LI I 6H 535 T15 CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY Date Due jm^ lZf7t-i ^^^HILMP "wm ^W^~^ ■wt. Zl: Cornell University Library BM535 .T75 Judaism and Christianity: a sl both are growths out of the old folk-faith, with different starting-points and paths of develop- ment. The angels of the older Hebrew literature (down to the second century B. c.) are like the spirits in having no functional or ethical differentiation among themselves; they are all ministers and messengers of God, executing his designs, benevolent or harmful, saving or destroying without respect to circumstance. They differ from the spirits in the nature of the commissions intrusted to them, appearing often in bodily shape, and performing bodily actions, such as deliver- SUBORDINATE SUPERNATURAL BEINGS. 147 ing messages to persons and inflicting plagues, while the spirits act directly on the minds of men. The ground of this difference between the two categories of being is to be sought in their origins. Both doubtless go back to the spiritual essences which were believed to reside in objects ; but the Old Testament spirits seem to be merely the isolation of these essences, while the angels appear to be derived immediately from forms of old deities. For between angels and " sons of God " or " sons of the Elohim " in the Old Testament there does not seem to be any difference of nature. These last occur by name on three occasions : they intermarry with human beings and become the fathers of old heroes (Gen. vi. 2) ; they form a heavenly court, and report their procedures to Yahwe (Job i. ii ) ; they are present at the creation of the world (Job xxxviii. 7). It is they also with whom God takes counsel respecting the creation of man, and in whose image man is created (Gen. i. 26) ; they are con- sulted by Yahwe as to the coercion of the tower-builders (Gen. xi. 7) ; they are the Elohim-behigs with whom man is compared by the Psalmist (Ps. viii. 5) ; with two of them (afterward called " angels " ) Yahwe descends to earth to in- quire into the alleged iniquities of Sodom (Gen. xviii. 19).' They carry us back to a theistic scheme in which Yahwe was only the first among a host of equals. In time the rest were subordinated to him, becoming in part the inferior deities of other nations, in part the ministers and messengers 1 In the form of heathen deities, Elohim-heings to whom the nations have been assigned (Dent, xxxii. 8 in the Greek), they appear m Ps. Ixxxii. (v. 1 : •' Yahwe judRes in the midst of gods " [dMm] ; v. 6 : " I have said, ye are gods, and all of you sons of Elyon " [the most High! ), Ps. xxix. 1 (where the " sons of gods," elim, are called on to give honor to Yahwe), Ps. Ixxxix. 7 ("sons of gods," elim ), Ps. xcvii. 7 (" Do homage to him, all gods," elohim), and perhaps Ps. Iviii. I (2), hy a slight change of text: "Do ye indeed utter justice, gods ' " This conception of heathen gods, which is inconsistent with mono- theism, seems to have maintained itself after the exile, but does not impair the practical supremacy of the God of Israel. 148 SUBORDINATE SUPERNATUEAL BEINGS. of Yaliwe. It is in this latter character that they are termed " angels " in the Old Testament ; the expression " sous of the Elohim " (that is, members of the Elohim-class) or " sons of God " designates them in the Hebrew theology rather as the attendants of the supreme deity, while the angels are active agents, and intermediaries between God and the world. Their creation is nowhere mentioned; their existence from the beginning is assimied. The oldest angelic representation in the Old Testament seems to be that of a being who is apparently charged with the whole divine authority, and acts as if he were an inde- pendent divinity (the angel of the Lord or of God). Such is the tone of the being who appears to Hagar (Ge.n. xvi. 7-13), to Joshua (Josh. v. 13), and to Manoah (Judg. xiii. 18). This figure is perhaps a real survival of an ancient deity ; it is thus that an independent deity, transformed in a monotheistic faith into a messenger of the supreme God, would act; and it is to be observed that the title " angel " distinctly and completely differences such a being from God himself, — Yah we could never be called his own messenger. In this way, also, we are to understand the vision in Zech. iii., where the titles " the angel of Yahwe " and " Yah we " are interchanged ; the divine authority resides in the angel, but he is not identi- cal with the divine being. Closely allied with this angelic form are the angels of the face or presence (Isa. Ixiii. 9, cf. Ex. xxxiii. 15) and of the name (Ex. xxiii. 21), who represent the divine power in a very special way. From these passages it may be concluded that this conception of special angelic intermediaries retained its hold on Jewish thought down to a comparatively late period ; it appears in an altered form in the book of Daniel. It arose from the demand for an actual divine presence among men, coupled with the feeling that God could not appear in person. This representation of the intercourse between man and SUBORDINATE SUPERNATURAL BEINGS. 149 God was, however, gradually modified by the monotheistic feeling. The increasing exaltation of the divine being tended to reduce all subordinate supernatural intelligences to the same level; more and more he was withdrawn into absolute aloneness, and all his ministers were as one in his sight. Some time before the exile the angel appears as a simple messenger and agent of God ; so we may probably understand the horses and chariots which surrounded Elisha (2 Kings VL 17), and such is the character of the being who acts as interpreter to the prophet Zechariah (Zech. i. 9). This is the view which became more and more prominent in the post-biblical Judaism, and passed into the New Testament ; it is found in Daniel, Tobit, and Enoch, and in the Talmud.^ At this point we have to notice an extraordinary develop- ment of the scheme of the angelic world which appears in the Jewish literature a couple of hundred years before the beginning of our era. In the body of the Old Testament no one of the angels receives a special proper name, nor is there any definite gradation among them. In the books of Tobit, Daniel, and Enoch, we are suddenly introduced to a well- organized angelic society, the individuals of which have their ' "Weber, " System der pal. Theol," §§ 34, 35, and Kohut, " Jiidische Angel- ologie und DamoDologie." Angelic appearances are rare in the later historical books ; doubtless the apparition which struck down Heliodorus (2 Mac. iii. 24 ff.) was thought of as an angel. In the Old Testament writings down to the end of the exile, angels occur almost exclusively in folk-stories. About one fourth of the occurrences are found in the narrative books of the i'entateuch : (15 in Gen , 6 in Ex., 11 in Numb., of which 10 are in the Balaam-story); Judges has nearly one fifth (22, the story of Manoah, ch. xiii., containing 10) ; Samuel and Kings .show a somewhat smaller number (14), and Chronicles nearly as many (10) ; the prophets are almost silent (1 in Hosea, and 1 in Isaiah). The angel in pre-exilian times thus seems to belong to the popular rather than to the prophetic religion. Immediately after the exile the angelic figure becomes very prominent in Zechariah (20 occurrences), but differs from the earlier form somewhat, in being more intimate and confiden- tial with the prophet. Later in Job (twice) and in Psalms (8 times) the conception of angelic agency is loftier. The word " angel " is found only twice in Daniel, but angelic beings play a very important part. 150 SUBORDINATE SUPERNATURAL BEINGS, own proper names and exercise functions unknown to the earlier writings. In Tobit, Eafael is the affable companion and mentor of the young Tobias, occupies himself with domestic matters in a genial human way, and shows himself to be a clever man of affairs. Two other names appear in Daniel: Gabriel is interpreter to the seer (Dan. viii. 16); Michael is the guardian angel of Israel (Dan. x. 13); guar- dian angels of other nations are spoken of, but not named ; mention is made of holy " watchers " who are sent down as agents of God. Enoch details the angelic history at great length, with long lists of names and much specialization of function. The question arises. How is this great expansion of the angelic scheme to be explained ; may it be regarded as a purely native development ? or must a foreign, especially a Persian influence be appealed to ? ' In the first place, it is to be observed that the existence of a Persian influence on the Jewish pneumatology of this time is vouched for by the name of the evil spirit in Tobit; Asmodeus is confessedly the Per- sian Aeshma daeva. It is also to be noted that the Persians probably had at this time a well-developed system of super- natural intelligences which was not borrowed by them, since the greater part &f it can be traced back to the old Aryan material.