Notes

According to most commentators today, and much of the early Jewish tradition as well, the intended genre of the prologue of Job is that of a folktale employed to set the stage for an epic, poetic drama. See Day, Adversary, pp. 70ff.; Robert Gordis, The Book of Job (New York: Jewish Theological Seminary, 1978), p. 2; Samuel Terrien, Job: Poet of Existence (New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1957), p. 30. We must, then, be very cautious about drawing any inferences about God’s relationship to Satan, or about God’s character, on the basis of the details of their portrayals and mutual dialogue in this work. For example, are we really to suppose that God did not know where Satan was? Was God intimidated into a bet? Does Satan have to ask permission from God every time he acts? Do they have a semicordial relationship such as this prologue suggests? Questions of these sorts are wholly inappropriate to the type of literature we are here considering. One can no more infer doctrine from this portion of Scripture than one can deduce doctrine from incidental features of Jesus’ parables. The purpose of these features is merely to serve as the backdrop for the main point being made.

P. D. Miller (“God and the Gods,” Affirmation 1, no. 5 [1973]: 54-55) has noted the manner in which Jewish theology eventually develops to where the “problem of theodicy . . . begins to be dealt with in terms of conflict in the divine realm” (p. 55). This theme, we shall see, becomes solidified in the New Testament.

See Lindström, God and the Origin of Evil, passim, for more extensive treatments of these passages, as well as a refutation of other passages sometimes used in support of the “demonic in Yahweh” theory. Also helpful in this regard is Peels, “God’s Vengeance.”

C. Westermann, Isaiah 40—66, trans. D. M. G. Stalker, OTL (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1969), p. 162.

Lindström, God and the Origin of Evil, p. 192. See the entire discussion from pp. 178-99. A. König argues along the same lines. He finally concludes, quite correctly, that the theology which makes “God . . . responsible for all things . . . describes a demon rather than the God of Israel” (New and Greater Things: Re-evaluating the Biblical Message on Creation [Pretoria: University of South Africa, 1988], p. 63; cf. pp. 19, 60-62). C. Stuhlmüller refutes this interpretation of Isaiah 45:7 as well in Creative Redemption in Deutero-Isaiah, AnBib 43 (Rome: Biblical Institute Press, 1970), pp. 197ff.

See Lindström, God and the Origin of Evil, pp. 214-36.

Five verses prior to this statement Jeremiah had expressly stated that Yahweh “does not willingly afflict or grieve anyone” (v. 33).

For a more in-depth discussion, see Lindström, God and the Origin of Evil, pp. 199-214. Likewise, both Peels (“God’s Vengeance”) and Eichrodt (Theology, 1:262-66) demonstrate that those instances of the vengeance and “wrath” of God in the Old Testament do not support anything like the “demonic-in-Yahweh” theory. Rather, as Eichrodt argues, “unlike holiness or righteousness, wrath never forms one of the permanent attributes of the God of Israel; it can only be understood as, so to speak, a footnote to the will to fellowship of the covenant God” (p. 262). Hence “in the case of God there can never be any question of despotic caprice striking out in blind rage” (p. 265).

In Exodus 4:11 Yahweh says, “Who gives speech to mortals? Who makes them mute or deaf, seeing or blind? Is it not I, the LORD?” Not surprisingly, this verse has frequently been cited in defense of the “demonic-in-Yahweh” theorists (and, predictably, in defense of Calvinism). However we interpret this verse, it should not be used to overturn the general teaching of Scripture, and especially the unambiguous example of Christ’s ministry, which instructs us that God is against evil and suffering, not the cause of it. The passage certainly teaches that Yahweh is sovereign over speech and hearing impairments; this is just the point Yahweh is making to the stuttering Moses! The verse makes this point by appealing to the divine agency involved in the creation of all human beings. But, as Fretheim notes, it is significant that the verse does not suggest that this divine activity is “individually applied, as if God entered into the womb of every pregnant woman and determined whether and how a child would have disabilities. This is a general statement that the world is so created by God that such things will happen” (T. E. Fretheim, Exodus, Interpretation [Louisville, Ky.: John Knox, 1991], p. 72). It is also significant to note, as Fretheim further observes, that the verse does not suggest that “God is the sole cause of all such developments” (ibid.). Other causes are perhaps not mentioned only because the point of the verse is to stress that God accepts responsibility for everything in the world (though not the guilt of being the cause of everything), and thus God is not at a loss as to how to use them effectively when necessary. Other passages of Scripture clearly stress human agency and responsibility alongside God on such matters. See also Fretheim’s marvelous study The Suffering of God: An Old Testament Perspective, OBT (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984), pp. 71-78. New Testament passages sometimes used to argue that God exercises unilateral meticulous control over all the affairs of history (e.g., Rom 9, 11; Eph 1:3-11) shall be discussed in Satan and the Problem of Evil.

See, e.g., Revelation 12:9; 20:2; Life of Adam and Eve 16:4. For discussion regarding the identification of Satan with Leviathan/the dragon in Judaism and Christianity, see T. Fawcett, “The Satanic Serpent,” in his Hebrew Myth and Christian Gospel (London: SCM, 1973), pp. 96-109; C. H. Gordon, “Leviathan: Symbol of Evil,” in Biblical Motifs: Origins and Transformations, ed. A. Altmann, Studies and Texts 3 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1966), pp. 1-89; as well as J. Day, God’s Conflict with the Dragon and the Sea: Echoes of a Canaanite Myth in the Old Testament, UCOP 35 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), p. 189.

One could consider Numbers 22:22-35 as well in the light of the fact that the angel of the Lord is here said to have stood in the road as Balaam’s “adversary” (satan) (v. 22). Although the role of a satan is here referred to, the fact that it is the Lord himself who is playing this role, not a different divine being who is playing the role over against the Lord as in the other passages, sets this passage apart from the others.

“Satan” is here, as in Job, used with a definite article and thus should not be taken as a proper name. The text should probably read, “and the satan [adversary] standing at his right side.”

Pagels, however, attempts to argue that the satan here (and in 1 Chron 21) represents divisions within Israel. He is on his way to becoming the symbol for “the intimate enemy” (Origin of Satan, pp. 44-45).

See Adolphe Lods, “Les origine de la figure de satan, ses fonctions à la cour céleste,” in Mélanges syriens offerts à Monsieur René Dussaud, 2 vols. (Paris: Geuthner, 1939), 2:649-60. Even Kluger (Satan, p. 144) and Forsyth (Old Enemy, p. 115), who otherwise stress the servanthood of the satan amidst Yahweh’s council, see the beginnings of overt opposition between God and the satan in this passage. See also Pagels, “Social History of Satan,” p. 113.

The majority of scholars argue that the absence of a definite article suggests satan is here a proper name. See, e.g., Eichrodt, Theology, 2:206; H. Haag, Teufelsglaube (Tübingen: Katzmann, 1974), p. 214; J. B. Payne, “I Chronicles,” in EBC, 4:406-7; G. von Rad, “The OT View of Satan,” TDNT, 2:74. It has, however, been challenged by Day (Adversary, pp. 127-45).

Cf. Exodus 30:11-16, which reveals that undertaking a census was, within Israel, always a precarious affair.

See, e.g., S. Japhet, I & II Chronicles, OTL (Louisville, Ky.: Westminster John Knox, 1993), pp. 373-74; R. Braun, 1 Chronicles, WBC 14 (Waco, Tex.: Word, 1986), pp. 216-17.

For a discussion of the three main distinctive approaches to the issue of 2 Samuel 24:1 versus 1 Chronicles 21:1—the harmonistic, redactional and exegetical—see J. H. Sailhamer, “I Chronicles 21:1—A Study in Inter-biblical Interpretation,” TJ 10 (1989): 33-48. Here I offer one version of the harmonistic approach. This is not to deny important aspects of the exegetical approach as delineated by Sailhamer, just as he acknowledges important aspects of the harmonistic approach (pp. 39-40). See also G. L. Archer’s harmonistic argument in his Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 1982), pp. 221-22.

See, e.g., G. von Rad, Genesis, trans. J. H. Marks, rev. ed., OTL (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1972), pp. 92-93; C. Westermann, Genesis 1—11, trans. J. J. Scullion, Continental Commentary (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1984), pp. 258-61. For several studies that take issue with this conclusion, see U. Cassuto, A Commentary on the Book of Genesis, Part I: From Adam to Noah, Genesis I—VI 8, trans. I. Abrahams (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1961), pp. 139-43; V. P. Hamilton, Book of Genesis: Chapters 1—17, NICOT (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1990), pp. 196-97; M. L. Holert, “Extrinsic Evil Powers in the Old Testament” (Th.M. thesis, Fuller Theological Seminary, 1985), pp. 51-53; I. Hunt, “Fall of Man,” New Catholic Encyclopedia, ed. W. McDonald, 15 vols. (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1967), 5:816; R. W. L. Moberly, “Did the Serpent Get It Right?” JTS 39 (1988): 1-27; G. J. Wenham, Genesis 1—15, WBC 1 (Waco, Tex.: Word, 1987), p. 80.

See the various references in L. Jung, Fallen Angels in Jewish, Christian and Mohammedan Literature (New York: KTAV, 1974), pp. 68-72.

See, e.g., T. C. Vriezen, Onderzoek naar de Paradijs-Voorstelling bij de oude Semietische volken (Wageningen: Veenman & Zonen, 1937), who sees the serpent as a magical animal; F. A. Sayer, “The Image of God, the Wisdom of Serpents and the Knowledge of Good and Evil,” in A Walk in the Garden: Biblical, Iconographical and Literary Images of Eden, ed. P. Morris and D. Sawyer, JSOTSup 136 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1992), pp. 66-68; H. N. Wallace, The Eden Narrative, HSM 32 (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1985), pp. 159-61; E. van Wolde, “The Serpent in Genesis 2—3,” in her Words Become Worlds: Semantic Studies of Genesis 1—11, BIS 6 (Leiden: Brill, 1994), pp. 3-12.

For a summary see P. S. Alexander, “The Fall into Knowledge: The Garden of Eden/Paradise in Gnostic Literature,” in Walk in the Garden, pp. 91-104.

I am intentionally bypassing (because irrelevant) the thorny issue of how much of this passage is to be taken literally and how much allegorically. A plurality of views about this issue has characterized the church from the postapostolic period, but this plurality has gone largely unappreciated by fundamentalists and strongly conservative evangelicals today. For a balanced overview from an evangelical perspective, see J. J. Davis, “Genesis, Inerrancy and the Antiquity of Man,” in Inerrancy and Common Sense, ed. R. R. Nicole and J. R. Michaels (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 1980), pp. 137-59. For a still unsurpassed overview of the traditional positions, see J. Feldmann, Paradies und Sündenfall (Münster: Aschendorff, 1913), pp. 501-605.

R. S. Hendel, “Serpent,” DDD, pp. 1405-6. See also Langton, Essentials, pp. 7, 37-38. Langton argues that Numbers 21:6-8, Deuteronomy 8:15 and Isaiah 30:6, as well as Genesis 3:1 refer to demonic creatures. See also E. Williams-Forte, “The Snake and the Tree in the Iconography and Texts of Syria during the Bronze Age,” in Ancient Seals and the Bible, ed. L. Gorelick and E. Williams-Forte (Malibu: Undena, 1983), pp. 18-43; T. Fawcett, “The Satanic Serpent,” in his Hebrew Myth and Christian Gospel (London: SCM, 1973), pp. 96-100; M. J. Gruenthaner, “The Demonology of the Old Testament,” CBQ 6 (1944): 7-15.

K. J. Joines, Serpent Symbolism in the Old Testament: A Linguistic, Archaeological and Literary Study (Haddonfield, N.J.: Haddonfield, 1974), esp. pp. 26-31; F. Landy, Paradoxes of Paradise: Identity and Difference in the Song of Songs, Bible and Literature 7 (Sheffield: Almond, 1983) pp. 229-42; E. D. Van Buren, “The Dragon in Ancient Mesopotamia,” Or 15 (1946): 21.

Joines, Serpent Symbolism, p. 30. So too Landy concludes that “the venomous formlessness of the serpent is a metaphor for seditious chaos” (Paradoxes of Paradise, pp. 229-45), while Van Buren concludes that it represents “the embodiment of evil” (“Dragon in Ancient Mesopotamia,” p. 21). See also H. S. May, “The Daimonic in Jewish History [or, The Garden of Eden Revisited],” Zeitschrift für Religions- und Geistesgeschichte 23 (1971): 205-19, who concludes that the serpent is “symbolic of the power of evil” and could be used as “a concretization of covenant breaking” (p. 208).

F. Hvidberg, “The Canaanite Background of Gen. I-III,” VT 10 (1960): 288-89.

One may object that the author of Genesis 1 is different from the author of Genesis 3, and thus one would not expect consistency between the two accounts. While we cannot enter into this tangled issue here, I may simply note that even if the accounts were compiled by a later redactor to read like a continuous narrative, one would still expect consistency. Why think that later redactors had less of an eye for consistency than original authors? If we think we pick up an inconsistency that (per hypothesis) slipped by a (hypothetical) redactor, it may very well be that the slip is on our part in thinking there is a genuine inconsistency in the first place. Hence my argument that seeing the serpent as different from natural animals on the basis of Genesis 1:24-25 stands.

Several ancient Jewish works reveal a connection between the Isaianic figure and Satan (Life of Adam and Eve 15:3; 2 Enoch 29:4-5). It may be alluded to also in Luke 10:15, 18 and Revelation 12:7-12. The vast majority of early Christian interpreters made this identification, including Tertullian, Origen, Athanasius, Ambrose, Gregory of Nyssa, Gregory Nazianzus, Jerome, John Cassian, Augustine and Gregory the Great. Henceforth it became the almost (but not totally) unanimous opinion of the church until modern times. On the history of the interpretation of this passage, see G. L. Keown, “A History of the Interpretation of Isaiah 14:12-15” (Ph.D. diss., Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, 1979); J. M. Bertoluci, “The Son of the Morning and the Guardian Cherub in the Context of the Controversy Between Good and Evil” (Th.D. thesis, Andrews University, 1985), pp. 4-36. Today, however, a straightforward identification with Satan is largely limited to popular conservative works. See, e.g., M. Green, I Believe in Satan’s Downfall (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1981), pp. 39-42; S. D. Swihart, Angels in Heaven and Earth (Plainfield, N.J.: Logos International, 1979), pp. 77-80. The scholarly consensus slightly favors viewing this passage as referring exclusively to a purely historical figure, though some concede that it perhaps makes use of a mythic tradition of a cosmic rebellion in the process. Chrysostom, Luther and Calvin offer some historical precedent for this interpretation. For contemporary examples, see R. L. Allen, “Lucifer, Who or What?” JETS 11 (1968): 35-39; S. Erlandson, The Burden of Babylon: A Study of Isaiah 13:2—14:23, ConBOT 4 (Lund: Gleerup, 1970), pp. 123-25; Keown, “History of the Interpretation”; J. N. Oswalt, The Book of Isaiah, Chapters 1—39, NICOT (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1986), pp. 320-25; J. D. W. Watts, Isaiah 1—33, WBC 24 (Waco, Tex.: Word, 1985), pp. 204-12. For a comprehensive overview of various historical-critical positions, see H. R. Page Jr., The Myth of Cosmic Rebellion: A Study of Its Reflexes in Ugaritic and Biblical Literature (Leiden: Brill, 1996), pp. 9-34.

See R. J. Clifford, The Cosmic Mountain in Canaan and the Old Testament, HSM 4 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1972), pp. 164-65. The entire text is found in Corpus des tablettes en cunéiformes alphabétiques, 3 vols., ed. A. Herdner (Paris: Geuthner, 1963), 1:55-65. Some take ba-arsi in this account to refer to the underworld, not the earth. Hence Athtar is seen as becoming the prince of the underworld. See the discussion in J. W. McKay, “Helel and the Dawn-Goddess,” VT 20 (1970): 461; P. D. Hanson, The Dawn of Apocalyptic (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1977), p. 206. The most comprehensive analysis to date that argues for reading Isaiah 14 as one of the many stories of cosmic rebellion is Page, Myth of Cosmic Rebellion. For a discussion of the connection between the Isaiah account and the Athtar myth, see ibid., pp. 51-109.

Forsyth, Old Enemy, p. 135.

See G. R. Driver, Canaanite Myths and Legends, 3d ed., ed. J. C. L. Gibson (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1978 [1956]), pp. 37-45.

See Forsyth, Old Enemy, pp. 132-33; Page, Myth of Cosmic Rebellion, passim. On related Canaanite and Greek myths, see P. C. Craigie, “Helel, Athtar and Phaethon (Jes 14:12-15),” ZAW 85 (1973): 223-25; S. A. Hirsch, “Isaiah 14:12, Helel ben Shahar,” JQR 11 (1920-21): 197-99; S. H. Langdon, “The Star Helel, Jupiter? (Is 14:12),” ExpTim 42 (1930-31): 172-74; J. Morgenstern, “Mythological Background of Psalm 82,” HUCA 14 (1939): 29-126. Bertoluci (“Son of the Morning”) argues that there is no Mesopotamian, Hittite, Greek or Ugaritic myth of Helel ben Shahar that “reflects the Isaian account in its totality” (p. 109). For his analysis of extrabiblical literature, see esp. pp. 57-98. See also Keown’s analysis of nine parallel myths (Kumarbi, Seth-Horus-Osiris, Enuma Elish, Baal-Yamm-El, Athtar, Shahar and Shalim, South Arabic Athtar, and Phaeton) in “History of the Interpretation,” pp. 119-36. For other cultural variations on these myths, see K. Luomala, Oceanic, American Indian and African Myths of Snaring the Sun (Honolulu: Bishop Museum, 1940).

On Zaphon as the mountain upon which the divine assembly met, see M. H. Pope, Job, 3d ed. (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1973), p. 183. On the Canaanite background to Elyon, see Day, God’s Conflict, pp. 129-38.

Forsyth, Old Enemy, p. 138.

Bertoluci, “Son of the Morning,” pp. 301-2.

K. L. Schmidt, “Lucifer als gefallene Engelmacht,” TZ 7 (1951): 161-79, translated by Bertoluci, “Son of the Morning,” p. 303. Even Eichrodt (Theology, 2:207) concedes that in this passage, as well as in Genesis 3 and 6:1-4, “there are glimmerings of the idea of a superhuman being hostile to God.”

The phrase may also be a question, as the NIV indicates: “Are you wiser than Daniel? Is no secret hidden from you?”

See Forsyth, Old Enemy, pp. 140-41; Page, Myth of Cosmic Rebellion, pp. 148-58.

On the parallels with the Eden account in Genesis 2—3, see W. Eichrodt, Ezekiel: A Commentary, trans. C. Quin, OTL (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1970), pp. 392-93; N. C. Habel, “Ezekiel 28 and the Fall of the First Man,” Concordia Theological Monthly 38 (1967): 516-24; J. L. McKenzie, “Mythical Allusions in Ezek. 28:12-18,” JBL 75 (1956): 322-27; H. G. May, “The King in the Garden of Eden: A Study of Ezekiel 28:12-19,” in Israel’s Prophetic Heritage: Essays in Honor of James Muilenburg, ed. B. W. Anderson and W. Harrelson (New York: Harper, 1962), pp. 166-76; A. J. Williams, “The Mythological Background of Ezekiel 28:12-19,” BTB 6 (1976): 49-61. The Masoretic text’s equation of the king and the cherub is now generally rejected. See L. C. Allen, Ezekiel 20—48, WBC 29 (Dallas: Word, 1990), p. 95; W. Zimmerli, Ezekiel II, trans. J. D. Martin, Hermeneia (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1983), p. 90.

For several cited parallels, see Day, God’s Conflict, pp. 93-95.

J. Levenson, Creation and the Persistence of Evil (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1988), pp. 18-19.

For an exhaustive overview of angels in the world’s religious literature, see G. Davidson, A Dictionary of Angels, Including the Fallen Angels (New York: Free Press, 1967).

Calvinists have frequently taken Romans 9:18-21 to be an example of God doing what I here deny God is doing: telling human questioners to be stoically silent in the face of radical evil—indeed, in the face of the prospect of their own divinely preordained eternal damnation. On the Calvinist reading, God simply exercises his “right” to choose some people for eternal salvation and “passes over” others, leaving them to eternal damnation. No one can (or had better) question his character in doing so! To an increasing number of modern exegetes, this way of reading Romans 9 is rooted in a myopic, decontextualized and anachronistic understanding of Paul’s purpose in the book of Romans as a whole. See, e.g., the excellent discussion by J. D. G. Dunn in Romans 9—16, WBC 38B (Dallas: Word, 1988), pp. 521-76. See also J. D. Strauss, “God’s Promise and Universal History: The Theology of Romans 9,” in Grace Unlimited, ed. C. H. Pinnock (Minneapolis: Bethany, 1975), pp. 190-208.

Such shall be my task in the forthcoming Satan and the Problem of Evil.

Some works that develop and defend aspects of the thesis I here espouse and that I have found to be most helpful (though not necessarily agreeable) are W. Wink, Naming the Powers: The Language of Power in the New Testament (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984); C. E. Arnold, Powers of Darkness: Principalities and Powers in Paul’s Letters (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1992); J. Kallas, Jesus and the Power of Satan (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1968); idem, The Significance of the Synoptic Miracles (Greenwich, Conn.: Seabury, 1961); G. Wingren, The Living Word: A Theological Study of Preaching and the Church, trans. V. C. Pogue, (Philadelphia: Muhlenberg, 1960 [1949]); N. Forsyth, The Old Enemy: Satan and the Combat Myth (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987), esp. pp. 248-306; J. B. Russell, The Devil: Perceptions of Evil from Antiquity to Primitive Christianity (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1977); T. Longman III and D. G. Reid, God Is a Warrior (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 1995); G. B. Caird, Principalities and Powers: A Study in Pauline Theology (Oxford: Clarendon, 1956); H. Berkhof, Christ and the Powers (Scottdale, Penn.: Herald, 1962); O. Böcher, Dämonenfurcht und Dämonenabwehr: Ein Beitrag zur Vorgeschichte der christlichen Taufe, BWANT 5 (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1970); idem, Das Neue Testament und die dämonischen Mächte (Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1972); idem, Christus Exorcista (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1972); T. Ling, The Significance of Satan: New Testament Demonology and Its Contemporary Significance (London: SPCK, 1961); H. Schlier, Principalities and Powers in the New Testament (New York: Herder and Herder, 1961); J. M. Robinson, The Problem of History in Mark, and Other Marcan Studies (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1982), esp. pp. 69-115.

