Andy Hamilton's Search for Satan


Andy Hamilton's Search for Satan

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# You are not alone

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# I am here with you... #

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So then Norman Lamont says...something funny.

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And... Oh!

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Bloody hell!

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Andrew Neil Hamilton, I have chosen you to make a pact

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with Satan himself.

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Oh, right. What, a pact with the Devil? Like, er...what's his name?

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-Simon Cowell.

-No, Faust.

-Oh, yeah, him. Sorry.

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-What kind of pact have you got with Simon Cowell?

-Doesn't matter. His time's nearly up anyway.

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So, fleshling,

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I, the Prince Of Darkness, can offer you anything that you...

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Untold riches, please. I'd like untold riches.

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-Mm, sorry, budget cuts.

-Eh?

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I've had to restrict my exposure, you know,

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downsize my army of demons, sell my wings, ration my...

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Helen of Troy, then. I'd like Helen of Troy as my...consort.

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Helen of Troy'd be great. Cheers.

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No, afraid not. No, she's, er, not really into that sort of thing any more.

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She's...fed up with all the mucky stuff.

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Well, then, can you at least give me some piece of secret, forbidden knowledge?

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Er...

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John Major's having sex with Edwina Currie.

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-Well, if you're going to muck about.

-I am Satan! I do not "muck about"!

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-Well, what CAN you offer me?

-Using my diabolic powers, I can offer you...

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..a long-running sitcom on Radio Four.

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-A sitcom on Radio Four?

-Yeah. Inspired by my wacky adventures.

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Right. Er...well, that'd be lovely.

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I'm not complaining, you know, it's just that...Helen of Troy would...

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-Helen of Troy is not on the table.

-OK, then. So, I get this sitcom.

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What price would you exact?

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That in 16 years' time,

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you shall make a documentary on a digital channel,

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correcting all the disinformation about me!

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What's a...digital channel?

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It's like a normal channel, only without the viewers.

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-Now, sign, pitiful mortal!

-Not much of a devil's pact, is it?

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No money, no Helen of Troy.

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Can you at least promise me that I will never go bald?

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Yeah, all right.

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-Huh! Great.

-Now you are mine, fleshling!

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LAUGHS EVILLY

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OK, we've a lot to get through.

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This is a BBC documentary, so I'm afraid I am

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contractually obliged to begin with the words, "I'm going on a journey".

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My contract also stipulates that I must gaze

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thoughtfully into the distance on at least five occasions.

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So, I'm going on a journey.

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And it begins here, in this theatre - The Drill Hall in London,

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where, for the past 16 years, I have spent many an enjoyable evening

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pretending to be Satan in the Radio Four comedy Old Harry's Game.

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But now, it's payback time.

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Time to ask the big question about Satan - just how did this

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fantastically powerful and ambiguous character get inside our heads?

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And who put him there?

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-The Devil starts out as a divine hitman.

-The Devil is a manipulator.

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The Devil is a place where you put things you'd rather forget about.

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-The Devil is primarily a tempter.

-The Devil is the mischievous one.

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The tempter who tries to destroy that relationship God has

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with his people.

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But creating the Devil, it means you're giving evil a name

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and turning it into a thing that you can fight against.

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Can I talk to you about Satan?

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Excuse me, can I talk to you about Satan? Excuse me, can I talk...?

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Can I talk to you about Satan?

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Excuse me, can I ask you about Satan?

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Excuse me, could I talk to you about Satan?

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-What sort of things did he do?

-He just made everything bad.

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I think he exists possibly as an idea, as a way of thinking.

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It's quite attractive sometimes.

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Excuse me, could I talk to you about Satan?

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If I say the Devil to you, what picture do you get in your head?

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Awesomeness! Heavy-metal music, brilliant!

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-What did he do, what did he get up to in the Bible?

-Er...

-I don't know.

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I don't really know, to be honest.

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-Excuse me, madam, could I talk to you about Satan?

-Sorry, I'm a bit late!

-OK.

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Could I talk to you about Satan?

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Oh. I have got to come up with a new opening line.

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Now, I bet already, many of you are thinking,

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"Well, Satan's got nothing to do with me!"

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But even if you don't believe in him, he's still a big part of your life.

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In fact, you've probably encountered the Devil several times today...

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because he permeates every corner of our culture.

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He loiters in our church windows, lurks behind our superstitions,

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he bedevils our language, haunts our art and literature.

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Satan has become a global superstar of stage and screen.

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He's been portrayed by actors

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like Richard Burton, Al Pacino, Jack Nicholson...Liz Hurley.

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But, the Devil we have now, who haunts our popular imagination,

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is not the one we started out with - no, no.

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No, he's evolved over thousands of years.

