DEVIATION 



DEVI I. 



779 



winding >'_' miles northeastward, till it falls into 

 tin- Mm.tv I nth at Banll. Sue Lauder's 



Deviation. See COMPASS. 



ll'vire (late Lat. tlirisn, ' a drawing'), if in 

 a wider sense, applicable to emblem* on shielils, 

 siidi a8 descrilx'd l>y Homer, is, in a more 

 re-tricted u-e of the word, u decoration with 

 MOOmp&nying legend, assumed by an individual 

 rather than a family, and for the pur|>ose not of 

 publicity, like the badge (with which it has . some 

 times been confounded ), hut of inystili<-ation, with 

 covert allusion to the circumstances of the In-an-i. 

 It is, in fact, a rebus or painted riddle, with a 

 legend allusive to it, as the knot l>orne by Sir 

 Thomas Heneage, of a shape suggestive of a heart, 

 with the inscription ' Fust though untied ;' and the 

 heart borne by Lord Latimer, with, the legend 

 ' Dieu et ma fiancee.' See BADGE. 



Devil, or Satan, the names applied in the 

 New Testament and in Christian theology to the 

 supreme impersonation of evil, considered a> pos- 

 sessing an objective existence outside of man, and 

 placed at the head of a host of inferior evil spirits, 

 whose continual occupation is to thwart the good 

 purposes of God and the progress of his kingdom in 

 the hearts of men. . Other names merely suggest 

 the same essential ideas of his nature and function, 

 as the wicked one, t/te enemy, and the like. It seems 

 certain that this conception was foreign to the early 

 Jewish mind, with its strong grasp of the mono- 

 theistic idea in the person of the supreme Jehovah. 

 It is Jehovah himself who hardens Pharaoh's heart, 

 and sends a lying spirit among the prophets of 

 Aliah, and it is he who is considered as the sole 

 source of all power, the sender of pestilence and 

 death as well as blessings. In the exegesis of later 

 days the serpent that tempted Eve in Eden, and 

 the ' Old Serpent ' of the Apocalypse, were alike 

 identified with Satan, although this interpretation 

 certainly gains no support from the story in 

 Genesis, where the tempter is as yet hardly more 

 than a mere animal, although one of a family 

 almost everywhere specially associated with evil. 



It is significant that the name Satan occurs but 

 five times in the Old Testament : thrice in Job, 

 where he presents himself among the ' sons of God ' 

 (Beni Elo/iini) before the Lord. Here he is the 

 Milling messenger of evil, but yet he is not repre- 

 sented as Job's spiritual enemy, nor yet as a distinct 

 impersonation of evil. He is hardly more than an 

 agent of one form of divine providence, by whose 

 means Job is tried and lifted into a higher spiritual 

 plane, and his energies hardly range out of the 

 region of mere physical into that of moral evil. 

 The Beni Eloliim throughout are employed as the 

 messengers of Jehovah, and carry out his mercies 

 and punishments alike, both bearing messages of 

 consolation and promise to the patriarchs, and tilling 

 Saul's mind with gloomy thoughts, appearing with 

 drawn sword to Balaam, or destroying in one night 

 a whole Assyrian host. The Jews had also tln-ir 

 demonology like all primitive peoples, as may be 

 Been in the seirim (satyrs, lit. ' he-goats ') and the 

 shetfim, both rendered by 'devils' in the authorised 

 version, and perhaps also in the Aza/el of Leviti- 

 cus xvi. ; but it was not till later that a 8|KH-iul 

 angel became differentiated from his brethren in 

 the heavenly court, with the special function of tin- 

 accuser of men, like the personification of a guilty 

 conscience. In the vision of Zechariah we II ml 

 him considered formally as the accuser of Israel. 