On the covenantal theology that lies behind this conception, see G. W. Buchanan, The Consequences of the Covenant, NovTSup 20 (Leiden: Brill, 1970), pp. 123-31; as well as D. R. Hillers, Covenant: The History of a Biblical Idea (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1969), pp. 120-42.

For several important collections of essays that serve to chronicle the history of the discussion of apocalyptic in the twentieth century, see R. W. Funk, ed., Apocalypticism, JTC 6 (New York: Herder and Herder, 1969); K. Koch and J. M. Schmidt, eds., Apokalyptik (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgeselllschaft, 1982); P. D. Hanson, ed., Visionaries and Their Apocalypses, IRT (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1983); D. Hellholm, ed., Apocalypticism in the Mediterranean World and the Near East: Proceedings of the International Colloquium on Apocalypticism, Uppsala, August 12-17, 1979 (Tübingen: Mohr, 1983); J. J. Collins and J. H. Charlesworth, eds., Mysteries and Revelations: Apocalyptic Studies Since the Uppsala Colloquium, JSPSup 9 (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1991). For an excellent up-to-date survey of the issues and bibliography, see F. J. Murphy, “Apocalypses and Apocalypticism: The State of the Question,” Currents in Research: Biblical Studies 2 (1994): 147-79. For the following material on the origin and nature of apocalyptic thought I am heavily indebted to the research and insight of my colleague and friend Paul Eddy.

On the problem of definition, see T. F. Glasson, “What Is Apocalyptic?” NTS 27 (1980): 98-105; R. E. Sturm, “Defining the Word ‘Apocalyptic’: A Problem in Biblical Criticism,” in Apocalyptic and the New Testament: Essays in Honor of J. Louis Martyn, ed. J. Marcus and M. L. Soards, JSNTSup 24 (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1989), pp. 17-48. The 1979 colloquium on apocalyptic failed to reach an agreed-upon definition. See D. Hellholm, “Introduction,” in Apocalypticism in the Mediterranean World, p. 2.

The distinction goes back to P. D. Hanson, “Apocalypticism,” IDBSup, pp. 28-31.

G. Boccaccini, “Jewish Apocalyptic Tradition: The Contribution of Italian Scholarship,” in Mysteries and Revelations, pp. 36-37.

For helpful introductions to Zoroastrianism, see M. Boyce, Zoroastrians: Their Religious Beliefs and Practices (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1979); and especially S. A. Nigosian, The Zoroastrian Faith: Tradition and Modern Research (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1993). For excerpts of some Zoroastrian texts commonly associated with Jewish apocalyptic themes, see M. Boyce, ed. and trans., Textual Sources for the Study of Zoroastrianism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990), pp. 80-94.

So it is portrayed, for example, in W. Bousset, Die Religion des Judentums im späthellenischtischen Zeitalter, ed. H. Gressmann, 3d ed. (Tübingen: Mohr/Siebeck, 1926); as well as H. Mills, Zarathustra, Philo, the Achaemenids and Israel (New York: AMS, rpt. 1977); idem, Avesta Eschatology Compared with the Books of Daniel and Revelation (Chicago: Open Court, 1908). Versions of this view still run strong among post-Bultmannian New Testament scholars. See, e.g., H. D. Betz, “On the Problem of the Religio-historical Understanding of Apocalypticism,” in Apocalypticism, ed. Funk, pp. 134-56. On the fallaciousness of construing an exclusivistic monotheism as being “purer” than a form of monotheism that allows for the existence of other lesser good or evil gods, see chapter four above.

See G. von Rad, Old Testament Theology, trans. D. M. G. Stalker, 2 vols. (New York: Harper & Row, 1962-1965), 2:301-15; idem, Wisdom in Israel, trans. J. D. Martin (Nashville: Abingdon, 1972), esp. pp. 263-83. The thesis is also defended by J. Gammie, “Spatial and Ethical Dualism in Jewish Wisdom and Apocalyptic Literature,” JBL 93 (1974): 356-85.

H. H. Rowley, The Relevance of Apocalyptic: A Study of Jewish and Christian Apocalypse from Daniel to the Revelation, rev. ed. (New York: Association, 1963); F. M. Cross, “New Directions in the Study of Apocalyptic,” in Apocalypticism, ed. Funk, pp. 157-65; P. D. Hanson, The Dawn of Apocalyptic: The Historical and Sociological Roots of Jewish Apocalyptic Eschatology (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1975); idem, “Old Testament Apocalyptic Reexamined,” Int 25 (1971): 454-79.

In addition to Rowley, Cross and Hanson cited above, see L. C. Allen, “Some Prophetic Antecedents of Apocalyptic Eschatology and Their Hermeneutical Value,” Ex Auditu 6 (1990): 15-28; Forsyth, Old Enemy, pp. 142-46; D. S. Russell, The Method and Message of Jewish Apocalyptic, OTL (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1964), pp. 92-95; D. G. Johnson, From Chaos to Restoration: An Integrative Analysis of Isaiah 24—27, JSOTSup 61 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1988). For a recent study of the connection between Old Testament “proto-apocalyptic” material and the earliest Jewish apocalyptic writings, see E. J. C. Tigchelaar, Prophets of Old and the Day of the End: Zechariah, the Book of Watchers and Apocalyptic, OTS 35 (Leiden: Brill, 1996). An increasing number of scholars have been attempting to combine this thesis with elements from the earlier syncretistic view. See, e.g., J. H. Charlesworth, “Folk Traditions in Jewish Apocalyptic Literature,” in Mysteries and Revelations, pp. 91-113; J. J. Collins, “Jewish Apocalyptic Against Its Hellenistic Near Eastern Environment,” BASOR 220 (Dec. 1975): 27-36; R. Bauckham, “The Rise of Apocalyptic,” Themelios 3, no. 2 (1978): 10-23; H. S. Kvanvig, Roots of Apocalyptic: The Mesopotamian Background of the Enoch Figure and the Son of Man, WMANT 61 (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener, 1988); D. Winston, “The Iranian Component in the Bible, Apocrypha and Qumran: A Review of the Evidence,” History of Religions 5, no. 2 (1966): 192-94.

See, e.g., S. Shaked, “Iranian Influence on Judaism: First Century B.C.E. to Second Century C.E.,” in The Cambridge History of Judaism, vol. 1, Introduction: The Persian Period, ed. W. D. Davies and L. Finkelstein (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), pp. 308-25; and J. R. Hinnells, “Zoroastrian Influence on the Judeo-Christian Tradition,” Journal of the K. R. Cama Oriental Institute 45 (1976): 1-23. With some justification, Hinnells elsewhere points out that many of the earlier assessments were affected by an anti-Christian prejudice that saw in the Zoroastrian influence theory an opportunity to undermine the uniqueness of Christianity. See “Iranian Influence upon the New Testament,” in Commémoration Cyrus, hommage universel, ed. A. Pagliaro et al., Acta Iranica 2 (Leiden: Brill, 1974), 2:272.

E. Yamauchi, Persia and the Bible (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 1990), pp. 458-66. See also J. Barr, “The Question of Religious Influence: The Case of Zoroastrianism, Judaism and Christianity,” JAAR 53 [1985]: 201-35, who argues that the parallels are superficial at best. Some have argued that this is true even of the “two spirits motif,” though this has long been considered the most obvious example of Zoroastrian influence. This influential motif is found in the Qumran Manual of Discipline (1QS) and the War Scroll (1QM) and throughout the early Christian tradition. See H. G. May, “Cosmological Reference in the Qumran Doctrine of the Two Spirits and in Old Testament Imagery,” JBL 82 (1963): 1-14; G. W. E. Nickelsburg, Resurrection, Immortality and Eternal Life in Intertestamental Judaism (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1972).

Indeed, according to Yamauchi (Persia and the Bible, pp. 464-66), many of the important Zoroastrian texts are dated as late as the fifth to the ninth century. For a recent thorough discussion, see J. G. Griffiths, The Divine Verdict: A Study of Divine Judgment in the Ancient Religions, SHR 52 (Leiden: Brill, 1991), pp. 250-53.

D. Wolfer, Deep Things out of Darkness: The Book of Job (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1995), pp. 51-54, argues for a date in the early seventh century B.C., as does J. E. Hartley, The Book of Job, NICOT (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1988), pp. 17-20. Similarly, M. H. Pope concludes that the most likely date for the Dialogue is the seventh century B.C. (Job, 3d ed., AB 15 [Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1973], p. xl). N. M. Sarna (“Epic Substratum in the Prose of Job,” JBL 76 [1957]: 13-25) concludes that the apparent patriarchal setting “must be regarded as genuine and as belonging to the original saga. In brief, the considerable amount of epic substratum indicates that our present narrative framework is directly derived from an ancient “epic of Job” (p. 25). Even G. von Rad minimizes the extent of Persian influence on Job on the basis of the antiquity of the satan material found in the prologue. See his “OT View of Satan,” TDNT, 2:74.

Later Zoroastrianism (viz., that of the Pahlavi texts of the Sassanian period, third to seventh century A.D.) is clearly dualistic, but it is debated to what extent this can be read back into original Zoroastrianism. For a complete discussion, see J. W. Boyd and D. A. Crosby, “Is Zoroastrianism Dualistic or Monotheistic?” JAAR 47 (1979): 557-88.

Yamauchi, Persia and the Bible, p. 460. So R. S. Kluger, Satan in the Old Testament, trans. H. Nagel, Studies in Jungian Thought 7 (Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, 1967), p. 156, who agrees that “if one looks at the two figures— that of the Old Testament Satan and of the Angra Mainyu of the Persian religion— not as separate entities but as embedded in the whole religious pattern, a fundamental difference is apparent.”

So Kvanvig writes: “the apocalyptic universe emerged in a moment when evil was experienced as a power transgressing human limits. It was the experience of non-human evil. . . . As a result, a new kind of hope arose in Jewish society, by which the transcendental impact of evil was confronted with a transcendental power of justice” (Roots of Apocalyptic, p. 613). See also D. Russell, Method and Message, pp. 237-38; idem, “Demonology and the Problem of Evil,” in his From Early Judaism to Early Church (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1986), pp. 85-98; Kallas, Synoptic Miracles, pp. 52-53; E. Langton, Essentials of Demonology: A Study of the Jewish and Christian Doctrine, Its Origin and Development (London: Epworth, 1949), p. 57; J. Russell, Devil, pp. 185-86.

On the development of Jewish angelology and demonology during this time, see G. A. Barton, “The Origin of the Names of the Angels and Demons in the Extra-canonical Apocalyptic Literature to 100 A.D.,” JBL 31 (1912): 156-57; A. Piñero, “Angels and Demons in the Greek Life of Adam and Eve,” JSJ 24 (1993): 191-214; M. J. Davidson, Angels at Qumran: A Comparative Study of I Enoch 1—36, 72—108 and Sectarian Writings from Qumran, JSPSup 11 (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1992); H. B. Kuhn, “The Angelology of the Non-canonical Jewish Apocalypses,” JBL 67 (1948): 217-32.

I am here following the majority view that the Genesis accounts precede the account in 1 Enoch, though the position is not without its detractors. For discussions see P. S. Alexander and P. Hanson, “Rebellion in Heaven, Azazel, and Euhemeristic Heroes in 1 Enoch 6—11,” JBL 96 (1977): 195-233; G. W. E. Nickelsburg, “Apocalyptic and Myth in 1 Enoch 6—11,” JBL 96 (1977): 383-405; P. S. Alexander, “The Targumim and Early Exegesis of the ‘Sons of God’ in Genesis 6,” JJS 23 (1972): 60-71. First Enoch 1—36 (commonly referred to as “The Book of the Watchers”) provides the fullest account of the Watcher Angels, but they are also found in Jubilees, Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs, Life of Adam and Eve and 2 Enoch, with hints found elsewhere. For discussions see J. Russell, Devil, pp. 186ff.; Forsyth, Old Enemy, pp. 160-91; F. Gokey, The Terminology for the Devil and Evil Spirits in the Apostolic Fathers, Patristic Studies 93 (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America, 1961), pp. 10-13; J. J. Collins, The Apocalyptic Imagination: An Introduction to the Jewish Matrix of Christianity (New York: Crossroad, 1987), pp. 36-46; S. Kvanvig, “The Book of Watchers,” in his Roots of Apocalyptic, pp. 85-104; M. E. Mills, “Enoch and the Watchers,” in her Human Agents of Cosmic Power in Hellenistic Judaism and the Synoptic Tradition, JSPSup 41 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1990), pp. 63-77.

See esp. Jubilees 4:15ff. R. Murray has argued that the angelic “watcher” concept can be linguistically traced back to the ancient notion of “guardian gods” who watch over their respective nations/peoples (“The Origin of Aramaic ‘îr, Angel,’” Or 53 [1984]: 303-17).

This account of the origin of evil spirits is found in 1 Enoch 15:8; Jubilees 5:2; 2 Enoch 18:2-5. On demons in intertestamental literature, see E. Ferguson, Demonology of the Early Christian World (New York: Mellen, 1980), pp. 74-78.

The same is true of other apocalyptic accounts of the Fall. So 2 Enoch 29:4-5 (though it also recites the Watcher tradition in chap. 18). So too the Life of Adam 12—17, which attributes Satan’s fall to jealousy over Adam, a story that was eventually to override the Watcher tradition in the early church.

Jubilees 2:2. See Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament, 2 vols., ed. R. H. Charles (Oxford: Clarendon, 1912), 1:13-14.

Testament of Adam 4:2. See OTP, 2:995.

For example, 1 Enoch refers to “spirits” of thunder, sea, frost, snow, mist, dew, wind and rain (60:15-22; 61:10; 66:2; 69:22), as well as angels in charge of seasons (87:7-20). Second Enoch refers to angels of fire, hail, wind, lightning, whirlwinds, snow, rain, day and night, sun, moon, planets and constellations (19:1-6; cf. 15:1). And 4 Ezra speaks of angels of wind, fire and the firmament (6:21; 8:21). On this see J. Daniélou, The Theology of Jewish Christianity, trans. and ed. J. A. Baker (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1964), pp. 181-84; L. Osborn, “Entertaining Angels: Their Place in Contemporary Theology,” TynBul 45 (1994): 286-87.

Wink, Unmasking the Powers, p. 157. Philo identifies each angel of a species with a Platonic form in De Confusione Linguarum 171-75 and De Cherubim 51. For a discussion of similar views in the rabbinic literature, see P. Schäfer, Rivalität zwischen Engeln und Menschen: Untersuchungen zur rabbinischen Engelvorstellung (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1975), pp. 56-59; and in early church history, see J. Daniélou, The Angels and Their Mission, trans. D. Heimann (Westminster, Md.: Newman, 1953) pp. 68-82. The New Testament clearly shared the first-century apocalyptic belief in the importance of angels (see, e.g., Mk 1:13; Mt 4:6, 11; 13:39-49; Jn 1:51; Acts 7:53; Rom 8:38; 1 Cor 4:9; 11:10; 13:1; 2 Cor 11:14; Gal 1:8; 3:19; 1 Thess 4:16; 2 Thess 1:7; Heb 13:2). Jesus affirmed the existence of guardian angels (Mt 18:10; 26:53) as does the author of Hebrews (1:14). But on the whole the New Testament does not follow the apocalyptic tradition in linking particular angels with particular natural phenomena (though see Rev 7:1; 16:5; 19:17; Heb 1:7? and the Jn 5:4 insertion).

On the free will strand, see, e.g., Sirach 15:14-16, which states that the Lord “created humankind in the beginning, and he left them in the power of their own free choice. If you choose, you can keep the commandments, and to act faithfully is a matter of your own choice. He has placed before you fire and water; stretch out your hand for whichever you choose.” Cf., e.g., also 1 Maccabees 9:30; 12:1; 2 Maccabees 4:38; 5:9; 15:32-33; Wisdom of Solomon 7:7-10; Judith 5:17; Psalms of Solomon 9. Even within apocalyptic texts (e.g., Testament of Simeon 5:2; Testament of Levi 19:1; 2 Apocalypse of Baruch 19:1-3; 54:15, 19; 2 Enoch 7:3) and at Qumran we find strong statements affirming human choice and responsibility (e.g., 1QH 4.6, 24; 5.9; 13.16; 14.26; 16.10). On the deterministic strand, however, see, e.g., Jubilees 10:6, which speaks of evil beings being “created to destroy,” while 15:31 adds that over each nation God has “caused spirits to rule so that they might lead them to stray.” See OTP, 2:76, 87. For discussions on predestination and election in the Qumran scrolls, see E. H. Merrill, Qumran and Predestination: A Theological Study of the Thanksgiving Hymns, STDJ 8 (Leiden: Brill, 1975); D. Dimant, “Qumran Sectarian Literature,” in The Literature of the Jewish People in the Period of the Second Temple and the Talmud, vol. 2, Jewish Writings of the Second Temple Period, ed. M. E. Stone, CRINT 2 (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984), pp. 536-38.

See A. E. Sekki, The Meaning of Rua at Qumran, SBLDS 110 (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1989). Sekki argues in meticulous fashion that there is a crucial difference intended between when rûa? is spoken of in the feminine and in the masculine case. When the masculine is used it refers to an angel or demon; when the feminine is used it refers to a human disposition. In more deterministic texts (e.g., 1QS 3-4) the feminine is used. On the basis of parallels with 4Q186, this usage suggests an astrological determinism for humans (see J. M. Allegro, “An Astrological Cryptic Document from Qumran,” JTS 9 [1964]: 291-94), but it does not imply general cosmic determinism.

See Merrill, Qumran and Predestination, pp. 45-58; J. J. Collins, “The Origin of Evil in Apocalyptic Literature and the Dead Sea Scrolls,” in Congress Volume, Paris 1992, ed. J. A. Emerton, VTSup 61 (Leiden: Brill, 1995), pp. 25-38; D. A. Carson, Divine Sovereignty and Human Responsibility (Atlanta: John Knox, 1981), pp. 45-83; and esp. G. Maier, Mensch und freier Wille: Nach den jüdischen Religionsparteien zwischen Ben Sira und Paulus, WUNT 12 (Tübingen: Mohr/Siebeck, 1971), who attempts to trace the two strands back to two biblical anthropological motifs, one (Gen 1:26-27) “optimistic” and the other (Gen 2:7) “pessimistic.” I argue that rarely did the “pessimistic” motif work itself out into full-blown determinism. Where we do find full-blown determinism, we have grounds for suspecting that it had more to do with astrological assumptions than biblical teachings. See Allegro, “Astrological Cryptic Document.”

Kallas, Synoptic Miracles, p. 54.

W. F. Albright, From the Stone Age to Christianity: Monotheism and the Historical Process, 2d ed. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1957), p. 362.

The identification of this “highest mediating agent” differs between (and even within) apocalyptic texts. For example, 1 Enoch identifies Azazel and Semjaza as leaders of the rebel angels but also speaks of a group of fallen angels called satans (adversaries) headed up by Satan. Jubilees speaks of Mastema but also speaks of the fallen angels being under Satan. Tobit speaks of Asmodeus (who purportedly was in love with a young woman and killed all prospective husbands, 3:8; 6:13-14), a name that also appears in the rabbinic literature. Second Enoch speaks of Satanail, whereas the Martyrdom of Isaiah refers to Sammael along with Beliar and Satan. On this, see esp. Barton, “Origin of the Names,” as well as Ling, Significance of Satan, p. 9; Ferguson, Demonology, pp. 76-78; Langton, Essentials, pp. 119-38; H. Gaylord, “How Satanel Lost His ‘El,’” JJS 33 (1982): 303-9; W. Foerster, “The Later Jewish View of Satan,” in “d??ß????,” TDNT, 2:75-79; J. Russell, Devil, pp. 188-89; S. V. McCasland, “The Black One,” in Early Christian Origins: Studies in Honor of Harold R. Willoughby, ed. A. Wikgren (Chicago: Quadrangle, 1961), pp. 77-80; C. Molenberg, “A Study of the Roles of Shemihaza and Asael in 1 Enoch 6—11,” JJS 35 (1984): 136-46.

Though the members of the infamous Jesus Seminar claim that one of the seven “pillars of scholarly wisdom” is the view that the historical Jesus’ thought world was noneschatological (see R. W. Funk, R. W. Hover and the Jesus Seminar, The Five Gospels: The Search for the Authentic Words of Jesus [New York: Macmillan, 1993], p. 4), J. H. Charlesworth is certainly correct in affirming that “one of the strongest consensuses in New Testament research” involves the conviction that Jesus’ teaching was fundamentally apocalyptic. See his “Jesus Research Expands with Chaotic Creativity,” in Images of Jesus Today, ed. J. H. Charlesworth and W. P. Weaver (Valley Forge, Penn.: Trinity, 1994), p. 10. For a critique of the post-Bultmannian view of Jesus as noneschatological, see my Cynic, Sage or Son of God? Recovering the Real Jesus in an Age of Revisionist Replies (Wheaton, Ill.: Bridgepoint, 1995), pp. 55-56, 145-50; as well as P. R. Eddy, “Jesus as Diogenes? Reflections of the Cynic Jesus Thesis,” JBL 115 (1996): 449-69; and L. Johnson, The Misguided Quest for the Historical Jesus and the Truth of the Traditional Gospels (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1995). For several good arguments for an apocalyptic Jesus, see B. F. Meyer, Christus Faber: The Master-Builder and the House of God (Allison Park, Penn.: Pickwick, 1992), pp. 41-80; E. P. Sanders, Jesus and Judaism (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1985), pp. 222-41, 319-40; B. Witherington, Jesus, Paul and the End of the World: A Comparative Study in New Testament Eschatology (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1992), pp. 59-74, 170-80.

