The Spiritual World: On the Existence of Bodiless Powers
Chapter Two: On the Existence of Demons
By Archpriest Grigory Dyachenko
Chapter Two: On the Existence of Demons
By Archpriest Grigory Dyachenko
1. The Existence of Evil Spirits
Tradition has preserved in all nations the concept of evil spirits. Such, for example, is the teaching of the Persian religion about the evil principle – Ahriman and evil spirits; such is the teaching of the Greek religion about the Furies, etc. The Egyptians believed that at birth each person is given a guardian demon. The Chinese Buddhists also recognize evil spirits.
It goes without saying that all these beliefs, as not sanctified by Divine Revelation, are distorted; but the very existence of these beliefs among the nations shows that the existence of evil spirits does not contradict the principles of common sense, just as the existence of good spirits does not.
Indeed, firstly, if there are many different objects in the world visible to us, then why not admit that rational and moral beings are not limited to the human race? Secondly, if we notice a gradualness in creatures that proceeds from lower to higher forms, then a similar gradualness is assumed in moral creatures – in relation to God. That is why Plato the philosopher taught that "there are spirits intermediate between man and God, who withdraw from evil people and help the good; they cannot be visible, although they are present with us" (Plato's Dialogues: "Timaeus"). The actions of spirits are possible in themselves, just as there are actions of one person on another, the actions of a person's soul on his body. Therefore, only corrupt people deny good spirits, because they are far from them, and evil spirits, because, without noticing it, they are their slaves.
The living certainty of the ancient world in the existence of evil spirits is confirmed by the fact that ancient philosophy was often combined with magic (Ex. 7:11), as we see in the wise men of Pharaoh who opposed Moses, and in Cyprian, who later became a martyr and bishop of Antioch.
To obtain a personal understanding of the spirits of evil, we have one means - the Christian teaching contained in Holy Scripture, revealed and confirmed by the works of the Holy Fathers and teachers of the Church. What the devil is, what are his actions, we learn from Holy Scripture, which also shows us the means to fight the devil; and how to accept these means in practice, we learn from the works of the Holy Fathers and the lives of holy ascetics who dedicated their entire lives to the fight against the spirits of evil. The knowledge of the spirits of evil by holy ascetics is a special gift of God; it is "discernment in the Spirit" (1 Cor. 12:10); with it is associated victory over sinful thoughts, dreams and feelings. The Lord revealed this gift to the Prophet-King David, and he, on behalf of all mankind, cried out: "Bring my soul out of prison" (Psalm 141:8). True, due to our carnal state, we are not able to see spirits, but we “have the prophetic word confirmed, which you do well to heed as a light that shines in a dark place” (2 Pet. 1:19), we can know our enemies so well as to be able to resist them.
According to the wise of this age, the devil is the personification of the evil principle inherent in us and acting in the world, and the subordinate spirits are a further development of this personification. But the word of God reveals to us that the space between heaven and earth - the entire azure abyss visible to us - serves as a dwelling place for fallen angels cast out of heaven (Eph. 6:12; Rev. 12:7).
We encounter the teaching about the devil as a truly existing, personal, living and evil spirit in the first pages of the Bible. According to the testimony of the Book of Genesis, the devil, having entered into the serpent, deceived our first parents and inclined them to transgress the commandment of God (Gen. 3:1-19). That the devil was the culprit of the sin that in Adam destroyed the entire human race, is testified by the wise Solomon: “For God created man for incorruptibility, and in the image of His own likeness He created him; and by the envy of the devil death entered into the world; and they that follow him partake of it” (Wis. 2:23-24). For this reason the devil is called "a murderer from the beginning" (John 8:44).
The Book of Deuteronomy testifies that Moses also knew about the existence of evil spirits. Listing the iniquities of the Jews, Moses says that they “sacrificed to demons, and not to God” (Deut. 32:17), that is, as Saint John Chrysostom explains, they sacrificed to idols in which demons sit. The evil spirit is depicted in the Book of Genesis as he is described in the Book of Job, i.e. as a slanderer. There he slanders God, and here he slanders His righteous man, whom he struck with fierce pus from head to foot. He would have struck the righteous man he hated with death, if God had not forbidden him to do so (Job 1:6–22, 2:1–7). The devil allowed David “to number the people of Israel” (1 Chronicles 21:1). The demon Asmodeus killed seven husbands, to whom Sarah, the daughter of Raguel, was married in turn (Tob. 3:8). The evil spirit possessed Saul (1 Samuel 16:14–15).