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-MAN SNEEZES

-Bless you.

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Now, why'd I say that?

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So, the Devil that we know, the visual form -

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the horns, the tail, the goat's legs, the pitchfork -

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what are the sources for that?

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One of the main sources is Egyptian mythology.

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In Ancient Egypt, Egyptian belief,

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you had this underworld called Tuat, which was ruled over by the god

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Anubis, who was black-skinned, jackal-headed, smelt of sulphur.

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Lots of images of fire.

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The idea of a force against the force of good,

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we find in pretty much every religion.

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For example, if we go back to 500BC, we have the Buddha

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about to achieve enlightenment,

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sitting under the Bodhi tree, and at this point

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he's attacked by Mara, the manifestation of evil,

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temptation, destruction, etc.

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And he sees him off.

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They also borrowed from Greek mythology.

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-Pan, and that's where you get the legs from.

-The legs, and the cloven hoof.

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That half-man, half-beast thing, you find often,

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all gathered together at different stages.

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Another more defined concept of a force of evil emerged with

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Zoroastrianism, a faith which took root in Persia over 3,000 years ago.

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In Zoroastrianism, the belief is that God is wounded.

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God has actually lost the battle,

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and that this physical world is now in the power of Ahriman,

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the evil one, the force of evil, who is a complete equal.

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They are locked in this cosmic struggle and, at the moment,

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the Devil, as we would call him, is winning.

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The ancient world was jam-packed with gods.

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A multitude of mischievous supernatural beings,

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who were quite capable of exhibiting a vicious streak.

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But hardly any were exclusively evil.

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So none of them really resemble OUR Devil.

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Except, well, there is one from early Judaic mythology,

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who is quite similar to Satan in many ways -

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rebels against God, sworn enemy of man, and what's more,

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in the great story of creation, SHE is there from the start.

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Lilith.

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You can look at the Garden of Eden story from the point of view of

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the Devil, Lucifer, Satan, whatever you want to call him or it,

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but I think it's more interesting to look at it from the point of view

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of Lilith, who was sort of Eve's predecessor and got

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slung out of the garden because she challenged the gender arrangement

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and who had the power, who could be on top when they screwed

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and all that kind of thing.

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Lilith is really interesting because,

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the rabbinical tradition says there were three attempts to create

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women at the beginning of time.

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The first one is that God creates man and woman,

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and the man is actually Adam and the woman is Lilith.

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Adam sidles up to Lilith and goes, "Come on, how about it, then?"

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She goes, "If you were - Oh, you are! -

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"the last man, the only man on the planet, I wouldn't go to bed with you."

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And God actually goes and says, "Come on, Lilith." She goes, "Oh!

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"I mean, are we serious? With that?!" And she wanders off.

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Right.

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Now, Lilith is therefore the first person to refuse God's command.

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She goes off into the desert and becomes, as legends grow,

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this deeply malevolent spirit.

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What's interesting is that she was seen as being at large in the world.

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As I understand it,

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she was implicated in the death of infants and unpleasant events.

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She is the person who is there, who basically says,

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normal life is wrong.

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And that's deeply threatening to a world that is desperately trying to hold onto normal life.

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Right.

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While other religions of the ancient Middle East featured many gods

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capable of good or bad, Judaism recognised just one,

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who controls everything.

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And that raises a problem.

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The moment you say he's universal, what do you do with evil?

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What do you do with violence, what do you do with mindless killings

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and harm and pain?

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It was the attempts to answer this huge question that would lead

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to the Devil being given shape in scripture.

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So, let's take a look at the Devil's appearances in the Old Testament.

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This is where we come across a startling fact. He is barely in it.

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The Devil actually appears for less than 0.5% of the Old Testament.

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What sort of villain is that?

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That means if the Old Testament were a Bond movie,

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you'd see this much baddie.

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Welcome, Mr Bo...

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Yep, that's all.

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In percentage terms,

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Satan doesn't appear much more in the New Testament. About the equivalent of...

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Welcome, Mr Bond. I've been expecti...

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But the New Testament is different,

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because although the Devil hardly appears in person,

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he is constantly referred to lurking and plotting off-stage.

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He becomes Jesus's Moriarty.

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All right, so Satan might not get many scenes in the Bible,

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but we all know what he gets up to, don't we?

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What about the Garden of Eden, what did he get up to there?

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-He was the snake.

-He was the snake?

-He was the snake, wasn't he?

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-I thought he was the snake.

-Yeah, there was the apple.

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Yeah, he's a snake, not a lizard. He's a snake.

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-He came as a snake, didn't he, and persuaded them to eat the apple?

-The forbidden fruit.