^ Alongside of the supreme God, Ahura-Mazda, stood the six Amesha-^pentas and a host of other deities and spirits who were invested with various functions in the government and maintenance of the world. A special posi- tion as guardians was assigned to certain star-deities (Tistrya and three others), who presided over the four quarters of the world, and to the Fravashis, who, whatever their origin, were charged with the control of various departments of human 1 See Kohut, " Aneelologie und Damonologie," and C. de Harlez, " Dcs Origines du Zoroastrisme," Paris, 1879 (originally appeared in the "Journal Asiatique," 1878). ^ Spiegel, " Eranische Altertliumskunde," ii. SUBORDINATE SUPERNATURAL BEINGS. 151 life. It must be borne in mind that the Jews would prob- ably take such ideas from popular beliefs rather than from books ; for example, the character of the Asmodeus of Tobit does not correspond exactly with that of the Aeshma of the Persian sacred books, and the more natural explanation of this difference is that the popular mythology diverged a little from the tlieological standards, as has been true to a great extent among Christian peoples. It is quite conceivable that the Persian popular doctrine of guardian spirits was fuller than that of the books (supposing, as is likely, that books existed at this time), or differed from it in some details ; or we may suppose that the idea of angels as guardians of par- ticular nations originated among the Jews under Persian influence.^ Abundant opportunity for borrowing such con- ceptions was afforded by the long residence of the exiles in Babylonia after it became a Persian province. Ezekiel and his successors showed themselves quite ready to adopt certain Semitic-Babylonian ideas, and there was no reason why there should not have been a similar willingness to receive sugges- tions from the Persians. The scenes of the books of Esther, Tobit, and Daniel lie in the Persian region. A general in- fluence, therefore, is not at all improbable. All that need be supposed is an expansion of existing Jewish ideas in the direction of organization and specialization of function. The supposition of borrowing is made more probable by the fact that the angelic system in Daniel is not entirely in the line of the preceding Old Testament development. Angels do not appear as national guardians in the later post-biblical books. In the New Testament there is one apparent reference to the belief in the angelic guardianship of individuals (Matt, xviii. 1 An Old Testament point of attachment for this idea is found in the Greek text of Deut. xxxii. 8 ; " The Most High set the boundaries of the nations according to the number of the angels of God," or, as the emended Hebrew- text would read : " The number of the sons of the Elohim," where the refer ence would be to the gods of the nations. 152 SUBORDINATE SUPERNATUKAL BEINGS. 10); the Michael of the New Testament Apocalypse has a somewhat different coloring from the angel of that name in Daniel, — he is the prince and leader of the people of God, hut his conflict with the dragon connects him rather with the old Babylonian myth of the fight between Bel and Tiamat than with the function of guardianship. The names of the biblical angels are Hebrew, which is what we might expect on the supposition that the Jews took general sugges- tions from the Persians, and worked them up in their own manner. The position of angels in the New Testament is in general the same as in the Old Testament, but with noteworthy modifications in some books. They are immortal (Luke xx- 36), and neither marry nor are given in marriage (Matt. xxii. 30) ; their special ordinary function is to minister to God's people, particularly in times of douht or distress, and it is thought to be not unnatural that they should speak to men (Acts xxiii. 9, a Pharisaic opinion, shared, no doubt, by Chris- tians) ; they take a lively interest in men's spiritual expe- riences (Luke XV. 10) ; they conduct the souls of the righteous to paradise (Luke xvi. 22) ; they inflict disease on wicked men (Acts xii. 23) ; they form a sort of heavenly society, before which Christ will acknowledge his servants, in order that they may be admitted to the privileges of this blessed com- panionship (Luke xii. 8 ; Rev. iii. 5) ; they are to be the attend- ants of the Son of Man when he shall come to judge the world, it is they who will gather the elect, and remove the wicked (Matt. xiii. 41 ; xxv. 31 ; 2 Thess. i. 7) ; they are them- selves called "elect" (1 Tim. v. 21), chosen by God for his service in distinction from those " angels " who pertain to the Devil (Matt. xxv. 41 ; Eev.xii. 9), — Satan, however, can assume the form of an angel of light, for the purpose of deceiving men, just as his ministers, false teachers of religion, present themselves as apostles of Christ (2 Cor. xi. 14, 15) ; believers SUBORDINATE SUPERNATURAL BEINGS. 153 are attended by angels, who have special access to God (ilatt. xviii. 10 ; Acts xii. 15) ; the natural inference is that each believer has a guardian angel, Vi^ho represents him in the divine presence and cares for his interests, — an extension of the conception in the book of Tobit. Some peculiar representations are found in Paul's Epistles. Believers, it is said (1 Cor. vi. 3) are to judge angels (whether good or bad angels is not clear) to be superior to them in dignity, doubtless in consequence of their near relation to Christ, — a view which may be compared with that of Luke XX. 36, where they are thought of as equal to the good angels ; cf. in 1 Pet. i. 12 the statement that these last desire to understand the things of the gospel, the inference being that they are not completely enlightened therein. More difficult is his opinion that women in the church- gatherings, or while praying or prophesying, should be veiled " on account of the angels " ( 1 Cor. xi. 10). The veil, as the sign of subordination, is understood to symbolize man's authority over woman — but what has this to do with angels ? It cannot be intended simply to express respect for them ; this would be equally obligatory on men. It cannot be to teach them, whether they be holy or unholy, a lesson of subordination , this seems a forced idea. Nor is it nat- ural to regard the expression as meaning that the angels will report the conduct of the women to God ; the apostle would hardly thus refer to a general angelic function in connection with a particular custom. His intention seems to be to insist that the woman shall wear the badge of subordination or ownership in the presence of beings who represent, having had a part in establishing, that order of creation in which the woman was made subject to the man. In that case we infer that he understood the " let us make " of Gen. i. 26 as including the angels. In Eom. viii. 38 a hierarchical consti- tution of the angelic world is hinted at in the expressions 154 EVIL SPIRITS. " angels, principalities, powers," the two last terms being not further defined. These beings are, however, here presented as hostile to the Christian life, as in Eph. vi 12, Col. ii. 15 ;^ while in Eph. i. 21, iii. 10, Col. i. 16, ii. 10, they are obe- dient servants of God. It appears, therefore, that these ex- pressions are used by Paul and the authors of Ephcsians and Colossians in a twofold sense, of both good and bad supernatural powers. This later angelic scheme appears thus to be the Old Tes- tament system, organized under Persian influence into a double hierarchy (good and bad), and in the Colossian heresy (Col. ii. 18) tinged with the gnostic thought which repre- sented the angels as being, both ontologically, and as objects of worship and instruments of salvation, the connecting link between God and man. In the Christian scheme proper they were subordinate to Christ, and probably in general to the divine spirit, though in one place (Acts viii. 26, 29) the same act is ascribed at one time to an angel, at another to the spirit. On this point there was doubtless fluctuation of view, by reason of the fluctuating conception of the spirit. 