Arnold, Powers of Darkness, p. 81. The phrase is used of Beliar in Martyrdom of Isaiah 2:4 (an early first-century apocalyptic work). See J. H. Charlesworth, “A Critical Comparison of the Dualism in IQS 3:13—4:26 and the ‘Dualism’ Contained in the Gospel of John,” in John and the Dead Sea Scrolls, ed. Charlesworth (New York: Crossroad, 1990), pp. 76-106. Charlesworth’s attempt to demonstrate that John represents a move away from a “hypostatic” personal view of the devil strikes me as forced.

See H. Bietenhard, Die himmlische Welt im Urchristentum und Spätjudentum, WUNT 2 (Tübingen: Mohr, 1951), pp. 114-15; Kallas, Synoptic Miracles, p. 62.

The frequent apocalyptic notion that a particular angel was given charge over all creation may be behind the Synoptics’ concept of the world being “given” to Satan. See Daniélou, Jewish Christianity, pp. 188-89; Gokey, Terminology, p. 50. Many in the early postapostolic church held this view. See Daniélou, Angels and Their Mission, pp. 45-46. In this case, Satan must be seen as telling the truth when he says that all the kingdoms of the world were given to him. In other words, he did not steal the world, as Kallas maintains (Synoptic Miracles, p. 54), and in this sense his power over the world cannot in and of itself be said to be “illegitimate,” as I claimed above. Nevertheless, Satan’s evil tyranny over the world can be seen as illegitimate even if his God-given authority itself is not.

Beelzebul (and its forms Beezebul, Beelzebub) was a frequent name for the ruler of the demonic kingdom in the Talmud, as well as in the Testament of Solomon. There has been much discussion and little agreement as to the etymology of this term and its forms. For several summary discussions with various suggested solutions, see T. J. Lewis, “Beelzebul,” ABD, 1:638-40; W. E. M. Aitken, “Beelzebul,” JBL 31 (1912): 34-53; W. Foerster, “beelzebouvl,” TDNT, 1:605-06; L. Gaston, “Beelzebul,” TZ 18 (1962): 247-55; P. L. Day, An Adversary in Heaven: Satan in the Hebrew Bible, HSM 43 (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1988), pp. 151-59; E. C. B. MacLaurin, “Beelzebul,” NovT 20 (April 1978): 156-60; S. J. Wright, “Satan, Beelzebul, Devil, Exorcism,” NIDNTT, 3:468-76. For a superb argument that this Q pericope essentially goes back to the historical Jesus, see J. D. G. Dunn, “Matthew 12:28/Luke 11:20—A Word of Jesus?” in Eschatology and the New Testament: Essays in Honor of George Raymond Beasley-Murray, ed. W. H. Gloer (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1988), pp. 29-49. The accusation that Jesus was possessed by Satan or a demon is repeated in John 7:20; 8:48, 52; and 10:20. It should be noted that the response to the charge in 10:21, “Can a demon open the eyes of the blind?” recalls Mark 3:24 and is predicated on the assumption that blindness is itself a demonic work.

Arnold sees this verse as the key to understanding Christ’s ministry. “Christ has come to engage this ‘strong man’ and plunder his house: that is, to release the captives in Satan’s kingdom” (Powers of Darkness, p. 79). See also J. Ramsey Michaels, “Jesus and the Unclean Spirits,” in Demon Possession, ed. J. W. Montgomery (Minneapolis: Bethany, 1976), p. 53. E. Ferguson sums up well the picture of the world and of Jesus’ ministry assumed in this passage when he notes that this world is “enemy-occupied territory; Satan as its ruler has a fortress to protect his ill-gotten possessions. But there comes one stronger than he. The conqueror liberates the fortress, takes away Satan’s power, and takes over his possessions for his own use” (Demonology of the Early Christian World, pp. 22-23). See also E. Pagels, The Origin of Satan (New York: Random House, 1995), p. 20.

J. Newport, response to Michaels in Demon Possession, p. 90. Forsyth argues that demons are portrayed in the Gospels as “a sort of loosely organized army under their general, Satan” (Old Enemy, p. 293; cf. p. 295). See also J. Russell, Devil, p. 237; Gokey, Terminology, p. 50; Kallas, Synoptic Miracles, pp. 67-68. Ling argues that the Gospels differ from previous apocalyptic literature precisely in the intensity with which they affirm that the kingdom of evil is a unified kingdom and focus most of their attention on the head of this kingdom, Satan (Significance of Satan, pp. 12-22). Roy Yates also sees this as one of the main contributions of the Gospels. For Jesus, “exorcisms are no longer to be seen as isolated victories over a series of autonomous demons. . . . Jesus does not have an atomistic view of the world of evil, but sees it as a unity under Satan, whose power is beginning to crumble” (“The Powers of Evil in the New Testament,” EvQ 52, no. 2 [1980]: 99).

See Ferguson, Demonology, p. 12.

The passage likely means that the success of the disciples’ exorcism ministry was evidence that Satan’s kingdom was on its way down. So argues G. E. Ladd, Jesus and the Kingdom (New York: Harper & Row, 1964), pp. 145ff.; and Forsyth, Old Enemy, pp. 294-95. Ling argues that Jesus was here drawing the disciples’ attention away from their ability to cast out individual demons to “the fact that the kingdom of evil in its entirety was being conquered in the exercise of the authority which was theirs in his name” (Significance of Satan, p. 18). Julian Hills, however, argues in the opposite direction. Jesus was, in effect, saying that the disciples were successful in their exorcisms because the demons saw that their leader was already being dethroned by Jesus’ exorcist ministry. See J. V. Hills, “Luke 10:18—Who Saw Satan Fall?” JSNT 46 (1992): 25-40. This verse, incidentally, is the only reference to the fall of Satan in the Gospels, and it is clearly not about his original fall. This absence of speculation sets the Gospels apart from the apocalyptic literature of their time. That Satan was a fallen angel, however, seems to be taken for granted by the Gospel authors and is made more explicit in other New Testament literature (1 Tim 3:6; Jude 6, 8-10; 2 Pet 2:4; Eph 2:2; 2 Cor 11:13-14).

So Ferguson correctly notes in commenting on this passage, “Evil may have varied manifestations, but ultimately there is only one principle of evil. Instead of a world dominated by many warring demons (a pagan and polytheistic conception), Jesus saw one kingdom of Satan. . . . Jesus saw his work as demonstrating that the whole dominion of evil was being conquered. The demons functioned as part of a larger whole, the dominion of the devil” (Demonology, p. 20).

Later rabbinical tradition had it that demons “surround us like the ridge round a field . . . every one among us has 1,000 on his left hand and 10,000 on his right hand.” Moreover, all manner of evil is attributed to them, everything from weakening in the knees to clothes wearing out to sore feet. See Babylonian Talmud Berakot 6a, cited in Ferguson, Demonology, p. 89. It is unlikely that something of this tradition does not extend back to the first century.

Langton, Essentials, p. 147.

Some take John 9:1-5 to be an exception to this. I argue against this interpretation in chapter seven. But even if this passage does presuppose a divine purpose for this particular person’s blindness, this only slightly qualifies the point being made here.

For several informative discussions on the connection between sickness and Satanic/demonic activity in the New Testament, see R. Brown, “The Gospel Miracles,” in his New Testament Essays (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1968), pp. 222-28; E. Yamauchi, “Magic or Miracle? Diseases, Demons and Exorcisms,” in The Miracles of Jesus, ed. D. Wenham and C. Blomberg, GP 6 (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1986), pp. 92-93; D. S. Russell, From Early Judaism to Early Church, (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1986), pp. 90-93; and esp. P. H. Davids, “Sickness and Suffering in the New Testament,” in Wrestling with Dark Angels: Toward a Deeper Understanding of the Supernatural Forces in Spiritual Warfare, ed. C. P. Wagner and F. D. Pennoyer (Ventura, Calif.: Regal, 1990), pp. 215-37. There is now strong evidence that first-century Jews (hence perhaps Jesus himself) were assisted in their inclination to think of sickness and disease as demonically induced by the “Solomon/Son of David as exorcist and healer” tradition. J. H. Charlesworth has noted: “We possess traditions that may well derive from the first century C.E. in which Solomon is hailed as an exorcist who controls demons and the sickness, including blindness, they cause” (“The Son of David: Solomon and Jesus [Mark 10:47],” unpublished paper presented to the Jesus Seminar, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, N.J., Oct. 1992, p. 12). See also D. C. Duling, “Solomon, Exorcism and the Son of David,” HTR 68 (1975): 235-52. Thus it may be that Jesus’ title as the “Son of David” is linked with his reputation as a healer/exorcist. See L. Fisher, “Can This Be the Son of David?” in Jesus and the Historian: Written in Honor of Ernest Cadman Colwell, ed. F. T. Trotter (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1968), pp. 82-87. For evidence of the prevalence within rabbinic Judaism of the view that much sickness was the result of demonic activity, see H. L. Strack and P. Billerbeck, Kommentar zum Neuen Testament aus Talmud und Midrasch, 5 vols. (Munich: Beck, 1922-61), 4:501-35.

Kallas, Synoptic Miracles, p. 63.

“Gospel Miracles,” p. 224.

Ibid. Cf. Kallas, Synoptic Miracles, p. 79.

For references, see BAGD, p. 495.

My translation. The NIV translates mastix as “flogging” in Acts 22:24 and Hebrews 11:36, and the verbs mastizw and mastigo w as “to flog” in Matthew 10:17; 20:19; 23:34; Mark 10:34; 15:15; Luke 18:32; John 19:1; Acts 22:24-25; and as “to punish” in Hebrews 12:6. But it translates mastix as “suffering,” “disease” and “sicknesses” in the Gospels (Mk 3:10; 5:29, 34; Lk 7:21). Such a translation loses the unique force of this rather unusual usage of this word.

See also Mark 9:29 (parallel Mt 17:21), where Jesus assumes there are different “kinds” of demons.

J. Ramsey Michaels argues on the basis of redaction criticism that possessions became a category of disease, and exorcism a category of healing, by the time Matthew and Luke appropriated Mark’s Gospel. Hence too he argues that Paul does not mention exorcism as one of the gifts of the Spirit because by this time it was subsumed under the category of healing (1 Cor 12:9-10, 38-39). See “Jesus and the Unclean Spirits,” p. 50. If one accepts Markan priority, his case perhaps has some merit. For example, Mark 1:32-34 mentions the “sick or possessed with demons,” whereas the parallels in Matthew and Luke mention only those “possessed with demons” (Mt 8:16-17; Lk 4:40-41; cf. Mk 1:39; Mt 4:23; Lk 4:44; and Mk 3:7-12; Mt 4:24-25; Lk 6:17-19).

Against Böcher, neither this passage nor the evidence in the Synoptics as a whole necessarily implies that all sicknesses and diseases were seen as being the direct result of Satanic activity (though some obviously were; cf. Lk 13:16; 2 Cor 12:7). See O. Böcher, Dämonenfurcht und Dämonenabwehr (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1970), pp. 316-17; idem, Christus Exorcista (Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1972), pp. 16, 70. But it does entail that all disorders were seen as being at least the indirect result of Satan’s having taken the world hostage. Hence in coming against them (by healing), Jesus was coming against one crucial aspect of Satan’s reign. For two critical and balanced reviews of Böcher’s argument, see L. Sabourin, “The Miracles of Jesus II: Jesus and the Evil Powers,” BTB 4, no. 2 (1974): 115-75, and Yamauchi, “Magic or Miracle?” pp. 92-93. On the distinction between demonization and physical illness, see Ferguson, Demonology, pp. 4-5.

Kallas, Synoptic Miracles, p. 66.

Wingren, Living Word, p. 53; cf. p. 167.

The centrality of Satan and the cosmic/spiritual warfare motif in the New Testament received an unprecedented amount of attention just prior to, during and after World War II. The classic statement of this position is Gustaf Aulen’s Christus Victor, trans. A. Hebert (New York: Macmillan, 1961). See also from this period R. Leivestad, Christ the Conqueror: Ideas of Conflict and Victory in the New Testament (London: SPCK, 1954); J. S. Stewart, “On a Neglected Emphasis in New Testament Theology,” SJT 4 (1951): 292-301; E. Fascher, Jesus und der Satan, Hallische Monographien 11 (Halle: Max Niemeyer, 1949); Schlier, Principalities and Powers; Wingren, Living Word. This view has received increasing attention in recent scholarship. For strong contemporary representative statements or arguments on the centrality of Satan and of the warfare motif in general for the New Testament, see R. Hiers, “Satan, Demons and the Kingdom of God,” SJT 27 (1974): 35-47; R. Yates, “Jesus and the Demonic in the Synoptic Gospels,” Irish Theological Quarterly 44 (1977): 39-57; J. D. G. Dunn and G. H. Twelftree, “Demon-Possession and Exorcism in the New Testament,” Churchman 94, no. 3 (1980): 211-15; S. R. Garrett, The Demise of the Devil: Magic and the Demonic in Luke’s Writings (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1989); H. Kruse, “Das Reich Satans,” Bib 58 (1977): 29-61; Ling, Significance of Satan; P. W. Hollenbach, “Help for Interpreting Jesus’ Exorcism,” SBLSP, 1993, ed. E. H. Lovering Jr. (Atlanta, Ga.: Scholars Press, 1993), pp. 124-26; M. Kelsey, Encounter with God: A Theology of Christian Experience (Minneapolis: Bethany Fellowship, 1972), pp. 242-45; J. Russell, Devil, pp. 222, 227, 234-39; Forsyth, Old Enemy, pp. 249, 286, 295-96; Langton, Essentials, p. 156; Yamauchi, “Magic or Miracle?” pp. 124-25; Kallas, Jesus and the Power of Satan; idem, Synoptic Miracles; idem, The Satanward View (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1966); W. Kirchschläger, Jesu exorzistisches Wirken aus der Sicht des Lukas: Ein Beitrag zur lukanischen Redaktion, Österreichische Biblische Studien 3 (Klosterneuburg: Österreichisches Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1981); W. G. Kümmel, “Liberation from the Spiritual Powers,” in his Theology of the New Testament, trans. J. E. Steely (Nashville: Abingdon, 1973), pp. 186ff.; J. J. Rousseau, “Jesus, an Exorcist of a Kind,” in SBLSP, 1993, pp. 129-53; Böcher, Christus Exorcista.

See J. Jeremias’s observation in “The Lord’s Prayer in the Light of Recent Research,” in his Prayers of Jesus, trans. J. Bowden et al., SBT 2/6 (Naperville, Ill.: Allenson, 1967), p. 99. G. E. Ladd (A Theology of the New Testament [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1974], pp. 45-56) also draws a strong connection between the coming of the future kingdom and the vanquishing of the evil forces that presently control the world.

In the light of the fact that “the satanic and demonic is a dominant theme of the New Testament,” Newport argues, we must see the New Testament as constituting “at least a limited dualism” (“Satan and Demons: A Theological Perspective,” in Demon Possession, p. 331). Similarly, Kvanvig distinguishes this type of Jewish dualism from the cosmic dualism of Zoroastrianism by casting it as a temporary, eschatological and moral dualism rather than a metaphysical dualism. See Roots of Apocalyptic, pp. 610-11. See also C. S. Lewis’s strong case for a form of biblical dualism in “God and Evil,” in God in the Dock: Essays in Theology and Ethics, ed. W. Hooper (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1970), pp. 21-24. For an argument along similar lines but cast in relationship to Greek philosophical forms of dualism, see A. H. Armstrong, “Dualism: Platonic, Gnostic and Christian,” in Neoplatonism and Gnosticism, ed. R. T. Wallis and J. Bregman (Albany: SUNY Press, 1992), pp. 33-54. For similar assessments of the apocalyptic or New Testament dualism, see J. G. Gammie, “Spatial and Ethical Dualism in Jewish Wisdom and Apocalyptic Literature,” JBL 93 (1974): 356-59; J. H. Charlesworth, “A Critical Comparison of the Dualism in 1QS 3:13—4:26 and the ‘Dualism’ in the Gospel of John,” NTS 15 (1968-69): 389-418; Aulen’s classic Christus Victor, pp. 4-5, 10-11, 76, 89, 108, 148-49.

Garrett, Demise of the Devil, p. 55.

Kallas, Synoptic Miracles, p. 78. See also pp. 55, 66. See E. Stauffer: “The Kingdom of God is present where the dominion of the adversary has been overthrown” (New Testament Theology, 5th ed., trans. J. Marsh [New York: Macmillan, 1955], p. 124). Similarly, Elaine Pagels notes that for the Gospel authors, “Jesus has come to heal the world and reclaim it for God; in order to accomplish this, he must overcome the evil powers who have usurped authority over the world, and who now oppress human beings” (Origin of Satan, p. 36). See also J. Robinson, “The Exorcism Narratives,” in The Problem of History in Mark, and Other Essays (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1982), pp. 83ff.; Arnold, Powers of Darkness, p. 80; Dunn and Twelftree, “Demon-Possession and Exorcism,” pp. 219-23; Rousseau, “Jesus, an Exorcist,” pp. 150-51. In his recent superb study, Graham Twelftree concludes that “Jesus was the first to make the connection between exorcism and eschatology. For him, his exorcisms were the first or preliminary binding of Satan who would finally be destroyed in the eschaton” (Jesus the Exorcist, pp. 217-24).

So Brown writes, “The miracle was not primarily an external guarantee of the coming of the kingdom; it was one of the means by which the kingdom came. In particular, Jesus’ miracles were the weapons He used to overcome Satan” (“Gospel Miracles,” p. 222). See also Yates, “Powers of Evil,” pp. 106-7.

Against this, Robert Guelich has argued: “We find no hint of any cosmic or ethical dualism in Jesus’ ministry as portrayed in the Synoptics. The Kingdom of God is never juxtaposed to a ‘kingdom of Satan’” (“Spiritual Warfare: Jesus, Paul and Peretti,” Pneuma 13, no. 1 [1991]: 41). He thus regards Scripture’s warfare motif as strictly metaphorical (p. 34). Interestingly enough, however, Guelich does seem to accept that the coming of the kingdom of God is (literally?) simultaneous with the binding of the strong man and the plundering of his house (pp. 38-39). One of the main reasons Guelich argues against the centrality of the warfare motif in the Gospels’ portrayal of Jesus’ ministry concerns what he regards as the absence of any struggle or theme of conquest against Satan in this portrayal (pp. 40-42). “In every case,” he writes, “Jesus is clearly in control of the situation. There is simply no contest” (p. 40). Against this four points can briefly be made: (1) That Jesus (like Yahweh in the Old Testament) at least had to rebuke Satan and demons shows that they are genuine foes who must be conquered. God is (through Jesus) in control, to be sure, but this control has genuine opposition, and it must therefore be established by “a rebuke.” (2) If the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ temptation don’t represent a genuine struggle with Satan, what would? The meaning of Guelich’s observation that “Jesus was vulnerable to Satan’s ‘temptation’ but not to Satan personally” is not clear to me (p. 40). (3) It is, we shall see, possible that in at least one Gospel account Jesus’ exorcistic command did not issue in an immediate exorcism (Mk 5:6-10; see the discussion in chapter seven), and it is certain that the disciples’ exorcisms were not always immediate (Mt 9:17-18). Indeed, one of Jesus’ healings was not instantaneous (Mt 8:24), and Mark implies that on at least one occasion Jesus could not do certain miracles because of people’s lack of faith (Mk 6:5). Hence it seems fair to characterize the ministry of both Jesus and certainly his disciples as a struggle against the enemy. (4) It is clear from the Epistles that followers of Jesus understood themselves to be part of an ongoing cosmic battle and thus to be under constant attack from the enemy (see chapters seven to ten below).

Ferguson speculates that “the use of these titles of Jesus was an effort by the demon to claim power over him,” since knowing someone’s name and office was seen as a form of power (Demonology, p. 7). Hence Jesus sometimes inquires into the name of the demon(s) he is confronting (Lk 8:30).

Forsyth captures the theme well: “the teaching is somehow presented by the event [viz., the exorcism] the people have witnessed—a new teaching: power over the spirits” (Old Enemy, p. 286).

If Pagels is correct, even the interlude discussion about sabbath propriety is not irrelevant to Mark’s warfare perspective, for here (Mk 2:23-26) “Jesus dares claim as precedent for his disciples’ apparently casual action [of picking corn] on the Sabbath, the prerogative of King David himself, who, with his men, broke the sacred food laws during a wartime emergency” (Origin of Satan, p. 18).

Forsyth notes that this is the same apocalyptic cosmic battle motif, but “the battle scheme has now shifted to Christ’s life” (Old Enemy, p. 289). See also Longman and Reid, God Is a Warrior, pp. 91-118. For a fascinating study that draws the literary connections between this portrayal of Satan and Old Testament and apocalyptic warfare motifs, see H. A. Kelly, “The Devil in the Desert,” CBQ 26 (1964): 190-220. Adrio König sees in the temptation narratives a reversal of Adam’s succumbing to temptation, and hence the beginning of a new creation in Jesus’ ministry (New and Greater Things: Re-evaluating the Biblical Message on Creation [Pretoria: University of South Africa, 1988], pp. 106-7). E. Best goes so far as to argue that Mark locates the central confrontation between Jesus and the devil in the temptation narrative (The Temptation and the Passion: The Markan Soteriology, 2d ed., SNTSMS 2 [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990]).

Arnold, Powers of Darkness, p. 78.

One remarkable aspect of historical Jesus research since the late 1980s is the almost unanimous consensus that has been reached among even the most critical (viz., skeptical) New Testament scholars that the historical Jesus was indeed recognized as an exorcist and a healer by his contemporaries (even when their worldview presuppositions will not allow them to admit the possibility that he actually was so). For example, J. D. Crossan acknowledges that “Jesus was both an exorcist and a healer. . . . His vision of the Kingdom was but an ecstatic dream without immediate social repercussions were it not for those exorcisms and healings” (The Historical Jesus: The Life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant [San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1991], p. 332). See also S. Davies, Jesus the Healer: Possession, Trance and the Origins of Christianity (New York: Continuum, 1995); P. W. Hollenbach, “Jesus, Demoniacs and Public Authorities: A Socio-historical Study,” JAAR 49 (1981): 567-88; and esp. Twelftree, Jesus the Exorcist.

So argues Newport, “Satan and Demons,” p. 59.

