Deliver Us from the Evil One

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Toward the end of his ministry in the late fourth century, Gregory of Nyssa writes to a group of presbyters urging them to be diligent in how they choose their next bishop. He hopes to visit as soon as possible, he tells them, since his purpose is to support the quarrelsome presbyters as they come to a decision. Tucked into the opening section of the letter is this single reference to the devil:

Thus may we discover a means of remedying the distresses which have already transpired, and of securing your future, so that you may no longer be torn asunder by this discord, where one withdraws himself from the church in one direction, someone else in another, and you are hereby exposed as a laughing-stock to the devil, whose one intent and endeavor it is to oppose the divine will in order that none should be saved or come to the knowledge of the truth.

To emphasize the intensity of the devil’s enmity toward the church, the bishop’s warning includes a clever play on words. In the First Letter to Timothy, Paul writes, “God our Savior, who desires everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Tim. 2:3–4). Gregory deftly replaces “God” with “the devil” as the subject of the sentence. By making this move, he stresses to the fractious presbyters that the devil lurks behind the scenes. This reference to the enemy of salvation is one of many through the bishop’s corpus. He is not alone in this regard.

Basil of Caesarea likewise peppers his communications with remarks and instruction on the devil. In his treatise On the Holy Spirit, amid miracles and gifts of healing that demonstrate the Spirit’s power, he adds, “the devil was diminished when the Spirit was present.” This mention of the devil is so fleeting that even careful readers may miss how he is used to bolster Basil’s argument on the divinity of the Holy Spirit.

The Fool with Two Demons, Master of the Ingeborg Psalter, after 1205. Public Domain.

Consider too a sermon on unfair taxation by Gregory of Nazianzus. In his Orations, Gregory explores themes such as simplicity, contentment, citizenship in heaven, and how the people of God can best use their time and talents whether they are young or old. Drawing to a close, he exclaims, “Would that evil be destroyed utterly, along with the Evil One, who sowed weeds in us while we were sleeping.” This cry, evoking the parable of the sower in Matthew 13:25, tells us that the devil works tirelessly to engender greed. This malevolent angel tempts and deceives, and must be resisted.

In these three texts, the bishops – known together as the Cappadocians – refer to the devil with equal brevity but to different ends. In the first instance, the devil threatens the unity of the church. In the second, he proves the Spirit’s power, and in the third, his wily ways prompt an utterance of grief. These references to the devil were not taken from sermons directly concerned with demonology or spiritual warfare, but occur in writings on matters seemingly unrelated to the devil: choosing a bishop, the doctrine of the Holy Spirit, and equitable taxation.

Lest we be tempted to leave the devil behind in the fourth century, there are many contexts today in which we come across the devil. As the late Pope Francis declared in an April 2014 homily at Santa Marta, “The devil exists in the twenty-first century. We mustn’t be naive. We must learn from the Gospel how to fight against him.” The “fight” concerns how the devil aims to foster jealously and greed for the purpose of tearing apart the body of Christ (much like Gregory of Nyssa was concerned about). Later that year, Pope Francis asserted that the devil is not “a myth, a figure, or the idea of evil.”

Consider too the use of “Satan” and “spiritual warfare” language in modern politics. To call one’s political enemy “Satan” stands in a well-established tradition of using the devil’s name to capture the character of one’s political enemies. Gregory of Nazianzus employs this practice when he blurs the identities of the devil and his nemesis, the Emperor Julian. Among other impositions, Julian legislated against Christians to restrict them from teaching and effectively denied them a public voice. By way of a response, the bishop composes two orations against the emperor. The first includes a description of Julian into which Gregory weaves no fewer than five of the devil’s names. The theologian’s condemnation of the emperor, however, belongs to a comprehensive set of beliefs through which every human being is susceptible to the devil’s deceptions and temptations. In contrast, much of today’s diabolic rhetoric implies the innocence of the one who issues the condemnation.

So, as modern readers observing from another time and culture, how might we best engage with talk of the devil and his army of demons in early Christian writings? Some modern theologians have argued that the idea of the devil is actually unbiblical; as Friedrich Schleiermacher puts it, “drawn from the common life of the period” rather than scripture itself. In his pivotal 1821 text The Christian Faith, Schleiermacher argues that the notion of the devil is unnecessary to salvation history, “since that from which we are to be redeemed remains the same (as does also the manner of our redemption) whether there be a devil or no.” This charge does not represent accurately the theology of the devil in early Christian writings. While Basil, Gregory of Nazianzus, and Gregory of Nyssa develop their own accounts of the devil, each theologian emphasizes the place in salvation history of the once glorious, angelic creature, now known as the “Evil One.”