4. Coming now to the doctrine of evil spirits, we take for our starting-point the general Old Testament representation of the spirit- world which is referred to above. This somewhat colorless ma.ss of beings seems to have been gradually differ- entiated in accordance with the advance of Jewish ethical thought stimulated by outside influences. One might suppose that the highly developed Babylonian pneumatology would have measurably affected the Israelitish exiles; but the liter- ature hardly favors such a supposition, — evil spirits proper do not appear in the Old Testament. The earliest post- exilian evil being is Satan ; for the explanation of the later 1 The case is different in Gal. i. 8, where the preaching of another gospel hy an " angel from heaven " is stated as a mere, and in fact impossible, sup- position in hyperbolical fashion. EVIL SPIRITS. 155 demoniacal system we are rather led to look to the contact of the Jews with Persian (and perhaps with Greek) ideas. The Mazdean religion had a large machinery of evil spirits, to which was ascribed the production of evil effects on the body and the soul of man, though there seems to have been no well-deliued belief in demoniacal possession; the long residence of the Jews on Persian soil may have given them familiarity with this spiritual apparatus. Of direct Greek influence on this doctrine there is no proof ; but that it was not wholly ineffective may perhaps be inferred from the usage of the Septuagint translators, who have given us our word "demon." They employed this familiar Greek term' to render Hebrew expressions for heathen deities, idols, and wilderness-spirits (Deut. xxxii. 17; Ps. xcv. 5; cvi. 37; Isa. Ixv. 11 ; xiii. 21 ; xxxiv. 14) ; that is, for supernatural powers in general hostile to the God of Israel. This sense of the word maintained itself into the New Testament times ; it is found, for example, in a passage (1 Cor. x. 20, 21) in which Paul appears to say that the eating of things offered to Gentile deities was having communion with demons.^ The related sense of evil, indwelling spirit also attached itself to current Greek usage. But before examining this point, we must look at earlier Hebrew developments of J;he world of evil spiritual agencies. 1 Da'tmmi, used by Homer (II. i. 222) and the tragic poets in the sense of "god," " divine being," sometimes also with the idea of hurtfulnesa, came to be employed specifically to signify secondary deities, and finally the shades of the dead. Plato fApol. i. 5) distinguishes between gods and demons, suggest- ing that the latter are children of gods. Daimonion is likewise equivalent to " deity ; " the charge against Socrates was (Xen. Mem. i. 1, 1 ) that he refused to acknowledge pnblicly the gods {tlieoiis) of the city, and introduced other new deities (daimama). Socrates' own daimnn'wn was a genius or guardian who told him what he ought and ought not to do (Mem. iv. 8, 1 ). From this conception in part came the later Jewish use of the term, on which see below. 2 This statement seems to rest on the old idea that sacrifices were acts of communion between the god and the worshipper, both partaking of the flesh of the animal offered. 156 EVIL SPIRITS. We have already seen that before the exile no one figure stands out prominently from the mass of spirits who do the biddipg of Yah we ; he is absolutely supreme, and his minis- ters perform whatever good, or bad offices he assigns them. But just after the return from Babylon, a new spiritual actor in the affairs of Israel appears in the shape of an "adver- sary," a Satan, whose function it is to oppose the welfare of the chosen people. The prophet Zechariah pictures the high priest Joshua, the representative of the nation, as pleading his people's cause before the angel of the Lord ; he is opposed by " the Satan," whose object is to prevent the rebuilding of Jerusalem ; the Satan is rebuked, and Joshua is promised that if he will faithfully keep God's commands the nation shall be established. The figure of the great spiritual adver- sary of the nation seems here to be in the act of taking shape. He is the embodiment of all of Israel's difficulties and enemies. Israelitish thought, constantly grappling with the problem of the suffering of Yahwe's people, had appar- ently reached the conviction that the opposition to the na- tional well-being must come from a spirit hostile to God. This is a great advance on the pre-exilian conception of the constitution of the spirit-world ; we can only suppose that the conditions of Jewish life in Babylonia had induced rapid progress in this direction. In the book of Job we may recog- nize further progress in the elaboration of the idea of Satan. In the prophet, his relations are with Israel ; in Job, with humanity. He traverses the earth with no benevolent in- tent ; he discusses Job's character with cynical acuteness ; he induces God to subject his servant to severest tests simply to try his integrity. He is a malignant and powerful being, but he is not detached from the person and service of God ; on the contrary, he is a member of the divine court, presents himself among the sons of God before the divine throne, is called on by Yahwe to make report of his doings, and re- EVIL SPIKITS. 157 ceives from him his commission to test the character of Job. Such also is probably his position in Zechariah.i The repre- sentation in Job is an imaginative one ; Satan appears only in the court of heaven, in the dwelling-place of God and his ministers. In 1 Chron. xxi. 1 he is introduced in a more commonplace manner as tempting David to number Israel. The progress involved 'n this statement may be seen by a comparison of 2 Sam. xxiv. 1, where, in the description of the same incident, it is Yahwe who incites the liing to the act of disobedience. Between the two statements (an inter- val of probably two or three hundred years) the feeling had grown up that instigation to evil could not properly be re- ferred to God ; an evil spirit becomes the agent of temptation to sin. The advance in this representation consists, as is in- timated above, in the completer introduction of Satan into man's every-day life. In Zechariah, he is the adversary of the nation ; in Job, his r5le is that of slanderer of righteous men (the nation also being perhaps had in mind) ; in Chron- icles, while the event in question is a national one, it may probably be inferred that he is regarded as a general inciter to evil, entering into the conduct of man's spiritual life. After 1 Chron. xxi. 1, Satan is mentioned no more in the Old Testament, and rarely in the extra-biblical books ; the two works in which he appears treat him in very differ- ent ways. The first attempt at a spiritual interpretation of the serpent of Gen. iii. occurs in the Wisdom of Solomon 1 It is difficult to fix the chronological relation of Job to Zechariah pre- cisely. Even if we regard the man Job as the representative of Israel, and the thought of the boolc as springing out of the exilian suffering, it is not necessary to place its composition during the exile. The condition and feel- ing of suffering doubtless continued after the return. The elaborate argu- mentation of the book rather points to a later period. The portraiture of Satan in Job seems to be more developed than that in Zecliariah, and the prologue seems to belong to the original scheme of the work. It may be added that the interpretation of the person of Job as a representative of Israel does not accord with the evident non-national coloring of the book. 158 EVIL SPIRITS. (ii. 24). The narrative in Genesis recognizes in the tempter of Eve only an animal form, endowed with intelligence and speech.! This account, apparently the survival and recon- struction of an old Semitic myth,^ stands isolated in Gen- esis ; it is mentioned nowhere else in the Old Testament. But after the fifth century B. c. (when the narrative prob- ably assumed its present shape) the feeling would naturally arise in some circles that so tremendous an event as the introduction of sin and death into the world could not be referred to the agency of beast ; the serpent-form would come to be regarded as the vehicle chosen by a great spir- itual adversary to vent on the first man the hate which according to the earlier books inspired his attempts on Israel and Job. The name given in Wisdom to this wicked spirit is Diabolos, the accuser or adversary (the Greek translation of the Hebrew name Satan). It can hardly be doubted that in the mind of the writer this being was identical with the Satan of the Jewish books. " Through envy of the Devil," so the passage runs (that is, envy of man's immortality or happiness), " death came into the world." Here the activity of the Adversary assumes the largest proportions, — he has succeeded in inflicting the greatest evil on the human race. The book of Enoch, with its fondness for hierarchical organi- zation, makes Satan the head and ruler of evil spirits (liii. 3), and places under him a herd of satans who do his bidding in wicked ministrations. That the progress of the idea of Satan as tempter was slow seems probable, not only from the infrequency with which he is introduced (he does not appear between Enoch and the New Testament), but also from the fact that neither Enoch ' Josephus also, who, as belonging to a priestly family, was probably well instructed in the orthodox Jewish theology of the time, here recognizes only the animal serpent (Ant. i. 1, 4). 