53

THE PROBLEM OF EVIL IN EARLY

CHRISTIANITY
I1
THE SYNOPTIC GOSPELS
NE feature common t o 8s. Matthew, Mark and Luke is that
in all three the Ministry of Christ begins with the B q t i s m in
the Jordan, and for all three equally the central point in this
event is the descent of the Holy Spirit upon Jesus. Their agreement
continlies also regarding the first movement of t h e Spirit which is,
according to St Xarks rery striking expression, to drive Jesus
into the desert, where he is to meet the Devil and conquer his
temptations. The historians of the last century for whom the Gospels
were merel- a mine of information for the biography of Jesus, have
passed over this episode as a biznrrerie of no consequence. From
the literary point of view alone this is a great mistake. I n its place
at the beginning of the Gospel, just as the account of the temptation of man is found a t the beginning of Genesis, there can be no
doubt whatever that it is noted with the intention of bringing out
the parallel. It is presenting the Gospel story as a re-enactment of
the Adamic story, which is to say the story of man.
I n this respect Milton had a truer vision than many modern
exegetes when he enclosed his Biblical Epic between the two events
of Paradise Lost and Paradke Regained. The parallel is connected
with the idea of the Second Adam to which (especially in St Paul)
exegesis has given too little attention. It seems indeed that we
should also relate it to that of the Son of Man, designating Jesus.
However that may be, the theme of a comparison between Adam
and Christ in the scene of the Temptation, with Satan in the background (as instigator of pride and greed) was certainly a familiar
theme in the early catechesis. W e find it underlying the second
chapter of the Epistle to the Philippians. Most critics, moreover,
agree in seeing in this chapter not merely the Apostles own speculation but reference to a hymn known to the Philippians and perhaps
even a quotation from the actual text of this hymn.
B u t to come back to the Synoptic Gospels, the full significance
of their account of the Temptation is to be found not only in its
initial position but also in its relation to the Baptism, and especially
to the descent of the Spirit. One gets the impression that it is for
that special purpose that the Spirit has cvme down upon Jesu6-

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BLACKFRIARS

in order to make him confront the Devil. This impression is confirmed by the ensemble of the accounts that follow. There is no
need to underline the place given to the expulsion of demons by
the Synoptics; it is evident that for them this, together with healing,
is the typical work of Jesus. I t % useless to say that they are simply
presenting certain cases of healing in this way; the inverse would
be truer-it is rather the expulsion of the Devil that is presented,
in certain cases, in the form of healing. That extraordinary diabolic
manifestations should have accompanied the appearance of Jesus
in this world, and that he should have brought them to nothing,
are for them no accessory detail, but their basic idea. We need only
re-read the terms in which they express the vocation of the Twelve
to share in his work to see the importance that they attribute to
exorcism in the activity of Jesus. St Mark writes: And he
appointed twelve that they should be with him, and that he might
send them to preach and cast out devils (3, 14). And on the eve
of his betrayal, when he is warned that Herod is seeking his life,
he himself says in St Luke: Go tell that fox: Behold I cast out
devils and perform cures today and tomorrow, and the third day
comes my own consummation (13, 3 2 ) . But in his teaching,
as the Synoptics re-trace it for us, one great discourse is.particularly
significant; St Natthew and St Luke recount it in almost the same
words (Mt. 12, 22-32; Lk. 11, 14-23). The Jews are saying that it
is by the power of Beelzebub, their prince, that he casts out the
devils; this accusation has already been made (cf. Mark 3, 23).
Jesus protests vehemently. Three points emerge : the affirmation
that he casts out the devils by the Spirit of God, the parable of
the strong man bound and despoiled by the stronger, and finally
the declaration about the unforgivable sin against the Holy Spirit
which has roused so much futile comment.
The first affirmation confirms our thesis: the special task of the

