History Of The Devil Essay

Almost every educated person in the modern world has an understanding of who the devil is. Most people would describe the devil as a red-horned devil who resides over the fiery underworld called hell. The problem with their description of the devil is that the people before the first century a.d did not believe in a devil who was all-powerful and evil; they would have described him as either an angel who did God’s dirty work or a demon ruling over the cold hell with black features. The question then becomes, how did the devil transform in to the beast that the modern world knows him? The earliest reference of the devil is in the Old Testament. According to Reverend Tom Wright, from the documentary The History of the Devil, Satan “is a title meaning the accuser”. In the Old Testament, the accuser works for God. Without any power of his own, Satan follows the command of God and does “the dirty work’. He was an angel in the book so he did not have his red skin or horns or goat hooves. Satan appears in the book of Job in which Satan claims that Job is only a pious man because he has a good life. God allows Satan to test the piety of Job by putting Job through certain trials. Although Satan reeks havoc …show more content…
Satan also had wings because he was a fallen angel but his wings resembled a dragon due to dragons being symbols of evil. Dragons are also where Satan gets his taloned feet. Around this time, most people believed that Satan was the snake that tempted Eve, contrary to what the scripture states. The rise of Christianity is due to the conversion of Constantine the Great. He makes Christianity the religion of the Empire, giving real power to Christian bishops. Bishops and clergy men claimed that people who were not on their side were under the control of Satan. Not being on the side of the church made the person a heretic, which led to their