Kallas drives home the point when he asks concerning this passage, “What kind of a missionary voyage was this? What were they preaching? Why no summary of their words?” (Synoptic Miracles, p. 60). Their healings and exorcisms, clearly, were their message that “the kingdom of God has come near to you.”

Essentially the same point is made even if Julian Hills (“Luke 10:18—Who Saw Satan Fall?”) is correct in arguing that Jesus is here referring to demons (not he or his disciples) seeing Satan (their captain) being dethroned.

As noted earlier, this is not to say that those critical scholars today who acknowledge that Jesus was perceived to be an exorcist or a healer have necessarily dissociated themselves from an antisupernatural worldview. Many times they have simply expanded a naturalistic worldview and thus account for the supposed exorcisms and healings by psychosomatic and sociological explanations. See, e.g., R. Funk, “Demon: Identity and Worldview,” The Fourth R 5, no. 3 (1992): 15; Hollenbach, “Jesus, Demoniacs,” p. 567; Crossan, Historical Jesus, pp. 310-32; Davies, Jesus the Healer.

Some conservative scholars have argued that Jesus’ deliverance ministry was so distinctive in comparison to the many exorcists of his day that he should not even be classified as an exorcist. See, e.g., A. Konya, Demons: A Biblically Based Perspective (Schaumburg, Ill.: Regular Baptist Press, 1990), pp. 36-37; W. W. Everts, “Jesus Christ, No Exorcist,” BSac 81 (1924): 355-62. While the uniqueness of Christ is a point I shall myself be intent on driving home, the term “exorcism” yet seems to describe best what Jesus did even if it does not capture the uniqueness of how and why he did it. Hence I shall continue to use it.

Matthew, quite typically, notes that there was another demonized person besides the one all three Synoptic narratives center on (Mt 8:28-29). Also, there is in the manuscript tradition disagreement about whether this event took place in Gadara, Gerasa or Gergesa. According to the strongest readings, Mark and Luke have Jesus going to Gerasa, while Matthew has him going to Gadara. Gerasa lies 30 miles off the coast of the sea of Galilee, and Gadara 5 miles, making both difficult to square with the narratives. The most likely solution to the problem seems to be to see the actual town in which the exorcism took place as being Khersa, which is located squarely on the eastern shore. This could be easily spelled Gerasa in Greek (as in Mark and Luke) and could also be included under the territory of Gadara. We can then suppose that Matthew (again, typically) tried to avoid the ambiguity and thus referred only to the larger and much better known region of Gadara. Later scribes, unfamiliar with the territory, then tried to “correct” Matthew’s “solution” and change this to Gerasa, hence the geographical problems as well as the ambiguity in the manuscript traditions. For discussions, see W. H. Mare, “Gadara,” The New International Dictionary of Biblical Archaeology, ed. E. M. Blaiklock et al. (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 1983), p. 201; C. Blomberg, The Historical Reliability of the Gospels (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1987), pp. 149-50; E. J. Vardaman, “Gadara,” Wycliffe Bible Encyclopedia, 2 vols., ed. C. F. Pfeiffer et al. (Chicago: Moody Press, 1975), 1:643; S. Holm-Nielsen et al., “Gadarenes,” ABD, 2:866-68. For two helpful discussions of this episode, see G. H. Twelftree, Jesus the Exorcist: A Contribution to the Study of the Historical Jesus, WUNT 2/54 (Tübingen: Mohr, 1993), pp. 72-87; H. van der Loos, The Miracles of Jesus, NovTSup 8 (Leiden: Brill, 1965), pp. 382-97.

On the definition of “demonized,” see chapter one, note 42.

So too, as mentioned earlier (chapter six, note 64) Mark suggests that Jesus’ prayer for healing did not always immediately effect a complete healing (Mk 8:22-26). Indeed, he states explicitly that in at least one instance people’s unbelief prevented Jesus from doing many miracles (Mk 6:5). As God-become-man, Jesus was sinless, he exercised ideal faith, and he was perfectly open to the omnipotent Father working through him (Jn 5:19-32; 6:38; 8:28-29). But, as I shall argue more extensively in Satan and the Problem of Evil, God’s power and Jesus’ character are not the only variables in bringing about healings and exorcisms. Other factors such as the strength of faith, the persistence of prayer, and the strength and number of opposing spiritual forces have to be factored in.

This observation stands over against R. Guelich (“Spiritual Warfare: Jesus, Paul and Peretti,” Pneuma 13, no. 1 [1991]: 40-41), who minimizes the warfare dimension of the Gospels largely on the basis of the supposed absence of conflict between Jesus and Satan and demons. “We find no hint of a struggle in these encounters” (p. 40). Not only the failure of Jesus’ command here but the acquisition of a name (see note 6 below) and the common rebukes of Jesus during exorcism, as well as the temptation narratives (to say nothing of his explicit teachings; see chapter eight), suggest that Jesus was in fact engaged in a genuine struggle. The temptation narratives in the Gospels alone should be enough to tell us this much (cf. Heb 4:15-16; 5:7-10).

In the ancient Near Eastern world, names were generally viewed as inherently reflecting the realities to which they were attached. Thus to know someone’s name was to know the person, and invoking this name could either capture the power of that person’s presence, as when Jesus’ name is used in exorcism (Lk 10:17; Mk 9:38; Acts 19:13), or give one power over that person, as when the name of demons is used in exorcism. Interestingly, Jesus, in contrast to other exorcists of his day, did not rely upon the power of names in his deliverance ministry. See Twelftree, Jesus the Exorcist, p. 164. For the invocation of names in exorcisms and magic in the first century, see D. E. Aune, “Magic in Early Christianity,” in ANRW (1980), 2/23.2:1545; J. G. Gager, ed., Curse Tablets and Binding Spells from the Ancient World (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), pp. 3-14.

See van der Loos, Miracles of Jesus, p. 388.

As in Matthew 12:45, however, the number seven here may be symbolic of “fullness.” In other words, Mary had a plethora of demons within her. So argues E. Langton, Essentials of Demonology: A Study of the Jewish and Christian Doctrine, Its Origin and Development (London: Epworth, 1949), p. 50, who sees it as a synonym for a large group. See also F. X. Gokey, The Terminology for the Devil and Evil Spirits in the Apostolic Fathers, Patristic Studies 93 (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1961), p. 49.

Langton, Essentials, p. 147.

J. D. Crossan, who mostly denies the historicity of the Gospel exorcism accounts (though he admits the historical Jesus was something of an exorcist), argues that Roman imperialism is here being symbolized as demonic possession. See Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1994), pp. 90-91. While his ahistorical, overly symbolic reading of this (and other) passages is unwarranted, he seems correct in making the point that the Jesus of Mark’s Gospel was here seeing the demonic “Legion” as being at least analogous to the legions of Roman guards who occupied and oppressed the territory. As Roman imperialism illegitimately rules over and oppresses Israel, so Satanic imperialism illegitimately rules over and oppresses this man, and ultimately the entire world. For a critique of Crossan’s exegetical methods, see my Cynic, Sage or Son of God? Recovering the Real Jesus in an Age of Revisionist Replies (Wheaton, Ill.: Bridgepoint, 1995), pp. 77-87.

So, e.g., 4 Maccabees 18:8 speaks of a “seducer of the desert.” Cf. 1 Enoch 10:4-5. On this see E. Ferguson, Demonology of the Early Christian World (New York: Mellen, 1980), p. 2.

This again raises the issue of “territorial spirits” discussed in the introduction. See references in introduction, note 3.

Alongside humans and animals, demons were believed sometimes to inhabit such haunts as the desert, water (seas and wells), the wind, fire, trees, caves, graves and garbage heaps. See van der Loos, Miracles of Jesus, p. 346.

Like “the disease germs of modern medicine,” H. A. Kelly argues, demons in the New Testament are “definitely parasitic in nature” (The Devil at Baptism: Ritual, Theology and Drama [Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1985], 18).

J. Ramsey Michaels, “Jesus and the Unclean Spirits,” in Demon Possession, ed. J. W. Montgomery (Minneapolis: Bethany, 1976), pp. 53-54.

See Revelation 16:13, which speaks of “three evil spirits” that deceive nations and lead them into war. So too Revelation 20:3, 8, 10 portray Satan (and the legions of demons under him?) as one who “deceives the nations.” Something similar may be implied by Paul’s use of “principalities” and “powers,” as we shall see (chapter ten). The Old Testament conception of “the gods of the nations,” discussed in chapter two, lies behind all this. These gods, we saw, sometimes carry out their national duties well; sometimes they do not. When they do not, they become demonic (e.g., Ps 82; Dan 10). T. Ling takes Matthew 12:45 to mean that Jesus saw his own generation as being possessed by Satan. Hence Jesus is here saying that “although an individual member of this generation be exorcised of an evil spirit by some contemporary exorcist, the power of evil in the common life is such that he will almost certainly become re-possessed, and now more desperately than before” (The Significance of Satan: New Testament Demonology and Its Contemporary Significance [London: SPCK, 1961], p. 21).

For a contemporary discussion surrounding purported cases of “collective possession,” see F. D. Pennoyer, “In Dark Dungeons of Collective Captivity,” in Wrestling with Dark Angels: Toward a Deeper Understanding of the Supernatural Forces in Spiritual Warfare, ed. C. P. Wagner and F. D. Pennoyer (Ventura, Calif.: Regal, 1990), pp. 249-70.

For discussions see Twelftree, Jesus the Exorcist, pp. 91-97; van der Loos, Miracles of Jesus, pp. 397-405.

Some manuscripts add “and fasting” to Mark 9:29, and some add “But this kind does not go out except by prayer and fasting” to Matthew 17:20.

Langton, for example, argues, “It cannot be too strongly emphasized that the instances [of demonization] mentioned in the Gospels do not stand alone. They have their exact parallels among many peoples in different parts of the world” (Essentials, p. 153). Cf. also idem, Good and Evil Spirits: A Study of the Jewish Christian Doctrine, Its Origin and Development (New York: Macmillan, 1942), pp. 54ff. For similar accounts from a crosscultural and historical perspective, see F. D. Goodman, How About Demons? Possession and Exorcism in the Modern World (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1988); I. M. Lewis, Ecstatic Religion: An Anthropological Study of Spirit Possession and Shamanism (Baltimore: Penguin, 1971); M. Ebon, Exorcism Past and Present (London: Cassell, 1974); B. P. Levack, Witchcraft, Magic and Demonology, vol. 9, Possession and Exorcism (Hamden, Conn.: Garland, 1992); T. K. Oesterreich, Possession, Demoniacal and Other, Among Primitive Races, in Antiquity, the Middle Ages and Modern Times (New Hyde Park, N.Y.: University Books, 1966); G. Twelftree, Christ Triumphant: Exorcism Then and Now (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1985). It should be noted, however, that similar accounts are increasingly reported today within contemporary Western culture. Perhaps the most credible recent discussions are M. S. Peck’s People of the Lie (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1983), pp. 182-253; K. E. Koch, Demonology, Past and Present (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Kregel, 1973); V. Stacey, “Christ Cleanses Buildings and Delivers People: Four Case Studies,” ERT 16, no. 4 (1992): 342-52. Other accounts (from widely varying perspectives) can be found in M. Martin’s fascinating report Hostage to the Devil (New York: Bantam, 1977); C. F. Dickason, Demon Possession and the Christian (Westchester, Ill.: Crossway Books, 1987), pp. 169-213; R. Mayer, Satan’s Children: Case Studies in MPD (New York: Putnam’s, 1991); E. Fiore, The Unquiet Dead: A Psychologist Treats Spirit Possession—Detecting and Removing Earthbound Spirits (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1987); J. Richards, But Deliver Us from Evil (New York: Seabury, 1974); D. R. Petitpierre, Exorcising Devils (London: Robert Hale, 1976). My own observation of phenomena similar to this has led me, along with many others, to conclude that it is impossible to explain the sometimes supernatural features of such phenomena on a strictly naturalistic basis.

See, e.g., J. B. Cortes and F. M. Gatti, “The Demon-Possessed Epileptic,” in their The Case Against Possession and Exorcism: A Historical, Biblical and Psychological Analysis of Demons, Devils and Demoniacs (New York: Vantage, 1975), pp. 173-86. See also J. Wilkinson, “The Case of the Epileptic Boy,” ExpTim 79 (1967-68): 39-42; van der Loos, Miracles of Jesus, pp. 401-6. See esp. p. 401, note 5 for a list of others who adopt a position similar to this.

On the reliability of this account, see G. E. Sterling, “Jesus as Exorcist: An Analysis of Matthew 17:14-20; Mark 9:14-29; Luke 9:37-43a,” CBQ 55 (1993): 467-93. On the reliability of the exorcist accounts in general, see L. Sabourin, “The Miracles of Jesus (II): Jesus and the Evil Powers,” BTB 4, no. 2 (1974): 115-75; and esp. Twelftree, Jesus the Exorcist, pp. 53-113.

In keeping with general apocalyptic thought, “Christ acknowledges that there are different classes of demons, some of whom had more powers than others” (Gokey, Terminology, p. 49). But he never speculates beyond this point, as the apocalyptic thinkers frequently did.

So argues Kallas, Synoptic Miracles, p. 63; Langton, Essentials, pp. 152-53.

R. Brown, “Gospel Miracles,” in his New Testament Essays (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1967), p. 223.

Langton, Essentials, pp. 171-72.

This assumption is formalized into something of a theological principle in all modernist and postmodernist accounts that understand evil beings to be projections of our own inner evil impulses. If the ontological “otherness” of the demonic is not affirmed, then obviously there can be no genuine victims of the demonic. See, e.g., W. Woods, A History of the Devil (London: W. H. Allen, 1973), who argues that “both gods and devils, are of course [sic] simply different facets of man, made as large as our imaginations can make them” (p. 12). So with Nels F. S. Ferré, Evil and the Christian Faith (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1947), p. 33; H. Pendley, “Views of the Demonic in Recent Religious Thought” (Ph.D. diss., Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, 1976), who (despite holding open the possibility of the demonic realm as an objective reality) argues that “human demonization occurs when egocentricity becomes the norm for one’s existence” (p. 220). This unbiblical assumption gets formalized in otherwise biblically centered theologies as well, however. For example, despite Emil Brunner’s many insights concerning the demonic realm, he insists that demonization cannot occur without human complicity. See The Christian Doctrine of Creation and Redemption, trans. O. Wyon (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1952), pp. 140-41. While the New Testament generally rejects anything like the excuse that “the devil made me do it”—it assumes people are morally responsible for their actions—it nevertheless depicts radically demonized people in just this fashion. They are casualties of war. See C. Moeller, “Introduction,” in Satan, ed. B. de Jésus-Marie (New York: Sheed & Ward, 1952), p. xix. I shall address the thorny issue of the relationship between demonic influence and human responsibility in Satan and the Problem of Evil.

John Richards drives home the issue poignantly as it concerns demonic possession when he notes: “If there has been one, just one real case of demonic possession in history, then the theologian must have an understanding of God’s world in which such a thing is possible” (But Deliver Us from Evil, p. 51). The point is, if the world is exhaustively controlled by God, such a phenomenon would not be possible. For an excellent exposition of a biblical model of God’s providence which makes the cross its hermenuetical center, see E. F. Tupper, A Scandalous Providence: The Jesus Story of the Compassion of God (Macon, Ga.: Mercer University Press, 1995).

See J. Geller, Forerunners to UDUG-HUL: Sumerian Exorcistic Incantations, FAS 12 (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 1985); H. D. Betz, ed., The Greek Magical Papyri in Translation Including the Demonic Spells (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986); E. Yamauchi, “Magic in the Biblical World,” TynBul 34 (1983): 169-200.

John Rousseau, “Jesus, an Exorcist of a Kind,” in SBLSP, ed. E. H. Lovering Jr. (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1993), pp. 148-49. See also E. Yamauchi, “Magic or Miracle? Diseases, Demons and Exorcisms,” in The Miracles of Jesus, ed. D. Wenham and C. Blomberg, GP 6 (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1986), pp. 131-42; G. H. Twelftree, “Demon-Possession and Exorcism in the New Testament,” Churchman 94, no. 3 (1980): 214-15; S. Davies, “Whom Jesus Healed and How,” The Fourth R 6 (Mar.-Apr. 1993): 1; O. Böcher, Das Neue Testament und die dämonischen Mächte, SBS 58 (Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1972), pp. 35-42; E. Ferguson, “Jesus and the Demons,” in his Demonology of the Early Christian World (New York: Mellen, 1984), pp. 9-11.

The view that prayer changes only us, not God, goes back at least to the time of Arnobius (Against the Heathen 1.27), who logically drew out the consequences of conceptualizing God as altogether impassible. He was refuted by Lactantius, who argued that such a view makes God dead and prayer inconsequential. See the discussion in J. K. Mozley, The Impassibility of God (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1926), pp. 48-52. At least by scriptural standards, Lactantius was certainly correct. There is, in any event, an increasing awareness in our time concerning the power of prayer to change things. For several accounts, see J. Deere, Surprised by the Power of the Spirit (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1993); J. Wimber and K. Springer, Power Healing (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1987); K. Springer, ed., Power Encounters Among Christians in the Western World (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1988).

The understanding that God’s activity, and therefore the flow of history, is genuinely conditioned by prayer is increasingly being accepted and emphasized, especially by those within the spiritual warfare movement. One of the earliest, most radical, most insightful and most neglected works on the subject is P. Billheimer’s Destined for the Throne (Minneapolis: Bethany, 1975), esp. pp. 43-56. See also C. H. Kraft’s excellent book Christianity with Power: Your Worldview and Your Experience of the Supernatural (Ann Arbor, Mich.: Servant, 1989), pp. 117-32. I shall attempt to work out a theology of prayer that is rooted in this understanding in Satan and the Problem of Evil.

Exegetes have largely ignored this line of argumentation, which is surprising given the growing appreciation of the influence of apocalyptic thought on Jesus and his disciples. Kallas has made more use of this line of thinking than anyone. He sees all the miracles of Jesus as being “primarily an attack upon the enemies of God” (Synoptic Miracles, p. 33). See also A. König, The Eclipse of Christ in Eschatology: Toward a Christ-Centered Approach (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1989), pp. 110-27; R. Brown, “Gospel Miracles,” pp. 226-27.

Kallas, Synoptic Miracles, p. 65. J. Ramsey Michaels argues along the same lines in “Jesus and the Unclean Spirits,” in Demon Possession, p. 47.

Forsyth argues the “rebuke” here is part and parcel of “the explicit war language of the apocalyptic writings themselves” and ultimately goes back to the Old Testament tradition of Yahweh “rebuking” his cosmic foes (Old Enemy, pp. 286-87). See also König, New and Greater Things, pp. 140-41.

See Forsyth, Old Enemy, pp. 286-87; König, New and Greater Things, pp. 50, 107. See also B. L. Blackburn (“Miracles and Miracle Stories,” DJG, p. 559), who rightly emphasizes the “eschatological/apocalyptic background for the so-called nature miracles,” and therefore observes, “The two rescue miracles, Jesus’ calming of and walking on the sea, are meaningful against the horizon of Yahweh’s assertion of his sovereignty over the sea in creation (Job 26:12-13; Ps 74:12-15), the Exodus (Ps 77:16-20), and the eschaton (Is 27:1; cf. Rev 21:1).” In short, the Gospel authors had something like Leviathan or Yamm in mind when they portrayed Jesus as rebuking and treading on the sea. See also R. Brown, “Gospel Miracles,” pp. 226-27; and W. O. E. Oesterley (The Evolution of the Messianic Idea: A Study in Comparative Religion [London: Pitman, 1908], pp. 175ff.), who has posited a direct line of development from the Old Testament thôm (Tiamat) to the New Testament view of Satan. See also König, Eclipse of Christ, pp. 115-17; T. Fawcett, “The Satanic Serpent,” in his Hebrew Myth and Christian Gospel (London: SCM, 1973), pp. 98-101; H. Hendrickx, The Miracle Stories of the Synoptic Gospels (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1987), pp. 184-85; R. Latourelle, The Miracles of Jesus and the Theology of Miracles, trans. M. J. O’Connell (New York: Paulist, 1988), pp. 108-9; and G. E. Smith’s classic The Evolution of the Dragon (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1919), pp. 137-38.

A slightly different reading of this episode is to see Jesus as the perfect man restoring to humanity the dominion over the sea that we were created to enjoy but then lost in the Fall. This reading is not necessarily incompatible with the reading here offered, for, as D. G. McCartney sees (“Ecce Homo: The Coming of the Kingdom as the Restoration of Human Vicegerency,” WTJ 56 [1994]: 1-21), the Bible consistently associates the rule of God with the rule of the viceroy he established. If humanity has been dethroned, God has, in effect, been dethroned. From this perspective, then, Jesus is seeking to restore both the rulership of humanity and the rule of God, for they are one and the same. Indeed, one could easily draw an intrinsic connection between this insight and the truth that Jesus was fully God and fully human.

Kallas, Synoptic Miracles, p. 65.

See, e.g., J. P. Meier, A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus, vol. 2, Mentor, Message and Miracle (New York: Doubleday, 1994), pp. 884-96; van der Loos, Miracles of Jesus, pp. 688-98. Both scholars doubt the story’s historicity but locate its symbolic meaning to a divine judgment of the temple and the nation of Israel. See also the detailed redactional-critical study of W. R. Telford, The Barren Temple and the Withered Tree, JSNTSup 1 (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1980).

The theme of cosmic restoration arises even in the Old Testament, a restoration that, among other things, includes nature becoming harmonious and bountiful once again as it was originally created to be. See, e.g., Isaiah 11:6-9; 65:17-25; Amos 9:13-15.

See W. D. Davies, Paul and Rabbinic Judaism (Philadelphia: Fortress, rpt. 1980), p. 39; König, Eclipse of Christ, pp. 114-15; Kallas, Synoptic Miracles, p. 95.

See R. H. Hiers, “Not the Season for Figs,” JBL 87 (1968): 394-400; J. D. M. Derrett, “Figtrees in the New Testament,” HeyJ 14 (1973): 249-65.

