Concept of the personification of evil in Christianity
The Fallen Angel (1847) by Alexandre CabanelThe Devil (the dragon; on the left) gives to the beast of the sea (on the right) power represented by a sceptre in a detail of panel III.40 of the medieval French Apocalypse Tapestry, produced between 1377 and 1382.
In Christianity, the Devil is the personification of evil. He is traditionally held to have rebelled against God in an attempt to become equal to God himself.[a] He is depicted as a fallen angel, who was expelled from Heaven at the beginning of time, before God created the material world, and is in constant opposition to God.[2][3] The devil is conjectured to be several other figures in the Bible including the serpent in the Garden of Eden, Lucifer, Satan, the tempter of the Gospels, Leviathan, and the dragon in the Book of Revelation.
Early scholars discussed the role of the devil. Scholars influenced by neoplatonic cosmology, like Origen and Pseudo-Dionysius, portrayed the devil as representing deficiency and emptiness, the entity most remote from the divine. According to Augustine of Hippo, the realm of the devil is not nothingness, but an inferior realm standing in opposition to God. The standard Medieval depiction of the devil goes back to Gregory the Great. He integrated the devil, as the first creation of God, into the Christian angelic hierarchy as the highest of the angels (either a cherub or a seraph) who fell far, into the depths of hell, and became the leader of demons.[4]
Since the early Reformation period, the devil has been imagined as an increasingly powerful entity, with not only a lack of goodness but also a conscious will against God, his word, and his creation. Simultaneously, some reformists have interpreted the devil as a mere metaphor for humans' inclination to sin — thereby downgrading his importance. While the devil has played no significant role for most scholars in the Modern Era, he has become important again in contemporary Christianity.
At various times in history, certain Gnostic sects such as the Cathars and the Bogomils, as well as theologians like Marcion and Valentinus, have believed that the devil was involved in creation. Today these views are not part of mainstream Christianity.
^Geisenhanslüke, Mein & Overthun 2015, p. 217.
^McCurry, Jeffrey (2006). "Why the Devil Fell: A Lesson in Spiritual Theology From Aquinas's 'Summa Theologiae'". New Blackfriars. 87 (1010): 380–395. doi:10.1111/j.0028-4289.2006.00155.x. JSTOR 43251053.
^Goetz 2016, p. 221.
^Russell 1986, pp. 94–95.
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