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Well, no. Not according to Genesis. That mentions no Devil.

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Just blames the snake, which was,

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"More subtil than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made."

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So, what else did the Devil famously get up to?

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He used to be an angel but got cast out of Heaven.

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He was cast from Heaven in the Bible.

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Yep, I made that mistake as well.

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I was such a beautiful angel, with flaxen hair, wings like a swan.

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I could always beat the angel Gabriel in a race. Down to Galilee and back.

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Whoosh! I looked magnificent.

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Many years ago, I sat down to write a radio sitcom, set in Hell, about the Devil.

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Naturally, as a writer, I was drawn to the psychological heart

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of the character, that is the story of the fall.

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You know, his roots, his pride, his rebellion,

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his subsequent damnation for all eternity. It's a fantastic story.

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Got out the Bible, started to read it, looking for this story, it's not there.

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Where do we get this story from, the fall?

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The story comes in that gap between the Old and New Testament.

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We have to know what was happening in Judaism at that time.

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Judaism, the Jewish homeland, had been occupied by the Romans,

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so this great question about, "We were God's chosen people,

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"we were Yahweh's chosen people, why has he abandoned us?"

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Then you come to the apocryphal texts written,

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Baruch and others, written from around about 150 BC

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right through to the beginning of the Christian period

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by Jewish writers grappling with why everything seems to have gone wrong again.

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Then this mythology grows up, this story emerges that, yes indeed,

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Satan used to be in the court of Heaven,

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the court of God, but did something so dreadful, he was thrown out.

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There's a series of literature that isn't in the Bible,

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Book of Enoch, Book of Jubilees, which explored these myths,

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to try and explain why the Jews were in such a mess,

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why they'd been occupied, and why it wasn't God's fault.

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So they created this character of the Devil.

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All right, never mind what isn't in the Bible. Let's look at what is.

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In the very first Satanic appearance, he...startles a donkey.

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In the Book of Numbers, Balaam's ass sees a frightening figure

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brandishing a sword blocking the way, so it swerves off the path.

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Balaam, who can't see the spectre, keeps beating the animal

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until the donkey speaks and says, "Why are you beating me?"

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Before Balaam can say, "Bloody hell, a talking donkey,"

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the spectre intervenes and admonishes Balaam for his cruelty.

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In the King James Bible, that spectre is called the Angel of the Lord,

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but in the original Hebrew scripture, it's Satan.

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Or rather A satan.

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In the Hebrew language, the word satan means?

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It means to get in the way, actually.

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If you're on the way to do something bad, he'll get in your way.

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That's Balaam on his way to curse Israel,

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it's an angel who "satan", who stops him.

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What's his identity?

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Is he an angel who forgot his job spec,

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if you like, and then became this renegade angel?

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He's never, in Judaism, he's never been a renegade angel.

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He's part of the infrastructure of God's divine plans.

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Therefore, he has a job to do, but he's not independent of God,

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and he's not a renegade, as he would be in Christian thought.

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In Jewish tradition,

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this is a little bit how the Devil is regarded.

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That which makes you think.

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What you're supposed to do is reach a position of moral ascendancy,

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-put thee behind me.

-You can reject him.

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Yeah, exactly.

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He's not someone who's the source and epitome of evil,

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he's a minor angel with a particular task.

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It's very important that the Satan figure in the Old Testament is not

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the same as the Devil.

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It's not the sort of face of evil.

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Satan is a prosecutor in God's Holy Court. He's absolutely on God's side.

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It's as God's inspector general on Earth that we first meet

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Satan with a capital S in the Book of Job.

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The Book of Job is a powerful

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and moving exploration of the mysteries of man's existence

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in a hostile universe, and I strongly recommend that you read it.

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But if you can't be arsed, here's what happens in two minutes.

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God's sitting on his throne when along comes Satan

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and his mates, the children of God, whoever they might be.

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God says, "You all right, Satan? What you been up to?"

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Satan says, "Roaming through the Earth, going to and fro."

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God says, "Have you seen Job in your travels?

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"He's a God-fearing man, isn't he?"

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Satan says, "Nah, only cos you're so good to him."

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God says, "You're wrong, and to prove it, I authorise you to

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"torment him, but you're not allowed to hurt him physically."

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One morning, Job's at home when a messenger runs in and says,

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"The Sabaeans have stolen all your cattle and killed all your servants."

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And even as that messenger is speaking, another messenger

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runs in and says, "You won't believe this, Job.

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"All your sheep have been struck by lightning."

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Even as THAT one's talking, another arrives and says,

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"The Chaldaeans have stolen all your camels."

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Before Job can even check out the insurance,

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another messenger runs in and says,

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"You know that party your sons and daughters were having? The roof just fell in. They're all dead."