Saint John the Theologian closely connects the truth of the existence of evil spirits with the truth of the coming of the Son of God into the world: “He who commits sin is of the devil, for the devil has sinned from the beginning. For this reason the Son of God was revealed that He might destroy the works of the devil” (1 John 3:8, cf. Matt. 12:24–29; James 2:19; 2 Cor. 2:11). From these words it follows that, without knowing who the devil is, we cannot know what Jesus Christ did for us, and the denial of evil spirits leads to the denial of the mystery of the fall, and consequently, the mystery of redemption. Indeed, why did Christ have to come to earth when the devil does not exist? And the denial of redemption must necessarily lead to the denial of all Christianity.
That Jesus Christ came to destroy the works of the devil is evidenced by the entire gospel story.
"You are of your father the devil," says Jesus Christ to the Jews, "and the lusts of your father you will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks of his own, for he is a liar and the father of lies" (John 8:44). Then Christ, both in the positive teaching and in the parables, in their explanatory part, often mentions the devil and his angels, and everywhere teaches about them as real beings, as evil spirits trying to harm people, to destroy them, and reserved for eternal fire. Depicting the Last Judgment, Christ says: "The Son of Man will say to those on the left hand, Depart from Me, you cursed, into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels" (Matthew 25:41). The Lord pronounces His condemnation on sinners - real beings. Is it not clear from this that the devil and his angels are also real beings, for the eternal fire has been prepared for them first of all, and awaits their followers – the sinners?
According to Christ the Savior, Satan tormented the unfortunate bent woman for 18 years (Luke 13:11–16); he also asked the Lord to sow the apostles like wheat (Luke 22:31).
In other places in the Holy Gospel, the words of Jesus Christ are quoted that there is a whole kingdom of evil spirits, that the devil, the evil prince of this kingdom, has his servants and is therefore called the prince of demons (Matt. 12:25–27; Luke 11:17–20), that the devil, the prince of demons, is the “prince of this world” (John 12:31), that the devil and his angels act together, not hindering, but supporting each other to the detriment of people (Matt. 12:25–27; Mark 3:24–28; Luke 11:17–20).
The Holy Apostles also had no doubts about the existence of the devil. Like Jesus Christ, they taught about the harmful activity of evil spirits and their pernicious influence on the human race. Speaking about Christ, that He healed all those possessed by the devil (Acts 10:38), the apostles themselves, following the example of their Divine Teacher, healed the possessed (Acts 5:15–16, 16:18) and, preaching Christ to people, looked at the transition from paganism to Christianity as a transition from the power of Satan to God (Acts 16:18).
According to the teaching of the apostles, Christ took on our flesh and blood in order to deprive by His own death of power of the one who had the power of death, i.e. the devil (Heb. 2:14). The devil is a real being, otherwise the Apostle Jude would not have depicted him as arguing about the body of Moses with the Archangel Michael (Jude 1:9). The apostles taught that demons are intelligent spirits (James 3:15), but evil (Acts 19:13). Being numerous (Rev. 12:4), they form their own kingdom, headed by Satan (Rom. 16:20; 1 Cor. 5:5).
From these places of the apostolic writings it is clear that the devil is a being who really exists. This is how the Holy Fathers of the Church understood these passages. Saint Ignatius the God-bearer repeatedly in his epistles exhorts to avoid the guile and tricks of the prince of this age and to strengthen ourselves against the devilish roots with meekness, faith and love.
The angel who by his birthright was wiser than the others, became a demon for his crime and disobedience, and together with him those who imitated him and were carried away by his dreams, formed a regiment of demons. The devil, according to the teaching of Saint Irenaeus of Lyons, is a creation of God, like the other angels. He himself was the cause of his apostasy. According to the conviction of Tertullian, everything that offends God must be attributed to demons and unclean spirits.