Holy Spirit, accomplished in this world by Christ, is to drive out

the Evil Spirit. It also throws a great deal of light on the central
idea of the Synoptic Gospels, I mean the Kingdom of God. Jesus
in fact affirms that what is truly to be seen in his work is the
destruction of the reign of Satan. Know, he says, that in this
the reign of God has come to you. This brings us back to the great
theme of the two orders which we have seen underlying all Pauline
thought. The reign of God which comes in the person of the Son
of Man is essentially a reign that drives out that of Satan, established in this world through the weakness of the old Adam. It is
exactly what the parable of the strong man tells us. The strong man
was aecure in his citadel, but when a stronger comes, he seizes his

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55
arms and, having despoiled him, drives him out and takes his place.
I n this context, and applied to Christs work, the parable is clear.
I n this light *e may be in a better position to understand the
gravity of the sin against the Holy Spirit; we see a t once the5
this sin consists in refusing to recognise the triumph of the Holy
Spirit over the Evil Spirit in the works that the Son is accomplishing
among us. From the moment of this refusal the issue is blocked;
the Kingdom of God has come to us in vain if we have not understood its meaning. We have not seized the occasion that was offered
to us to escape from bondage and from enmity and henceforward
we are sealed in it. The culpable blindness which refuses to see in
Christ one spirit driving out another is thus presented to us as
the one unforgivable sin. Nothing throws more light on the idea
which the Synoptics held as to the mission of .Tesus and the state of
things on which it supervened.1

I11

ST J O H N
Let US now turn to the Fourth Gospel. In general the Joannine
writings deserve quite as full a consideration as we have given to
St Paul, but as our space is limited we will confine our attention
to two points. After the Pauline writings the Joannine, with their
calm contemplation of the great conceptual images-Light,
Life,
Truth, Glory-seem a t first sight infinitely peaceful ; but a closer
examination of these ideas, which develop more lyrically than
dialectically, reveals a background of conflict quite as sharp as that
of St Pauls. More precisely, the first of the images I have just
recalled, Light, is called up by an insistent challenge from Darkness; indeed, the whole development of the Fourth Gospel can
be seen as R drama, no1 merely human but cosmic, in which the
Light has come to defy the Darkness. A t the end of the story it
will overcome it, but orilp a t the price of mortal combat. Light
belongs to God and to Christ; I am the Light of the world,
exclaims Jesus in the Gospel, He who follows me will not walk
in darkness (8, 12). Remember that he is speaking in the porch
of the Temple on the last days of the Feast of Tabernacles, when
they set up great candelabra illuminating all the Holy City. I n the
same sense, the First Epistle says: And here is the declaration
that we have heard from him, that m-e declare to you; that God
is Light, and in him there is no darkness a t all (1 J n . 1. 5 ) .
Yet the darkness exists and fills the world. The Prologue to the
1 I n the parablp of the Cockle in Mat. 13. 24-30. we have another expression of this
idea of the opposing klngdoms of God and Satan,

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BLACKFRIARS

Gospel defines all the life and work of Christ in the one phrase,
The Light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not received
it (1, 5). Even this translation suggests (more than the actual
words seem to express) a positive hostility in the darkness, yet
this translation following the Latin of the Vulgate seems to be
something of a softening down; according to Origen (certainly
supported by the sense of catalambano in the other passage wherz
St John uses it also in reference to the darkness-12, 35), we should
rather translate, and the darkness could not overcome it, that is
to say, smother it. I n the other paysage I have referred to the
opposition is equally marked; I am come into the world a s Light,
that whosoever believes in me may not remain in darkness (12, 46).
The meaning of the expression remain in darkness is brought out
by a phrase in the first Epistle, he who hates his brother remains
in darkness, he walks in darkness, and knows not where he goes,
because the darkness has blinded his eyes ( 1 J n 2, 9). Sotice
again the aggressive note in these last words. This hostility, recurrent everywhere, is explicit in an important message in the Gospel;
The judgment ( h e h i s i s ) is that the LigE.t has come into the world
and men have loved the darkness more than the Light, for their
works were evil. Whoever does evil hates the Light and does not
come to the Light, so that his works should not be found out. B u t
he who does the truth comes to the Light that it may be manifest
that his works are done in God (3, 19-21), 4 last word on this
opposition is given us in the first Epistle and we are told there what
the issue will b e , The darkness passes away and the true light
already shines ( 1 J n . 2, 8 ) .
O n e more, this antithesis Light-Darkness gives at the same
time the frame and the ground to St Johns whole picture of the
life of Christ, more particularly to the clash between Jesus and
the Jews which takes place in Chapters 7-10, and the significant
healing of the man born blind. Let us recall the words pronounced
by Jesus a t the height of the crisis;
IfGod were your father (as they have been claiming) you would
love me, for I a m come forth from God; for it is not of myself
that I am come but he has sent me. Why do you not understand
m y language? Because you cannot listen to my word. You come
from your father, the Devil, and you will to fulfil the wishes of
yourfather. H e has been a murderer from the beginning, and
he has not kept himself in the truth because there is no truth
in him. When he speaks of lies, it is from his own stock he speaks
for he is a liar and the father of lies. B u t because I speak the
truth you do not believe me. Which of you will convict me of
sin? If I speak the truth, why will you not believe me? H e who