2 The ponflict of the dragon Tiamat with the gods. EVIL SPIKITS. 159 nor Josephus connects him with the serpent of Genesis. Pos- sibly this identification began in Egypt in a Jewish circle in- fluenced by Greek speculation (represented by the Wisdom of Solomon), and only gradually penetrated into Palestine. The data are, however, insufficient for determining to what extent this view was held by Palestinian Jews before the beginning of our era. It is certain that Satan appears as a well-devel- oped figure in the earliest parts of the New Testament, and we may hence conclude that in the preceding two centuries he had formed a distinct part of the Jewish belief The strenuous Jewish monotheism may have been unfavorable to the easy recognition of so powerful an opponent of God.^ Alongside of the development of the conception of a great spiritual adversary, there grew up a history of fallen angels, the starting-point of which was the account in Gen. vi. 1, 2. The origin and date of this passage are doubtful. The " sons of the Elohim " are in general angels (this expression never meaning anything else in the Old Testament), or more exactly, they are members of the class of Elohim-beings, the Israelitish representatives of the old divinities. Inter- marriages between deities and human beings abound in all mythologies ; such alliances, surviving in a monotheistic sys- tem, would naturally take the shape of the Genesis-story. This may be the remnant of a mythical narrative brought by the Hebrews from Mesopotamia to Canaan, or it may have come to the Jews from the Babylonians during the exile, or from the Assyrians before the exile. For our pres- ent purposes, it does not greatly matter which one of these explanations we adopt. The incident is not elsewhere men- tioned in the Old Testament, and had no perceptible influ- ence on the Jewish thought of the Old Testament time. The story appears to be introduced in Genesis, not to account for > The later Jewish Satanology also seema to have been somewhat uncer- tain in tone. See Weber, " System," §§ 48, 54. 160 EVIL SPIRITS. the increasing wickedness of man, and thus as a partial ex- planation of the flood (for the writer does not condemn the procedure of the angels), but to set forth the origin of the ancient heroes, the men of renown ; the incident is narrated with the utmost impersonality, simply as an historical fact. The book of Enoch, which takes this material and expands it at great length, adopts an altogether different tone. It denounces the conduct of the angels as the height of im- piety, gives the names of their leaders, and ascribes to them the beginnings of all the wickedness of the world. They are said to have taught men the science of war, the art of writing, and other hurtful things (ch. Ixix.). Their leaders are Azazel and Semyaza ; their fate is to be bound, hand and foot, and imprisoned till the day of judgment, when they are to be cast into the fire (ch. x.). This elaborate narrative is an attempt at a philosophical history of civilization, following and expanding the idea of Gen. i.-xi. ; it undertakes to give the beginnings of the arts of life, which it thinks it necessary to refer to a supernatural origin, and, curiously enough, to anti- godly agency.^ So primitive and malistic a view, one would suppose, could have had no wide currency. The whole angel- ological scheme seems not to have made any great impres- sion on the Jewish mind ; part of the description in Enoch is adopted in the New Testament Apocalypse (xx. 1-3) ; the fate of the angels who came down from heaven is briefly summed up in Jude 6 ; and there is perhaps an allusion in Luke x. 18 to the same occurrence in the statement that Satan fell like lightning from heaven ; but the body of the New Testament thought ignores this episode. It was re- 1 How the author construed the parallel hut dissimilar account of the ori- gins of civilization in Gen. iv. 16-24 is not clear. The descent of the angels is put in the days of Jared (Gen. v. 18, cf. Irad, Gen. iv. 18) in the book of Jubilees (4), and in the Greek text of Enoch (vi. 6), — a bit of folk-etymology ("Jared " means " descending ") ; the author of Enoch probably held that the Cainites learned the arts from the angels. EVIL SPIRITS. 161 served for post-biblical Christianity to elaborate the fall of the angels into a dogma. In the Old Testament neither their fall nor their creation is mentioned ; their existence is sim- ply assumed, as in Job xxxviii. 7, where it is said that at the creation of the world the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy. This reticence re- specting their creation is easily understood if we consider the angels to be a survival and development out of the old deities, or Elohim-beings, whose participation in the work of the creation of the world is involved in the "let us make man" of Gen. i. 26. The Hebrews, receiving and accepting these beings as coeval with Yahwe, might naturally not think of them as included in the created world ; there was an old Babylonian myth (given in the cuneiform creation tablet) which derived all the gods from two primitive water- beings, but there is no clear trace of this in the Old Testa- ment.-^ Those who insist on seeing the creation of the angels in the biblical history of creation either prefer to insert it between the first and second verses of the first chapter of Genesis, and find in the angelic apostasy and rebellion the explanation of the chaos which they hold to have supervened on God's first good creation,^ or they hold it to be included in Gen. ii. 1, where, however, the " host of them " refers to the physical creation (as in Ps. cxlviii. 5).^ In this connection we may note the curious figures of Leviathan, Behemoth, and Rahab, which appear in the Old Testament in several different senses. In Job xli. 1, Levi- 1 The abyss {tehom) of Gen. i. 2 is the primeval earth-covering, out of which (vs 20, 21) come marine creatures. If there is u. faint survival in verse 2 (the " wind " or " spirit " of God moved or hovered over the vi'aters) of the old conception of the plastic water, it has been quite transformed by the monotheistic feeling. On Leviathan, Behemoth, and Rahab, see below. 2 Compare the Talmudic statement that the present successful creation was only accomplished after several failures, Weber, " System," § 43. 3 In Neb. ix. 6, the " host of heaven," which worships God, is different from the " host " which he is said to have made. U 162 EVIL SPIRITS. athan ^ seems to be the Egyptian crocodile, or else a myth- ical beast, and in Ps. civ. 26 some huge sea-animal ; it occurs twice as a symbol of Egypt in Ps. Ixxiv. 21, apparently under the form of the crocodile, and in Isa. xxvii. 1, where it is pictured as a winding serpent. The use of the term in Isaiah connects itself with the mythical reference in Job iii. 8 (cf. xxvi. 13), where the Leviathan is apparently the celes- tial serpent who swallows or otherwise obscures the sun and the moon, and who may be roused by enchantments ; in this late form it is a mythical embodiment of the black storm- cloud or the eclipsing shadow regarded as a hostile demon. It is probable that the portraiture of the dragon in the New Testament Apocalypse receives its coloring in part (see Eev. xii. 4, 13) from this source. An earlier conception is found in Enoch Ix. (a Noachic fragment), where Leviathan is a female monster dwelling in the depth of the sea ; in 2 Esdras vi. 49-52, the creation of this beast is assigned to the fifth day ; and it is stated that it is to be devoured by them whom God shall choose. With Leviathan is associated Behemoth (Enoch Ix. 8, where it is masculine), after Job xl. and xli., and in the Talmud it is declared that these creatures are to be the food of Israel in the coming age of blessedness. There is a singular resemblance between this conception of two great water-monsters and the Babylonian myth above- mentioned of the two primitive water-principles, — Apsu and Tiamat, male and female,^ from whom proceeded all other be- ings. The resemblance between Leviathan and Tiamat can hardly be accidental ; both are female, and both are marine and celestial dragons which make war against the good powers. The Rahab of Job ix. 13, xxvi. 12 (cf. Isa. xxx. 7), 1 The origin of the name is obscure ; it may signify any long beast, and so he equivalent to "serpent," or "dragon " (Isa. xxvii. 