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But Job doesn't blame God, no.

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He just falls to his knees and praises his Lord.

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God turns to Satan and says, "1-0".

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Satan says, "Well, you didn't let me hurt him physically,

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"it wasn't a proper test."

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"All right, you can torture Job, but you mustn't kill him, cos that'd be crossing the line."

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So Job erupts in sores, he's in terrible agony,

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then so-called comforters arrive full of platitudes about why God's punishing him.

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Job starts asking good questions like, "Why do bad people get rich?

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"How can a god know what it's like to suffer?"

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The comforters give him more blah, blah, until Job says,

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"I don't understand any of this.

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"I'm just going to place my trust in my god."

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God appears and says, "Well played, Job."

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And he says to the comforters, "You lot, shut up.

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"It's not for you to understand my ways, I'm God, you're not.

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"Sacrifice seven bulls and seven rams and I'll let you off."

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Then Job gets given a new wife, loads more kids and tons of wealth, and God proves he's a loving god,

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and no-one ever mentions the civilian deaths and collateral damage.

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There is a moment in the Book of Job where God admonishes the Devil,

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and says, "You persuaded me against my better judgment

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"to inflict that suffering on good old Job."

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That seems rather odd for me,

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because it implies God can be almost outwitted by the Devil.

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Yeah, there's a saying which says, "If this had not appeared

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in the Bible, I would never have believed it could have been said."

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So yes, you're not the first to be puzzled by this.

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There is a saying that Job never existed, that he's only

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a figment of somebody's imagination, the whole thing is a kind of attempt

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to argue about the nature of evil and how it affects people,

0:18:410:18:44

and the question about why do the righteous suffer?

0:18:440:18:47

This is the ultimate question in our world.

0:18:470:18:49

The Devil in the Book of Job displays little

0:18:490:18:53

in the way of personality, and he's very much God's employee.

0:18:530:18:56

It's only in the New Testament that Satan develops his own agenda.

0:18:560:19:00

What did he do when he tempted Jesus?

0:19:000:19:03

Make stone into bread, jump off the temple,

0:19:030:19:07

then the angels would catch him and showed him the world, and said,

0:19:070:19:11

"You can have it all if you worship me."

0:19:110:19:15

If you look at the temptations of Jesus in the Gospels,

0:19:150:19:18

there is nothing evil that Satan asks Jesus to do.

0:19:180:19:21

He's tempting him to see if he really understands what he's here for.

0:19:210:19:26

Then at the very end, Jesus says, "Get you behind me",

0:19:260:19:30

because Satan then says, "Why don't you worship me,

0:19:300:19:34

"and we'll be a really good partnership?"

0:19:340:19:36

So you're beginning to get that sense of, he's not just doing what

0:19:360:19:40

God wants, he actually wants some of God's praise and power, and glory.

0:19:400:19:46

That's why he fell.

0:19:460:19:48

When you have notions of pre-existence theory,

0:19:480:19:51

the idea that everything Jesus did being part of a plan,

0:19:510:19:55

the Devil is part of that scheme.

0:19:550:19:58

He's the jeopardy.

0:19:580:20:01

If you took the story of Jesus to a script doctor in Hollywood

0:20:010:20:05

and said, "I've got this idea. What do you think about this?"

0:20:050:20:11

And there was no Devil in it, he would say, by about page 8,

0:20:110:20:14

this guy needs a Devil.

0:20:140:20:15

In the story of Jesus's temptation in the wilderness,

0:20:150:20:18

does the Devil know that Jesus is the son of God for certain?

0:20:180:20:24

Because it's possible to read that story

0:20:240:20:29

as if the Devil is sort of checking him out.

0:20:290:20:32

Absolutely.

0:20:320:20:34

There is a kind of playfulness on the part of the Devil in that story.

0:20:340:20:38

The Devil tries to get Jesus to declare his goodness.

0:20:380:20:41

The playfulness is really the Devil's way of trying to get Jesus

0:20:410:20:46

to say publicly and clearly that he is the son of God.

0:20:460:20:49

With a view to...? How would that benefit the Devil?

0:20:490:20:52

To manipulate Jesus.

0:20:520:20:54

The Devil wants Jesus to act as he would,

0:20:540:20:58

the Devil is trying to get Jesus...

0:20:580:20:59

Once the Devil knows he is the son of God,

0:20:590:21:01

how can he hope to manipulate him?

0:21:010:21:04

He can't, but that's what he's trying to do.

0:21:040:21:07

Why would he imagine that he could dupe the Son of God?

0:21:070:21:10

Hubris.

0:21:100:21:13

But that's pretty stupid. That's more than hubris, isn't it?