All other Fathers and Teachers of the Church also acknowledge the existence of evil spirits. In their works (which we will see more than once below), they discuss the nature of evil spirits, their first sin, their intrigues against people, etc. The existence of evil spirits is especially convincingly proven by the history of the holy ascetics, as we can see from their edifying writings. Throughout their lives, the ascetics waged a fierce battle with the spirits of evil. It often happened that demons appeared to them in a sensory form. Fighting off demons with their high moral life, the holy ascetics cast out demons from other people, which they boldly pointed out to the pagans as proof of the truth of the Christian faith. In the Second Apology of Justin Martyr we read: "Jesus became a man and was born, by the will of God the Father, for the sake of people believing in Him and the destruction of demons. We can learn this even now from what is happening before our eyes, for many Christians have healed and are still healing many people possessed by demons, conjuring them in the name of Jesus Christ, crucified under Pontius Pilate, while they were not healed by other exorcists - hypnotists."
“Most of you know,” says Minucius Felix, “that the demons themselves are greatly terrified by our words of exorcism in the name of the One True God, and either immediately leave the bodies of those possessed by them, or gradually depart, depending on the faith of the sufferer or the desire of the healer.” Tertullian writes: “As for demons, we not only do not reject them, but we fight with them, persecute them, expel them from the human body, as everyone knows. Bring to court a man who is known to be possessed by a demon, and let a Christian, whoever he may be, command the demon to speak. The demon will confess that he is really a demon, and that in other cases he falsely claims to be God.”
The belief of the Holy Church in the existence of evil spirits and their harmful influence is most convincingly expressed in its prayers and rites of supplication. In its prayers, the Holy Church persistently teaches believers to ask God for deliverance from evil demons, wicked devils, and incorporeal enemies. "Deliver me, O Lord, from this present demonic situation... Deliver me from the mouth of the destructive serpent, gaping to devour me and bring me down to hades alive." (Prayer Before Sleep, 8).
"Let God arise, and let His enemies be scattered... Let the demons perish from the face of those who love God and sign themselves with the sign of the cross..." "Deliver me, O Lord, from the devil's haste." "Save me, for You are my God and Creator... Let Satan not snatch me away and boast, O Word, that he has torn me away from Your hand and protection... Grant me, O God, to serve You without laziness, as I served before the deceitful Satan" (Prayer of Saint Makarios, 13).
The Holy Church instructs us to resort to the Most Holy Theotokos with the following prayer: “Deliver me from the eternal fire and the evil worm, and Tartarus; lest you make me a joy to the demons, who am guilty of many sins.” It also teaches us to pray to the Guardian Angel, so that he will not give “room for the evil demon to gain control of me through the violence of this mortal body,” so that he will forbid the demons to torment us (Prayer to Guardian Angel).
In the rite of Holy Baptism, which is used in the Church to this day, it is required of the godparents that they renounce “the devil and all his works and all his pride” for the one being baptized. The possibility of the existence of the possessed, as those truly possessed by evil spirits, is recognized by the Church by having a special rite “for deliverance from unclean spirits.” This rite also reveals to us the undoubted faith of the Church in the power of the name of Christ and the “power over unclean spirits to cast them out” given by Him to the shepherds of the Church (Matt. 10:1).
Thus, everything convinces us of the existence of evil spirits: the traditions of the nations, and common sense, illuminated by the light of Divine Revelation, and the experience of holy ascetics, and, finally, the faith of the Church. Therefore, as Father John of Kronstadt says, “stubborn disbelief in the existence of evil spirits is real madness, for it goes against the truth, against Divine Revelation. A person who denies evil spirits is already swallowed up by the devil" (1 Pet. 5:8) and, sitting in darkness and the shadow of death, is unable to behold the Sun of Truth.
Application
Solution of Objections to the Assumption of the Existence of the Devil
Rationalism denies the possibility and reality of the existence of Satan and other evil spirits as living personal beings. This, of course, is a consequence of its denial of the existence of any spirits in general or of the angelic world in general. But in this case, intentionally or unintentionally, confusing the biblical teaching about evil spirits with vulgar popular ideas and images about them, the devil in poetry (Lucifer and all demonic types, such as Manfred, Cain, etc. in Byron, Mephistopheles in Goethe, Demon in Lermontov), having little or nothing in common with him, rationalism, except for various extraneous considerations, tries to point out in the Christian teaching itself such features that make it incredible or implausible in psychological and other respects. Of the innumerable objections collected and raised especially by Schleiermacher, the more important ones can be pointed out:
a) It seems inconceivable that such a deep fall should occur, in which the whole being should turn from good to evil, and that as a result of a single sinful act.