T H E PROBLEM O F EVIL I S E A R L I CHRISTIAKITY-11

57
is of God, listens to what God s:iys; that is why you do not listen;
because you are not of God. (8, 42-7).
The contrast brought out here is precisely that of light and darkness
although the nctud words are not once mentioned. 911 this text in
fact pivots on the idea of truth. The Joannine Truth is simply the
reality of God Light, known through love and opposed to the dark
delusions of the world (cf. 3, 21). It explains the positive reality
given to darkness, it is a covering for the Devil. One sees how
crude the dualism might seem; You could not listen to m y word!
Certainly no other S e w Testament writings give such an impression
of an irremediable antagonism.
To draw the full value from this imagery we should compare it
with that of the Apocalypse. The importance there of metaphors
of light has often been noticed, in particular of the dazzling whiteness (corresponding to the word lumpros) especially connected with
Christ (cf. Apoc. 12, 6; 18, 4; 19, 8; 32, l),but this brightness is
always in relief against a particularly stormy background. It does
finally prevail in the description of the heavenly Jerusalem in which
there shall be no more night, but onlj a t the end of a titanic battle
with the Powers of Darkness.
I t is certainly not surprising that the Joannine writings should
have been compared to the Mazdeean representations in which the
entire world is resolved in a struggle between light and darkness.
Noae the less, certain differences are forcibly brought out, and
this is what our second point will help us t o grasp; it concerns
the Joannine conception of the world. This nord keeps coming in
with astonishing frequency, and, with a few notable exceptions,
it is always taken in a bad sense. The exceptions are however
remarkable, for example: the familiar text, God so loved the
world ( 3 , 16) or the description of Christ as Saviour of the world,
in the first Epistle (4, 14).
We have seen that in St Paul, in the pair of enemies to man
formed by the flesh and the world, it is the flesh that is most in
evidence. For St John the contrary is true; one could even say
that for him the flesh takes on too pale a colour to seem an actual
enemy any longer (cf. e.g. 3, 6 ; 6, 53) This change of position
explains moreover how it is that the dualism of St John can appear
even more decisive than St Pauls while his inner life remains
of an unparalleled serenity. The conflict is no longer within man,
a t any rate in the Christian, but outside him. The world has not
known the light although he was present in it and was its author.
It is unable to receive the spirit of truth. The peace that Christ
gives is not like that of the world. The world hates Christ and the