In a similar vein, some commentators characterize belief in the devil as “primitive.” With a humble awareness of the limits of my own culture, I am uneasy with such an approach. Moreover, Cappadocian thought on the devil is woven through mature theological work on the doctrine of God, atonement, and other such themes. Catechesis, as Gregory of Nyssa understands it, is ordered to the reality of Jesus Christ; incorporated in this account is a discussion of the devil’s history, activity, and ontology. Scholars from a range of disciplines study these writings not simply as artifacts of their time but as illuminating of enduring truths. Against this backdrop, the charge “primitive” simply does not hold its ground.

Another response is to engage in demythologization, assuming that Gregory of Nyssa and his colleagues do not “really” speak of the malevolent creature that is the devil. Accordingly, the name “Death” could signify the personification of death, but not the fallen angel known as the devil. The problem with this assumption is that it sits awkwardly with the authors’ teaching. Gregory of Nyssa explains that the devil is “called both ‘Death’ and ‘Inventor of death’ but is also said by the Apostle to ‘have the power of death.’” When the Cappadocians speak of “Death,” they do not erase the devil. Rather, “Death” informs their understanding of the devil’s intent and reach.

A similarly detached response is to cast our nets and celebrate that we have caught a metaphor. The danger of reducing the devil to a metaphor whenever we come across him in the texts is that we miss the possibility that, on some occasions at least, theologians such as Basil and the Gregories really do speak of an angel who envies those drawing near to God. We have no evidence that these theologians are always speaking metaphorically when they teach on the devil’s role in salvation history or when they command him to flee. To incontrovertibly reduce the devil to a metaphor undermines the extent to which our theologians engage in active warfare with the enemy of salvation.

A different approach from all of those above is to assume that the Cappadocians speak of the devil unequivocally. While it aims to take seriously teaching on the devil, this approach flattens their writing and the nuances in their thought. As accomplished authors, they employ a host of rhetorical strategies, such as simile, metaphor, irony, hyperbole, and so on – writing techniques that may indeed apply to some of their references to the devil. Additionally, not all the devil’s names apply to him uniquely; names such as “Envy,” for example, are shared with other powers, political enemies, and personifications.

Rather than relying on any one of these approaches, our engagement with Cappadocian teaching on the devil should begin with a close reading of the texts. As noted, Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nazianzus, and Gregory of Nyssa were skilled theologians, but they were also accomplished authors who took their craft seriously. They stress the importance of paying attention to a range of features when interpreting an ancient text. Modern interpreters, like ancient ones, best serve their readers by treating each mention of the devil on its own terms, attending to theological, literary, rhetorical, and historical contexts.

According to the Cappadocians, an account of the devil intersects with such doctrines as creation, sin, evil, the will, redemption, and last things. Most of all, the devil’s salience in Christian theology is grounded in the Lord’s Prayer as it is written in Matthew’s Gospel. Bluntly put, there is a vast difference between praying “Deliver us from evil” and praying “Deliver us from the Evil One.” In That God Is Not the Cause of Evil, Basil explains at length the difference between “what our senses perceive as evil” and “what is evil in its own nature.” Perceived evils are not those things from which we should ask to be delivered because they are “brought to us by the wise and good Master for our advantage.” Christians therefore do not need to be delivered from every kind of evil, but only particular kinds of evil. If evil is construed too broadly, “Deliver us from evil” is at risk of being interpreted as asking for a trouble-free life. Since Jesus himself teaches that his followers will have trouble in this world (John 16:33), this interpretation misses the mark.

To be followers of Jesus and pray to be delivered from the “Evil One,” as Gregory of Nyssa teaches, is to ask to be delivered from the temptations, deceptions, and delusions that result from living in a world tyrannically ruled by the devil. It is also to ask to be relieved from the destructive effects of becoming like the devil, of which Gregory of Nyssa warns in his homilies On the Lord’s Prayer. When human beings become subject to the will of the Evil One, they not only incur moral guilt and a fracturing of the relationship with their Maker, but they take on the Evil One’s characteristics. Degraded and dehumanized, they are no longer recognizable as human images of God but known to the devil as his very own. The salience of the devil in Christian theology, then, as Basil and the Gregories understand it, lies most in the brief petition, “Deliver us from the Evil One.”