Here let the reader note it and emphasize it as
a remarkable fact, that God, not the Devil, was pri-
marily believed to be the author of evil, by the
Oriental nations, and that this doctrine is taught
in the Christian Bible. The words Evil and Devil
seem to have been originally synonymous terms,
the latter being, as we are told, a contraction of
the words “do-evil,” and hence represents a mere
personification of evil. And there is abundance
of evidence accessible to prove that the conception *
of evil existed long before the Devil was dis-
covered or thought of; so that should his Devilish
majesty set up a claim, or any of his friends for
25
26
THE BIOGRAPHY OF SATAN
him as oeing the originator or author of evil, he
would be non-suited in open court. The case
would be reduced to a nolle prosequi, or pro-
nounced tout au contraire. Instead of ascribing
evil to the Devil in the early ages of human
society, we find it was ascribed to the Deity him-
self, and considered the natural action of his own
faculties, the normal and divine powers and pur-
poses. He was assumed to be the source of both
good and evil. There being already (in the con-
ception of the people) one Infinite Being (God),
no room was found in the original creation for an-
other, and hence his sooty majesty was left out.
He was an after-thought. It was not until the
second edition of creation was struck off, that his
long-tailed lordship was thought of, or allowed
to have any existence except among snakes. He
was finally gotten up as a “helpmeet” for the
priests, it being discovered that it would require
the three-fold power: first, of “the drawing
chords of love” from the fountain of infinite good-
ness; second, the draw-game of the priests (upon
the pockets of the people), and, third, the howling
of the Serpent, alias the Dragon, alias the Devil
(like “a roaring lion”), to get a sinner into
Heaven.
Verily, verily, “Jordan is a hard road to travel,
I believe”—i.e., Heaven seems to be a place not
very accessible.
THE BIOGRAPHY OF SATAN
27
We have stated that the Devil was not thought
of in the original creation, and how the people
were restrained from the commission of universal
crime and carnage without the fear of the imagi-
nary ghost of old king Beelzebub before their
eyes, is a “mystery of godliness,” which we sup-
pose only the spiritually-minded can comprehend
—that is, those who are sufficiently spiritually-
minded to “understand the things that belong to
the kingdom,” or to see a Devil where there is
none.
There is abundance of historical testimony to
prove that no nation in its earlier history—not
even “God’s holy people,” had any idea or con-
ception of the existence of a prime originator of
evil, or “tempter of souls,” separate and apart
from God himself, while it is evident that no pos-
sible advantage or end could have been served by
the existence of such a being, while the people
were ignorant of it and the conception foreign to
their thoughts. Hence the presumption must be,
that he was not yet born or hatched. Strange,
too, when according to orthodox showing, that
was an age of the world in which it was all-impor-
tant and indispensably necessary that he should
have been incoronated and established upon his
throne, and the fact extensively advertised, be-
cause we are told that “the imagination of man’s
heart is evil from his youth”—Gen. viii: 21—
28
THE BIOGRAPHY OF SATAN
and, hence, a Devil was needed to scare them on
the right track—“the strait and narrow way that
leadcth unto Jordan,’’ as we are virtually taught
this is his “high calling,” the great end of his
creation. It certainly, then, was a great blunder,
a serious desideratum, to omit his creation at the
start, or if created, to neglect to make it known.
Good and evil were primarily regarded as only
different degrees of the same thing, and both as
emanations from an all-wise and perfect God, “the
author of everything, both good and bad,” whose
residence then by many was believed to be the sun.
And let it be noted here that the first conception
of evil and a Devil was inferred from the violent
and destructive operations of the elements of
nature not now classified with, or regarded by any
one as moral evils, and which it was known that
human beings could have no agency in producing.
And here dates the first rude conception of a
Devil, which means simply a destroyer—not of
souls, but of natural objects.
