164 EVIL IN THE WORLD. 



But there are many others in which the word is clearly 

 used metaphorically ; and these, in my mind, furnish 

 an index to the former, and a strong argument against 

 such mode of interpretation. Would the word ever 

 be used to express merely evil thought, temptation, or 

 sin, if in other places it affirmed a personal being, the 

 spirit and author of evil in the world? I think it 

 nearly impossible that this should happen. The meta- 

 phor embodies itself in personality. The personality, 

 if existing, would exclude the metaphor. 



I refer below to a passage in St. Luke's Gospel 

 which seems to me conclusive as to the point in ques- 

 tion ; and to other passages showing how doubtfully 

 the belief in an evil spirit is justified by Scriptural au- 

 thority. 1 Yet I have more than once heard the perso- 

 nality of the Devil preached explicitly as a doctrine of 



1 See Luke xiii. 11, where a woman is described as Trvtv^a t\ovoa 

 aaQivva^ for eighteen years j and verse 16, where it is said of the same 

 woman ravrriv ?i tdrjatv o "Zaravac deica /ecu OKTW trrj, 



I find Dr. Howsou, in his Hulsean Lectures (1861), quoting the men- 

 tion of Satan by St. Paul in Acts xxvi. 18 as a proof of his existence and 

 power. The inference I draw from this passage is just the reverse. The 

 Aio/3oXoe of John viii. 44 conveys more of personality, yet taking the whole 

 phrase of the context, it may be simply metaphorical for evil. Ought 

 our translation to render ciafloXog and daip.6vior, coming near together, 

 under the same word of Devil ? There is evidently a different meaning 

 in the original, whatever it may be. The passage in Matthew xii. 24 

 et seq. strikingly illustrates the difficulty of interpreting these several 

 terms, to which that of Beelzebub is here added. The / /3nai\tia of 

 Satan, another phrase in this remarkable passage, can fairly be construed 

 only in an allegorical sense, which sense it reflects upon the context. 



The singular contradiction between 2 Samuel xxiv., and 1 Chro- 

 nicles xxi., can only be explained (and this imperfectly) by supposing 

 what is translated Satan to be a personification of evil thought or action. 

 The passage in Job of colloquy between God and Satan is still more 

 manifestly allegorical. The word rendered Satan, as far as I know, 

 occurs nowhere else in the Old Testament. 