It is interesting that Mark explicitly connects the inability of the disciples to grasp Jesus’ power in rebuking the demonic sea with their inability to grasp his power to multiply bread (Mk 6:52). In both instances, Christ was victorious over nature when nature was not doing what it was created to do. See König, Eclipse of Christ, pp. 117-21. Not a few scholars have noted the eschatological import of the “gift miracles” (i.e., the feeding of the five thousand, the wine at the Cana wedding feast). These miracles “actualize and foreshadow the messianic feast . . . characterized by an abundance of bread—the eschatological equivalent of the manna miracle . . . and wine” (Blackburn, “Miracles,” DJG, p. 559).

This is not necessarily to say that physical existence would never have ceased had we not fallen. Theologically speaking, it may be the case that the sort of physical existence we experience now was never meant to be eternal but merely probational. This form of existence was perhaps always meant to metamorphosize into the sort of physical-spiritual existence Jesus enjoyed after his resurrection (and which we shall enjoy after ours). Had we not fallen (viz., failed the Edenic probation) this metamorphosis would not be experienced as “death” as we now experience it. This painful experience of death—this “sting,” as Paul puts it (1 Cor 15:55)—was never intended to be part of God’s creation. For believers, death need no longer have this sting, for in Christ the original transitional nature of death has been reestablished.

T. W. Manson notes that in the passion, “the exousia of Jesus the Messiah comes to last moral grips with the exousia of the demonic world” (“Principalities and Powers: The Spiritual Background for the Work of Jesus in the Synoptic Gospels,” NTS 3 [1952]: 14). See also Wingren, Living Word, pp. 50-51, 62, 173.

Emil Brunner is surely correct to see in the horror of the crucified Son of God the clearest evidence of Satan’s existence and diabolical work. See The Christian Doctrine of Creation and Redemption, trans. O. Wyon (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1952), p. 145. Pagels argues that inasmuch as Luke sees all opposing forces as under Satan’s power, Luke 13:32 should be read as a challenge to Satan (Origin of Satan, p. 92).

See Kallas, Significance of Synoptic Miracles, pp. 85-86. Similarly, concerning the Gospel of Luke, S. R. Garrett argues that “Luke regarded the death, resurrection, and ascension as an ‘exodus’ because in these events Jesus, ‘the one who is stronger,’ led the people out of bondage to Satan” (“Exodus from Bondage: Luke 9:31 and Acts 12:1-24,” CBQ 52 [1990]: 659).

Very helpful on this theme is Martinus C. de Boer’s study on Paul’s understanding of death in the light of his apocalyptic eschatology: The Defeat of Death: Apocalyptic Eschatology in I Corinthians 15 and Romans 5, JSNTSup 22 (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1988). Here de Boer writes: “Paul understands the anthropological reality of death in accordance with the traditions of Jewish cosmological apocalyptic eschatology as an inimical, murderous, quasi-angelic power that has held all Adamic humanity in subjection and enslavement. Death is hypostasized as a power external to human beings, which nevertheless exerts and manifests its hegemony over and among human beings, most particularly in their ‘moral’ or ‘natural’ bodies” (p. 183). See also A. G. van Aarde, “Demonology in New Testament Times,” in Like a Roaring Lion . . .: Essays on the Bible, the Church and Demonic Powers, ed. P. G. R. de Villiers (Pretoria: University of South Africa, 1987), pp. 33-34. Wingren, however, surely goes too far in virtually identifying sin, death and Satan throughout his Living Word.

We should perhaps include here Matthew’s record that a number of “saints” were resurrected when Jesus died on the cross (Mt 27:52-53). Van der Loos captures the motif well: “the resurrections are signs in which the conquering power of the Messianic Kingdom is manifest and by which it is proclaimed to the world that God is a living God, in whose name the son testifies and acts.” See “Miracles of Jesus,” p. 566. J. P. Meier (Mentor, Message and Miracle, pp. 773-873) argues for the basic historicity of the accounts on a historical-critical basis and concludes that they centrally manifest what Jesus was about (see esp. p. 837).

In the second volume of his monumental study of the historical Jesus, John Meier has concluded that Jesus’ eschatology is best described as reflecting “an ‘already/not yet’ tension.” See Mentor, Message and Miracle, p. 451. For several helpful discussions, see G. E. Ladd, The Presence of the Future: The Eschatology of Biblical Realism (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1974); G. Glorovsky, “The Patristic Age on Eschatology: An Introduction,” in his Collected Works, vol. 4, Aspects of Church History (Belmont, Mass.: Nordland, 1975), pp. 63-78; R. H. Stein, The Method and Message of Jesus’ Teachings (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1978), pp. 68-79; and B. Witherington III, Jesus, Paul and the End of the World: A Comparative Study in New Testament Eschatology (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1992).

Several scholars have noted that Jesus was unique in bringing together the phenomenon of exorcism as both a present deliverance and an eschatological event. See, e.g., G. Theissen, The Miracle Stories of the Early Christian Tradition, ed. J. Riches, trans. F. McDonagh (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1983), p. 278; Twelftree, Jesus the Exorcist, pp. 217-24.

Wingren, Living Word, p. 62. Cf. p. 164. It is perhaps worth noting here that Scripture does not generally envisage the eschatological kingdom as “above” the earth so much as it envisages it as “on” the earth. All who overcome will “reign on earth” (Rev 5:10). Just as our bodies will be transformed but will still be our bodies (1 Cor 15:35-54), so too the earth will be transformed, but it will nevertheless be our earth (see 2 Pet 3:13; Rev 20:8; 21:1, 24).

For an overview of this motif, see T. Longman III and D. G. Reid, God Is a Warrior (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 1995), pp. 91-118.

In my estimation, Elaine Pagels overestimates the extent to which the Gospel authors “demonize” their opponents because she reads too much into their portrayal of their opponents as demonically inspired. True, Jesus saw his conflict with Jewish religious leaders and others as a conflict with the devil. But the same could be said of Jesus’ conflict with Peter. See her Origin of Satan (New York: Random House, 1995), pp. 82-88, and passim.

On the intimate connection between Jesus’ use of “Hades” here and Satan, see R. H. Hiers’s excellent article “‘Binding’ and ‘Loosing’: The Matthean Authorizations,” JBL 104 (1985): 242-43, as well as his Kingdom of God in the Synoptic Tradition (Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1970), p. 47. In fact, no less an authority than W. Manson (Jesus and the Christian [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1967], p. 83) renders “gates of hades” in this passage as “Satan-Hades.” A number of ancient Jewish and early Christian writings set a precedent for the intimate linkage of Satan and Hades. See, e.g., Testament of Reuben 4:6-7; 1 Corinthians 15:24-27; Revelation 20:7-10, 13-14. A. Lefevre has also provided strong evidence to suggest that Belial, like Death, was originally a personified monster of the underworld, i.e., Hades personified. See “Angel or Monster? The Power of Evil in the Old Testament,” in Satan: Essays Collected and Translated from “Etudes Carmelitaines,” ed. B. de Jésus-Marie, trans. M. Carroll et al. (New York: Sheed & Ward, 1951), pp. 55-56. R. Bauckham still attempts to dichotomize “powers of evil” and “the power of Hades” in “Hades, Hell,” ABD, 3:15. Similarly, C. Brown argues against a connection between the gates of Hades and the powers of Satan; for Brown, Jesus is here ironically referring to his impending entry into Jerusalem. Though this novel thesis is worthy of attention, it seems both cryptic and speculative. It also does not square as well with the apocalyptic context in which Jesus is speaking as does the warfare reading. For Brown’s case, see “The Gates of Hell and the Church,” in Church, Word and Spirit: Historical and Theological Essays in Honor of Geoffrey W. Bromiley, ed. J. E. Bradley and R. A. Muller (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1987), pp. 15-43. See also idem, “The Gates of Hell: An Alternative Approach,” in SBLSP, 1987, ed. K. H. Richards (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1987), pp. 357-67.

G. E. Ladd, The Presence of the Future: The Eschatology of Biblical Realism (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1974), p. 161.

The perfect participle of deo (bind) and lyo (loose) can be translated “will have been bound” and “will have been loosed.”

For a summary of the various interpretations of the two “binding” and “loosing” passages in Matthew (16:19; 18:18), see Hiers, “Binding and Loosing,” pp. 233-35; D. C. Duling, “Binding and Loosing: Matthew 16:19; Matthew 18:18; John 20:23,” Foundations and Facets Forum 3, no. 4 (1987): 3-26. Duling’s conclusion that these passages do not go back to the historical Jesus is less than convincing.

Hiers, “Binding and Loosing,” p. 235. Hiers makes his solid case largely on the basis of intertestamental parallels.

This popular title, one should note, is quite inappropriate since the whole passage constitutes instruction given by Jesus to his disciples as to how they should pray. Hence the prayer is spoken in the first-person plural and is intended to be a communal prayer.

J. Jeremias argues convincingly that “the Lucan version [of the Lord’s Prayer] has preserved the oldest form with respect to length, but the Matthaean text is more original with regard to wording” (“The Lord’s Prayer in the Light of Recent Research,” in The Prayers of Jesus, trans. J. Bowden et al., SBT 2/6 [Naperville, Ill.: Allenson, 1967], p. 93). As the wording of the prayer is what interests us presently, I shall follow the Matthean version.

Meier, Mentor, Message and Miracles, p. 299. See also Stein, Method and Message of Jesus’ Teachings, pp. 72-73.

Jeremias, “Lord’s Prayer,” p. 99.

See ibid., pp. 82-107; R. E. Brown, “The Pater Noster as an Eschatological Prayer,” in his New Testament Essays (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1968), pp. 270-320; W. D. Davies and D. C. Allison, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel According to Saint Matthew, 3 vols., ICC (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1988ff.), 1:593-94, 599-615; Meier, Mentor, Message and Miracles, pp. 291-302; P. Bonnard, J. Dupont and F. Refoulé, Notre Père qui es aux cieux, Cahiers de la Traduction Oecuménique de la Bible 3 (Paris: Cerf/Les bergers et les Mages, 1968); D. A. Hagner, Matthew 1—13, WBC 33A (Dallas: Word, 1993), pp. 143-52.

See, e.g., Jeremias, “Lord’s Prayer,” pp. 100-101; Brown, “Pater Noster”; Meier, Mentor, Message and Miracles, pp. 301, 364-65; Davies and Allison, Matthew, 1:607-10.

Jeremias argues that this interpretation does not exclude, but rather includes, the petition for “daily bread” (“Lord’s Prayer,” pp. 101-2).

Ibid., p. 103. Cf. pp. 92-93. So argues, on different grounds, Brown, “Pater Noster,” pp. 312-13.

Jeremias, “Lord’s Prayer,” pp. 102-3.

See Brown, “Pater Noster,” pp. 310-12.

Ibid., p. 311. Again, since there is no ultimate bifurcation between this age and the age to come, the request for final pardon includes, rather than excludes, requests for present forgiveness.

B. Gerhardsson, The Testing of God’s Son: An Analysis of an Early Christian Midrash (Lund: Gleerup, 1966), p. 26.

See the foundational study of J. S. Korn, PEIRASMOS: Die Versuchung des Gläubigen in der griechischen Bibel, BWANT 4/20 (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1937). For a helpful review of Korn’s work, see M. E. Andrews, “Peirasmos,” Anglican Theological Review 24 (1942): 229-44. See also H. A. Kelly, “The Devil in the Desert,” CBQ 26 (1964): 196-202, 212, 216. On peirasmos as referring to the final “Satanic trial,” as Brown calls it, see Brown, “Pater Noster,” p. 319.

Kuhn is certainly correct in pointing out that these two foci are not mutually exclusive. “When Jesus teaches us to pray: ‘Lead us not into peirasmos,’ no distinction can be made between the Now of the believer in the world and the Then of the final battle to come. Both belong together as one act” (K. G. Kuhn, “New Light on Temptation, Sin and Flesh in the New Testament,” in The Scrolls and the New Testament, ed. K. Stendahl [New York: Harper, 1957], p. 111).

First Enoch 69:15 also brings together the activity of “the evil one” with oath taking. On whether poneros in this passage refers to evil in general or to “the evil one” (Satan), see T. Ling, The Significance of Satan: New Testament Demonology and Its Contemporary Significance (London: SPCK, 1961), pp. 22-24. Scholars generally favor the second, but either way, no sharp distinction can be made between them. For, as Ling also argues, the evil in the world was, for Jesus, there ultimately because of “the evil one” (p. 24). See also Hagner, Matthew 1—13, p. 128.

A possible parallel is found in Jubilees 11, where Mastema (a Satan figure) sends birds to devour seed as it is sown.

G. R. Beasley-Murray, Jesus and the Kingdom of God (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1986), p. 133.

See Kallas, Synoptic Miracles, p. 72. Cf. Brown, “Pater Noster,” p. 319.

G. Schrenk’s article “biavzomai,” TDNT, 1:609-13, is frequently cited as offering the most substantial defense of the passive-voice reading. For a summary of the arguments, see Hagner, Matthew 1—13, pp. 306-7.

P. S. Cameron, Violence and the Kingdom: The Interpretation of Matthew 11:12, Arbeiten zum Neuen Testament und Judentum 5 (Frankfurt: Lang, 1984), p. 2, which also includes a list of other suggestions.

This view has been gaining acceptance among scholars. For several noteworthy defenses, in roughly chronological order, see M. Dibelius, Die urchristliche Überlieferung von Johannes dem Täufer (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1911); A. Fridrichsen, “The Conflict of Jesus with the Unclean Spirits,” Theology 22 (1931): 128; A. Wilder, Eschatology and Ethics in the Teaching of Jesus (New York: Harper & Bros., rpt. 1950), pp. 84, 149, 182; C. H. Kraeling, John the Baptist (New York: Scribner’s, 1951), p. 156; Kallas, Synoptic Miracles, p. 72; W. Kümmel, Promise and Fulfillment: The Eschatological Message of Jesus, trans. D. M. Barton, 3d ed., SBT 1/23 (Naperville, Ill.: Allenson, 1956), pp. 121-24; N. Perrin, The Kingdom of God in the Teaching of Jesus (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1963), pp. 171-74; idem, Jesus and the Language of the Kingdom (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1976), p. 46; D. C. Allison, The End of the Age Has Come: An Early Interpretation of the Passion and Resurrection of Jesus (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1985), pp. 120-24.

An alternative interpretation, yet taking the “violent ones” to refer to the forces of Satan’s kingdom, is to take the phrase “until now” as implying that the period of violence is going to come to a close with the victory of Jesus over the powers on the cross. “The overthrow of the rule of Satan is assigned to the development of the situation after John, to the phase centering in the ministry of Jesus. . . . Jesus came to see the necessity of his Passion as the finally effective means for the overthrow of the evil powers” (Wilder, Eschatology and Ethics, p. 192).

Thus both Luke and John depict Judas as betraying Jesus under the influence of Satan (Jn 6:70; 13:27; Lk 22:3). Perrin takes this “temporary victory” to be the point of Matthew 11:12 (Kingdom of God, p. 173).

Beasley-Murray, Jesus and the Kingdom of God, p. 326.

Forsyth, Old Enemy, p. 250. R. H. Gundry combines an astronomical and a cosmic interpretation: “The falling of the stars refers to a shower of meteorites, and the shaking of the heavenly powers to God’s displacing ‘the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places’ (Eph 6:12)” (Matthew: A Commentary on His Literary and Theological Art [Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1982], p. 487). See also idem, Mark: A Commentary on His Apology for the Cross (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1993), pp. 782-83; F. W. Beare, The Gospel According to Matthew (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1981), p. 471.

Unlike depictions of demonization in the Synoptics, this case of demonization is by Satan, not demons, and it is portrayed as a moral issue. That is, Judas, unlike other demonized people, is portrayed as being himself evil (Jn 17:12). Also unlike other cases of demonization, this case of Satanic possession leads to no abnormal animal-like behavior: it simply leads to evil action. The “prince of demons,” it seems, is far more sophisticated than the demons he rules over, which perhaps also explains why Jesus engages in a prolonged intelligent conversation with Satan in the Gospels (Mt 4:1-11; Lk 4:1-13), while his conversations with demons are only to get information and to then command them to leave. On this see J. Ramsey Michaels, “Jesus and the Unclean Spirits,” in Demon Possession, ed. J. W. Montgomery (Minneapolis: Bethany, 1976), p. 56. On Judas as a proto-antichrist figure in John, see W. E. Sproston, “Satan in the Fourth Gospel,” in Studia Biblica 1978, vol. 2, Papers on the Gospels, ed. E. A. Livingstone, JSNTSup 2 (Sheffield: University of Sheffield Press, 1979), pp. 307-11.

Ling is likely correct when he argues that John omits all exorcisms because he wishes to direct “the reader’s attention away from . . . the diverse activities of demons, away from what may be called the local subsidiary manifestations of evil in disease or madness or epilepsy. . . . to the real source of such evils, the Devil” (Significance of Satan, p. 31). John is certainly not unaware of demonization, for he records Jesus’ opponents as accusing Jesus of being demonized (Jn 7:20; 8:48-52; 10:20-21). His understanding of demonization, so far as is discernible, is parallel to that of the Synoptics. So argues J. C. Coetzee, “Christ and the Prince of this World in the Gospel and the Epistles of St. John,” in The Christ of John: Essays on the Christology of the Fourth Gospel, ed. A. B. du Toit, Neotestamentica 2 (Potchefstroom, South Africa: SASSNT, 1971), pp. 104-21.

J. L. Kovacs, “‘Now Shall the Ruler of This World Be Driven Out’: Death as Cosmic Battle in John 12:20-36,” JBL 114 (1995): 233. The dualism of John, and even much of his terminology, is strongly reminiscent of (but not identical with) the Qumran community. See J. H. Charlesworth, “A Critical Comparison of the Dualism in IQS 3:13-4:26 and the ‘Dualism’ in the Gospel of John,” NTS 15 (1968-69): 389-418, reprinted in John and the Dead Sea Scrolls, ed. Charlesworth (New York: Crossroad, 1990), pp. 76-106; R. E. Brown, “The Qumran Scrolls and the Johannine Gospel and Epistles,” in The Scrolls and the New Testament, ed. K. Stendahl (New York: Harper, 1957), pp. 183-207.

Coetzee, “Christ and the Prince,” p. 106. For a recent excellent exposition on the centrality of the cosmic warfare motif in John’s Gospel, particularly with regard to the understanding of Jesus’ death, see Kovacs, “Now Shall the Ruler,” pp. 227-47.

As is universally conceded, we have in John much more of a paraphrase of Jesus’ teachings than we have in the Synoptics. Hence it is not always clear where Jesus’ teachings end and John’s commentary on Jesus’ teaching begins. Since for the purposes of this work I am operating from the presupposition of canonical authority, this relative difference has no theological import. In other words, since I regard John’s portrait of Jesus to be divinely inspired, I have no theological interest in attempting to get behind this portrait to discover the “actual words” of Jesus. I am, then, content to speak of John’s portrayal of Jesus.

With the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls came the realization that such apparently “dualistic” language would have been quite at home within the context of first-century Jewish monotheism. It does not (pace Bultmann et al.) reflect a Gnostic influence, as Kovacs effectively argues (“Now Shall the Ruler,” pp. 235-46). On the significance of the Dead Sea Scrolls for undermining the previous overly Hellenistic estimation of John, see J. C. VanderKam, “The Dead Sea Scrolls and Christianity,” in Understanding the Dead Sea Scrolls: A Reader from the Biblical Archaeology Review, ed. H. Shanks (New York: Random House, 1992), p. 200. On the use of the “light/darkness” contrast and other expressions of a cosmic-ethical dualism in the Scrolls and John’s Gospel, see J. L. Price, “Light from Qumran upon Some Aspects of Johannine Theology,” in John and the Dead Sea Scrolls, ed. Charlesworth, pp. 18-25; Charlesworth, “Critical Comparison of Dualism”; idem, “Qumran, John and the Odes of Solomon,” in John and the Dead Sea Scrolls, pp. 107-36; Brown, “Qumran Scrolls and the Johannine Gospel,” pp. 184-95. For several discussions concerning the important issues surrounding the variety of “dualism” and the specific forms that existed in ancient Judaism as a background for contextualizing John’s Gospel, see J. Gammie, “Spatial and Ethical Dualism in Jewish Wisdom and Apocalyptic Literature,” JBL 93 (1974): 356-85; B. Otzen, “Old Testament Wisdom Literature and Dualistic Thinking in Late Judaism,” Congress Volume, Edinburgh 1974, ed. J. A. Emerton, VTSup 28 (Leiden: Brill, 1975), pp. 146-57. With A. T. Hanson, I would argue that the principal influence on John’s worldview is the Old Testament. See his Prophetic Gospel: A Study of John and the Old Testament (Edinburgh: Clark, 1991), though Hanson’s negative assessments of John’s historicity are not necessary to his thesis, nor (I would argue) are they implied by the available evidence.

See J. B. Russell, The Devil: Perceptions of Evil from Antiquity to Primitive Christianity (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1977), p. 236; Pagels, Origin of Satan, p. 99. Raymond Brown is certainly correct in seeing the whole of Jesus’ ministry in John as a struggle with Satan that culminates in the crucifixion. See his Gospel According to John, 2 vols., AB 29-29A (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1966-1970), 1:364-76. Kovacs (“Now Shall the Ruler”) makes a plausible suggestion when she argues that 1:5 refers both to the general cosmic struggle and, more specifically, to the cross, where “the forces of darkness” attempt to “extinguish the light” in a more particular, and climactic, manner (p. 231).

The nature of the warfare thematically introduced with this verse is significantly qualified and compromised, however, if katalambano is translated “understood” (as in the NIV) as opposed to “overcome.” The former suggests a cognitive difficulty on the part of humans confronting Jesus, whereas the latter taps more profoundly into the comprehensive cosmic warfare tradition of Scripture. There are at least five arguments against this translation of katalambano in this context that can be briefly mentioned.

First, the root meaning of the word is to “grasp,” “seize,” “overcome” or “overtake.” While one application of the word can be to express an intellectual grasping (viz. “understanding”), there is nothing in the context to recommend limiting the word to this application here. Second, parallels with the Dead Sea Scrolls suggest that John has in mind a more encompassing warfare conflict with his contrast between light and darkness than the word “understands” allows for. As James VanderKam has convincingly argued, in the light of the Dead Sea Scrolls, katalambano should be translated “overcome” (“Dead Sea Scrolls and Christianity,” p. 200). Parallels with other extracanonical literature (e.g., Odes of Solomon 18:6; Wisdom of Solomon 7:29-30) suggest the same.

