Devil in Christianity

[2][3] The devil is conjectured to be several other figures in the Bible including the serpent in the Garden of Eden, Lucifer, Satan, the tempter of the Gospels, Leviathan, and the dragon in the Book of Revelation.

Scholars influenced by neoplatonic cosmology, like Origen and Pseudo-Dionysius, portrayed the devil as representing deficiency and emptiness, the entity most remote from the divine.

[4] Since the early Reformation period, the devil has been imagined as an increasingly powerful entity, with not only a lack of goodness but also a conscious will against God, his word, and his creation.

[11] Henry A. Kelly says that "almost all modern translators and interpreters" of 1 Chronicles 21:1 (in which satan occurs without the definite article) agree the verse contains "the proper name of a specific being appointed to the office of adversary".

[24] The scene describes Joshua the High Priest dressed in filthy rags, representing the nation of Judah and its sins,[25] on trial with God as the judge and Satan standing as the prosecutor.

[25] Yahweh rebukes Satan[25] and orders that Joshua be given clean clothes, representing God's forgiveness of Judah's sins.

The Babylonian/Hebrew myth of a rising star, as the embodiment of a heavenly being who is thrown down for his attempt to ascend into the higher planes of the gods, is also found in the Bible, (Isaiah 14:12–15)[34] was accepted by early Christians, and interpreted as a fallen angel.

[37] The church fathers brought the fallen lightbringer Lucifer into connection with the devil on the basis of a saying of Jesus in the Gospel of Luke (10.18 EU): "I saw Satan fall from heaven like lightning.

"[35] In his work De principiis Proemium and in a homily on Book XII, the Christian scholar Origen compared the morning star Eosphorus-Lucifer with the devil.

[48] Although not part of the canonical Bible, intertestamental writings shaped the early Christian worldview and influenced the interpretation of the Biblical texts.

Mastema asks God to spare a tenth of the demons and assign them under his domain so that he might prove humanity to be sinful and unworthy.

[64] This interpretation is, however, not shared by all, as Irenaeus argued that, since the devil was a liar since the beginning, he also lied here and that all kingdoms in fact belong to God, referring to Proverbs 21.

[72][73] In all three synoptic gospels (Matthew 9:22–29,[74] Mark 3:22–30[75] and Luke 11:14–20),[76] Jesus' critics accuse him of gaining his power to cast out demons from Beelzebub, the devil.

[84] Thomas Aquinas, Rupert of Deutz and Gregory the Great (among others) interpreted this battle as occurring after the devil sinned by aspiring to be independent of God.

Christian tradition and theology interpreted the myth about a rising star, thrown into the underworld, originally told about a Babylonian king (Isaiah 14:12) as also referring to a fallen angel.

[94] In the Middle Ages there was a great deal of adaptation of biblical material, in the vernacular languages, that often employed additional literary forms like drama to convey important ideas to an audience unable to read the Latin for themselves.

In his work De principiis Proemium and in a homily on Book XII, he compared the morning star Eosphorus-Lucifer—probably based on the Life of Adam and Eve—with the devil or Satan.

[158] Catharism probably roots in Bogomilism, founded by Theophilos in the 10th century, who in turn owed many ideas to the earlier Paulicians in Armenia and the Near East and had strong impact on the history of the Balkans.

[162] After the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, parts of Bogomil Dualism remained in Balkan folklore concerning creation: before God created the world, he meets a goose on the eternal ocean.

[164] From the beginning of the early modern period (around the 1400s), Christians started to imagine the devil as an increasingly powerful entity, constantly leading people into falsehood.

Both Catholics and Protestants reformed Christian society by shifting their major ethical concerns from avoiding the seven deadly sins to observing the Ten Commandments.

The devil, Satan and similar figures mentioned throughout the Bible, refer in his work Leviathan to offices or qualities but not individual beings.

[180] Rudolf Bultmann taught that Christians need to reject belief in a literal devil as part of formulating an authentic faith in today's world.

[g] Pope Paul VI expressed concern about the influence of the devil in 1972, stating that: "Satan's smoke has made its way into the Temple of God through some crack".

[214] Jehovah's Witnesses believe that Satan was originally a perfect angel who developed feelings of self-importance and craved worship that belonged to God.

[221] In Mormonism, the devil is a real being, a literal spirit son of God who once had angelic authority, but rebelled and fell prior to the creation of the Earth in a pre-mortal life.

[238] Bede states in his Commentary on the Epistle of James (3.6), no matter where the devil and his angels move, they carry the tormenting flames of hell with them, like a person with fever.

[244] The earliest representation of the devil might be a mosaic in Basilica of Sant'Apollinare Nuovo in Ravenna from the 6th century, in the form of a blue angel.

In accordance with Platonic/Christian tradition, his gigantic appearance indicates a lack of power, as pure matter was considered the farthest from God and closest to non-being.

Milton breaks with previous authors who portray Satan as a grotesque figure;[257] instead, he becomes a persuasive and charismatic leader who, even in hell, convinced the other fallen angels to establish their own kingdom.