the .Ti'.'.,s partly divorcing itself from its grand religions of ,t living and true Ood,' and lapsing into petty supersti tions, had become familiar with the idea of certain fearful. unearthly beings haunting wilder nesses, similar to the fauns and satyrs of Oreece, who might form the connecting link in the later development of an :lethal demonism. Traces of this are clearly visible in the Pentateuch. The word st occurring in Low, xvii. 7, which the translators have rendered 'devils,' means only 'hairy Now the E.:yptians wor shiped the bc-goot, :11111 the Hebrews partook, as we know, of their idolatry. Therefore :\loses in this verse, forbidding them to commit this sin in future, says; shall no more older their saertices to e. to the Eg3 titian he goats. The development of demonism was ma terially furthered during and after the Baby• lonish captivity by Modo-Persiall books of the Old 'l'estenavuf ubieh belong, in their present form, to the post-exilic e. the period stills...went to the exile— the Jewish conceptions of angels hceolne definite. They possess .litIerellt ranks.
and speeitie offices. They are the tutelary guar dians and helpers of particular land, and peo ples. but are here in absolille on Cold. A11.1 now we meet also. for the first time. with an called so(an, who, however, still figures as II 111110-1er Of 10(1. and. along with the others. appears in heaven before the throne of .1ellovah• hut with the function assigned to him of itemiser and scdueer. It is he who ( I. Chron. xxi. 1) up David to number the people; while ill the older Ilebrew 1.ersion f II. NX IV. 1 ) the same :let is fat l'iblIted to an angry (;...1. the eon••ption of Satan not then having clearly. if at 1111, itself to the 1 lehl'e\l' 11111111. i It S:111111 NI 110 throws sll' picion Ili) piety of .101). :lull. with t he permis sion of .1eliovair,cale...... a sorb, of reisfortini•s to befall him (doh i. 31 ; while in Zach. iii. I he is represented :15 'resisting' the :ingot of ItO(1. :1 11.1 as a false accuser of the high priest As however, 11 evil Ila I Ilre is 1101 s,sly ascribed to him. but. what is smelt the same• it is he takes a pleasnr.- in evil. 11 is a purely arbitrary and lintextual interpreta ( "1 I nw art Ilion fallen from Heaven. I) Liteifer. •on of 110 morning!") that would force these words to refer to (he fall of the De\il, or determine from them his 11;1 Ille. 11 the .\ poerypha. of which only a small part is Palestinian, the rest being either rholdniro 1'0 rsinn (as. for example. Tobias and Parnell) ./.'gypto• t/..romirion (as. for example. 1Vis doni) in its origin, the older Ilebrew 110,1 rine of misfortune coming from the aueel of .Jelinvali so to speak. dismembered and demons or evil spirits, in the Xe• Testament -en-e of the term, are for the first time mentioned (and in Tobias and Baruch frequently) a, the authors of calami ties. According to the representations of these writings, the evil spirits dwell, like the older Hebrew hobgoblins, in waste places, but associate themselves for the injury or destruction of men, enter into them as tormentors, and can be ex pelled only by magical or mysterious means. To this class of beings the heathen deities were reckoned to belong. But even here there is no mention of an o•gani:.-alion or kingdom or prince of demons. The first trace of a Diabolos or Devil proper (and one in all probability spriaging from a foreign source) shows itself in the Book of Wisdom (ii. 24), in relation to the seduction of Eve, where it is said that through the Devil the necessity of death has collie into the world.