Third, translating katalambano as “overtakes” or “overcomes” is the meaning most strongly supported by the early fathers. Fourth, though verse 10 notes that the world “did not know him,” nothing in the text itself supports restricting the verb katalambano in verse 5 to the meaning of the verb ginosko in verse 10 (against, e.g., G. R. Beasley-Murray, John, WBC 36 [Waco, Tex.: Word, 1987], p. 11). Verse 10 perhaps describes one illustration of how darkness seeks to encompass the light in verse 5, but there is no grounds for thinking that it exhausts the meaning of this conflict.

And fifth, the NIV itself translates katalambano as “overtakes” in a verse that reads almost like a commentary on John 1:5. In John 12:35 (NIV) Jesus tells his disciples, “You are going to have the light [Jesus himself] just a little while longer. Walk while you have the light, before darkness overtakes you.” Now, it is virtually impossibletointelligiblygivekatalambano the meaning of “understand” in this verse. But this forces the question of why it should be translated in its narrower meaning in 1:5.

For these and other reasons, many scholars argue that verse 5 should be understood to be referring to the attempt of demonic forces of darkness to extinguish (“overtake”) the light of God. Among those who concur with this reading are Brown, John, 1:7-8; L. Morris, The Gospel of John, rev. ed., NICNT (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1995), pp. 75-77; M. C. Tenney, “The Gospel of John,” in EBC, 9:29-30.

See König’s insightful exposition on the light/darkness conflict that draws heavily on passages rooting in Genesis 1 (New and Greater Things, pp. 92-94). John 1:5 provides “a brief resume of the conflict as well as the victory of light over darkness, a conflict that rages from creation until the advent of the new earth” (p. 94).

John 9:4-5, which speaks of the night overtaking the day in reference to Jesus’ coming crucifixion, is also relevant here. The issue, again, is not one of understanding but of overcoming. Darkness overcomes the light of day when Jesus is crucified (cf. 12:34-36). Until then, light overcomes the darkness; hence John has Jesus heal a blind man in the three verses preceding this teaching (9:1-3). Read as a conflict résumé of Jesus’ ministry, John 1:5 functions as a commentary on the Synoptics as well, as König argues. For here, as in John (but with different terminology), “Jesus expels the evil powers from creation, from nature, and from human beings, in order to set creation free from their menace” (König, New and Greater Things, p. 94).

Coetzee, “Christ and the Prince,” p. 106; C. Arnold, Powers of Darkness: Principalities and Powers in Paul’s Letters (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1992), pp. 80-81. See G. Delling, “?????,” TDNT, 1:488-89. For an overview of the concept of “the prince of the world” in Judaism (where it is a positive figure) and Christianity (where it is a negative figure), see A. F. Segal, “Ruler of This World: Attitudes about Mediator Figures and the Importance of Sociology for Self-Definition,” in Jewish and Christian Self-Definition, vol. 2, Aspects of Judaism in the Greco-Roman Period, ed. E. P. Sanders, A. I. Baumgarten and A. Mendelson (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1981), pp. 245-68. Like Pagels (Origin of Satan), Segal argues that the Christian identification of “the prince of the world” with Satan arose out of their polemic against the Jews whom they identified as children of the devil.

On the harmony of John’s view of Satan and the views espoused throughout the remainder of the New Testament, see Coetzee, “Christ and the Prince,” pp. 105-6, 109-10.

Kovacs, “Now Shall the Ruler,” p. 231 and passim.

Ibid., p. 233. See R. Bultmann’s seminal article “Die Bedeutung der neuerscholossenen mandäischen und manischäischen Quellen für das Verständnis des Johannesevangeliums,” ZNW 24 (1925): 100-146. For a list and discussion of other works that lean heavily on the Gnostic influence theory, see D. Moody Smith, “Johannine Studies,” in The New Testament and Its Modern Interpreters, ed. E. Epp and G. MacRae (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1989), p. 278. Pagels has demonstrated that the influence flowed from John to Gnostics more than the other way around. See her Johannine Gospel in Gnostic Exegesis (Nashville: Abingdon, 1973).

Note that while the Word was with God “in the beginning,” the devil has been a murderer “from the beginning” (Jn 1:1; 8:44). Coetzee is on the mark in emphasizing this distinction (“Christ and the Prince,” p. 111). When exactly this “beginning” of evil occurs we are not told. But the only view that is consistent with the rest of the New Testament, as well as with the intrinsic logic of monotheism, is to understand it as referring to Satan’s original fall.

Ling argues that Jesus’ perfect obedience to the Father is in principle the dethronement of the devil (Significance of Satan, pp. 35-36).

On John’s view of Christ’s death as the means of defeating the devil, see Beasley-Murray, John, pp. 218-19; and Brown, John, 1:477-78. Kovacs (“Now Shall the Ruler”) makes a strong case that the driving out of the devil (not substitutionary sacrifice) was the central meaning of Christ’s death for John. As such, John (as well as Paul) is a predecessor to the Christus Victor motif of the early church (see chapter nine below). R. Recker has attempted to do away with the “already/not yet” tension of Satan’s dethronement, and thereby to argue that Satan is no longer prince of this world. See his “Satan: In Power or Dethroned?” CTJ 6 (1971): 133-55. As we shall see, however, all the disciples and the early postapostolic church work with the ongoing assumption that the victory that Christ has indeed won has yet to be manifested throughout the world. The war has been won, but there are battles yet to fight.

Delling,“??????,” TDNT, 1:489. Delling says that John stretches the tension between the Father and Satan “to the point of almost a transitory dualism.” Noting that the dualism is “transitory” is, in my estimation, sufficient qualification.

The cross, says Kovacs, is “the locus of a cosmic battle, in which Jesus achieves a decisive victory over Satan” (“Now Shall the Ruler,” p. 246).

On the importance and meaning of the “from above/from below” contrast in John and its transitory dualistic implications, see Charlesworth, “Critical Comparison of Dualism,” pp. 89-90; Price, “Light from Qumran,” p. 19. This contrast in John has been likened to the more typical contrast in Jewish eschatology between “this present evil age” and “the age to come,” a motif mentioned by Paul (Gal 1:4). Conceptually speaking, either John has substituted the more common linear contrast for a vertical/spatial one, or he has merely combined them.

This use of kosmos occurs elsewhere in the New Testament (e.g., Mt 18:7; 1 Cor 1:20; 3:19; 2 Pet 2:20) and is close to Paul’s concept of “the present evil age” (Gal 1:4; 2 Cor 4:4; cf. 1 Cor 2:6, 8; 3:18). Its contrast with the common Hellenistic philosophical use of kosmos to denote order and beauty should be noted. For references, see BAGD, pp. 445-47. The pejorative use of kosmos should perhaps be better translated “domination system,” as suggested by W. Wink, Engaging the Powers: Discernment and Resistance in an Age of Domination (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992), pp. 51-52, as well as by J. Porffirio Miranda, Being and the Messiah (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1977), pp. 101-2. Ling argues that this use of “the world” in John is closely correlated with the devil himself, to the point where “the devil is . . . the world’s corporate personality” (Significance of Satan, p. 34). Hence John parallels “the world” and “the devil” (ibid., pp. 32-34). On the semidualistic implications of this pejorative use of kosmos, see Charlesworth, “Critical Comparison of Dualism,” pp. 89-92; Price, “Light from Qumran,” pp. 18-23.

Arnold captures the striking limited dualism of John well when he states that for John, “there are only two masters—God and Satan” (Powers of Darkness, p. 81). He finds the same sort of thought behind Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43. Wingren captures the connection between faith and unbelief on the one hand and being from God or from the devil on the other when he writes concerning the act of preaching: “The Word is a decisive act of war, an onslaught on the demonic powers in the world of men, an onslaught against our old man himself. . . . Faith is man when he breaks free from the control of what is alien to him. . . . Unbelief is the Satanic act of war, an onslaught against the work of release, a diabolical attempt to hold man within the prison camps” (Living Word, p. 117).

D. A. Carson, The Gospel of John (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1991), p. 362.

J. Calvin, The Gospel According to St. John, trans. T. H. L. Parker, 2 vols. (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1959), 1:239.

J. M. Boice, The Gospel of John: An Expositional Commentary, John 9:1—12:50 (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 1977), pp. 25-26.

On Exodus 4:11, which is also frequently used to ground an omni-causal view of God, see chapter five, note 25.

If we are speaking about an omnicontrolling God who insures that his purposes are meticulously carried out, as the classical-philosophical tradition has held, the distinction between “created” and “allowed” amounts to very little.

Among the other passages that likely use hina in this sense are Mark 12:15-19; 14:49; John 13:34; 1 Corinthians 5:2; 14:1; 16:15; 2 Corinthians 13:17; Colossians 2:4; Titus 3:13; Revelation 14:13. See M. Zerwick, Biblical Greek, trans. J. Smith (Rome: Pontificio Instituto Biblico, 1963), pp. 141-42, for a discussion favoring this translation. See also C. F. D. Moule, An Idiom-Book of New Testament Greek, 2d ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975), pp. 144-45; and esp. N. Turner’s comments in Grammatical Insights into the New Testament (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1965), pp. 145ff. Carson argues that taking hina as an imperative clause here is “just barely possible” and “rendered highly unlikely by the parallel in 11:4” (Gospel of John, p. 362). Carson does not spell out his grammatical grounds for judging this reading as “barely possible.” But in any case his argument from the parallel in 11:4 is not strong. For one thing, Jesus explicitly states in 11:4 that Lazarus’s death was “for God’s glory,” and only then does he add, “so that God’s Son may be glorified” (using hina with the aorist passive doxasthe). The preceding statement requires that hina be taken in a purposive (not imperative) sense. But just this is lacking in 9:3. Exegetes who take hina here as a purpose or result clause must assume that Jesus meant simply to modify (not reject altogether) the disciples’ misleading question, and hence (as in NIV) must assume that “this happened so that” is implied in hina. They must assume, in other words, that Jesus thought the disciples were right in looking for a purpose but simply wrong in the purpose they found. But the text certainly does not require this reading. Another relevant point is that in 11:4 Jesus is explaining why he is not going to respond immediately to Lazarus’s sickness and the request of his sisters for him to come (11:6; cf. 21). He is not talking about death as such, only about why he allowed Lazarus to die when he could have prevented it. We cannot, therefore, draw conclusions from this passage about Jesus’ general view of how death figures into God’s providence, and we certainly cannot use it to draw conclusions about Jesus’ general view of how blindness figures into God’s providence on the basis of how this passage (supposedly) parallels 9:3.

Turner, Grammatical Insights, p. 145. As Turner notes (pp. 147-48), this reading also frees us from seeing Judas as fatalistically damned “in order to” fulfill Scripture in John 13:18.

The fact that God can, and sometimes does, use diseases, persecutions and natural disasters to chastise people is assumed throughout the Bible (e.g., the plagues, Ex 7—12; cf. Acts 8:1ff.; Rom 8:28; 2 Cor 12:7-10), and thus we have every reason to assume that Jesus would have believed such. But the force of his teaching here, combined with his general attitude toward evil reflected throughout the Gospels, is to say that one cannot generalize this point into a universal explanation for evil. Most traditional theodicies, unfortunately, are fundamentally rooted in just this misguided generalization.

That John here speaks of a man being delivered from physical darkness is hardly coincidental in the light of this teaching. As we have seen, Jesus’ whole ministry, for John, was about delivering people from darkness. The healing of this man’s physical blindness thus functions as a symbol of Jesus’ vanquishing of darkness in general. It illustrates the truth of John 1:4-5; 3:19-21; 8:12; 12:35, 46; cf. 11:9-10. See Brown, John, 1:379.

K. Heim, Jesus the World’s Perfecter, trans. D. H. van Daalen (Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd, 1959), p. 38.

H. Pendley, “Views of the Demonic in Recent Religious Thought” (Ph.D. diss., Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, 1976), p. 38.

This is certainly not to suggest that God cannot, at times, use Satan’s evil intentions, as he clearly does in the crucifixion (1 Cor 2:8) and as he shall in bringing judgment upon the world in the last days (see 2 Thess 3, “delusional spirit”; Rev 9). This follows the pattern of God using evil beings to his own end in the Old Testament (1 Sam 16:14, 22; 18:10-11; 19:9-10; 1 Kings 22:21-23). But to say that God can occasionally use Satan and demons to his own end is very different from saying that God ordains the activity of Satan and demons as a means to his own end. The Bible affirms the former, but never the latter.

For the classic representative statement of the substitutionary view of the atonement—viz., Anselm’s “satisfaction” theory—see Cur Deus Homo 22.1. Reformed Protestant thought eventually developed the “penal substitutionary” version of this general approach. For more recent statements in this vein, see L. Morris, The Apostolic Preaching of the Cross (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1956); idem, The Atonement: Its Meaning and Significance (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1983); M. J. Erickson, “The Central Theme of Atonement,” in his Christian Theology, 3 vols. (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 1983-1985), 2:802-23; P. Patterson, “Reflections on the Atonement,” Criswell Theological Review 3 (1989): 307-20; and, in my estimation the best expression of this perspective to date, J. R. W. Stott, The Cross of Christ (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1986).

I am speaking here of a logical priority and emphasis, not a chronological one. In dethroning Satan as ruler of this world, Jesus—the faithful, fully human Son of God—was, at the very same time, saving humanity and reinstating it to its original position as ruler-steward over the earth.

MacGregor, “Principalities and Powers: The Cosmic Background of Paul’s Thought,” NTS 1 (1954): 23. Similarly, J. Y. Lee demonstrates that in Paul’s cosmology, “Jesus was depicted as the Redeemer who came from heaven and died on the cross to rescue not only men but the whole cosmos from thraldom to demonic powers” (“Interpreting the Demonic Powers in Pauline Thought,” NovT 12, no. 1 [1970]: 67).

As I shall argue in Satan and the Problem of Evil, this “Christus Victor” motif encapsulates what was the ruling paradigm for understanding the atoning work of Jesus throughout the first millennium of church history. It has been recovered in our century primarily through the impetus of the landmark work of G. Aulen, Christus Victor: A Historical Study of the Three Main Types of the Idea of Atonement, trans. A. G. Hebert (New York: Macmillan, 1969). Other scholars who have emphasized this approach to the atonement include S. Cave, The Doctrine of the Work of Christ (Nashville: Cokesbury, 1937); Karl Heim, Jesus the Lord (London: Oliver & Boyd, 1959); idem, Jesus the World’s Perfecter: The Atonement and the Renewal of the World, trans. D. H. Van Daalen (Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd, 1959); N. Micklem, The Doctrine of Our Redemption (London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1943); R. Leivestad, Christ the Conqueror: Ideas of Conflict and Victory in the New Testament (New York: Macmillan, 1954); J. S. Whale, Victor and Victim (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1960); T. Finger, Christian Theology: An Eschatological Approach, 2 vols. (Nashville: Nelson, 1985), 1:303-48; J. Macquarrie, “Demonology and the Classical Idea of the Atonement,” ExpTim 68 (1956): 3-6, 60-63; D. G. Reid, “The Christus Victor Motif in Paul’s Theology” (Ph.D. diss., Fuller Theological Seminary, 1982). The original centrality and later decline of the “Christ the victor” theme in the early church has been recently traced by R. A. Greer, “Christ the Victor and the Victim,” Concordia Theological Quarterly 59, nos. 1-2 (1995): 1-30. It should be noted that the Christus Victor understanding of the atonement has been gaining in acceptance in recent times and has been emphasized even by those who understand the cross primarily in substitutionary terms. See, e.g., A. McGrath, Understanding Jesus: Who Jesus Christ Is and Why He Matters (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 1987), pp. 151-60; Stott, Cross of Christ, pp. 227-81. R. E. Webber can thus speak of a “new theological consensus” involving the restoration of the Christus Victor motif that amounts to “a rediscovered emphasis of the lordship of Christ, of His reign over the powers, over the whole of creation, and over history” (The Church in the World: Opposition, Tension or Transformation? [Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 1986], p. 267).

On the LXX, see R. A. Martin, “The Earliest Messianic Interpretation of Genesis 3:15,” JBL 84 (1965): 425-27. On rabbinic use of the passage, see M. McNamara, The New Testament and the Palestinian Targum to the Pentateuch, AnBib 27 (Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1966), pp. 217-22; G. J. Wenham, Genesis 1—15, WBC 1 (Waco, Tex.: Word, 1987), p. 80.

See Wenham, Genesis 1—15, pp. 80-81; T. Gallus, Die “Frau” in Gen. 3:15 (Klagenfurt: Carinthia, 1979). For recent defenses of the messianic interpretation of Genesis 3:15, against the traditional historical-critical view that we are dealing here merely with an etiological tale (see chapter four above), see G. Van Groningen, Messianic Revelation in the Old Testament (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 1990), pp. 106-15; W. Kaiser, The Messiah in the Old Testament (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 1996), pp. 36-42.

Writing from within the “already/not yet” tension of the New Testament, Paul could apply this verse to the victory believers will ultimately have in our battle with Satan as well. Hence he tells the Roman Christians: “The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet” (Rom 16:20). What has in principle already occurred on Calvary will in fact occur in our experience: God will crush Satan, and as we stand “in Christ” this crushing will be underneath our feet (Eph 1:19-22).

See Matthew 22:41-45; Mark 12:35-37; Luke 20:41-44; Acts 2:34-36; Hebrews 1:13; 5:6, 10; 6:20; 7:11, 15, 17, 21. Other passages that show varying degrees of influence from Psalm 110 include Matthew 26:64; Mark 14:62; [16:19]; Luke 22:69; Acts 5:31; 7:55-56; Romans 8:34; 1 Corinthians 15:25; Ephesians 1:20; Colossians 3:1; Hebrews 1:3; 8:1; 10:12-13; 1 Peter 3:22; Revelation 3:21. It is also prevalent among early extracanonical writings as well, such as 1 Clement 36:5 and Barnabas 12:10.

Whereas the “enemies” originally referred to in Psalm 110:1 were undoubtedly human political opponents, there is evidence of a very early (pre-Pauline) tradition that applied Psalm 110 to Christ’s victory over his foes, among whom are counted Satan and the demons, “angelic” powers, as well as wicked humans. For an unsurpassed, comprehensive and insightful exposition on the use of this verse in the New Testament, see D. M. Hay, Glory at the Right Hand: Psalm 110 in Early Christianity (Nashville: Abingdon, 1973), esp. pp. 122-29. Other helpful works include W. R. G. Loader, “Christ at the Right Hand—Ps. 110:1 in the New Testament,” NTS 24 (1978): 208-13; O. Cullmann, The Christology of the New Testament, trans. S. C. Guthrie and C. A. M. Hall, rev. ed. (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1963), pp. 222-24. B. A. Stevens argues, with some force, that the Old Testament’s divine warrior motif holds the key to understanding Jesus’ messianic self-consciousness (see “Jesus as the Divine Warrior,” ExpTim 94 [1982-1983]: 326-29). On the broader messianic use of Psalm 110:1 in early Christianity, see D. E. Aune, “Christian Prophecy and the Messianic Status of Jesus,” in The Messiah: Developments in Earliest Judaism and Christianity, ed. J. H. Charlesworth et al. (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992), pp. 404-22; D. Juel, “Christ at the Right Hand: The Use of Psalm 110 in the New Testament,” in his Messianic Exegesis: Christological Interpretation of the Old Testament in Early Christianity (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1988), pp. 135-50; Van Groningen, Messianic Revelation, pp. 390-97.

Hay, Glory at the Right Hand, p. 124.

Note that Paul says the hostile powers will be “destroyed” (katargeo). Partly owing to his pacifistic convictions, partly to his denial that “the powers” have an autonomous existence and can autonomously will over and against human beings and social groups, Wink holds that all the powers will ultimately be redeemed. See his Engaging the Powers: Discernment and Resistance in a World of Domination (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992). This position, I shall later argue, is not supported in Scripture.

O. Cullmann, Christ and Time, rev. ed., trans. F. V. Wilson (London: SCM, 1962), p. 193.

Hence, speaking eschatologically, Susan Garrett writes: “When Jesus ascends to take his seat at the right hand of God—the place traditionally occupied by Satan [see Zech 3:1]—Satan will fall to earth. . . . Jesus will receive the worship that Satan had wrongfully requested [Lk 4:7; 24:52]. It will only be a matter of time until God will put all things in subjection under Jesus’ feet” (“Exodus from Bondage: Luke 9:31 and Acts 12:1-24,” CBQ 52 [1990]: 669).

Paul’s closing reference to “any other creature” clearly entails that he was referring to some sort of demonic beings even with his reference to “height and depth.” A solid case can be made that he was referring to well-known astrological deities whom Paul saw as demonic. On this see J. D. G. Dunn, Romans 1—8, WBC 38A (Waco, Tex.: Word, 1988), p. 513.

Indeed, Jesus is throughout the New Testament called “Lord” for just this reason. He is Lord over all things, including his enemies, “the powers.” All who freely accept his lordship are therefore themselves freed from the tyranny of these powers. Though he does not explicitly refer to Psalm 110, Wingren forcefully expresses the same conviction: “The New Testament kerygma is news of victory in the conflict that is the theme of the Bible as a whole. To say that Christ is Lord of all the Biblical writings is just another way of saying that he is victor in the war that the different writings describe in various ways” (The Living Word: A Theological Study of Preaching and the Church, trans. V. Prague [Philadelphia: Muhlenberg, 1960 (1949)], pp. 50-51).

The issues surrounding this controversial passage shall be discussed below.

Heim, Jesus the World’s Perfecter, p. 70.