1). '^ Cf. Enoch liv. 8, where the water in the heavens is masculine, and the water on the earth feminine. EVIL SPIRITS. 163 is a similar demonic conception. These three figures are in- teresting as instances of the manner in which the Jewish religious thought dealt with the old mythical material, grad- ually humanizing it, and more and more holding it aloof from the essential spiritual framework of theology. A vin- dictive dragon, originally the destructive waters of ocean or sky, becomes finally a beast whose flesh is to furnish food to the people of God. The Satan of the New Testament is substantially identical with the pre-Christian figure, only modified, more sharply marked off, and more highly elaborated, in accordance with the characteristic moral-spiritual ideas and intensity of Chris- tianity. He is the chief of the kingdom of evil spirits and angels (Matt. xii. 26 ; xxv. 41) ; he has power to inflict disease on the bodies of men (Luke xiii. 16 ; 1 Cor. v. 5 ; 1 Tim. i. 20) ; he tempts to sin (Matt. iv. 1-11 ; Eph. vi. 11), and may be re- sisted (Jas. iv. 7) ; he enters into and controls bad men (Luke xx. 3, 31 ; John viii. 44) ; he is the opponent of the truth (Mark iv. 15 ; Matt. xiii. 39 ; 1 Thess. ii. 18 ; Eev. iii. 9 ; 1 Pet. v. 8); his hatred is said in one passage (Jude 9) to extend to the dead body of Moses ; ^ he is identified with the dragon and with the serpent (Eev. xii. 9 ; xx. 2, 7, cf. John viii. 44 ; 1 Tim. ii. 14), and the names Satan and the Devil are used interchangeably ; he is to be cast into hell (Matt. xxv. 41, and cf. Luke x. 18 ; Eev. XX. 10). He is, in a word, the prince and god of this world (2 Cor. iv. 4 ; John xiv. 30), the head and embodiment of all those influences in human life which are hostile to heavenly godliness. He includes in himself the Satan and the Azazel of Enoch and the prince of the demons, Beelze- bub (Matt. xii. 24) ; he unites in his person all morally evil qualities ; he is the leader of all those spiritual bad powers whose development has been traced above. In the New ^ On this story see my " Quotations in the New Testament," New York, Scribner, 1884, pp. 2.50 f. 164 EVIL SPIRITS. Testament, as in the pre-Christiau literature, his position and functions, and especially his relation to God, are not clearly defined.! j^q attempt is made to show how his enormous power and wicked activity are to be brought into harmony with the divine omnipotent goodness. He is no mere symbol or personification of the wicked elements of life ; he is an ob- jective being, acting apparently without limitations of time and space. In some cases his power appears to be repre- sented as co-ordinate with that of God. If God chooses those who are to believe unto salvation, it is Satan who blinds the minds of the unbelieving, that the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should not dawn upon them (2 Cor. iv. 4). The title, "God of this world," implies vast power, and reminds us of the Persian rival of Ahura-Mazda. But on the other hand, the New Testament has a perfectly distinct conviction of the absolute supremacy of God. He is the sole fountain of power in the universe ; at the end, the kingdom is to be his, death being swallowed up (1 Cor. XV. 24, 54), and in the Apocalypse (xx. 10), Satan is to be tormented forever and forever. He represents the evil of the world, and is to endure till evil shall be blotted out by the perfecting of the righteous and the im- prisonment of the wicked. There is no hint of a possible change in Satan's moral character. The New Testament leaves him, at the beginning of the new dispensation, as the embodiment of evil, to abide forever, but in chains and dark- ness, shorn of his power, impotent any longer to disturb the moral order of the universe. Its solution of the problem of evil is practical, not logical or philosophical. ' There is no distinct chronological development of his person in the New Testament. His activity is in general more physical in the Apocalypse and Jude and in the demoniacal representations of the Gospels, more mental and spiritual in the Epistles and the Fourth Gospel, — a difference that seems to result chiefly from the subject-matter and the religious point of view of the writers. EVIL SPIRITS. 165 While we may thus trace the general line of progress of the figure of Satan, it is less easy to account for its origin. It appears suddenly in Zechariah and Job, apparently with- out preparation. The only individualized evil form of which we read in the earlier literature is the spirit of 1 Kings xxii. 21, and that differs from Satan in two important respects : it belongs to a different class of beings, and it has no distinct ethical character ; Satan is not a " spirit," but one of the " sons of the Elohim " (Job i. 6), and he is distinctly malevo- lent. Both these points have significance in the Israelitish religious development : the Elohim-beings have their own history ; and the ascription of moral evil to an Israelitish supernatural form seems to mark a turning-point in the national conception of life, — it is the beginning of the at- tempt to separate the domain of evil from that of God. When the figure of Satan appears abruptly, just after the close of the exile, we naturally ask whether it is a product of the unassisted Israelitish religious consciousness or the out- come in part of foreign influence. But foreign influence competent to produce such a result in whole or in part, it does not seem possible to discover. The Jews with whom the prophet Zechariah returned to Palestine were in contact with the Persians too short a time to borrow a great religious idea from them, even if the latter then had the Ahriman of the Avesta. Among the Babylonians, with whom the Jews had lived half a century, we know of no great spiritual adver- sary ; they had evil spirits, as the Jews had, but no such idea as that of Satan. It is to be noted that the Satan, when we first meet him, is distinctly incorporated into the well-devel- oped monotheism of the time; he is a servant of Yahwe, though an enemy of Yahwe's friends. Such a conception presupposes a considerable period of development; and in spite of the absence of earlier details, it seems most in accord- ance with the facts to regard it as a native Jewish growth. 166 EVIL SPIRITS. We know that the sons of the Elohim had formed part of the national-religious material, probably of the folk-religion ; this element may have been ignored by the pre-exilian and exilian prophets, as having for them no spiritual significance. But the national history during the seventh and sixth centuries called up serious problems and stimulated ethical-religious thought. In particular, men's minds were occupied with the question of Israel's suffering, — why, it was asked, had Yahwe permitted hostile hands to bear so heavily on his people ? The prophets had their answer, — it was the pun- ishment of the nation's sin. But after a while this answer became unsatisfactory to certain thinkers who held that the nation was not all sinful ; why should the righteous be involved in the deserved suffering of their unrighteous fellow-countrymen ? To one man at least it seemed (Isa. liii.) that the affliction of the righteous Israel was vicarious, — that the end in the divine procedure was to bring not only all Israel, but also the Gentiles, to himself (Isa. xlix. 1-6). This exalted view of the situation did not, however, commend it- self to all the prophet's contemporaries ; it was too lofty and broad, and perhaps too natural. The larger human ques- tion also — why good men in general suffered — was pressing for a solution ; and the idea of individual moral- religious discipline seems not to have presented itself, or, if considered, to have been held to be insufficient. The explanation in both cases was sought in the unfriendly activity of a great supernatural power, — one of those beings who, allied in nature to Yahwe and associated with him, though in a subordinate way, in the control of the world, wielded an important influ- ence over the affairs of men. How such a being came to be unfriendly is not told in the Old Testament : Zechariah in- troduces the Satan without a word of comment ; the book of Job accounts for the possibility of his procedure by the pur- pose of Yahwe to test and demonstrate the integrity of his EVIL SPIRITS. 