But such a fall is quite natural for the highest angelic nature, especially for the most powerful of the angels. His falling away from God was not a matter of external deception, as was partly the case with people in Paradise, it was not a matter of weakness, but a firmly accepted, conscious and intentional decision of his own will, not a human will, but a powerful will, and not a human mind, but an angelic one. He who stands high, falls low and deeply; this is a general law, observed also in the human moral world. The law is quite clear. The richer the nature in a person, the stronger, deeper and broader, of course, all its manifestations, both in the bad and in the good: mediocrity in everything remains mediocrity, genius is great in everything. He who deeply feels and desires, falls deeply with a bad direction of the will. He who thinks deeply, errs deeply: a tree never errs, for it does not think; an animal errs rarely and little, for it errs rarely and little (badly); a stupid man errs more, but the errors of a great mind are terrible. In angelic nature, everything exists and is accomplished in a size unusual for man; nothing in us can compare with the strength, depth, power of all the movements of their spiritual being: these movements are strong, swift and irrevocable. In man, the very infirmities of body and spirit, his weakness and corporeality often serve as a limitation of sin or evil will. The decisions of evil will find obstacles to their implementation and their limitation in the fact that they often take their origin in the unstable and changing movements of the body, external impressions or feelings, quickly changing and replaced by new ones, in a word - from outside, and not in the very depths of the spirit. The external world with its varied impressions does not allow the evil will (evil) to concentrate inside, once it has appeared, lures it out and thereby weakens it, makes it superficial and petty, so that absent-mindedness serves a person's benefit. Boredom, fatigue, and the limitation of space and time of all movements or acts of his mind, will and feeling also serve him for his benefit, as a result of which the acts of evil of the soul require tension, time, and at the same time entail fatigue and rest. And the very thought in a person, no matter how fast it is, is subject to the measure of time (1/6 sec.) and space (an impression reaches consciousness from the periphery to the central organ at 90 feet per second). But nothing binds the angel in all the acts and movements of his being: nothing distracts him from himself, everywhere he is alone with himself, he cannot, even if he wanted, hide from himself behind the body and the external world, to go with his own forces into the external world: his forces are not distracted and are not spent on the side in the struggle with matter and for the struggle with it, but are concentrated, without losing anything, in himself. Nothing slows down or weakens the madness of his spirit, which acts and never requires rest; his evil will finds no limits in time: his movements are instantaneous, fast and cannot be measured; there are no limits to them in space: the angel is quickly transported from place to place, where his evil will draws him, and there are no physical obstacles for it!
b) It seems improbable that the highest angel with his high and bright mind should have the reckless intention of comparing himself with God, or at least of becoming independent of Him.
But this intention arises in the angel under the influence of the passion of pride that has seized him, which has never made and does not make anyone intelligent, like all the passions, if not more (love, jealousy, envy, vanity, etc.). It has long been a hackneyed truth, which, however, must be repeated here, that passion blinds and suppresses reason, and this is especially applicable to sinful passions. Every sin taken separately brings with it, in varying degrees - in accordance with its importance, a terrible punishment for man: it turns him from a rational being into an irrational one. It cannot be otherwise in view of the close connection between all aspects of spiritual activity and the undoubted connection between knowledge and the heart. Errors of the heart are reflected in the mind, and this is not only in the practical sphere, but also in the scientific, where one sees the action of this law all the time, according to which the thinking of undoubtedly gifted and strong minds is struck by some kind of sterility, emptiness and immutability, when these strong and not small minds lack a noble heart, an elevated character. A lie of the heart entails a lie in the mind, and moreover in such spheres of the mind as scientific thinking, where, apparently, the so-called "pure thinking" is in effect; but "what shall be cleansed of him that is unclean, and what true thing shall be said of a liar?" (Sir. 34:4). Foolishness in everything, more or less obvious, is the first curse of sin, which in its essence is folly, i.e., the denial of the reasonable.
The analysis of the objections set out above under “a” and “b” thus only clearly reveals the psychological truth of the Christian teaching about the devil, without shaking it in the least.
c) The teaching about evil spirits proper, say the rationalists, is an element alien to the Bible: it appears no earlier than the return of the Jews from the Babylonian captivity, and therefore was undoubtedly taken by the Jews from there and, of course, from Persian mythology with its extremely developed demonology. By the time of Jesus Christ and the apostles, it had already managed to spread and establish itself so much among the people that it had reached the level of dogma in their religious consciousness. Therefore, Jesus Christ and the apostles, without disputing this belief and at the same time not sharing it, spoke in passing on this subject in the common current expressions of their time, adapting to the language and concepts of it, without giving them any special meaning (accommodation).
