DEVELOPMENT OF DOCTRINE
Enoch, which seems to embrace all the super- stitions of the period, a list is given of the chief of the demons to the number of eighteen (67), and another of (evil) ‘angels’ to the number of twenty (so the Greek text of 692), followed by a further enumeration of their chiefs, with an account of the particular direction in which each showed himself active. In both instances the leader of the demons is Semjiza. No place is given in either of the lists (which belong to different sections of the work, and differ considerably from each other) to Asmodeeus, or to Sammael, who figures in the Ascension of Isaiah as ruling in the firmament along with Beliar (42 78), and in the Targum of Jonathan as the angel of death (Gn 3°), It was he who tempted Eve (Jalkut Shim. ‘ Beresh.’ 25). As the special foe of Israel he was the counterpart of Michael (Shem rabba 18).
In Enoch 16! the demons are spoken of as the disembodied spirits of the giants, who were the progeny of the fallen angels and the daughters of men, and who will carry on their work of moral ruin upon the earth unpunished till the final judg- ment (cf. Mt 12** and 8% ‘Art thou come hither to torment us before the time?’). This is clearly a legendary expansion of Gn 6% 4, which, however, says nothing about a fall of angels, and nothing condemnatory of the love shown by the sons of the Elohim for the daughters of men. The Heb. tradition, which was not without its analogies in pagan mythologies, arose naturally enough in an age in which no surprise was felt at the fact of familiar relations between God and men. It is not easy to trace the process by which the narra- tive of Genesis was gradually metamorphosed into the legend of the Book of Enoch ; but by the time when the LXX translation was made there was apparently a disposition to look askance upon the union of the sons of God with the daughters of men. This seems the most natural explanation of the curious divergence by which in that translation the simple fact of the existence of giants gives way to the representation of the giants as the offspring of that union. This theory once accepted, it would then be an easy enough deduction from it that such a relationship was a blot upon angelic sanctity. M. Nicolas (Des Doctrines Religieuses des Juifs, p. 264f.) thinks that the legend of the fall of angels and of their transformation into demons, as well as the Book of Enoch itself, originated among the Pharisaic and ascetic Jews who gathered round the temple of Leontopolis in Egypt during the high- priesthood of Oniasiv. But this view, of course, involves the assumption that the Book of Enoch was originally written in Greek, whereas according to Ewald and more recent authorities (e.g. Charles, The Book of Enoch, p. 21 £.) it is a Pal. composition with a Heb. original.
C. THE RELATION OF THE RELIGIOUS CoN- SCIOUSNESS OF OUR LORD TO THE CURRENT BELIEFS ABOUT ANGELS AND DEMONS.—We can only briefly touch upon this question, as the dis- cussion properly belongs to NT theology.
It is remarkable that Jesus added nothing to the doctrine of angels. He certainly used it as it existed for the advancement of His own purposes, but He nowhere demands faith in angels as neces- sary to discipleship. In this respect both Judaism and Christianity are distinguished from the re- ligion of Islam. Can we conclude, then, that Jesus made use of angels merely in the way of symbolism? Or does not such a saying as ‘this compel us to the opposite conclusion: ‘Take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones; for I say unto you, That in heaven their angels do always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven’ ? (Mt18"). Although it is used with a certain poetic freedom, an angelology is clearly implied in the NT.
The popular belief in Satan and demons is no- where assailed by our Lord. It may be that this did not lie to His hand as the herald of the heavenly kingdom. But did He aed it? If He had meant to lay stress upon the reality of the idea, would He have used it so exclusively in figure or parable as He has done? Owing to the number of factors (anthropological, physiological, psychological, and theological) involved, the subject is admittedly full of difficulty, and it seems equally perilous either to try to explain it away or to dogmatize upon it. It comes out strongly in NT writings, yet not in such a way, perhaps, as to make it possible to formulate any very definite doctrine. Schenkel and theologians of his school maintain that the belief in Satan and demons in NT litera- ture is only the reflex of the popular Jewish belief produced through foreign influences, but already more or less given up by the educated classes of the period, and that it is therefore no peculiar product of the Christian idea. The diffi- culty presses most in connexion with the frequent cases of casting out demons recorded in the Synoptic Gospels. How are they to be explained ? The theologians referred to do so on the Accom- modation Theory, which men like Pressensé again have always consistently rejected; others would explain them psychologically, and diagnose them as cases of delirium or insanity; Schleiermacher and Matthew Arnold speak of the power of a dominant will over a crushed spirit; stricter pietists have clung to the literal doctrine of exter- nal evil spirits ; Keim has put forward the theory that Christ freed an enslaved self - consciousness from the morbid dispositions engendered by super- stition; Bruce attributes the confession of the Messiah by the demoniacs to the prevalence of the Messianic hope, and its special sway over shattered minds. According to a recent writer, the demonic possession recorded in NT is genuine, and has as its distinctive features (1) insanity or mental disease of some sort, forming the natural element ; (2) the confession of Jesus as Messiah, forming the supernatural element (Alexander, Demonic Possession in NT, pp. 121, 150). The presence of the latter element is the criterion of real demonic possession, which was a counter- movement on the part of the powers of evil to the Incarnation. In this way only three typical cases occur—those of the demoniacs of Capernaum (Mt 9°, Lk 114) and Gerasa (Mt 8%#, Mk 5'®) and the youth at the Transfiguration -hill, and the sufferers are regarded as having been the victims of epileptic insanity, acute mania, and epileptic idiocy respectively. Interesting and able as is this writer’s treatment of the subject, he has not proved his case, and the last word upon the problem has not yet been spoken. There is per- haps no satisfactory middle ground between ‘the view that what Christ accepted must be true, and that which sees in His attitude to demonic pos- session a particular example of Kenosis.’ Three things seem clear—(1) Jesus recognizes a Satanic activity and a Satanic mastery over the possessed ; (2) He usually reduces the legions of devils com- monly believed in to a single Satanic being, though in one passage (Mt 12* || Lk 11%) He speaks about the unclean spirit taking with him seven other spirits more wicked than himself (the question arises here, If we accept the personality of the devil, must we also believe in his angels?) ; (3) He conceives the relation of Satan to man as a moral one, and so gives to the whole doctrine an ethical basis. From this standpoint there is a good deal to be said for the ancient view that there is a possession bound up with moral obliquity.