0:21:130:21:17

That's not a tragic flaw, that's stupidity.

0:21:170:21:20

Yes, the Devil is flawed.

0:21:200:21:22

The Devil will keep trying to manipulate people to turn them

0:21:220:21:25

against God, and will use whatever means possible.

0:21:250:21:28

There are some teachings that say as soon as the Devil realises

0:21:280:21:31

that Jesus is Jesus, that he is the son of God, the anointed one,

0:21:310:21:36

that he knows his fate from then on.

0:21:360:21:38

As a writer, do you think that, narratively, that's a problem?

0:21:380:21:42

Everybody knows.

0:21:420:21:43

It's foretold that he's going to fail and be defeated.

0:21:430:21:46

Yes, but knowing what happens at the end of something

0:21:460:21:50

doesn't necessarily ruin the journey to get there.

0:21:500:21:53

When James Cameron came in with the idea for Titanic,

0:21:530:21:57

I shouldn't imagine they went, "Here's one problem.

0:21:570:22:00

"How are we going to...?

0:22:000:22:02

"We've got to somehow sort of stop it being known.

0:22:020:22:05

"I know it happened in 1912,

0:22:050:22:07

"but there must be a way, otherwise this has got no ending."

0:22:070:22:10

-It's about the journey.

-The Devil is the iceberg.

0:22:100:22:13

What I'm getting out is it's only a problem in the characterisation

0:22:130:22:18

of the Devil, in terms of...

0:22:180:22:21

The Devil is a flawed character.

0:22:230:22:25

That is actually one of his most defining characteristics,

0:22:250:22:29

that he is flawed.

0:22:290:22:32

He's got issues, you're right. He has got issues.

0:22:320:22:36

In some of the Gospels,

0:22:360:22:38

the Devil is implicated in the corruption of Judas.

0:22:380:22:41

But it's in the letters of St Paul,

0:22:410:22:43

the earliest recorded Christian writings, that he starts to emerge

0:22:430:22:47

as the ever-present enemy, lying in wait, ready to sabotage and entrap.

0:22:470:22:52

So, St Paul put a bit more general...

0:23:200:23:23

-OMEN THEME PLAYS

-..into the notion of the Devil,

0:23:230:23:26

but he is still a very one-dimensional character.

0:23:260:23:30

And what doesn't help is that there are no visual descriptions

0:23:300:23:34

of him in the Bible. Well, not until the end

0:23:340:23:36

when we get an idea of what he looks like in the Book of Revelations.

0:23:360:23:40

Well, sort of.

0:23:420:23:45

There is a reference to "that great dragon",

0:23:450:23:47

this is the vision of the Apocalypse, and there is a reference

0:23:470:23:51

to, "That great dragon,

0:23:510:23:53

"the old serpent that is called the Devil and Satan."

0:23:530:23:58

And it's a sort of mystical, ecstatic vision of this curious beast

0:23:580:24:02

with lots of heads and mystical signs, but it is putting together,

0:24:020:24:06

if you like, a notion of some diabolical beast.

0:24:060:24:10

This is heavy stuff about Rome and the powers and pressures,

0:24:120:24:15

but the image that comes through that is of this dragon who has

0:24:150:24:20

a gaping mouth into which the damned are thrown and chewed up.

0:24:200:24:25

You've got the brimstone, you've got the salt, the sulphur smell,

0:24:250:24:29

you've got the horns, you've got the tail, the lake of fire,

0:24:290:24:32

and that whole question about the role of the Devil in relation

0:24:320:24:36

to God, they try and reconcile in the Book of Revelation.

0:24:360:24:40

The Devil is there as a menace and as a temptation to us,

0:24:400:24:44

but ultimately it will never be victorious.

0:24:440:24:46

It's like he's fighting with his arm tied behind his back.

0:24:460:24:49

So, by the end of Revelations, yes, the...

0:24:490:24:53

OMEN THEME PLAYS

0:24:530:24:55

..has been upped again and there is more of the Devil,

0:24:550:24:59

but still our picture of him is no clearer, really.

0:24:590:25:02

He is described through allegory and symbolism

0:25:020:25:07

and extravagant chaotic imagery.

0:25:070:25:09

One second he's a huge red dragon, then he's a serpent,

0:25:090:25:13

then he's got seven heads and ten horns

0:25:130:25:16

and then he's a leopard with the feet of a bear

0:25:160:25:19

and the mouth of a lion.

0:25:190:25:21

It's bewildering.

0:25:210:25:23

Imagine I'm an early Christian.

0:25:230:25:25

What mental image do you think they had of Satan?

0:25:250:25:28

My basic answer is, there are as many devils as there are early Christians.