This strange assertion about the post-captivity origin of the doctrine of evil spirits in the Bible (when the devil is mentioned already in Genesis 3) is obtained only thanks to the arbitrary assertion of negative biblical criticism about the later origin of books written before the captivity, such as the Book of Job (chapter 1), the Book of Kings (1 Samuel 16:14, 18:10, 19:9, 28:16; 2 Samuel 24:1, 22:20), Chronicles (1 Chronicles 21:1; 2 Chronicles 18:19). The devil is mentioned in the Deuteronomy of Moses (Deut. 32:17), in the Psalms (Psalm 109:6, 67) and the Prophets (Isa. 13:21; cf. Rev. 18:2; Is. 36:14). Moreover, the biblical teaching about the devil and evil spirits is of a substantially different nature than the teaching about them in the Persian religion: a) here they are personal beings, in Parsism they are personifications or representatives of evil phenomena and forces of nature; b) here evil spirits are represented as such not by their very nature, but as a result of their free deviation from good, for they, like everyone else, were initially good and came from God, while in Parsism they are evil by their very nature, etc. Finally, the national-Jewish, and not foreign, character of the Jewish beliefs in evil spirits is evidenced by the fact that their most zealous adherents were the zealots of the law and the first patriots - the Pharisees.
The theory of accommodation is absolutely inapplicable to the teaching of Jesus Christ about evil spirits: it is inconsistent with the moral character of the absolutely truthful personality of Jesus Christ and with the general character and principles of His teaching. According to this theory, accommodation extends not only to the form (which would be true), but also to the content of the teaching of Jesus Christ; this, in other words, would mean that there is an admixture of falsehood in His teaching: the truth is kept silent in it (i.e., the real thoughts of the Teacher), and the minds of the listeners are deliberately deceived by inaccurate sayings. Thus Christ is unknown to us even in the views of rationalists who deny His Divinity. Accommodation, both in the teaching of Jesus Christ and His apostles (1 Cor. 9:19–23; Heb. 5:11–14; cf. Acts 24:10–21, 22:22–32), pertained only to the form and not to the content of the teaching. Thus, adapting to the understanding of the listeners and their moral state, the Savior spoke to the people in parables, and to the disciples about the same subjects without parables and directly (Matt. 13:10, etc.), and always revealed the truth to the extent that it could be contained in the minds of the listeners (John 16:12), and therefore did not say much before the time. Even more unnatural is material accommodation in relation to a teaching of such importance as the teaching on evil spirits under consideration: it is important not only in the theoretical respect, entering as one of the elements into the general worldview with a certain significance in it, but in the moral and practical respect, deeply influencing life itself and, as history shows, always subject to gross abuses, which further expand its influence (let us recall witchcraft). Thus, this teaching is far from an indifferent point in the general system of religious-Christian doctrine and morality; but accommodation is alien to the teaching of Jesus Christ in points of even lesser importance, where it would be more, comparatively, conceivable, as in the ritual question of the Sabbath, for example, about the laws of purification, about fasting, etc. Moreover, the teaching about evil spirits is set forth and expressed in such a situation and in such a way that exclude any thought of accommodation, i.e., a concession to incorrect concepts forced by circumstances (the ignorance of others). These concessions are not easily made even by simple mortals who avoid reasons for it: is it conceivable that Jesus Christ, without extreme need, without any incentives and reasons, not called upon by anyone to do so, would not once, but very often express the teaching about evil spirits, and moreover not in general expressions (features), but in details, not expected or required by anyone? And He very often acted in exactly this way, or even mostly (for example: Matt. 13:39, 25:41; John 8:44, 12:31, 14:30, 16:11 and others). Finally, the Savior often revealed this teaching to His disciples alone, in relation to whom such accommodation would have been inappropriate even according to the meaning of the theory of accommodation itself (for example, Matt. 13:39, 17:21, 12:26, etc. (See The Experience of an Apologist: An Exposition of the Orthodox Christian Doctrine, by Priest Svetlova, Professor of Theology, Vol. I, 1896 edition).
