Spiritual
meditation is the pathway to Divinity. It is the mystic ladder
which reaches from earth to heaven, from error to Truth, from pain
to
peace.
Early Christianity
THE
EVIL ONE
played an important part in the imagination of the people in the
time of Christ. Satan is mentioned repeatedly by the scribes and
the people of Israel in the synoptic gospels, by the Apostles, especially
by St. Paul, and very often in the revelation of St. John. Jesus
follows the common belief of the time in attributing mental diseases
to the possession of demons, and we may assume that he shared the
popular view. Nevertheless, he speaks, upon the whole, less of the
Devil than do his contemporaries.
The Jesus of the Gospels is said to have been tempted by the Devil
in much the same way that Buddha was tempted by Mâra, the
Evil One. Even the details of the two stories of temptation possess
many features of resemblance.
Christ is very impressive in depicting the evil consequences of
sin. He compares the last judgment to the selection made by fishermen
who gather the good fishes into vessels, but cast the bad away (Math.
xiii., 47). He speaks of the reward of "the good and faithful"
while
"the unprofitable servant" will be cast "into outer
darkness where there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth."
Hell is described as "the fire that shall never be quenched"
and "the worm that dieth not." And the wicked people are
compared to goats to whom the Son of Man will say: "Depart
from me ye cursed ones, into everlasting fire prepared for the Devil
and his angels."
Christ represents the Devil as the enemy that sows tares among
the wheat, and once addresses as Satan one of his favorite disciples
who speaks words that might lead him into temptation. We read in
Mark, viii., 33, and Matth., xvi., 23:
"He rebuked Peter, saying: 'Get thee behind me, Satan, for
thou savorest not the things that be of God, but the things that
be of men.'"
This fact alone appears sufficient to prove that, while it is natural
that Christ used the traditional idea of Satan as a personification
of the evil powers to furnish him with materials for his parables,
Satan to him was mainly a symbol of things wicked or morally evil.
If the Gospel stories actually reflect the real views of the historical
Jesus, it appears that his idea of justice was based on the notion
that the future life would be an exact inversion of the present
order of things. According to the literal meaning of the language
of the parable, Dives is not punished for his sins, and Lazarus
is not rewarded for his good deeds: the future fate of the former
in Hell and the latter in Heaven is the result of an equalisation,
as we read in Luke xvi. 25:
"For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them
also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him.
"For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we
which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not
prevent them which are asleep.
"For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout,
with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God; and
the dead in Christ shall rise first.
"Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together
with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall
we ever be with the Lord.
"Wherefore comfort one another with these words."
When the early disciples became more and more disappointed at the
non-appearance of the Lord in the clouds of heaven, a prominent
leader of the Christian Church wrote an epistle to revive their
faith, which was apt to suffer by the ridicule of those who did
not share this belief. We read in the second epistle of St. Peter:
"This second epistle, beloved, I now write unto you; in both
which I stir up your pure minds by way of remembrance:
"That ye may be mindful of the words which were spoken before
by the holy prophets, and of the commandment of us, the apostles
of the Lord and Savior:
"Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days
scoffers, walking after their own lusts,
"And saying, 'Where is the promise of his coming? for since
the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the
beginning of the creation.'
". . . . The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as
some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing
that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.
"But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night;
in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and
the
elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works
that are therein shall be burnt up.
"Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what
manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness,
"Looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God,
wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements
shall melt with fervent heat?
"Nevertheless, we, according to his promise, look for new
heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness."
The present world remains in the power of Satan until the prophecy
of the second advent of Christ be fulfilled, and we had better be
prepared for meeting his onslaughts; as says the author of the first
epistle of St. Peter:
"Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary, the Devil,
as a roaring lion walketh about, seeking whom he may devour."
In addition to his old names of Satan, Beelzebub, and Devil (which
latter appears first in Jesus Sirach), the Evil One is called in
the New Testament the prince of this world, the great dragon, the
old serpent, the prince of the devils, the prince of the power of
the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disbelief,
the Antichrist. Satan is represented as the founder of an empire
that struggles with and counteracts the kingdom of God upon earth.
He is powerful, but less powerful than Christ and his angels. He
is conquered and doomed through Christ
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