CHAPTER III
A WICKED DEVIL AND AN ENDLESS HELL NOT
TAUGHT IN THE OLD TESTAMENT
The proof that the early Jews (Hebrews or Is-
raelites, rather), like the heathen at a still earlier
period, were entirely ignorant of, and had no con-
ception of, the existence of a Devil, or distinct evil
principle, and ascribed all evil and all crime, as
well as all goodness, to God, is of a threefold
character.
1. The absence of any allusion to such a per-
sonage in the Jewish Scriptures, or even to a state
of punishment after death.
2. The repeated positive declarations in the
same “Holy Book,” that God himself is the author
of evil.
3. The fact that all those names, terms and
titles now applied to the Devil, or used to desig-
nate such a being, found in the Old Testament,
were by the Jews applied also to God, and are
still more remotely traceable to Pagan astronom-
ical imagery or star-bom spiritual beings.
First. Relative to the first of these proposi-
tions, it may be remarked, that orthodox Chris-
tians have often been challenged to place a finger
upon a single text in the Jewish Old Testament
S9
30 ' THE BIOGRAPHY OF SATAN
(the only authentic record\>f their doctrine),
which either specially or by fair implication
teaches the existence of either a Devil or an end-
less Hell, or any doctrine tantamount thereto
If we examine the history of the first transgres-
sion ever committed by man, according to the
Jewish and Christian Scriptures, we will find no
allusion to these doctrines, and no threat of pun-
ishment in another life as a penalty for this or any
other sin, as most certainly we should, if these
doctrines were then known, believed and propa-
gated. True, we are told that Mother Eve was
beguiled by a serpent to eat an apple. But a ser-
pent is not a Devil, according to our dictionaries,
but a snake. And according to the opinion of the
learned Dr. Adam Clarke, the serpent that be-
guiled Eve was really nothing more nor less than
an ape or monkey—a very different animal
(having a tail and destructive propensities) from
the fancied cloven-footed Orthodox Devil. But
whether the original tempter were a Devil, ser-
pent, snake, snapping-turtle, or biped, quadru-
ped, nonruped, or a legless, crawling reptile, there
is no intimation that he had anything to do with
punishing Adam and his wife for their “manifold
transgressions,” but let them slide over Jordan
unmolested. There is no account that either of
them were consigned to the fiery pit, minus a bot-
tom; no sentence or threat of never-ending tor-
THE BIOGRAPHY OF SATAN
81
ment or punishment beyond the grave as penalty
for the first great transgression of the human race
—that “mighty sin” which resulted, we are told,
in the downfall, depravity, and almost moral
wreck and ruin of the entire race of man. Now,
had there been a Devil then “to punish the
wicked,” certainly he would have been brought
out, sworn into office, and put upon duty. His
enthronement and inauguration would not have
been delayed an hour. At least his existence and
his fiery whereabouts would have been proclaimed
“from Dan to Beersheba,” and Jehovah’s threat-
ening vengeance and thunderbolts of wrath would
have been rolled in fiery billows, along the moral
heavens as he announced the existence of a world
of endless woe for all sinners and apple eaters in
the future, as well as the place of consignment for
Father Adam and his new rib-made wife for ruin-
ing the human race, by indulging their gustatory
proclivities upon a pippin. The existence of a
fiery world, with its malignant, restless ruler and
omnipotent potentate, should have been and would
have been announced, and the notice engraven in
imperishable golden characters upon the bound-
less, cerulean, over-arching concave of Heaven,
immediately after the first transgression of man,
as a standing terror and eternal warning to sin-
ners, or those who might be tempted to sin, in or-
der to deter them from future transgression and
32
THE BIOGKAPHY OF SATAN
future crime, had such penal arrangements ex-
isted or been thought of. But instead of this, the
punishment was only temporal. The ground was
cursed, Grandmother Eve sentenced to “bring
forth children in sorrow,” the serpent doomed
when hungry to eat dust (except in wet weather,
when he had to “go it slyly,” if not suffocat-
ingly, on mud), and Grandfather Adam chased
out of the garden “with a sharp stick,” but no
roasting or fiery pit punishment is even once
named.