0:25:280:25:33

Unless the Devil chooses to take a form and appear to you as a man

0:25:330:25:37

or an angel or a lion, you probably won't see him

0:25:370:25:41

with your own eyes, so there are no pictures of the Devil

0:25:410:25:44

pictured as a human with horns and wings and a tail

0:25:440:25:47

until the late 6th century, and even then it takes

0:25:470:25:49

another 200 years or so to really take off.

0:25:490:25:52

But if early Christians found it hard to get

0:25:520:25:55

a visual fix on the Devil,

0:25:550:25:56

they found it even harder to answer the biggest question of all.

0:25:560:25:59

What the Christian world does is have one single all-powerful God

0:26:010:26:05

who creates everything.

0:26:050:26:08

And therefore, for the first time, you have a force of evil

0:26:080:26:11

in the cosmos who has to be produced by the good God,

0:26:110:26:14

and that puts an awful lot of strain into theology.

0:26:140:26:17

All right, so, anything good in the latest epistle from Paul?

0:26:210:26:24

Not much, a bit of gossip about Timothy.

0:26:240:26:27

Right so that just leaves us with "Any Other Business".

0:26:270:26:30

I'm still getting a lot of grief from believers about that question,

0:26:300:26:35

if there is only one God, and he's a loving God,

0:26:350:26:39

why did he let my crops fail?

0:26:390:26:40

-Look...

-Why did he said my barn on fire?

0:26:400:26:43

-Look...

-Why did he let the Romans crucify all my relatives?

0:26:430:26:47

-Yeah, I'm getting that one a lot as well.

-We've been over this.

0:26:470:26:50

Tell them that all the evil in the world should be blamed on the Devil.

0:26:500:26:53

But then they just ask, "Who is this Devil?"

0:26:530:26:56

-Well...

-And who made him?

0:26:560:26:58

Well, God made everything.

0:26:580:26:59

Then they just ask, "Why did God make him?"

0:26:590:27:02

-Well...

-And why did God make him such an evil git?

0:27:020:27:04

Ah! No! God doesn't make anything evil.

0:27:040:27:07

So he didn't make the Devil, then?

0:27:070:27:09

-So the Devil is some sort of rival god?

-Absolutely not.

0:27:090:27:14

-There is one God and he made everything.

-Including the Devil?

0:27:140:27:18

Well...

0:27:180:27:19

Who is evil.

0:27:190:27:21

No, but...

0:27:210:27:23

I've got a headache now.

0:27:240:27:28

The Jews have had one God for centuries,

0:27:280:27:30

how do they deal with this one?

0:27:300:27:31

They just shrug and get on with it.

0:27:310:27:32

They say God knows what he's doing.

0:27:320:27:34

I'm not sure my lot will settle for that.

0:27:340:27:36

That's a lot of trust.

0:27:360:27:38

Maybe we could make this Devil person a bit clearer.

0:27:380:27:42

What we need is a back story.

0:27:420:27:45

Now, before David Starkey writes in,

0:27:450:27:48

this is not an attempt at historical accuracy, OK?

0:27:480:27:51

There were never any meetings like this,

0:27:510:27:53

this is just a low-budget dramatisation

0:27:530:27:55

of a huge philosophical question that confronted the early Church.

0:27:550:27:59

Sorry, it's just I didn't want any e-mails.

0:28:010:28:05

-Back story for the Devil.

-Perfect!

0:28:050:28:08

Oh, hang on, I've got some Apocrypha in here.

0:28:080:28:10

Oh no, not the Apocrypha! That's full of mental stuff about giants.

0:28:100:28:13

It will destroy our credibility.

0:28:130:28:16

You can cherry-pick.

0:28:160:28:17

I know I saw something in here, something about fallen angels.

0:28:170:28:21

Ah! Found it!

0:28:210:28:22

A biography of the Devil duly emerged,

0:28:240:28:28

partly to answer pagan critics

0:28:280:28:29

who found the idea of a single force of evil ridiculous.

0:28:290:28:32

Writing in the third century,

0:28:320:28:34

the Christian theologian, Origen, put some flesh on Satan's bones.

0:28:340:28:38

He's the one who actually,

0:28:380:28:40

I think, probably first puts together various different bits

0:28:400:28:43

of scripture to produce a story of the Devil's origin

0:28:430:28:47

as being pride before a fall.

0:28:470:28:49

So, for Origen, the Devil was created as a good angel,

0:28:490:28:52

and his first sin was that of pride,

0:28:520:28:55

of wanting to be as big as, and as powerful as God.

0:28:550:28:59

The idea of a devil brought down by pride

0:29:010:29:05

is common to both Christianity and Islam.