167 servant. Both books seem to assume that the person of the Adversary was well known ; how long it had been known it is impossible to say. We can only hold in general that the conception of a supernatural being hostile to good men was forced on the Jewish religious consciousness by the circum- stances of the timS; and that such a being would naturally be looked for in the ranks of the sons of the Elohim, — the companions and servants of Yahwe from time immemorial ; alongside of the good "angel of Yahwe" might stand an equally powerful being with a tinge of malevolence in his nature, possibly the dim survival of an old hurtful deity, more probably the product of a reflective age, which wished somehow to isolate evil from good. The general parallelism between this and the Persian scheme is obvious, — both arose out of the same ethical-religious necessity, — but there seems to be no sufficient ground for supposing an historical connec- tion between the two at this stage. It is otherwise with the later Jewish development of mor- ally evil supernatural agencies. After the Jews had been a hundred years subjects of the Persian empire and resident in Persian communities, they may easily be supposed to have adopted ideas from tbeir neighbors. The possibility that the r6le assigned to Azazel in Lev. xvi. was in part determined by Persian influence has already been suggested.^ As to the times of Tobit and Enoch there can be no doubt. The Asmodaeus of Tobit is Persian ; and the elaborate angelology of Enoch is most naturally explained (as in the case of the book of Daniel) as due to an impulse derived from the Per- sian system. The description in Enoch is based on the account in Gen. vi., and the "sons of God" are identified with angels. The foundation is old-Semitic ; but the organiza- 1 A similar suggestion might be made in regard to the identification of the serpent of Gen iii. with Satan, For the objection to this view see above, pp. 158 f. It is possible, though hardly probable, that Wiad. of Sol. got its in- terpretation from a Persian source. 168 EVIL SPIRITS. tion of the angels, and their individualization by names and by the assignment of individual functions in the development of human civilization, is foreign. That the names are He- brew (in contrast with the Persian name Asmodaeus) results from the fact that the figures are Hebrew. The book of Enoch never attained canonical authority ; and its angelic names seem not to have been adopted by succeeding gener- ations, — its details were too bizarre for the sober Jewish thought. The idea of the organization of the evil angels under the leadership of Satan commended itself, and is found in the New Testament ; but it has little prominence, except in the Apocalypse ; in the practical religious life the evil supernatural activity is concentrated in the person of the chief, and his subordinate angels practically disappear. The part which they might play in the infliction of evil on men is assigned to the spirits. The history of the class of evil intelligences called "spirits" is no less remarkable than that of Satan and his angels. It culminates in the idea of demoniacal possession, — a concep- tion which has its roots in the Old Testament, but suddenly assumes enormous proportions in the first century of Chris- tianity. According to the old Israelitish belief, as we have seen, all mental affections (as in the case of Saul, 1 Sam. xvi.) were ascribed to the agency of spirits sent from God ; and these remain throughout the Old Testament morally unde- fined, — they work good and evil alike. The later differentia- tion into two classes was effected by Jewish advance in dis- tinctness of ethical thought, and by the influence of foreign ideas, — Persian, Greek, and other. It is in the book of Tobit that we find the first mention of a definite relation between an evil spirit and a human being (Asmodaeus and Sara) ; in Enoch the fallen angels appear in human shape, and affect men rather by ordinary human inter- course than by direct influence on the soul. The Greek idea EVIL SPIRITS. 169 is visible in the passage of Josephus '(" War," vii. 6, 3) which assumes that sickness is produced by demons who are no other than the spirits of the wicked. We have no further details on this point in Jewish literature earlier than the New Testament ; but that the belief in demonic influence continued among the Jews is evident from the Talmud, which makes abundant mention of evil spirits and magical processes, expanding the Old Testament spiritual material, and dressing out the old narratives with exuberance of pic- turesque legend (Weber, " System," § 54). The Jews had in the mean time become members of the Eoman Empire, in which the belief in magic and exorcism was general. There was, about the beginning of our era, a sort of revivification of the primeval faith. The old machinery of gods had almost disappeared in cultivated circles. Men ridiculed the Olym- pian deities and even the patron gods of the Eoman State, and took refuge in those occult powers and processes which were credible because they were at once visible and unintel- ligible ; they satisfied the demand for the marvellous without offending the science and philosophy of the day.^ Whether this foreign belief affected the Jews cannot be definitely de- termined ; it seems probable that from so wide-spread an opinion some influence made itself felt in Palestine. The Palestinian belief was in its general material old-Israelitish ; but it had received the important modification of the differ- entiation of the spirits into good and bad. The good, how- ever, seem partly to have been merged in the body of the 1 Cicero, in the introduction to his work on divination, declares that there is no nation tliat does not believe in the possibility of foretelling the future. Juvenal (Sat. vi.) testifies to the devotion of the Eoman women to Chaldean and Judean supernatural arts, and Apuleiua, in the Golden Ass, speaks of magic arts (by which, for example, a woman transforms herself into a bird and the hero into an ass) as a familiar thing in his time (second century of our era). See on the Greek and Roman doctrine of demons of this period the remarks of L. Fnedlander, " Sittengeschichte Roms," (Leipzig, 1881), pp. 486-488, and on the belief in miracles, pp, 517 ff. 170 EVIL SPIRITS. good angels as the ministers of God's beneficent dealings with men, and partly to have been absorbed in the divine spirit, which came more and more to be regarded as the source of ethically good spiritual influence on the soul. We read of no organization of good " spirits " ; in the New Testament the normally sound life is attributed to the spirit of God, while it is certain peculiar abnormal evil phenomena, especially those connected with mental aberration, the explanation of which is held to lie in the agency of bad powers. The representation of insanity as demoniacal possession was not a new one. It is found in the Old Testament (Saul) ; the ecstasies of prophets, seers, and priestesses were sometimes akin to madness (1 Sam. xix. 24, Mic. i. 8, and the Pythia). Such a frightful distortion of the human soul was not unnaturally looked on as the result of supernatural influence. The unhappy victims of possession were driven out from among men and forced to dwell in tombs and desolate places ; it was natural that Jesus, in his mission of mercy, should meet these unfortunates and try to alle- viate their misery and restore them to their right minds ; doubtless many of them needed only sympathy and care, and few of them were without a trace of humanity which might be successfully appealed to. In the New Testament, demoniacs form a separate class, being distinguished from the sick, epileptic, and palsied (Matt. iv. 24) ; they appear to abound everywhere, and their healing forms a prominent part of the work of Jesus and his disciples. The demons inhabit the bodies and souls of men, so identifying themselves with human spirits that the two personalities are not always distinguished. They are conscious of their subordinate relation to God ; they believe in him and tremble (James ii. 19), while they pursue their anti-godly career. They acknowledge the au- thority of the name of Christ (Matt. viii. 29). They are EVIL SPIRITS. 