 Undoubtedly also this conception had already 

 become greatly modified during the period of exile 

 by contact with Persian dualism. Of course such 

 a' conception as Ahriman, the mighty author of 

 evil and the antagonist almost on equal terms of 



Ormu/d, wan complete! v foreign to Jewihh motto- 

 tln-i-.ni, yet tin- J.-ui,h Satan jfrtw greatly boUt in 

 definttoMM and in power under hi- riiaaow, and 

 henceforth it is from him directly that moral mid 

 physical harm towards men proceed*. V-t it imi-t 

 not lie Mipixmed that thi* WHM due to direct l*f 

 ing, and that the Jewish Satan wait not Milmtnn- 

 tially an original evolution of the native Jcwih 

 mind. ' While Ahriman i- phyxical evil that ban 

 become moral evil also,' says M. Kevillc, 'Satan i* 

 moral evil Ix-coming physical evil.' 



Persian influence am.i-.u- mo-t plainly in the 

 apocryphal lxx>kn of Tobit and Kariich, but the 

 growth of the conception of the de\il i- MM?n alao in 

 the translation of the LX.V, winch render* hi* name 

 by ititifinftM, thus emphasising and perpetuating 

 his special function as the uccnsrr. >ow al-o 

 he becomes located in his gloomy kingdom of hell, 

 and is attended by trooj.- of inferior licnd*. He 

 wages warfare on mankind by indicting physical 

 :m<l moral evil, and is considered as the agent by 

 whose means man fell from his 01 initial state of 

 innocence. It was thus he who introduced death 

 with all its horrors into the world, and consequently 

 diseases, especially those of greater violence and 

 obscurity, are the work of himself or his minimi-. 



In the New Testament the conception of the 

 personality of the devil and of a kingdom of 

 demons holds its ground, but the whole subject in 

 here treated with a kind of spiritual reserve, in a 

 teaching that emphasises our own hearts and their 

 inward temptations as the source of our evil 

 thoughts and deeds, and connects moral evil in- 

 separably with the earthly nature of man. The 

 passages which speak of a fall of angelic beings 

 (2 Peter, ii. 4; Jude 6) occur in scriptures of sub- 

 ordinate canonical rank ; Jesus nowhere defines 

 concretely the function of the devil ; and the few 

 positive statements about him that ' he was a 

 murderer from the liegiiining, and stood not in the 

 truth,' that 'he is a liar' (John, viii. 44), and -in- 

 net h from the beginning' (1 John, iii. 8), scarcely 

 furnish a sufficient foundation for a complete 

 doctrine on this subject. Yet the impressive 

 manner in which it is dwelt on by our Lord and 

 his apostles shows that it is a necessary pait of 

 Christian teaching. The New Testament devil is 

 an enemy of the divine, but yet an inferior and 

 ill-trailed spirit. He is the tempter of man, and 

 even of the Son of God, yet his temptations fall 

 without effect upon upright purity, and thuuigh 

 the Saviour's merits the individual Christian is 

 aUo saved from his power, in spite of all the 

 perilous temptations of his own flesh. Chri-t'a 

 saving work is regarded as the virtual victmy 

 over the power of Satan, and the grand drama 

 of the last decisive struggles and final subjuga- 

 tion of the kingdom of the devil forms the 

 elusion of New Testament prophecy. 



The early theologians were more literal and lew 

 spiritual in their conceptions, and in their horror of 

 heathen inst it utions came to identify the kingdom 

 of die devil in a particular manner with |xil\ theism 

 and the persecution they suffered under the Human 

 empire. Thus the devil again Ittcaine a kind of 

 rival of God, wholly unequal but >et formidable. 

 The strength of the- U-lief in a DOWVffe] |-r>>nal 

 devil may IN- seen in the earliest heresies, those of 

 the (Inn-tic- and Maniclwans, a main feature in 

 which was an elaU>rat- sv-tem of e\il demon* as 

 enemies to man ami almost rivals to (MM!. The 

 early Christians con-i.leied the gods of heathenism 

 as indeed eon|uend by Chri-t, but yet not n-n- 

 dered wholly |xwerln. for as degrade*! demons 

 and with intent to deceive they uttered orarlw. and 

 were present at sacrifice-., inhaling the sacrificial 

 incense an idea in ierfect harmony with the 

 growing materialistic conception of 'the devils, 



