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A review by dean_issov
The Origin of Satan: How Christians Demonized Jews, Pagans, and Heretics by Elaine Pagels
informative
fast-paced
3.0
I was honestly quite unsatisfied when I finished this book, I expected a bit more of an indepth look of the history of the concept of Satan throughout the centuries (or even millennias) but I think it just scraped the surface, in my opinion. What this book covers more about are the conflicts between the Jewish community and early Christianity, and between early Christianity and pagans (and gnostics). It does talk about the origin of Satan but it just felt scattered around all this unnecessary information about all these early philosophers, apologists, and non-canonical gospels which only covers about the first few centuries of the common era. It has no mentions about the concepts of satan after the 4th century—only very brief mentions of the 16th and 20th century.
This isn't a bad book though, I think it's really easy to read, medium paced and the length is just about right. If you're not used to reading nonfiction or about early Christianity then this is an accessible book to read while also being informative; but for those who already know a thing or two about early Christianity and textual criticisms, there's nothing much here unfortunately.
Here are some of my highlights (spoiler warning):
• The subject of cosmic war serves primarily to interpret human relationships—especially all-too-human conflict—in supernatural form. The figure of Satan becomes, among other things, a way of characterizing one’s actual enemies as the embodiment of transcendent forces. For many readers of the gospels ever since the first century, the thematic opposition between God’s spirit and Satan has vindicated Jesus’ followers and demonized their enemies.
• In biblical sources the Hebrew term the satan describes an adversarial role. It is not the name of a particular character. Although Hebrew storytellers as early as the sixth century B.C.E. occasionally introduced a supernatural character whom they called the satan, what they meant was any one of the angels sent by God for the specific purpose of blocking or obstructing human activity. The root śṭn means “one who opposes, obstructs, or acts as adversary.” (The Greek term diabolos, later translated “devil,” literally means “one who throws something across one’s path.”)
• In the original Hebrew, the passage had read “young woman” (almah), apparently describing an ordinary birth. But the translation of almah into the Greek parthenos (“virgin”), as many of Jesus’ followers read the passage, confirmed their conviction that Jesus’ birth, which unbelievers derided as sordid, actually was a miraculous “sign.”
• A hundred years after the gospels were written, then, Christians adapted to the circumstances of pagan persecution the political and religious model they found in those gospels—God’s people against Satan’s people—and identified themselves as allies of God, acting against Roman magistrates and pagan mobs, whom they see as agents of Satan.
• Philosophically inclined Christians such as Augustine of Hippo have often disparaged such mythological language and declared that, ontologically speaking, evil and Satan do not exist. On this level, orthodox Christianity does not diverge from monotheism. Yet Augustine himself, like many other philosophically sophisticated preachers, often speaks of Satan in sermons and prayers and acknowledges, when he is dealing with people confronted with obstacles, that Christians in this world still struggle against evil in ways that they experience as demonic attack.
This isn't a bad book though, I think it's really easy to read, medium paced and the length is just about right. If you're not used to reading nonfiction or about early Christianity then this is an accessible book to read while also being informative; but for those who already know a thing or two about early Christianity and textual criticisms, there's nothing much here unfortunately.
Here are some of my highlights (spoiler warning):
• In biblical sources the Hebrew term the satan describes an adversarial role. It is not the name of a particular character. Although Hebrew storytellers as early as the sixth century B.C.E. occasionally introduced a supernatural character whom they called the satan, what they meant was any one of the angels sent by God for the specific purpose of blocking or obstructing human activity. The root śṭn means “one who opposes, obstructs, or acts as adversary.” (The Greek term diabolos, later translated “devil,” literally means “one who throws something across one’s path.”)
• In the original Hebrew, the passage had read “young woman” (almah), apparently describing an ordinary birth. But the translation of almah into the Greek parthenos (“virgin”), as many of Jesus’ followers read the passage, confirmed their conviction that Jesus’ birth, which unbelievers derided as sordid, actually was a miraculous “sign.”
• A hundred years after the gospels were written, then, Christians adapted to the circumstances of pagan persecution the political and religious model they found in those gospels—God’s people against Satan’s people—and identified themselves as allies of God, acting against Roman magistrates and pagan mobs, whom they see as agents of Satan.
• Philosophically inclined Christians such as Augustine of Hippo have often disparaged such mythological language and declared that, ontologically speaking, evil and Satan do not exist. On this level, orthodox Christianity does not diverge from monotheism. Yet Augustine himself, like many other philosophically sophisticated preachers, often speaks of Satan in sermons and prayers and acknowledges, when he is dealing with people confronted with obstacles, that Christians in this world still struggle against evil in ways that they experience as demonic attack.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Torture, Antisemitism, Religious bigotry