The Origin of Satan: How Christians Demonized Jews, Pagans and Heretics 
by 

Elaine Pagels

 

The Evil Among Us

The obvious but largely unrecognised advantage of writing is that it makes language visible. The not so obvious consequence of visibility is that we can see how what we mean by what we say evolves. And, least obvious of all, we can uncover our often hidden intentions, what isn’t visible at all, in what we say. So I don’t think it’s too far fetched to suggest that historians like Pagels are really conducting cultural psychotherapy.

What Pagels reveals on her psycho-linguistic couch is rather startling. An idea like Satan, which lest we forget is an idea not a thing, much less a person, doesn’t get created randomly as a kind of spontaneous revelation. Such ideas are created, adopted, and spread with intent. Broadly that intent is political, that is, to attack or defend some group, person, or other idea.

Christianity had a hard time of it in its early days. Attacked by the religionists of empire as pagan, and by its Hebrew confreres as heresy, the new religion had a number of pressing crises of identity. It claimed affinity with Judaism as its spiritual successor; yet it also had to distance itself from the seditious Jews of Palestine who were continuously challenging Roman rule. On the other hand, rocking the boat of established cults by trashing them too brutally wouldn’t have made terribly good press.

In such circumstances, accentuating the positive, the doctrines of love, peace and universal salvation (whatever they took those to mean, and it’s not clear what they did mean), is not the route to PR success. Negative messaging, establishing what Christianity was not, had to have been been the central part of any campaign to attract new members while keeping the authorities off one’s back. So Christianity is notrebellious, provincial Judaism bent on independence. Christianity is not a threat to the established cult of emperor worship. Christianity in fact claims nothingabout this world as its concern: Render unto Caesar... etc.

And the Christian problem wasn’t only about external politics. The Christian Scriptures themselves testify to the variety of disagreements prevalent among ‘believers’ - from so-called Judaizers who preferred to view themselves as within the established Hebrew fold, to the mystically-minded Gnostics who saw the Judaic YHWH as an evil demigod to be overcome not worshipped. And after all, there were four approved gospel stories (as well as several others which were widespread), each with markedly different views about important religious events and their meaning.

In other words, Christianity began its life by prolifically generating its own heresies within and against itself. The new religion was open to so many interpretive possibilities that the only viable strategy for creating internal unity was more negative propaganda. Christians are not those who attend synagogue or observe Judaic ritual. Christians are notthose who refuse to accept non-Jews into their congregations. Christians are not those who disrupt these congregations with doctrinal questions.

So it was clear to the early Christians that theirs was not a time to be pulling rhetorical punches. They were engaged in an intense political battle. And they did what is usual in any such conflict: they lied about, slandered, vilified, and otherwise bad-mouthed their opponents. One of the most effective ways to do this in a relatively uneducated society was through the creation of symbols which were easy to communicate and powerful in their impact. Pagels makes a very strong case that the symbol of Satan is among the most important exports of early Christianity, intended specifically to create a unified, distinct Christian community.

The gospel may emphasise Christian love. But subsequent Christian rhetoric is primarily about Christian hatred. Pagels is clear in her conclusions. Christianity was indeed a new form of religion but not for the reasons it advertised: “What may be new in Western Christian tradition... is how the use of Satan to represent one’s enemies lends to conflict a specific kind of moral and religious interpretation, in which ‘we’ are God’s people and ‘they’ are God's enemies, and ours as well.” The world has not been the same since.

Pagels diplomatically calls this paradox in primitive Christianity its ‘fault line.’ She credibly contends that these “fault lines in Christian tradition... have allowed for the demonizing of others throughout Christian history—fault lines that go back nearly two thousand years to the origins of the Christian movement.” She convincingly traces these back to each of the gospels as well as other early writings. Thus they are not later accretions but embedded in the original Christian message.

This is not good news, of course, for those Christian apologists who would like to portray their religion as inherently and uniquely one of friendly regard for one’s fellow man. On the contrary, Pagels demonstrates in her close analysis of Christian Scripture itself that the frequent violent manifestations of Christian zeal from 1st and 2nd century anti-Semitism, through the Crusades of the Middle Ages, to the Islamaphobia of the present day are the consequences of a powerful ideology built upon the idea of Satan, Evil personified.

Postscript 31Jan19: A still useful meme for the faithful: https://www.mediapost.com/publication...
https://www.reddit.com/r/dankchristia...