171 identified with lieatiien deities (1 Cor. x. 20, 21 ; Rev. ix. 20 ; Acts xvi. 16) ; Satan, tlieir prince, receives the name of the old Philistine god, Beelzebub (Matt. xii. 24). Processes of exorcism are mentioned in Acts xix. 13-16 (cf. passage cited above from Josephus) ; but Jesus and his disciples expelled the spirits by a word. No account of their origin is given in the New Testament; they are numerous (Mark V. 9) ; they belong to the kingdom of Satan, — beyond this nothing is said. They are the evil spirits of the Old Testa- ment, organized under Persian and other influence, and de- veloped into sharper antagonism with the kingdom of God by their contact with Christianity. The belief in demonic possession long remained in the Christian world, passing after a while into the theory of witchcraft, then slowly disappearing. The established be- lief in the orderly processes of nature makes it impossible for the present day ; the Christian world no longer holds to it as an existing phenomenon. It was the product of an unscientific age, — a part of the general attempt to construct a system of intermediate powers between God and man, and to disjoin the realm of evil from the immediate divine activity. This latter purpose it did not really accomplish, since in both Old Testament and New Testament God either enjoins or permits the activity of the wicked spirits. But the religious thought of the biblical times found in this scheme a satisfactory solution of the problem of evil, confronting the fact of present mal-arrangement with the hope of future regeneration. The New Testament thus pre- sents the final shaping of the old animistic material. The ancient spirits are in part transformed into wicked demons which, suffered by God for a time, are eventually to be brought to naught. In the general history of religious thought they may be looked on as a temporary embodiment of that evil which in the Christian conception is finally to 172 EVIL SPIRITS. succumb to the higher ethical power which belongs to the essential constitution of things. A general review of the doctrine of evil spirits in Old Testament and New Testament exhibits an influence of the Persian religion on the Jewish, but brings out at the same time the difference between the two faiths.^ Both sought to account for certain forms of evil in the world by the intro- duction of intermediate agencies in some sort independent of the righteous and benevolent God. But in one the sense of evil was so strong as to give birth to what was practically an evil deity ; in the other the sense of the aloneness of God was so deep as to keep the evil powers practically subordinate to him. In both, the natural ethical feeling imposed limi- tations on the influence assigned to the evil supernatural agencies ; the conviction of man's moral independence gave tone, in spite of all other theories, to the ethical-religious life. This is evident in the prophets and Psalms, in the dis- courses of Jesus and the Epistles ; it is only in the folk-stories and apocalypses that evil spirits play a very important part. It would be fruitless to ask what the Jewish demono- logical development would have been -without foreign influ- ence. We can hardly doubt that the pre-exilian material would have maintained itself and suffered the modifications which growth of ethical feeling would render necessary. 1 Much ancertainty rests on the early history of the Mazdean religion. The origins are discussed by Spiegel, " Eranische Alterthumskunde " (Leip- zig, 1871-1878); Darmesteter, " Orrnazd et Ahriman " (Paris, 1877); "The Zend Avesta," Parts I., II. (Oxford, 1880, 1883) ; De Harlez, " Des Origines du Zoroastrisme " (Paris, 1879); "Avesta" (Paris, 1881); Mills, "The Zend Avesta," Part III. (Oxford, 1887); Meyer, "Geschichte des Alterthums" (Stuttgart, 1884) ; Geldner, article "Zend Ave.sta" in "Encycl. Brit.," and others. The relation between the Persian and Jewish demonologies is treated by Nicolas, "Des Doctrines Religieuses des Juifs" (Paris, 1860); Kohut, " Angelologie, etc." (in Vol. IV. of the " Abhandlungen fur die Kunde des Morgenlandes"), and De Harlez. It seems not rash to infer from the tradi- tions and from the tone of the materials of the "Avesta" that the leading ideas of Mazdeism wei-e in existence as enrly as the fourth century before the beginning of our era. CHAPTEE IV. MAN. "Xl/E have now to inquire into the Jewish and Christian * ' views of the moral-religious history of man, the con- stitution of his nature, his attitude toward riffht and wroncr and toward God, and the means by which he is to attain perfection. 1. The Old Testament idea of the constitution of man is a perfectly simple and popular one, without scientific analy- sis and distinctions, and without philosophical or theological theories. Common observation teaches that man is a crea- ture composed of a visible bodily frame informed by an invisible something which is believed to be connected with thought, feeling, will, with all that makes up life. Such is the conception given in the second account of creation. Gen. ii. 7: God "formed man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul ; " the same expression for the totality of human being is found in Isa. x. 18. This duality of being is given throughout the Old Testament, never demonstrated or com- mented on, but always assumed as common opinion. In the first account of creation. Gen. i. 26—28, it is not even men- tioned ; man is created in the likeness of the Elohim-beings (" our likeness "), and is invested with dominion over all the earth, — his constitution is taken for granted. In the Old Testament, the term "body" means only the phy- sical mass of bones and flesh and blood ; it is never employed in an ethical sense. Nor do we find such a sense given to the word " flesh ; " in Ezek. xi. 19, its physical peculiarity of 174 CONSTITUTION OF MAN. softness is used to denote figuratively tenderness and im- pressibility of heart. It is sometimes identical with " body " : "My heart is glad and my glory rejoices, my flesh also dwells in security " (Ps. xvi. 9J ; or it is physically distin- guished from the body, probably as part of it : " When thy flesh and thy body are consumed" (Prov. v. 11) ; or it means the human personality: "My flesh trembles for fear of thee" (Ps. cxix. 120); and so in combination with "heart": "My heart and my flesh shout to the living God " (Ps. Ixxxiv. 2). It is used also to express animal nature in contrast with spiritual: "Their horses are flesh, and not spirit" (Isa. xxxi. 3) ; or human nature in contrast with divine conceived of as pure spirit: "In God I have put my trust, I fear not what flesh can do to me" (Ps. Ivi. 4), "The gods whose dwelling is not with flesh" (Dan. ii. 11); and "all flesh" is an ex- pression for all mankind : " thou that hearest prayer, to thee shall all flesh come" (Ps. Ixv. 2). To flesh as the characteristic of the human in distinction from the divine, attaches the idea of weakness : " With him [the king of Assyria] is an arm of flesh, but witli us is Yahwe, our God " (2 Chron. xxxii. 8) ; but no ethical element is involved. Body and flesh were not conceived of as impure, for the flesh of animals was used in sacrifices and regarded as holy. They contained no inherent tendency to sin, though their weakness and their association with the appetites might cause them to be thought of as an occasion of temptation. "Bone" is combined with "flesh" to express the whole phy- sical structure in Gen. xxix. 14, 2 Sam. v. 1 ; and " bones " is equivalent to "body" in Ps. vi. 2 (1). Blood, in accordance with general observation, is everywhere regarded as the seat of life (Gen. ix. 4; Lev. xvii. 11). The soul, according to the Old Testament conception, is primarily that breath which common observation shows to be the universal and inseparable accompaniment of life with CONSTITUTION OF MAN. 175 all its functions. It is sometimes, therefore, simply the animal life, as where Elijah stretches himself on the dead child and prays that his sonl may come into him again (1 Kings xvii. 21) ; or where it is said of the king that he saves the souls of the needy (Ps. Ixxii. 