• In Ak, It, O he appears oa Beliar, and in 7* as SammoeU Oe«. Tha. 1. 210 notes the rendering of Belial (Beliar) by domimu Qiru in Svriao lexicOffmpherB. Sense as well oa sound f«v corresponds to the ending) contribut«d to this translation, which stxords with tradition respecting Beliar's realm.
finally cast into the lake of fire and brimstone where the beast and false prophet are (20'", cf. Enoch 54'- «, 2 P V).
(d) In St. John's Goxpel ari'l Epistles such legend- ary features disappear. We move in a serener, clearer atmosphere of sharply-marked antitheses. Satan and Christ are mutually opjiosed. Satan cannot touch hiiu who is born of God and siuueth not (1 Jn 5'*). The devil is the ruler of this world, and has nothing in Christ (Jn 14™ 16", cf. 12"). Sin enslaves through the power of the devil (S**) ; and this bondage is estaulislied, as St. John and St. Paul alike taught, through the tlesh, which is the organic point of human attachment to the Kia/ios. Satan sinned from the be":inning (I Jn 3"), and was the cause of death (Jn 8"). Falsehood is his special realm (8"). Jesus stands outside the world that is ruled by him (8^ 11'*- '"), and gradually ^vins individuals from him into the kingdom of God. First, Christ's own discijiles are rescued from Satan's worldly dominion (15'" I7'-' '^). One only lias abandoned himself to the devil to his own ruin (G""). The world is at present in hostility to Jesus and His disciples (I4".i».22 I518. 11. J68 179^ 1 Jn 2">-" etc.), but we are as.sured of Christ's final conquest of the world iJn 16", cf. 1721.83) YoT the Son of God was manifested for the express purpose of destroying the works of the devil (1 Jn 3'). This is in harmony with Christ's own teaching respecting Satan's overthrow re- ported in Lk iO"*. In Jn 16" the judgment and condemnation of the devil are regarded, according to the tense usage which frequently occurs in the NT, as already finally accomplished {niKpiTai, cf. 12"). See the eloquent remarks on this passage in the Pulpit Commentary by the late Dr. H. K. Reynolds.
V. General Conclusions. — From the preceding exposition of the biblical conceiitions respecting Satan we clearly see that early Christianity shared in the prevailing Jewish belief in demons and Satan. The attempt has been made by Beyschlag to deny the inference to which the Synoptic narratives lead us, that Jesus accepted the belief in a jicr- sonal Satan. And with the elimination of a per- sonal Satan he would also erase a belief in demons and angels from the inner consciousness of Christ. ' It is certain that .lesus did not recognize as jier- sonal deWls the demons in whom the popular Jewish belief saw personal angels of Satan.' ' The form of the representation is undoubtedly personi- fying, but all the pas.sages are poetic in style.' If lantjuage is to be manipulated in this fashion, it is diflicult to see why Christ's belief in a personal God may not be eliminated also, or why such a process of evaporation might not be successfullj' ap|died to all contemporary literature. Jesus used parabolic language, and His discourses are steeped in similitudes ; out when He used a symbol, it was understood to be such, or, if not at once so understood, its actual meaning was nearly always di.sclosed (Jn 3'-« 4"'-'»- »"•"•' 6'>"- » 11'"-, but in 2'» the enigma was solved by the close of His earthly career). But to suppose that Jesus persistently and consistently used the ordinary language of angelology and deinonology, and even acted in accordance with it, and yet all the time held in secret opinions totally at variance with those of all His fellow-countrymen, and never revealed them by a single hint, — surely this is to invalidate Christ's claims to candour. 'Vet there is not a particle of evidence adduced by Rcj-schlag to sup- port his monstrous contention that Jesus did not mean by the words Satan, demon, and angel, what His contemporaries meant and understood Him to mean. See Beyschlag, NT Tlicol. vol. i. pp. 93- 95.
Our argument by no means implies that Jesni
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SAUL
sbated in all the current conceptions respecting demons. The problem, as we liave already indi- cated, is a complex one. We liave to give due place to two considerations : (1) that Christ's sa3'ings and deeds are necessarily coloured by the representative human media through which they are conveyed to us ; (2) that the demonology of Christ's belief is scarcely visible in the Fourth Gospel, though His belief in a personal Satan is clearly apparent. There can, however, be no scientific Christology which does not recognize that Christ's hutnaiiity was so genuine and complete that He shared in the cosmic presuppositions of His time. His Deity spoke to us through a true humanity. It was veiled and limited during His earthly ministry by those very conditions which He, in His Kivuim, voluntarily assumed when ' He took the form of a slave, and being found in the likeness of man, emptied Him- self (Ph 2'). Now, demonology was a necessary part of the intellectual apparatus of that period. It was t)ie latest phase of that animistic inter- pretation of the universe which was destined still to survive for centuries until the gradual growth of our inductive methods has substituted for de- monology (as formerly understood) a rationally co- ordinated nexus of physical causality and law. But the ultimate and fundamental truth of angelology and demonology has not been and never can be destroj'ed by the march of modem science. Behind and bej'ond the physical nexus of interrelations there must lie personality and, moreover, per- sonalities. However complex the material con- ditions, at both ends — nay, even along the entire path — of the intricate windings of the phenomenal chain there must ever live personal power. Our whole life rests upon the presupposition of our own individual initiatives of volition operating upon one another in the phenomenal world and modifying its successions and coexistences. That a supreme transcendent and personal (and, to the Christian consciousness, righteous) reason and will is ever present and potent in the entire realm, is a necessary postulate of any intelligible universe. The assumption that other superhuman as well as subordinate agencies are at work, and that some among these are embodiments of e^ol influence, adds no fundamental difficulty to those which already exist. No moral world is conceivable except as in- volving interrelations between personalities. Now, it is matter of historic notoriety that some person- alities have lived in this world that might be called incarnations of evil influence. The supposi- tion that other and superhuman personalities may also be foci of evil moral energy, and operate like ganglionic centres in a nervous system, presents no fundamental difficulty in addition to the diffi- culties already involved in the problem of evil. That Satan exists as a personal centre of evil influence, physical as well as moral (for the two are closely associated), is the undoubted teaching of the Bible. He is not represented to us as the absolute origin of evil or the only source of it, but as its most potent superhuman representative. See Dorner, Christliche GlaubensUhre, % 86, 3, vol. ii. p. 213 ff.