Second. Then look at the case of the first com-
mission of the greatest crime ever perpetrated by
human hands, or ever registered upon the scroll
of human depravity—that of the perpetration of
murder, and the murder, too, of a brother (fratri-
cide ). Cai n was to be a “ fugitive and a vagabond
in the earth,” for killing his brother, and the soil
was to be unpropitious on his account. But there
is no burning, broiling or frying threatened, or
hinted at, to be inflicted either in this life or “that
which is to come. * ’
Third. Not even on the occasion of issuing
“the law on Mount Sinai,” when we must pre-
* sume the whole counsel of God was proclaimed,
and when it is confessed the whole world was
steeped in crime, do we find the doctrine of future
rewards and punishments in another life even
hinted at.
THE BIOGRAPHY OF SATAN
33
Fourth. Nor yet on the occasion of drowning
the whole world for its superlative wickedness
(Noah and family only excepted), was the fiery
whereabouts of the “Evil One”—his Satanic
Snakeship—made known and announced as tlio
future home of the wicked. There is no intima-
tion, that while their bodies should be floating on
the expansive waters of the “mighty deep,” their
souls should be roasting in pandemonium below,
or should be floating on a sea of fire. Noah was
a “preacher of righteousness,” but not a preacher
of “endless damnation.”
Fifth. "We will dismiss the argument with the
remark, that while Jehovah is represented as of-
ten getting angry, and as being again and again
engaged in dealing out his fulminating thunders
upon his “holy people”—in pouring out his
threats, curses and wrathful imprecations upon
the “devoted heads of his own chosen nation,” ho
never once threatened them with fire and brim-
stone, or to cast them into the pit without a bot-
tom, for their “numerous transgressions,” their
“manifold backslidings, ” and their “wickedness
of heart,” not even after they had rolled up a
mountain of crime, whose towering apex stood in
defiant mockery before the throne of Heaven.
Two thousand five hundred years thus rolled
away after creation, as we have shown (and we
will now add to it at least one thousand more,
84
THE BIOGRAPHY OF SATAN
basing oar calculation on “Jude’s Christian Chro-
nology”), before his Devilish or Snakish Majesty
was born or ushered upon the stage of action; or,
at least, before he was introduced to society, or
anybody was honored with his acquaintance,
or even suspected his «existence. As we find
no traces of him among the prophets, he either
had led a very obscure and retired life, or was yet
in the labyrinths of chaos. For it was not until
about the dawning of the era of the Gospel Dis-
pensation, that he was inaugurated and crowned
king of pandemonium by the Christian world.
Now we have only to appeal to the Jewish and
Christian history to show that society was as
moral, and as free from crime, during this long
period, that the world (or at least this portion of
it) was in want of a “Devil” to help on the cause
of Zion, as during the Devil-preaching, Hell-scar-
ing system or policy of proclaiming the Gospel,
and frightening the people into piety and Para-
dise (or rather into priest-paying pews), which
was practiced in the “dark ages,” so called. If
then, society could prosper without a Devil for
nearly four thousand years, why could it not con-
tinue to prosper without his assistance or presence
through all time to come? More especially as we
have the historical proof that society was not im-
proved morally by his introduction into the world,
or the introduction among the people of the be-
THE BIOGRAPHY OF SATAN 85
lief in such a being, as we could amply prove,
and as is well known to every reader of his-
tory. Hence, is it not evident, that as there was
no “prime evil agent” known to society in the
early ages, to assume the introduction of one after
the lapse of several thousand years, is to assume
that in the economy of God something took place
which was entirely useless, redundant, foolish and
absurd. Reader, please answer this question be-
fore you read further. Tell us why it now re-
quires two omnipotent powers (God and the
Devil) to save a sinner or get a Christian into
heaven—one leading the way with the inviting
language, “Come, ye blessed of my Father,” the
other pursuing in the rear, howling upon his
track like a roaring lion, when but one was suffi-
cient during a period of four thousand years.