Since J. D. G. Dunn’s work Christology in the Making: A New Testament Inquiry into the Origins of the Doctrine of the Incarnation (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1980), some scholars have questioned the traditional understanding of Philippians 2:5-11 as reflecting a pre-Pauline belief in Jesus’ preexistence. N. T. Wright has effectively demonstrated, however, that even for one who grants an Adam Christology, this passage nonetheless entails a concept of Christ’s preexistence and a strong claim in regard to his divinity. See his “Adam in Pauline Christology,” SBLSP, 1983, ed. K. H. Richards (Chico, Calif.: Scholars Press, 1983), pp. 359-89; idem, “Jesus Christ Is Lord: Philippians 2:5-11,” in his Climax of the Covenant: Christ and the Law in Pauline Theology (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1991), pp. 56-98. But a number of scholars dispute the claim of an Adam Christology in this passage. See, e.g., I. H. Marshall’s review of Dunn’s book in TJ 2, no. 2 (1981): 241-45; T. F. Glasson, “Two Notes on the Philippians Hymn (2:6-11),” NTS 21, no. 1 (1974): 137-39; M. Erickson, The Word Became Flesh: A Contemporary Incarnational Christology (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 1991), pp. 475-79; and, on a popular level, my Oneness Pentecostals and the Trinity (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 1992), pp. 106-8.

The case against a universalistic reading of the New Testament is quite solid, to the point where the majority of New Testament scholars regard the issue as closed. See W. V. Crockett, “Universalism and the Theology of Paul” (Ph.D. diss., University of Glasgow, 1986); idem, “Will God Save Everyone in the End?” in Through No Fault of Their Own: The Fate of Those Who Have Never Heard, ed. W. V. Crockett and J. G. Sigountos (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 1991), pp. 159-66; J. Sanders, No Other Name: An Investigation into the Destiny of the Unevangelized (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1992), pp. 81-128; N. T. Wright, “Towards a Biblical View of Universalism,” Themelios 4 (1979): 54-58.

R. P. Roth, “Christ and the Powers of Darkness: Lessons from Colossians,” Word and World 6, no. 3 (1986): 341.

Heim, Jesus the World’s Perfecter, p. 72.

On Paul’s concept of “the heavenlies,” see A. T. Lincoln, “A Re-examination of ‘the Heavenlies’ in Ephesians,” NTS 19 (1973): 468-83. For a helpful study that highlights the cosmic/heavenly dimension of Paul’s understanding of salvation, see A. T. Lincoln, Paradise Now and Not Yet: Studies in the Role of the Heavenly Dimension in Paul’s Thought with Special Reference to His Eschatology, SNTSMS 43 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981).

Donald Guthrie explains the warfare significance of this verse well when he notes that the “old” and the “new” here refer to “the death of the old creation dominated by adverse spiritual forces, and the emergence of the new creation in which everything is Christ-centered” (New Testament Theology [Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1981], p. 648).

Commenting on this verse from a contemporary African context (a context of which talk of demonic powers is part and parcel), B. Abijole writes, “For Paul, Christ’s ministry of reconciliation is not confined in its scope to humanity, it is cosmic. . . . By the death of Christ the powers lost all the control they ever had on man” (“St. Paul’s Concept of Principalities and Powers in African Context,” Africa Theological Journal 17, no. 2 [1988]: 125-26).

Wink takes Ephesians 3:10 to be a mandate to preach to the powers, which he takes to be the “interiority” of human institutions. For example, on the basis of this text he says: “It is part of the church’s task to remind corporations and businesses that profit is not the ‘bottom line,’ that as ‘creatures’ of God they have as their divine vocation the achievement of human benefaction” (Eph 3:10) (Engaging the Powers: Discernment and Resistance in a World of Domination [Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992], p. 68). In response, there is no precedent in the New Testament or, with the exception of Origen, in the early church for the notion that the church is to preach to the powers. Nor is it easy to understand how making known the manifold wisdom of God can be interpreted as trying to get the powers (businesses!) to change.

Among the minority who argue that archonton is most probably referring only to human “rulers” are W. A. Carr, “The Rulers of This Age—I Corinthians 2:6-8,” NTS 23 (1976): 20-35; G. D. Fee, New Testament Exegesis, rev. ed. (Louisville, Ky.: Westminster John Knox, 1993), pp. 104-12; T. Ling, “A Note on I Corinthians ii.8,” ExpTim 68, no. 1 (1956): 26; G. Miller, “archonton tou aionos toutou—A New Look at I Corinthians 2:6-8,” JBL 91 (1972): 522-28; S. H. T. Page, Powers of Evil: A Biblical Study of Satan and Demons (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 1995), pp. 261-62.

Among those who present strong refutations of the “merely human” interpretation of this passage, see Abijole, “St. Paul’s Concept of Principalities,” p. 120; C. Arnold, Ephesians, Power and Magic: The Concept of Power in Ephesians in Light of Its Historical Setting, SNTSMS 63 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), pp. 63-64; idem, Powers of Darkness: Principalities and Powers in Paul’s Letters (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1992), pp. 101-4; F. L. Arrington, Paul’s Aeon Theology in I Corinthians (Washington, D.C.: University Press of America, 1978), p. 136, note 51; C. K. Barrett, The First Epistle to the Corinthians, 2d ed. (London: Black, 1971); P. Benoit, “Pauline Angelology and Demonology: Reflections on the Designations of the Heavenly Powers and on the Origin of Angelic Evil According to Paul,” Religious Studies Bulletin 3, no. 1 (1983): 11-12; F. F. Bruce, “Paul and ‘the Powers that Be,’” BJRL 66, no. 2 (1984): 85; G. B. Caird, Principalities and Powers: A Study in Pauline Theology (Oxford: Clarendon, 1956), pp. 16-17; O. Cullmann, The State in the New Testament (New York: Scribner’s, 1956), p. 64; M. Dibelius, Die Geisterwelt im Glauben des Paulus (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1909), p. 90; J. J. Gunther, St. Paul’s Opponents and Their Background: A Study of Apocalyptic and Jewish Sectarian Teachings, NovTSup 35 (Leiden: Brill, 1973), p. 181; A. J. Hultgren, Christ and His Benefits: Christology and Redemption in the New Testament (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1987), pp. 93-94; W. G. Kümmel, The Theology of the New Testament, trans. J. E. Steely (Nashville: Abingdon, 1973), p. 187; Lee, “Interpreting the Demonic Powers,” p. 58; MacGregor, “Principalities and Powers,” pp. 22-23; Webber, Church in the World, pp. 287, 306, note 6; W. Wink, Naming the Powers (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984), pp. 40-45.

Ignatius, Tertullian, Origen and Theodore of Mopsuestia are among those who illustrate this usage. See Benoit, “Pauline Angelology and Demonology,” pp. 8-11; T. Longman III and D. G. Reid, God Is a Warrior (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 1995), pp. 152-53.

For example, Lee argues, “To interpret ‘the rulers of this age’ as angelic powers which stand behind the state is truly Judaic apocalyptic expression of the cosmic powers” (“Interpreting the Demonic Powers,” p. 58).

H. Conzelmann, I Corinthians, trans. J. W. Leitch, Hermeneia (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1975), p. 61. See also D. G. Reid, “Principalities and Powers,” Dictionary of Paul and His Letters, ed. G. F. Hawthorne, R. P. Martin and D. G. Reid (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1993), p. 748.

H. Thielicke expresses the point well: “we are not the fighters” in the war for our salvation. Rather, “we are the battlefield rather than the heroes in the army. The fight is for us” (Thielicke, Man in God’s World, trans. J. W. Doberstein [New York: Harper & Row, 1963], p. 176). This much-neglected work expresses a good deal of insight on the warfare situation of humanity on the earth. On the centrality of the cosmic battle against Satan in John’s understanding of Jesus’ death, see J. L. Kovacs, “‘Now Shall the Ruler of This World Be Driven Out’: Jesus’ Death as Cosmic Battle in John 12:20-36,” JBL 114 (1995): 227-47. See also Longman and Reid, God Is a Warrior, p. 135.

In arguing against the spiritual warfare movement, R. Guelich attempts to make much of the fact that the metaphor used in this passage (see also 1 Pet 5:8) is that of hunting, not warfare (“Spiritual Warfare: Jesus, Paul and Peretti,” Pneuma 13, no. 1 (1991): 51. Hence he asks why we don’t now have a movement of spiritual hunting. One could respond by noting that the warfare depiction of our ongoing struggle with Satan and his kingdom is (as we have seen) much more frequent and fundamental throughout the New Testament than is the hunting depiction. But even more fundamentally, one wonders how the point being made is relevant to the criticism Guelich intends toward the spiritual warfare movement. What would be substantially changed within the spiritual warfare movement if it were (somewhat oddly) rather called the spiritual hunting movement?

Hence R. C. Tannehill argues rightly that for Paul, “everything depends on the reality of release from the powers of the old world and incorporation in a new world” (Tannehill, Dying and Rising with Christ: A Study in Pauline Theology, BZNW 32 [Berlin: Töpelmann, 1967], p. 71).

Sozo here implies that “the believer has now been saved from entrapment in the kingdom of the prince of the authority of the air,” spoken of in 2:2-3 (Arnold, Ephesians, p. 149). See also A. T. Lincoln, “Ephesians 2:8-10: A Summary of Paul’s Gospel?” CBQ 45 (1983): 617-30.

Stott, Cross of Christ, p. 233. See also P. T. O’Brien, Colossians, Philemon, WBC 44 (Waco, Tex.: Word, 1982), pp. 124-26.

J. Jeremias, The Central Message of the New Testament (New York: Scribner’s, 1965), pp. 36-37; O’Brien, Colossians, Philemon, p. 126.

Some have argued that Christ here strips off from himself the principalities and powers that clung to him as a factor of his taking on human flesh. See, e.g., MacGregor, “Principalities and Powers,” p. 23; Lee, “Interpreting the Demonic Powers,” p. 64. The warfare motif is no less forceful in this view, but it seems to me far more likely that it is the principalities and powers that are being “stripped,” that God in Christ is, as O’Brien says, “utterly divesting them of their dignity and might” (Colossians, Philemon, p. 127). Among other things, there is simply no evidence for the notion that Christ was ever “clothed” with “the powers.” For an insightful discussion, see ibid., pp. 126-28.

For a thorough discussion of the custom, see H. S. Versnel, Triumphus: An Inquiry into the Origin, Development and Meaning of the Roman Triumph (Leiden: Brill, 1970), esp. pp. 56-115. So too O’Brien argues that thriambeuo here implies “to lead as a conquered enemy in a victory parade,” rather than “to triumph over them,” as NRSV and NIV translate it (Colossians, Philemon, pp. 128-29). For a similar argument, see L. Williamson, “Led in Triumph: Paul’s Use of Thriambeuo,” Int 22 (1968): 317-32. Such studies conclusively refute two alternative interpretations entertained today. On the one hand, R. B. Egan argues that thriambeuo basically means “to reveal” (“Lexical Evidence on Two Pauline Passages,” NovT 19 [1977]: 34-62). On the other, W. Carr argues that the powers being referred to here are not hostile powers but simply angels (Angels and Principalities: The Background, Meaning and Development of the Pauline Phrase “hai archai kai hai exousiai,” SNTSMS 42 [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981], pp. 61-66). So too R. Yates takes thriambeuo to mean that Christ “boldly made an open display of the angelic powers; leading them in triumphal (festal) procession on the cross” (“Colossians 2:15: Christ Triumphant,” NTS 37 [1991]: 573-91, esp. 591). In my estimation, both of these alternative readings are highly improbable.

This, argues Arnold, is the force of Paul’s correlating the Colossians’ possession of divine “fullness” with Christ’s supremacy to the demonic powers (Powers of Darkness, p. 116).

For a thorough sketch of the history of the interpretation of this passage, see C. Skrade, “The Descent of the Servant: A Study of I Peter 3:13—4:6” (Th.D. diss., Union Theological Seminary, 1966), pp. 1-144. My categorization of the differing interpretations follows somewhat that of P. H. Davids, The First Epistle of Peter, NICNT (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1990), pp. 138ff. A number of differently nuanced views are possible within each of these three categories (especially the third), while a number of other views combine elements of these three views.

J. Calvin, The Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Hebrews, and the First and Second Epistles of St. Peter, trans. W. B. Johnston, Calvin’s Commentaries (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1963), pp. 292-95.

See, e.g., L. Goppelt, A Commentary on I Peter, ed. F. Hahn, trans. J. E. Alsup (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1993), pp. 258-60. W. Grudem offers a variation on this interpretation by suggesting that the verse refers to Christ’s preaching to human beings before the flood through Noah (The First Epistle of Peter, Tyndale New Testament Commentaries [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1988], pp. 157-61, 203-39).

The position has a number of variations. See W. J. Dalton, Christ’s Proclamation to the Spirits, AnBib 23 (Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1965); J. R. Michaels, 1 Peter, WBC 49 (Waco, Tex.: Word, 1988), pp. 194-222; idem, Word Biblical Themes: 1 Peter (Dallas: Word, 1989), pp. 70-77; B. Reicke, The Disobedient Spirits and Christian Baptism: A Study of 1 Peter 3:19 and Its Context (Copenhagen: Ejnar Munksgaard, 1946), who suggests that both human and evil angelic spirits associated with the Noachian judgment are intended; Skrade, “Descent of the Servant,” pp. 261-65.

Davids, First Peter, pp. 139-40.

First Enoch 21:6, 10. See Davids, First Peter, p. 140. E. J. Goodspeed (“Some Greek Notes,” JBL 73 [1954]: 91-92) goes so far as to suggest that the original version of this passage had Enoch carrying out the descent.

I shall explore the point fully in Satan and the Problem of Evil.

Because I see the “spirits” as nonhuman, and because I understand kerysso to be proclamation instead of evangelization, I’m inclined not to agree with those who would want to find in this verse an apologetic for “postmortem evangelization.” See, e.g., G. Fackre, “Divine Perseverance,” in What About Those Who Have Never Heard? Three Views on the Destiny of the Unevangelized, ed. J. Sanders (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1995), pp. 81-86.

Even many scholars who argue against seeing Christ’s descent here as a descent into “the underworld” (e.g., Hades) nevertheless find the Christus Victor theme to be the central driving force of the passage. M. Barth, Ephesians 4—6, AB 34A (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1974), p. 432, is a case in point. So too F. F. Bruce emphasizes the “victory ode” form of this passage (The Epistles to the Colossians, to Philemon and to the Ephesians, NICNT [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1984], p. 341).

On the lively history of the interpretation of this passage, see W. H. Harris, “The Descent of Christ in Ephesians 4:7-11: An Exegetical Investigation with Special Reference to the Influence of Traditions About Moses Associated with Psalm 68:19” (Ph.D. diss., University of Sheffield, 1988), pp. 4-48.

Versions of this position are espoused by M. Barth, Ephesians 4—6, pp. 433-34; Bruce, Colossians, Philemon, Ephesians, p. 343; R. Schnackenburg, The Epistle to the Ephesians: A Commentary, trans. H. Heron (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1991), pp. 178-79.

See, e.g., G. B. Caird, “The Descent of Christ in Ephesians 4:7-11,” Studia Evangelica 2, ed. F. L. Cross, TU 87 (Berlin: Akademie, 1964), pp. 535-45; Harris, “Descent of Christ,” pp. 235-65; C. H. Porter, “The Descent of Christ: An Exegetical Study of Eph 4:7-11,” in One Faith, ed. R. L. Simpson (Tulsa, Okla.: Phillips University Press, 1966), pp. 45-55.

This interpretation is embraced by Tertullian, Irenaeus, Chrysostom, Theodoret, Victorinus, Jerome and Aquinas, and is enshrined as doctrine in the Apostles’ Creed. For some contemporary defenders (of some version of this position), see H. Odeberg’s excellent little study The View of the Universe in the Epistle to the Ephesians, LUÅ 29/6 (Lund: Gleerup, 1934), pp. 17-19; R. C. H. Lenski, The Interpretation of St. Paul’s Epistles ot the Galatians, to the Ephesians and to the Philippians (Minneapolis: Augsburg, rpt. 1961), pp. 521-22; Reicke, Disobedient Spirits, p. 233; J. Schneider, “merovs,” TDNT, 4:597-98; Dunn, Christology in the Making, pp. 186-87; F. W. Beare, “The Epistle to the Ephesians,” in IB, 10:688-90.

See Arnold, Ephesians, pp. 56-58. The concept of a descent to the underworld may also lie behind Revelation 1:18, which portrays Christ as holding “the keys of death and Hades.” See Arnold, Powers of Darkness, pp. 108-9. Paul’s reference to beings “under the earth” in Philippians 2:11 may also be relevant here.

Yet Andrew Lincoln is surely justified in wondering why the superlative of katotera is not then used, especially since it is used in the LXX of Psalm 62:10 and 138:15, which speak of the underworld. See A. T. Lincoln, Ephesians, WBC 42 (Dallas: Word, 1990), p. 245. The objection is strong, but not decisive in overturning the rest of the evidence favoring reading this passage as referring to the underworld.

Dunn, Christology in the Making, p. 187. Taking this instead as a genitive of apposition, Dunn argues, is difficult.

Ibid.

So argues M. Barth: “Who are the ones caught? . . . According to Eph 4:8 those made prisoners are probably the principalities, powers, aeons” (Ephesians 4—6, p. 432. So J. L. Houlden, Paul’s Letters from Prison, (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1970), p. 311; Beare, Ephesians, pp. 688-89.

Odeberg, View of the Universe, p. 19.

This frequently missed dimension of the concept of redemption is captured well by Ethelbert Stauffer in his New Testament Theology, 5th ed., trans. J. Marsh (New York: Macmillan, 1955), pp. 146ff.

Stott, Cross of Christ, p. 176. See the excellent discussion of Leon Morris in The Atonement: Its Meaning and Significance (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1983), chap. 5, pp. 106-31. On lytron and related terms, see O. Procksch, “luvw,” TDNT, 4:328-35; C. Brown, “Redemption,” NIDNTT, 3:189-200.

This concept of redemption was anticipated in the Testament of Zebulon, which speaks of God redeeming “every captive of the sons of men from Beliar” (9:8).

See my forthcoming Satan and the Problem of Evil.

J. Kallas, The Satanward View: A Study in Pauline Theology (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1966), p. 74.

Ibid., note 2.

The frequently used (because insightful) analogy of the victory of the cross with D-day in World War II goes back to Oscar Cullmann, Christ and Time, trans. F. V. Filson (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1949), pp. 139-43. E. Ferguson offers another appropriate analogy when he likens Satan’s defeated state, while he yet rules over the world, to the ending term of office for a “lame-duck” president. “He will not last much longer. But during that time he has all the authority of the office. . . . The devil is the ‘lame-duck’ ruler of this world” (Ferguson, Demonology of the Early Christian World [New York: Mellen, 1984], p. 162).

Most scholars agree that the primary background to the terminology for the angelic and demonic realm in the New Testament is Jewish pseudepigraphal literature. G. H. C. MacGregor, however, has argued for the primacy of astrological beliefs in the first century. See his “Principalities and Powers: The Cosmic Background of Paul’s Thought,” NTS 1 (1954-55): 17-28, a view anticipated by W. L. Knox, St. Paul and the Church of the Gentiles (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1939), esp. pp. 104-7, 220. While this approach clearly sheds the best light on some of Paul’s terminology (e.g., “height and depth,” Rom 8:38), most scholars reject it as the principal source of Paul’s talk about principalities and powers. By contrast, Pierre Benoit has concluded that none of this evidence—the apocalyptic texts, the seemingly parallel references in Qumran, nor the available evidence of astrological beliefs—sufficiently accounts for Paul’s terminology. See his “Pauline Angelology and Demonology: Reflexions on the Designations of the Heavenly Powers and on the Origin of Angelic Evil,” Religious Studies Bulletin 3 (1983): 1-18.

Satan is explicitly named in Acts 5:3; 26:18; Romans 16:20; 1 Corinthians 5:5; 7:5; 2 Corinthians 2:11; 11:14; 12:7; 1 Thessalonians 2:18; 2 Thessalonians 2:9; 1 Timothy 1:20; 5:15; Revelation 2:9, 13, 24; 3:9; 12:9; 20:2, 7.

On the rare term kosmokratores, see C. Arnold, Ephesians, Power and Magic: The Concept of Power in Ephesians in Light of Its Historical Setting, SNTSMS 63 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), pp. 65-66. The issue whether exousia in Romans 13:1 refers to angelic authorities, human authorities or both is hotly contested. One of the foremost defenders of the “double-reference” thesis— the notion that exousia refers here both to human rulers and to spiritual rulers that empower them—has been Cullmann. See his Christ and Time, pp. 191-210; idem, The State in the New Testament (New York: Scribner’s, 1956), pp. 95-114. M. Dibelius (Die Geisterwelt im Glauben des Paulus [Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1909], pp. 189, 193ff.) had preceded Cullmann in this interpretation, and it is in varying degrees supported by Cullmann’s student C. D. Morrison, The Powers That Be: Earthly Rulers and Demonic Powers in Romans 13:1-7, SBT 2/29 [Naperville, Ill.: Allenson, 1960]), as well as by Benoit, “Pauline Angelology and Demonology,” p. 12; MacGregor, “Principalities and Powers,” pp. 24-25; B. Reicke, “The Law and the World According to Paul: Some Thoughts Concerning Gal. 4:1-11,” JBL 70 (1951): 269. Others have rather argued that Paul has only human rulers in mind here. See, e.g., Arnold, Ephesians, pp. 44-45; F. F. Bruce, “Paul and the Powers That Be,” BJRL 66 (1984): 88-90; W. A. Carr, Angels and Principalities: The Background, Meaning and Development of the Pauline Phrase “hai archai kai hai exousiai,” SNTSMS 42 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981); and most recently, T. Page, Powers of Evil: A Biblical Study of Satan and Demons (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 1995), pp. 262-63.