13) ; and such probably is the representation in Gen. ii. 7. In this last passage we have the more developed view of the soul as the breath of God breathed into man ; in which, of course we are not to see a pantheistic idea, but only the simple belief that the life of man is the immediate creation of God, — a belief perhaps connected with the statement in the first history of creation that man was made in the image of the Elohim-beings. The word " soul," as synonymous with life, naturally comes to mean "person,'' as in Lev. v. 1, Gen. xii. 5, Ezek. xiii. 19 ; and the expressions, "my soul," "thy soul," " his soul," become equivalent to " myself," " thyself," " him- self " (Gen. xii. 13; Job x. 1; Vs. Ivii 4; 1 Sam. ii. 16; Jer. xxxviii. 17 ; Ps. Ixxxix. 48 ; Eccles. ii. 24 ; Mic. vi. 7 ; Tsa. liii. 10) ; and it may even be used for a dead body, inasmuch as this suggested personality (Lev. xxi. 11). The more im- portant ethical-religious sense of the word is to express the whole inward nature, as in Deut. xiii. 3, Ps. Ixii. 5, and many other passages. Whatever man feels, thinks, or wills, is attributed to the soul. It is the organ of all spiritual- religious thought ; it is the part of man which comes into contact with God, which constitutes the essence of the per- sonality. So completely does it include all human functions that while it is said to be restored by the perfect law of God (Ps. xix. 7), it also stands for the inward spirit which may be discouraged in work (Num. xxi. 4), and for appetite : " As when a hungry man dreams, and behold, he eats, but he awakes and his soul is empty ; or as when a thirsty man dreams, and behold, he drinks, but he awakes, and behold, he is faint, and his soul has appetite " (Isa. xxix. 8). 176 CONSTITUTION OF MAN. The use of the word " spirit " in the Old Testament as part of human nature is very nearly identical with that of "soul." It signifies life, or the inward, invisible seat of life : " Who knows the spirit of the sons of men, whether it goes upward, and the spirit of the beast, whether it goes downward to the earth?" (Eccles. iii. 21.) It is the intel- lect : Daniel is said to have had an excellent spirit and knowledge and understanding (Dan. v. 12); it is courage (Josh. V. 1). It represents the whole inward nature: Pharaoh's spirit was troubled by his dream (Gen. xli. 8) ; Elisha asks that a double portion (the portion of an oldest son) of Elijah's spirit (that is, of his whole inward power, intellectual and religious) may rest on him (2 Kings ii. 9) ; the Psalmist begs for a steadfast spirit, a nature wholly attached to God (Ps. li. 10); and he that rules his spirit, that is, himself, the totality of his inward powers, is said to be better than he who takes a city (Prov. xvi, 2). It is the seat of ethical-religious life : " Happy is the man to whom Yahwe does not reckon iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no guile ;" "the sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a crushed heart, God, thou dost not despise '' (Ps. li. 17). 'Rot is there any different statement to be made in respect to the use of the word "heart,'' which signifies in the Old Testament not especially the emotional nature, but the whole inward being : " Hope deferred makes the heart sick " (Prov. xiii. 12); "If I have purposed iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear" (Ps. Ixvi. 18); and God is called the "tryer of the hearts and reins " (Ps. vii. 10) ; and so the term comes to signify the personality, as in Gen. viii. 21, when Yahwe smells the sweet savor of Noah's sacrifice and says "in his heart" that he will not again curse the ground, and Ps. X. 6 : " He says in his heart, I shall not be moved," that is, says to' himself. The phrase " heart and flesh " also. CONSTITUTION OF MAN. 177 as is remarked above, is used to express the whole beinw (Ps. Ixxiii. 26 ; Ixxxiv. 2) ; it is equivalent to " mind (or soul) and body." ^ The New Testament has all the uses of these terms above mentioned, and adds others which flowed naturally out of its higher spiritual conception of human life and its sharper antithesis between opposing elements. " Body " is the phy- sical structure of flesh and bones (Matt. x. 28 ; 1 Cor. xii. 14), and so the natural physical life in this world, the taber- nacle of the soul, the locus and vehicle of earthly activity (2 Cor. V. 6, 10); and then by a natural transition it is em- ployed by Paul to represent the unregenerate, sinful nature, as opposed to the higher life of the spirit : " If by the spirit you kill the deeds of the body, you shall live " (Eom. viii. 1.3). "Flesh" occurs in the simple physical sense (1 Pet. iv. 1), and then as equivalent to humanity, that is, human na- ture : Christ was an Israelite "as concerning the flesh " (Eom. ix. 5) ; the Word became flesh and dwelt in the world (John i. 14), the combination "flesh and blood" having the same sense (Matt. xvi. 17 ; Gal. i. 16) ; " all flesh " means the whole human race (John xvii. 2, and the similar expression "no flesh" in 1 Cor. i. 29). As the instrument of the appetites, and distinguished by its grossness from the spirit, it is used by Paul and his school to signify the animal life as the seat 1 "Reins" is similarly employed (Jer. xi. 20; Ps. Ixxiii. 21 ; and once in the New Testament, Rev. ii, 23, the expression being quoted from the Old Testament). The bowels are the seat of love and tlie desire, compassion, and sorrow that spring from love (Song of Songs v. 4 ; Gen. xliii. 30 ; Jer. iv. 19 ; Phil. ii. 1), or even (in the New Testament, 2 Cor. vi. 12) of the affections in general; they are regarded also as the source whence life issues (Gen. xv. 4), and so the loins (Gen. xxxv. II; Heb. vii. 10). "Liver" (in Babylonian- Assyrian equivalent to "heart") is used once (Lam. ii. 11) for the seat of the inward life. It was the prominent organs of the trunk that the ancients connected with life ; the word " brain " does not occur in the Old Testament ; in Arabic, madmyg, "struck on the brain," is "stupid." 12 178 CONSTITUTION OF MAN. of sin, the unregenerate nature : in Kom. viii., it is termed "sinful," is contrasted with the spirit as the seat of the higher life ; the mind of the flesh is said to be enmity against God, and they who live after the flesh must die : the " works of tlie flesh," all sorts of wrong-doing, are detailed in Gal. v. 19-21 ; the spirit and the flesh aie described as antagonists one to the other (v. 17), and "they that are of Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires " (v. 24) ; all unbelievers live in the desires of the flesh and of natural human thought (Eph. ii. 3; Gol. ii. 11); Paul uses the word also of an unspiritual religion, especially of the Jewish reliance on the Law : " Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the Law or by the hearing of faith ? Are you so foolish ? Having begun in the spirit, are you now perfected in the flesh?" (Gal. iii. 2, 3..) "Heart" is the whole inward nature: the Evil One snatches away the word of the kingdom, which has been sown in the heart (Matt. xiii. 19); the Devil put into the heart of Judas to betray Jesus (John xiii. 2) ; men, after their hardness and impenitent heart treasure up for themselves wrath in the day of wrath (Rom. ii. 5), and with the heart man believes unto righteousness (Eom. x. 10), the act of believing involv- ing all the powers of the mind, — thought, feeling, and will. " Soul " is equivalent to " life " in Matt. x. 39 : " He that finds his soul shall lose it, and he that loses his soul for my sake shall find it ; " and Matt. xvi. 26 : " What is a man prof- ited if he gain the whole world and forfeit his soul ? " and to " person " in Eom. xiii. 1 : " Let every soul be in subjection to the higher powers." It signifies the whole inward nature in James i. 21 : the word is able to save men's souls ; and in John xii. 27 : " Now is my soul troubled, and what shall I say ? " "Spirit" is the breath of the natural life (Luke viii. 55), OT a disembodied existence (Luke xxiv. 37-39). It represents CONSTITUTION OF MAN. 179 the inward nature in Mark viii. 12 : " He sighed deeply in his spirit '' (or it may here mean the personality itself), and 1 Cor. V. 3: "Absent in body but present in spirit;" in the eighth chapter of Romans it is used frequently for the in- ward spiritual life created by Christ and the Holy Spirit; the spirit and its mind are put over against the flesh and its mind (vs. 4, 5, 6, 9, 10). The New Testament uses the word " mind " (vov