Reader, reason and reflect.
CHAPTER IV
EXPLANATION OP THE WORDS “DEVIL” AND “HELL”
IN THE OLD TESTAMENT
I have asserted what I will here repeat, that the
primitive Jews did not teach the doctrines of a
Devil and a Hell, as appertaining to another life.
It can not be found in the Old Testament, nor in
any writings of the Jews prior to the Babylonian
captivity (600 years b.c.), during which some of
the Jewish sects obtained these doctrines. Let it
not be supposed that I am ignorant of the fact
that the words, “Devils” (always in the plural)
and “Hell,” occur several times in the Old Testa-
ment, but they are never used in the sense now
popularly attached to these words. In every in-
stance in which they are employed, they have
exclusive reference to this life. It should be
specially noted that the word Devil never occurs
in the Old Testament. It is always in the plural—
“Devils,” and in this form had reference either
to heathen deities, or to the evil spirits which
many of the Jews believed infested the minds of
men in this life. They had no “king Satan,” or
“prime Devil,” as they had no place to keep him—
no bottomless pit of fire and sulphur to cast him
into. As for the word Hell where it occurs in the
THE BIOGRAPHY OF SATAN
37
Old Testament, it is translated and derived in
every instance from sheol, and sheol is the He-
brew word for grave. And it is a noteworthy fact,
that it is translated grave in twenty-eight cases.
Why it was not translated grave in other cases,
and in all instances where it is found in the Old
Testament, is a “mystery of godliness,” which
will hereafter be explained. But the context and
the original meaning of the word “Hell,” where
it is found in the Old Testament, clearly shows
that it would have made better sense had it been
translated “grave.” I will here present some
proof of this. Job ejaculates “Oh, that thou
wouldst hide me in the grave! ’’ (sheol). Job xiv:
13. David exclaims: “If I make my bed in Hell
(sheol), behold, thou art there! ’ ’ (Psalm cxxxix:
.
Observe how much similiarity of sense exists
in the two texts above quoted. And yet the former
is translated grave, and the latter, Hell. Now,
why did the translators render sheol Hell in the
latter, instance, so as to make David talk of mak-
ing his bed in Hell? Who that has an ounce of
brains between his ears would speak or think of
making his bed in a cauldron of blazing fire and
brimstone, or a red-hot furnace of living coals
glowing with the most intense heat ? He could not
“sleep a wink” in a month in such a situation.
But had sheol in this text been translated grave
88
THE BIOGRAPHY OF SATAN
instead of Hell, it would read, “If I make my
bed in the grave,” etc., language which ap-
proaches much nearer to good sense, for the grave
will really be our bed when our bodies are con-
signed to the earth. I ask, then, which is the most
reasonable translation, Hell or grave? Again,
Jonah is made to say: “Out of the belly of Hell
cried I, and thou heardest me.” (Jonah ii:2.)
What! Did Jonah tumble through “Symme’s
Hole” into Tartarus (for he was too righteous a
man to be driven thither) unobserved by Omnis-
cience, who was not apprized of the sad catastro-
phe till the prophet roared and bellowed with a
voice sufficiently stentorian to be heard over the
“wailings of the damned,” all the way from the
“belly of Hell up to the throne of Heaven.”
How did his Jonahship get loose from the
clutches of old Splitfoot, grizzly king, Beelzebub?
Or how did he manage to elude the vigilant watch
of his jail-keeper, old Tisiphon, who guards the
gates of CeTebus “day and night,” so as to dodge
through the door and make his way back to Nin-
eveh ? There were no Isaac T. Hoppers in Pande-
monium then to construct underground railroads,
and run off some of the “damned souls” occa-
sionally. The truth is, Jonah’s “belly of Hell”
was tiie belly of a whale—a pretty warm place,
but not as hot as boiling brimstone—not hot
enough to singe the hair or burn a blister.
THE BIOGRAPHY OF SATAN
89
Language in this board is ENGLISH