0:29:050:29:08

God creates this being, Adam, the human, the first human.

0:29:080:29:12

And he calls upon all the inhabitants of Paradise

0:29:120:29:15

to basically bow down before this being that he has created,

0:29:150:29:19

as the Koran says, with his own hands.

0:29:190:29:21

And, of course, Satan refuses to do so and says, "Why should I?

0:29:210:29:25

"I have worshipped you for so many years.

0:29:250:29:27

"I am made of fire, this thing is made of clay.

0:29:270:29:31

"I am superior to it." So there's a sin of pride involved in that.

0:29:310:29:36

But also a sin of pride involved with respect to, "I've worshipped

0:29:360:29:39

"you for so many years and you're telling me

0:29:390:29:41

"to commit a violation of the basic precept of monotheism,

0:29:410:29:45

"to bow down before something other than God."

0:29:450:29:47

So, it seems that in some Islamic traditions

0:29:470:29:51

the Devil's sins are pride and being a stickler for the rules.

0:29:510:29:55

In the poetry that you see in the medieval period,

0:29:550:29:57

that is seen as the ultimate sincerity of worship,

0:29:570:30:02

the fact that he is even willing to disobey God in his worship of God.

0:30:020:30:09

In Christianity,

0:30:090:30:11

the Devil's charge sheet had been totting up for centuries.

0:30:110:30:15

And top of the list were offences committed in Paradise.

0:30:150:30:19

There, you see? Satan is an angel who rebels and is banished by God.

0:30:260:30:30

Satan's got the hump and that's why there's suffering in the world.

0:30:300:30:33

Well, that makes enough sense to stop the questions, doesn't it?

0:30:330:30:39

-So, did God create Satan, the angel?

-Obviously, God makes everything.

0:30:390:30:44

-So, was Satan evil from the start?

-No, God wouldn't make anything evil.

0:30:440:30:48

-So, Satan turned evil?

-Yes, that's it! He turned evil.

0:30:480:30:52

-Of his own free will.

-Perfect.

-Why?

0:30:520:30:54

Pride. He wanted to be God.

0:30:550:30:57

But surely he must have known he couldn't become God because...

0:30:570:31:01

Envy, then. He was envious of us because God liked us best.

0:31:010:31:05

He was cross with God, so, he took it out on man.

0:31:050:31:09

With God's authority?

0:31:090:31:11

-Erm...

-Or was he outside God's power?

0:31:110:31:14

Well, no. Nothing is outside God's power.

0:31:140:31:19

Then, why didn't God just destroy him?

0:31:190:31:21

I think, theologically, one can try too hard

0:31:250:31:28

to nail things down sometimes.

0:31:280:31:30

All this fallen angel stuff, I mean,

0:31:300:31:33

there's no real specific mention of it in the scriptures, is there?

0:31:330:31:37

Isaiah 14.

0:31:370:31:39

"How thou art fallen from Heaven, O Lucifer,

0:31:390:31:41

"son of the morning."

0:31:410:31:43

Isn't that a reference to the King of Babylon?

0:31:430:31:47

Not any more, it isn't.

0:31:470:31:49

One of the classics is, people say,

0:31:590:32:01

"Where was the Devil in the Garden of Eden, then?"

0:32:010:32:04

Cos this idea of Original Sin,

0:32:040:32:05

that Eve was tempted by the Devil,

0:32:050:32:08

which was one of the things the church was keen on.

0:32:080:32:10

You read the story and think,

0:32:100:32:12

"There was no Devil there. Ah, but the serpent was there."

0:32:120:32:15

I think, by the time you get to the fourth century,

0:32:150:32:17

the connection between the serpent in Eden and the Devil

0:32:170:32:22

is absolutely entrenched and Christians have actually, then,

0:32:220:32:25

got to the stage of working out what kinds of problems that produces.

0:32:250:32:29

Was it that the Devil possessed an actual, living snake?

0:32:290:32:32

And if so, why did God pronounce a punishment on the snake,

0:32:320:32:36

-given that it was the Devil?

-Seems unfair.

0:32:360:32:39

There's this idea of almost, retrospectively,

0:32:390:32:41

going back and finding the Devil in stories,

0:32:410:32:44

and all the time, building up the cult of the Devil.

0:32:440:32:47

OK, OK, OK. I think we've got this.

0:32:470:32:49

Because of man's Original Sin, our Lord Jesus had to redeem,

0:32:490:32:54

i.e. buy back, our sins.

0:32:540:32:56

-From whom?

-Sorry?

0:32:560:32:59

Who did he have to buy them back from?

0:32:590:33:01

Er, from the Devil.

0:33:010:33:03

Yes, until Jesus saved us, we were part of the Devil's dominion.