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BLACKFRIARS
disciples because they are not of the world. Christ convicts Dhe
world of sin. The joy of the world like its peace, is opposed to that
given by Christ. Christ has overcome the world. Christ does not
pray for the world, he expressly says so. The world has not known
God. Finally, Jesus tells Pilate that his kingdom is not of this
world. These features are brought out more strongly still in the first
Epistle: DOnot love the world, or what is in the world; if anyone
love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. The world
passeth with its greed (1 J n . 2, 15-17). The false prophets come
from the world where the spirit of anti-Christ already is, and that
is why the world listens to them (4,3-5). B u t that which is
born of God has overcome the world, and the nike which has overcome the world is our faith ( 5 , 4). And finally the word which
says everything; the world, whole world is established in evil
(5, 19). I n spite of this, we see from the first words of the Prologue
that for St John the world is no more evil by nature than is the
flesh for St Paul. It is the creation of the Light; equally, the
Light is not sent into the world to judge (and to condemn is
implied), but to save it, because of the great love that God has
for the world to the point of sacrificing his only Son for it (Jn. 3,
16-7). It is not astonishing then that Saviour of the world should
be a title for Jesus peculiar to St John. I t is clarified when on the
even of his Passion, Jesus himself explains, Now is the judgment
of the world; now the prince of this world is going to be driven out
(12, 31). This phrase is related to that in the first Epistle the
subject of which seems to be the Holy Spirit : H e who is in you is
greater than he who is in the world (1 J n . 4, 4 ) . With these two
texts we are brought back to exactly the same idea as that in the
parable of the strong man in the Synoptics.
We need not pursue this inventory of the New Testament any
further. All its doctrine of evil, all its solution of the problem of
evil, can be summed up in one phrase from the Epistle to the
Hebrews which runs like a leit,motivthrough all Patristic tradition :
Since the servants (which is to sa) men) share in flesh and
blood, he (Christ) also has likewise shared in them ( I t ) in order
to annihilate through death him who had the power of death,
the Devil, and to reconcile those who, through the fear of death,
had been held in bondsge all their lives. (Heb. 2, 14.)
To conclude: for the early Christians, the world, or more properly
the creation, was in the first instance a spiritual realisation extending f a r beyond the little circle of purely human spirituality. Or
rather this visible world which surrounds us was but the reflection
(as it were a lining) of a vast spiritual cosmos. And it was this
entire cosmos, created by God in goodness, which had fallen. I t

THE C A S E FOR EXORCISM

59

was so through the Fall of the higher, perhaps the highest, of these
created spirits iipoii whom all depended according to the first design
of God himself. However, inside this universe the coming of man,
the creation of Adam, appeared as a new possibility as the rebirth
itself did not succeed. Man, an inferior creature, issuing from
matter, allowed himself to be seduced by the superior created
spirit upon whom matter itself depended. Still the saving action
of God inside his erring creation did not stop short a t this first
unfruitful attempt. As from enslaved matter he had raised up free
man, so from humanity in its turn enslaved, h e had raised u p the
victorious freedom of the Man-God. Thus, in despite of the original
Fall and of its successive repercussions, a final recapitulation would
reconcile his creation to him again, and a t the universal Judgment
when the entire world will be ready for the final division, it would
eliminate from the cosmos every trace of the disobedience of
Lucifer.
This solution of the Problem of Evil seems to me of interest still
today. The analogy it suggests with certain contemporary theories
are striking, and a t a deeper level, I an1 inclined to see here a whole
way of envisaging things which can meet the needs of existential
thought as readily as the more modern way repels them.
I t is for the theologians to show whether, like the Scribe praised
in the Gospel, they know how to bring out from their treasure both
the old and the new as the occasion demands.1
LOUIS
BOUYER,
Comg. Orat.
(Translated from DIEUVIVANT,
No. 6 , by Rosalind Murray and
revised by the authoT.)

THE CASE FOR EXORCISM

L ~ B O L I C A Lpossession is the devils hideous parody of the union
between Christ and trhe soul in the spiritual marriage.
Whereas the marriage of Christ with the soul is the consummation and seal of a union by grace long adorned with the
constant display of acts of heroic virtue, the diabolical counterfeit
is achieved usually after the subjects long-continued and progressive
indulgence in vice. The comparison is introduced only to indicate
the natlure of possession. Nor is it exact, for whereas Christ can
possess only the souls of the good, it would seem that diabolical

1 If the reader wiqhes to know along what lines I think that such a presentation
of the old truth to the modern mind could be attempted, I should venture to refer
to my contribution to the volume of collected essays on Le probldme du mal,
edited b j Daniel-Rops, published by Plon at the end of 1946.