So translates NRSV; cf. “elemental spirits of the world” (NEB, RSV). The question of the meaning of the phrase stoicheia tou kosmou in Paul’s writings is vigorously debated. W. Wink (“The ‘Elements of the Universe’ in Biblical and Scientific Perspective,” Zygon 13, no. 3 [1978]: 225-48) has noted no fewer than seven different interpretations (p. 227). Generally speaking, however, scholars today roughly divide into three camps: (1) Following the Reformation tradition, some take stoicheia here to refer to the Old Testament law. See, e.g., A. J. Bandstra, The Law and the Elements of the World: An Exegetical Study in Aspects of Paul’s Teaching (Kampen: Kok, 1964). (2) Some scholars take the term to refer to the material components of the cosmos. See, e.g., E. Schweizer, “Slaves of the Elements and Worshipers of Angels: Gal 4:3, 9 and Col 2:8, 18, 20,” JBL 107 (1988): 455-68. (3) Other scholars take the term to refer to personal beings, typically recognized as “astral spirits.” See, e.g., Arnold, Ephesians, pp. 131, 168; Benoit, “Pauline Angelology and Demonology,” p. 13; J. J. Gunther, St. Paul’s Opponents and Their Background: A Study of Apocalyptic and Jewish Sectarian Teachings, NovTSup 35 (Leiden: Brill, 1973), pp. 172ff.; Reicke, “The Law and the World”; and esp. C. J. Kurapti, “Spiritual Bondage and Christian Freedom According to Paul” (Ph.D. diss., Princeton Theological Seminary, 1976). Although it is clear that there is no unambiguous usage of stoicheia as referring to angelic or astral spirits until after Paul (e.g., Testament of Solomon 8:1-4; 18:1-4), it can perhaps be located as early as the late first century (see Kurapati, “Spiritual Bondage,” pp. 56-57, 72-74). When one further considers just how enamored intertestamental Judaism was with angelic beings (including their relation to the physical world; see, e.g., Jubilees 2:2; 1 Enoch 60:12-21) and how well taking stoicheia as referring to angelic/astral spirits fits in the Galatian context, the third interpretation of stoicheia seems most probable. For a recent argument in this direction, see C. E. Arnold, “Returning to the Domain of the Powers: Stoicheia as Evil Spirits in Galatians 4:3, 9,” NovT 38 (1996): 55-76. Arnold has recently made a similar argument regarding stoicheia in Colossians; see The Colossian Syneretism: The Interface Between Christianity and Folk Belief at Colossae (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 1996), pp. 158-94.

R. Leivestad only slightly overstates the case when he argues that “Paul has no particular interest in angelology. He pays no attention to their interrelations, and applies the titles indiscriminately” (Christ the Conqueror: Ideas of Conflict and Victory in the New Testament [New York: Macmillan; 1954], p. 93). T. Ling, however, certainly goes too far in arguing that Paul is taking “various contemporary conceptions of spirit powers which were thought of as ruling over the religio-cultural life of men, and is compressing them into one single conception” (The Significance of Satan: New Testament Demonology and Its Contemporary Significance [London: SPCK, 1961], p. 65).

F. I. Andersen, in OTP, 1:134.

E. Issac, in OTP, 1:42.

Arnold, Ephesians, 51-69. Hence the relevance of Greek magical texts for understanding Paul’s concepts cannot be minimized. See W. Grundmann, Der Begriff der Kraft in der Neutestamentlichen Gedankenwelt, BWANT 8 (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1932), esp. pp. 32-55. MacGregor (“Principalities and Powers”) attempts to make the case that the Gentile astrological beliefs and writings are the primary source of Paul’s terminology for the spiritual realm. Relevant here as well is T. B. Cargal, “Seated in the Heavenlies: Cosmic Mediators in the Mysteries of Mithras and the Letter to the Ephesians,” SBLSP, 1994, ed. E. H. Lovering (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1994), pp. 804-21.

So concludes P. O’Brien in his excellent article “Principalities and Powers: Opponents of the Church,” ERT 16, no. 4 (1992): 353-84, esp. 378.

H. Schlier, Principalities and Powers in the New Testament (Freiburg: Herder and Herder, 1961); H. Berkhof, Christ and the Powers, trans. J. H. Yoder (Scottdale, Penn.: Herald, 1962). So too argues G. B. Caird in his highly influential Principalities and Powers: A Study in Pauline Theology (Oxford: Clarendon, 1956). On the history of this discussion through the twentieth century, see O’Brien, “Principalities and Powers”; T. H. McAlpine, Facing the Powers: What Are the Options? (Monrovia, Calif.: MARC, 1991).

Wesley Carr argues against this, maintaining that the various “powers” are all angelic, not demonic, at least in Colossians and Ephesians. See his Angels and Principalities. A host of exegetical problems attend this thesis. To cite two examples: (1) Carr must argue that apekdyomai (“disarming” or “stripping off”) in Colossians 2:15 does not refer to Christ stripping away the weapons of diabolical powers but (as later Gnostics would contend) to Christ laying aside “his battle-dress (his flesh)” (p. 65). Hence too he must argue that the “public spectacle” of this verse is a positive display (not mockery) and that the triumph here is not over these powers but with these powers. This exegesis is exceedingly stretched. (2) Carr must maintain, on entirely circumstantial grounds, that Ephesians 6:12 is a later Christian interpolation (pp. 104-10). On the integrity of this passage in Ephesians, see C. Arnold, “The ‘Exorcism’ of Ephesians 6:12 in Recent Research: A Critique of Wesley Carr’s View of Evil Powers in First Century AD Belief,” JSNT 30 (1987): 71-87. For other critical reviews of Carr’s unusual thesis, see M. D. Hooker, review of Angels and Principalities by W. Carr, JTS 34 (1983): 606-9; O’Brien, “Principalities and Powers,” pp. 369-72; W. W. Wink, Union Seminary Quarterly Review 39 (1984): 146-50.

See, e.g., V. Eller, Christian Anarchy: Jesus’ Primacy over the Powers (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1987); A. H. van den Heuvel, Those Rebellious Powers (New York: Friendship, 1965); R. Sider, Christ and Violence (Scottdale, Penn.: Herald, 1979), who takes Ephesians 3:10 to be a mandate of the church to preach against the “powers” (p. 51), as does Wink, Naming the Powers, p. 89.

Many who argue along these lines contend that the fallen “powers” are held in place by violence and hence can be overthrown only through pacifism. Indeed, according to Wink, C. Myers and others, the pacifistic overthrow of these powers is precisely what Christ in principle accomplished on the cross. See Wink, Engaging the Powers, esp. pp. 173-92, 319-24; C. Myers, Binding the Strong Man: A Political Reading of Mark’s Story of Jesus (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1988), pp. 452-53.

Berkhof, Christ and the Powers, p. 23. Both Schlier and Berkhof, however, stop short of completely reducing the “powers” to social structures, though Berkhof argues that even if Paul did hold that the powers were transcendent to these structures, its significance is so marginal as to be negligible (p. 24). G. B. Caird opts for this interpretation in Principalities and Powers, though two decades later he seems to admit the powers are personal beings. See Paul’s Letters from Prison (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1976), p. 96. Also arguing that Paul “demythologized” apocalyptic concepts is J. C. Beker, Paul the Apostle (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1980), pp. 189-92.

Wink, Naming the Powers: The Language of Power in the New Testament (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984), p. 62.

Ibid., pp. 65-66.

Ibid, p. 104.

Ibid., p. 105.

Schlier, Principalities, pp. 30-32; Wink, Naming the Powers, p. 83.

Arnold, Ephesians, p. 60.

Cited in Arnold, Powers of Darkness, p. 197; cf. idem, Ephesians, pp. 60-62. Arnold especially faults Wink for paying insufficient attention to this evidence. See Ephesians, pp. 50-51.

See, e.g., Ascension of Isaiah 2:2-4, which speaks of Beliar leading Jerusalem astray.

So argues Arnold against Beker, Ephesians, p. 131. Wink, however, understands even Satan, demons and angels along the same lines as the cosmic powers; they are transcendent but not personal or autonomous realities.

The NIV unfortunately interprets rather than translates sarx (lit. “flesh”) as “sinful nature,” making it sound as if even regenerate Christians who are “new creations” in Christ (2 Cor 5:17) still have a sinful nature. In my estimation, a better way of understanding “flesh” is to see it as a way of living, apart from God, rather than something inherent even in the nature of believers.

See E. Schweizer, “s??? ???.,” TDNT, 7:133.

Beker argues in the opposite direction. Because such categories as sin, death and the flesh are frequent in Paul’s thought, and they are not portrayed as independent agents, we should take his apocalyptic terminology in a demythologized fashion. See his Paul the Apostle, pp. 189-92. For a cogent refutation, see Arnold, Ephesians, pp. 129-32. For a helpful book that takes seriously the “structural” aspect of the “powers” without thereby reductionistically denying their personalistic dimensions, see R. E. Webber, The Church in the World: Opposition, Tension or Transformation? (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 1986).

Arnold, Powers of Darkness, pp. 104-7.

R. Recker raises the question of whether we should say that Satan is “still” the “prince of this world”; see “Satan: In Power or Dethroned?” CTJ 6 (1971): 133-55. While Christ’s accomplished victory must always be emphasized, as it is in the New Testament, it nevertheless remains true that all the verses cited above concerning the rule of Satan are composed after the resurrection. Recker resolves the “already/not yet” tension of the New Testament and thereby loses the eschatological dimension of the dethroning of Satan.

See the discussion in Ling, Significance of Satan, p. 40.

I cite this only as another example of the general view that the demonic kingdom can cause physical afflictions. But it must be noted that the theme of diabolical destruction in the book of Revelation differs significantly from the rest of the New Testament. For while Jesus did not come “to condemn the world” (Jn 3:18), the book of Revelation speaks of a time when this period of grace has come to an end. Here, at the end of time as we know it, Jesus and the Father are no longer fighting for the world to set up their kingdom, but against what remains of the world after it has rejected their kingdom. Hence as the Lord did against the Egyptians when freeing the children of Israel, the Lord here takes the radical measure of sending “woes” upon the earth, and sometimes using the vengeance of demons to do it (e.g., Rev 6:7-8, 12-17; 9:1-20; 20:7-9). Unlike the rest of the New Testament, in which God fights against demonic powers, then, here the demonic powers are for a time specially allowed by God to work their destruction. It is a mistake, however, to adopt this apocalyptic perspective—when God will judge a hopelessly demonic world—when we are trying to understand evil in the gracious interval between the cross and the eschaton—viz., when God is yet working to save the world from the demonic kingdom. In the forthcoming Satan and the Problem of Evil I shall argue that one of the fundamental errors Augustine made was that he adopted just this erroneous perspective. In doing so, he altered the motif of the world as a battlefield to the world as a penal colony. So notes R. Brown, “Sorcery, Demons and the Rise of Christianity: From Late Antiquity into the Middle Ages,” in his Religion and Society in the Age of Augustine (New York: Harper & Row, 1972), pp. 119-42. As a result, the church has by and large seen evil as punishment for sin, and the devil and demons as God’s instruments for bringing this punishment about. This is the perspective of Revelation, but it is difficult to imagine anything further from Jesus’ perspective on the demonic kingdom, and on evil in the world, as he fought (and still fights through the church) to set up his kingdom in this world. For an excellent discussion of the theme of the final victory of the saints through the onslaught of demonic forces in the book of Revelation, see S. L. Homey, “‘To Him Who Overcomes’: A Fresh Look at What ‘Victory’ Means for the Believer According to the Book of Revelation,” JETS 38 (1995): 193-201.

So Ling notes, Significance of Satan, p. 40.

W. Sanday and A. C. Headlam, The Epistle to the Romans, 5th ed., ICC (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1902), p. 431.

On this, see E. Langton, The Essentials of Demonology (London: Epworth, 1949), p. 190.

Pace, e.g., R. Guelich, “Spiritual Warfare: Jesus, Paul and Peretti,” Pneuma 13, no. 1 (1991): 33-64. Guelich’s argument is interesting because he clearly wants to accept a literal devil as a literal evil leader of a literal multitude of demons who are literally against Christians, yet he wants to argue that the warfare motif in Scripture is a metaphor. Indeed, he is concerned that the “metaphor” of military engagement has been taken with excessive literalness by the modern spiritual warfare movement: “What began as a metaphor for the Christian life has become a movement whose expression is found above all in Frank Peretti’s novel, This Present Darkness” (p. 34). While the portrayal of warfare in Peretti’s novel certainly far outruns anything we find in Scripture (it is, after all, a novel), it does not follow from this that Scripture’s own talk of warfare is not literal.

The traditional ending of Mark has Jesus list “driving out demons” as the first “sign” of those who believe (Mk 16:17). While the text is certainly not Mark’s, it just as certainly reflects an early postapostolic awareness that exorcism was to be a standard part of the church’s ministry. I shall provide a comprehensive review of the role of exorcism in the early church in my forthcoming Satan and the Problem of Evil.

“Spirit of python” could refer to an ability to predict the future. We know that the divinizing prophetess at Delphi was called “pythia” because it was believed she was inspired by the god Apollo, who, legend had it, defeated a dragon named python. Or it may refer to a “spirit of ventriloquism”—the demon spoke through her—since we know from Plutarch that ventriloquists were sometimes called “pythons.” See E. Langton, God and Evil Spirits: A Study of the Jewish and Christian Doctrine, Its Origin and Development (New York: Macmillan, 1942), p. 159. On the ancient python myth in general, see J. Fontenrose, Python: A Study of the Delphic Myth and Its Origins (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1959).

This account seems to stand in tension with Mark 9:38-40 and Luke 9:49-50, where Jesus affirms (against his disciples) the validity of an exorcist who was not following him but who used Jesus’ name in successful exorcisms. Perhaps the Gospel accounts differ from the Acts account in that the solo exorcist in the Gospels seems to have been working, however unknowingly, in league with Jesus. Though not a full-fledged disciple, he was glorifying Jesus. This does not seem to have been the motivation of the seven sons of Sceva. Cf. Matthew 7:21-23.

See the introduction above, note 16.

The success of Christian exorcism, as opposed to the spotty success of their contemporaries, was one of the strongest selling points of Christianity in the ancient world. As Adolf von Harnack observed: “It was as exorcisers that Christians went out into the great world, and exorcism formed one very powerful method of their mission and propaganda. It was a question not simply of exorcising and vanquishing the demons that dwelt in individuals, but also of purifying all public life from them” (The Mission and Expansion of Christianity in the First Three Centuries, trans. and ed. J. Moffatt [New York: Putnam’s, 1908], 1.131). Also significant is that neither Jesus nor his disciples used any of the common techniques for exorcism, e.g., various magical names, formula, potions, charms. See D. E. Aune, “Magic in Early Christianity,” in ANRW (1980), 2/23.2:1545; G. Twelftree, Jesus the Exorcist: A Contribution to the Study of the Historical Jesus, WUNT 2/54 (Tübingen: Mohr/Siebeck, 1993), p. 164; G. Boyd, Jesus Under Siege (Wheaton, Ill.: Victor, 1995), pp. 43-62; E. Ferguson, Demonology of the Early Christian World (New York: Mellen, 1980), p. 9. The uniqueness of the Christian approach to exorcism, as opposed to all magical techniques, was a point of contention in the early postapostolic church as well. On this see H. Remus, Pagan-Christian Conflict over Miracle in the Second Century (Cambridge, Mass.: Philadelphia Patristic Foundation, 1983), pp. 48-72; idem, “‘Magic or Miracle?’ Some Second-Century Instances,” The Second Century 2 (1982): 127-56; E. R. Dodds, Pagan and Christian in an Age of Anxiety (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1965), pp. 124ff.; E. V. Gallagher, Divine Man or Magician: Celsus and Origen on Jesus (Chico, Calif.: Scholars Press, 1982).

As Leivestad argues, there is no reason to take these “arrows” as referring only to spiritual temptations. He contends that they refer to physical tribulations brought on by persecution from the devil or from the hostile earthly people he governs. See Christ the Conqueror, p. 163. For several helpful studies on Ephesians 6:10-12, see Arnold, “The ‘Exorcism’ of Ephesians 6:12 in Recent Research”; A. T. Lincoln, “‘Stand, Therefore . . .’: Ephesians 6:10-20 as Peroratio,” Biblical Interpretation 3, no. 1 (1995): 99-114 (which, interestingly enough, makes the case that this warfare passage sums up the central theme of the whole epistle); R. A. Wild, “The Warrior and the Prisoner: Some Reflections on Ephesians 6:10-20,” CBQ 46 (1984): 284-98.

Ling, Significance of Satan, p. 45, quoting T. K. Abbott. One is reminded of James 4:7: “Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.”

Guelich argues that the author of this passage “abandons the military imagery of 6:10-17 and calls for the believers to remain alert” with verse 18 (“Spiritual Warfare,” p. 50). It is true that prayer and alertness are not part of the armor of the Christian, but it is difficult to agree for this reason that the author has discontinued the military imagery. For whom is the Christian to remain “alert” if not for the “devil,” the “rulers,” the “authorities,” the “powers of this dark world” and the “spiritual forces of evil” just mentioned five verses earlier?

Beliar or Belial is frequently mentioned in Jewish literature as an alternative name of Satan. The root meaning of the word seems to be “worthlessness.” See H. H. Rowley, The Relevance of Apocalyptic: A Study of Jewish and Christian Apocalypses from Daniel to the Revelation, rev. ed. (New York: Association, 1963), p. 72. A number of scholars argue that these passages may echo an early Christian prebaptism catechism that involved renouncing Satan, such as we find practiced throughout the early postapostolic church. On Ephesians 5:14-16 see H. A. Kelly, The Devil at Baptism: Ritual, Theology and Drama (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1985), p. 26; D. Mollat, “Baptismal Symbolism in St. Paul,” in Baptism in the New Testament, ed. A. Grail, trans. D. Askew (Baltimore: Helicon, 1968), pp. 81-83. On Romans 13:12 see M. E. Boismard, “I Renounce Satan, His Pomps and His Works,” in Baptism in the New Testament, pp. 107-112. On the Qumran background of 1 Corinthians 6:14-15, see Kelly, Devil at Baptism, pp. 39-40.

On various aspects and perspectives regarding Qumran dualism, especially as portrayed in the “light versus darkness” motif, see K. M. T. Atkinson, “The Historical Setting of the ‘War of the Sons of Light and the Sons of Darkness,’” BJRL 40 (1958): 272-97; R. E. Brown, “The Qumran Scrolls and the Johannine Gospel and Epistles,” CBQ 17 (1955): 183-207; J. J. Collins, “The Mythology of the Holy War in Daniel and the Qumran War Scroll: A Point of Transition in Jewish Apocalyptic,” VT 25 (1975): 596-612.

In the light of all these passages, it is in my view remarkable that Guelich concludes that the warfare motif in Paul and the whole of the New Testament is rare (“Spiritual Warfare,” p. 51). It is, he thinks, surprising “how relatively little Paul has to say about Satan and the ‘rulers and authorities’ and especially how little he actually makes of military metaphors when speaking of Satan and the forces of evil in the light of his consistent portrait of them as adversaries” (ibid). While I can certainly appreciate Guelich’s concern to avoid an overly literal acceptance of “Peretti’s portrait of the demonic” (p. 54)—the central concern of this essay—and thus I can appreciate his emphasis on how reserved Paul (and Jesus) is in terms of his speculations about the unseen enemy, I simply cannot agree with his minimalist reading of the warfare motif in either Paul or the Gospels.

For several helpful discussions on ancient Jewish perspectives, see B. J. Bamberger, Fallen Angels (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1952); S. Revard, The War in Heaven: Paradise Lost and the Tradition of Satan’s Rebellion (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1980).

I shall argue in Satan and the Problem of Evil that freedom is a “metaphysical given” and is, as such, incapable of further analysis. It thus constitutes a justifiable ultimate principle of explanation.

Whether the connection between Satan and Lucifer in Isaiah 14 had been made at the time of Paul’s writing is a matter of dispute, largely hinging on the dating of the longer recension of the Book of the Secrets of Enoch that clearly makes this connection (29:4-5). This work had been generally dated in the first century, but some recent scholars have argued that it was actually composed much later. See Kelley, Devil at Baptism, p. 18; idem, “The Devil in the Desert,” CBQ 26 (1964): 203-4.

A point to be developed in part three of the forthcoming Satan and the Problem of Evil.

On Gehenna see D. F. Watson, “Gehenna,” in ABD 2:926-28; L. Bailey, “Gehenna: The Topography of Hell,” in BA 49 (1986): 187-91; C. Milikowsky, “Which Gehenna? Retribution and Eschatology in the Synoptic Gospels and in Early Jewish Texts,” NTS 34 (1988): 238-49.

This biblical motif grounds the annihilationist doctrine of hell that is gaining notoriety today. In this view, the damned are eventually (or immediately) annihilated. Eternal punishment, like eternal redemption, is eternal in consequence, not in experiential duration. The most comprehensive and, in my estimation, the most compelling work defending annihilationism is E. W. Fudge’s The Fire That Consumes: The Biblical Case for Conditional Immortality, rev. ed. (Carlisle, U.K.: Paternoster, 1994). See also D. Edwards and J. R. W. Stott, Evangelical Essentials: A Liberal-Evangelical Dialogue (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1988), pp. 312-20; J. Wenham, The Goodness of God (London: InterVarsity Press, 1974), pp. 27-41; idem, “The Case for Conditional Immortality,” in Universalism and the Doctrine of Hell, ed. N. M. de. S. Cameron (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 1992), pp. 161-91; P. Hughes, The True Image (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1989), pp. 398ff.; C. Pinnock, “The Conditional View,” in Four Views on Hell, ed. W. Crockett (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 1992), pp. 135-66.

The apocalyptic literature that forms the background to the New Testament sometimes speaks of the devil and fallen angels being tormented eternally while other times as being utterly annihilated. First and Second Enoch as well as 4 Maccabees clearly depict both the devil and his angels, along with all human sinners, suffering endless conscious punishment. Most of the Qumran writings, the Sibylline Oracles, Psalms of Solomon and 4 Ezra are quite clear in depicting total annihilation as the fate of the angelic and human rebellion. A host of other documents are either unclear or seem to teach both doctrines. See Fudge, Fire That Consumes, pp. 78-92. For a discussion on how annihilationists handle these verses, see ibid., pp. 93-198.

“If we see the work of Jesus as the defeat of Satan and the destruction of Satan’s grip on this world,” argues Kallas, “then suddenly the life, work, death, and resurrection of Jesus assume an impressive unity. . . . The life of Jesus thus seen is a cohesive, closely knit, ascending battle which reaches its climax in the resurrection” (The Significance of the Synoptic Miracles [Greenwich, Conn.: Seabury, 1961], p. 86).

G. Wingren, The Living Word: A Theological Study of Preaching and the Church (Philadelphia: Muhlenberg, 1949), p. 181.