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Question

Dear Father Angelo.

This is the first time I have written to you, but I have known the site for years and it has been helpful to me in the past and I want to thank you for the work you have been doing over the years. I hope you can help me and if this is the case, please forgive me if my questions have already been asked to you in the past.

My first question is about the nature of God and the Devil in history. That is, recently I have been told (admittedly in a very vague way) that the current notion of God and the Devil could be traced back to a rabbinic “council” which would have taken place around the eighth century BC (approximately at the time of the first Babylonian exile) in which the Rabbis would have discussed among themselves about the nature of God, hitherto dualistic (substantially capable to do good as well as evil), and about the Devil, who would have had a nature that is not fallen as it is instead understood today, but rather preserved in its “holiness”, and who would have been set by God to be a tempter on his behalf. In a nutshell, I’m wondering how much truth there is in those statements.

The second question (which in terms of the historical period is connected to the first) concerns the famous verses of Isaiah (Is 14:12): scholars agree to associate the morning star with Nebuchadnezzar II and not with Satan, as it derives from a translation error. But I noticed the peculiar and strenuous resistance of the classical interpretation!

Are there elements that are not taken into consideration by scholars that cause this reading of the verses to be kept?

Finally, I thank you in advance for your answer and, if possible, for a tiny prayer for me, as I am going through a rather dark time!

I remember you in the Lord.

Best wishes.

Answer

Dear Son,

1. There is no trace in any text introducing the Sacred Scripture about the council you are referring to, allegedly organized by the rabbis during the eighth century.

Such a fact would be so sensational as to raise the permanent attention of all critics and critics of critics.

Instead, there is nothing.

So, let us leave it to the wild reverie of someone or (which is all the more likely) to some Manichean-inspired sect.

2. In fact, it is certain that since ancient times there has been a tension about a dualistic notion of God, understood in the sense that there would have been two gods at the origin of created realities.

One would have been the god of evil, who would have created material realities.

The other would have been the god of good, the author of spiritual realities.

The Manicheans of all time have been inspired by these concepts, and in particular the Cathars and the Albigensians in the thirteenth century at the time of St. Dominic.

3. The Sacred Scripture, on the other hand, is very clear on the uniqueness of God from the very beginning, when it states: “In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth” (Gn 1,1).

To signify this, the Catholic Church in her profession of faith recites: “I believe in one God, the Father almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all things visible and invisible”.

4. I now come to your second question.

Indeed, the text that you relate to me has been interpreted in reference to Lucifer.

But the first and original meaning refers to the king of Babylon.

How did this shift of interpretations come about?

I will answer you by reporting what we read in the excellent commentary on Isaiah by Giuseppe Girotti, O.P., currently venerated by the Church as Blessed with the title of martyr.

5. Here is what Father Girotti writes:

“Verses 12-15 of Isaiah chapter 14, which describe the pride and fall of the king of Babylon, are often applied to Satan’s rebellion and chastisement.

Maldonato and Estio point out that almost all theologians understand this passage as referring to Lucifer, the prince of demons. These theologians have had predecessors in Origen, Tertullian, St. Cyprian, St. Ambrose, St. Cyril, Eusebius, Theodoret, St. Gregory the Great, etc.

Many of these Fathers (such as St. Cyril, Eusebius, etc.), however, diligently point out that those verses of Isaiah, in their literal and historical sense, refer to the king of Babylon.

How then can they apply to Satan? It is not possible to think of an additional literal sense; and there is also nothing that hints to a proper typical meaning intended as if the Holy Spirit had wanted to inform us, through those words of Isaiah, about the fall of the devil.

We are also not authorized to avail ourselves of the allegorical sense, by assuming that an ancient tradition regarding the sin of Lucifer could have provided the prophet with metaphors to describe the pride and fall of the king of Babylon.

There remains therefore nothing but the accommodative sense: what had been said about the Chaldean tyrant was adapted, transferred to Lucifer. Many Fathers certainly saw something more in it, but we do not claim to expound their exegesis; we simply seek to understand how the application to Satan can be justified and maintained.

Now, that appears legitimate to us in more than one way. We have seen that the scene of the destruction of the Chaldean power in chap. 13 of Isaiah, took the proportions of an Apocalypse. Babylon, without ceasing to be the metropolis of the Chaldean empire, also represents, in the eyes of the prophet, the pagan nations hostile to the people of God: it is the struggle of the world against the theocracy.

Consequently, is it not maybe natural to see in chap. 14, which describes the ambition and the collapse of the Babylonian ruler, the painting of the struggle between the prince of this world and the supreme Head of the theocracy?

After all, this transposition was facilitated by some features of the description, where mythological motifs are found that are taken from the astral religion of the Babylonians: the king of Babylon was a bright star in the firmament, a kind of demi-god. He claimed to rise above the other astral divinities, to climb the highest clouds, to the top of the sky, to settle on the holy mountain of the gods, in the northern depths.

When, on the other hand, ecclesiastical writers read in the New Testament that Babylon was the personification of irreligion and wickedness (Rev 18:2; Cf. Zec 5:5ff.), that Satan fell from Heaven like lightning (Lk 10:18), that the huge dragon, the ancient serpent, the seducer of the whole earth, called Satan, was conquered by Michael and his angels, was made to fall from Heaven to earth, and that it swept away a third of the stars of Heaven in his fall (Rev 12:4.7-9), were they not inclined to see in the fall of Satan as described the fall of the king of Babylon, and to give the devil that same name of Lucifer with which Isaiah designated the Chaldean ruler?

Thus, he was nothing but an instrument of Satan, and the pride which caused his downfall was only an effect of that which sent the prince of angels to perdition.

The king of Babylon, says Theodoret, was not alone in forming his plans, behind him was his master (cf. Tobac-Coppens, Les prophètes d’Israël, p. 82 ff .; cf. Knabenbauer, I, p. 357 ff.)” (G. GIROTTI, note on Lucifer at Is 14:12-13).

6. The Jerusalem Bible notes that the expressions “morning star” and “dawn” designate two divine figures present in ancient mythology.

They are applied to a king of Babylon (possibly Nebuchadnezzar or Nabonides).

And it adds: “The fathers saw in the fall of the morning star (which in the translation of the Vulgate is called Lucifer) the fall of the prince of demons”.

The reason why?

This is what Theodoret reported: The king of Babylon was not alone in forming his plans, behind him stood his master.

I thank you for the two questions and for the prayer, I wish you a happy and Holy Easter, I remember you in prayer, and I bless you.

Father Angelo