Primitive peoples personify all the phenomena of nature. In time these personifications become real persons to the great majority, and while men like Julius Caesar ridicule the belief in the gods, they secretly consult them in time of need, as he did before engaging in battle. In many nations these deities were a mixture of good and evil, a reproduction of mortal man. In a few nations, as the Medes and Persians, there was developed a system of dualism, an organized evil host forever at war with the forces of the righteous. These gods were easily offended, were considered the causes of the various evils that afflicted mortals, and all sorts of sacrifices were made to curry their favor or placate their wrath. With advancing knowledge, these imaginary persons that tortured so many of the human family have vanished into native nothingness or taken their places in the parthenon of mythical gods. In the light of these facts it is quite interesting to remember that Satan and his hosts were very real persons to the medieval Christians, and to many even to-day. In a book entitled "What is Left of the Old," Washington Gladden has a very interesting chapter on the topic "Is there a Personal Devil?" With most writers of the more liberal type he holds that there is not. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Moses never heard of such a person as Satan, if we may judge by the silence of the writers of the Bible of that age. There is no hint in Genesis that the serpent which tempted Eve had any relation whatever to Satan. The word Satan occurs in only four places in the Old Testament. In Psalm 109: 6 the revised version translates the word adversary, referring to a human enemy, as is clearly seen from the context. In the 21st chapter of I Chronicles, we are told that Satan provoked David to number Israel. In the second book of Samuel we have a much earlier account of the same transaction, in which it is said that the Lord, being angry, moved David to number Israel. Thus we have contrasted the earlier and the later view. In the book of Job, which is a poem, Satan is represented as among the sons of God and a servant of the Lord, though out of sympathy with Him and evidently an enemy of man. The transaction pictured between the Lord and Satan is of quite a doubtful nature.
The book of Zechariah mentions Satan as an accuser of Joshua, a good man. These later books were written, so most modern scholars think, after the captivity, in which Israel became familiar with the dualism of the Persians. The word devil in the singular is not found in the Old Testament. After the close of the canon of the Old Testament, the ideas received during the captivity seemed to germinate, and Israel developed an elaborate system of dualism of their own, somewhat similar to that of the Persians, yet modified by their abiding belief in monotheism. When Christ Jesus came this belief was universally accepted by all except the Sadducees, and they were quite generally classed as infidels, as they believed neither in spirits nor in the resurrection of the dead. He did not directly antagonize this belief, any more than he did the belief in the divine sanction of slavery and other evils of his time. He was content to plant seeds of truth that would ultimately crowd out the false beliefs. He told them he had many things to say, but that they were not then able to bear them. The Spirit of truth would guide them into all truth. Jesus nevertheless used some very significant phrases in regard to evil, as Mrs. Eddy has pointed out in "No and Yes" (p. 31, ff). "Jesus defined Devil as a mortal who is full of evil: 'Have I not chosen you twelve, and one of you is a devil?'" He said to Peter, "'Get thee behind me, Satan." Also to certain men, "Ye are of your father the devil."
It is difficult to interpret Christ Jesus' language to those supposed to be possessed with devils. Volumes have been written on the subject. As conservative a man as Professor Reer of Newton Baptist Theological Seminary says, "If he knew his people to be in error in ascribing these afflictions to diabolical influence, he need have felt no call to correct it. Jesus desired to cure, not to inform his patients. The notion in no way interfered with his turning the thought of those he healed towards God, the center of help and of health." "If it should be held that he adopted unquestionably the explanation held by all his contemporaries, even as he used their language, dress, manner of life, and in one particular at least their representation of the life after death (Luke, 16: 22 Abraham's bosom), it would do no violence to his power or dignity or integrity."
