read that when the sons of God came to present themselves before Him, "Satan came also among them." From always accusing the brethren he had grown distrustful of human goodness, and did not believe even in Job, so, quite as an instrument of Divine discipline, and in accordance with the counsels of Jehovah, he proceeds to try the patriarch. I find no trace as yet of any enmity between God and Satan, he is among the sons of God, goes in and out of heaven at will, and is employed by God in the Divine discipline of Job.

Again, when Balaam was met in the narrow way by an "angel of God," he was in fact met by Satan, for we read, "The angel of the Lord stood in the way for an adversary [or satan against him." That angel of God is in fact here called a satan, in so many words, but we have not yet come to the Arch-Fiend, or infernal rival of God.

47. Constant familiarity with evil appears to have told by degrees on the angelic character of Satan the accuser. He becomes unnaturally suspicious, not only willing but eager to accuse, at times even a slanderer; and as such he is re

buked when offering to become the adversary of Joshua the High Priest, "The Lord rebuke thee, Satan" (Zech. iii. 2).

48. The terror of this accusing angel fairly took possession of the Jewish mind. The people imagined him constantly reporting them to God, lying about them and slandering them, and even inciting them to evil for the sake of getting them chastised. When it comes to this it is plain that a great change is passing over Satan, instead of finding out, and punishing and suppressing evil, he becomes its aider and abettor, a kind of marplot, or diabolus, and as he grows in importance and power he begins to measure his strength with Jehovah Himself. This was the state of Jewish belief about 588 B.C. The Jews now for a space of seventy years were closely associated with Persia. They found the Ormuzd and the Ahriman, the good and evil spirits, dividing between them the Divine sovereignty, and they naturally enough adopted just so much of this dualism as could possibly be fitted into their monotheistic religion. They still worshipped one God, Jehovah, but they elevated Satan into something like an Ahriman,

and made him, once for all, not only the accuser, and slanderer, and tempter of man, but the satan or adversary of God Himself; yet it is not until after the close of the Old Testament that we find Satan invested with his full powers of satanic royalty. In the apocryphal books you will find frequent allusions to all sorts of assistant devils, and between the last book of the Old and the first book of the New Testament there grew up the complete fabric of demonology, the crowned Devil, and all his angels, as we find him in the popular theology of the Jews about the time of Christ.

49. See then how well defined is the growth of this belief. Step by step the Devil can be historically traced from his origin in Jehovah Himself. First we relegate to the realm of universal myth, but myth embodying no doubt universal truth, the story of Eve and the serpent. Then we find that Jehovah did both good and evil in the early theology of the Jews. A remnant of this belief lingers as late as Isaiah (xlv. 7): "I make peace, and create evil I the Lord do all these things." But as the Jewish conscience expanded, most of

the derogatory functions formerly attributed to Jehovah were handed over to an adversary or an accuser, one of the many celestial ministers, or sons of God, standing in the Heavenly Presence. By degrees the work of sifting men and accusing them began to tell upon Satan, who became at last a slanderer of the brethren; and as he grew in malice and in power he became hated of men, and conceived the idea of rivalling God. When the development of belief had reached that point, we find the Jews coming into contact (long and friendly contact) with the Persians; and as they had borrowed from Egypt and Assyria, so they now naturally borrowed from Persia. They borrowed Ahriman, the bad spirit, or so much of him as they could conveniently fit on to their monotheistic religion, and lo! the satan or accuser of the brethren stepped forth as the Arch-Fiend, rivalling Jehovah Himself in the number and activity of his subjects, and disputing with Him even the range of His influence. The Apocrypha roughly fills the space between Malachi, the last of the prophets, and the Advent of Christ; and in this memorable 400 years, during which the Devil and all his angels seemed to the Jews to be let

loose upon them in their contest under the Maccabees with Antiochus and Nicanor, and afterwards with the Romans, both the figure of the conquering Messiah and of His satanic rival acquired solidity, so that when Christ appeared the stage was already prepared, in the popular imagination, for the final struggle between the powers of good and evil, and the final triumph of good over evil, so eloquently set forth in the Apocalypse. "There was war in heaven, Michael and his angels fought against the Dragon, and the Dragon fought and his angels, and prevailed not; and the great Dragon was cast out, that old serpent (sic), that deceiveth the whole world, he was cast out into the earth." But this was only the prelude to the final victory by the Word of God; the "Faithful and True" on the white horse over Death and Hell. "The Devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone," "and Death and Hell were cast into the lake of fire."

50. If then we take our account from the Bible instead of from Milton, we shall find that Satan fell not before the Creation, as in "Paradise