0:33:030:33:09

-Right, with God's punishment?

-Oh, don't start all that again!

0:33:090:33:13

It all makes the Devil sound very important, doesn't it?

0:33:130:33:16

What if Jesus bought back our sins for the satisfaction of God?

0:33:160:33:20

Yes, I like that.

0:33:200:33:22

So, God sends his son to die for man,

0:33:220:33:25

so that God could call it quits with man?

0:33:250:33:29

Yes, I think so.

0:33:290:33:32

It's all a bit abstract, isn't it? Not sure it'll put bums on seats.

0:33:320:33:35

But it's not abstract.

0:33:350:33:37

Look, God made the world good, then, man made it bad of his own free will,

0:33:370:33:42

by succumbing to the Devil / snake.

0:33:420:33:45

But through God's good grace, man can be redeemed

0:33:450:33:49

and be freed from the hold of the Devil, who God made good,

0:33:490:33:53

but who, of his own free will, turned bad.

0:33:530:33:55

So, can the Devil be redeemed?

0:33:550:33:57

Now, that's a very good question.

0:33:580:34:01

I think most theologians, if you asked them,

0:34:010:34:04

would say that he will...

0:34:040:34:05

He's damned to the hellfire for eternity,

0:34:050:34:09

because that, strictly speaking, is what the Koran says.

0:34:090:34:13

Now, he could have been thrown to Hell then and there,

0:34:130:34:15

but he asks, you know,

0:34:150:34:17

"Can I have respite so that I can basically show you

0:34:170:34:19

"how bad these humans that you've created really are going to be?

0:34:190:34:23

"And you will see how many people I drive away from you."

0:34:230:34:27

It's almost like a challenge to God and God basically accepts

0:34:270:34:30

and says, "OK, fine. Do your best."

0:34:300:34:31

The story of the fallen angel, who falls from grace

0:34:310:34:35

and ends up as sort of governor of Hell, if you like -

0:34:350:34:42

can he ever be redeemed?

0:34:420:34:43

Yeah, that's a really good question

0:34:430:34:47

and one which really comes back again to what we understand as

0:34:470:34:52

the Devil's definite rejection of God.

0:34:520:34:54

The Devil understood what it meant to reject God.

0:34:540:34:58

The Devil understood that by his rejection of God, it would be absolute.

0:34:580:35:02

-Right.

-And knowing that it would be absolute, and that it would put himself beyond redemption,

0:35:020:35:07

the Devil continued to reject God.

0:35:070:35:09

So that makes the Devil unique in the sense that he doesn't get cut the slack

0:35:090:35:14

-that human beings get cut, does he?

-No.

0:35:140:35:18

Human beings can be disobedient, rebellious to God,

0:35:180:35:21

but they can be redeemed.

0:35:210:35:23

Absolutely. As human beings,

0:35:230:35:25

we're made in the image and likeness of God.

0:35:250:35:27

We have an innate goodness within us,

0:35:270:35:31

that enables us to overcome...

0:35:310:35:34

But Satan was an angel - he had goodness in him as well. Is his goodness fully extinguished?

0:35:340:35:40

The Devil chose to extinguish his own goodness.

0:35:400:35:44

But could he not see the error of his ways and be...

0:35:440:35:48

be restored to grace?

0:35:480:35:49

That's the definitiveness of his rejection of God.

0:35:490:35:52

The Devil knew that his rejection of God was absolute.

0:35:520:35:56

That his rejection of God would put him beyond redemption,

0:35:560:35:59

and yet still he chose to reject God.

0:35:590:36:01

It's like he knew at the outset what was in the contract.

0:36:010:36:04

Absolutely. It's something that the Devil chose to do freely, and with knowledge of what he was doing.

0:36:040:36:09

But if he had no hope of redemption, at least Satan had been given his own kingdom to rule.

0:36:100:36:17

MUSIC: "Carmina Burana" by Carl Orff

0:36:170:36:20

All right - that's enough of that. We're frightening people.

0:36:200:36:23

-There's a real sense of life hanging by a thread.

-Yeah.

0:36:230:36:26

And I think the Devil very much played into that very pessimistic view of the world,

0:36:260:36:30

and I think people basically thought that they were going to Hell.

0:36:300:36:34

You hear very little talk of Heaven in that period.

0:36:340:36:36

It just feels like Hell dominated people's world view, for all sorts of very good, practical reasons.

0:36:360:36:43

Behold, mortal! For you have entered my realm of torment,

0:36:460:36:51

and here ye shall languish through all eternity.

0:36:510:36:54

For I...am the bringer of destruction.

0:36:540:36:58

The Prince of Doom!

0:36:580:37:02

EVIL LAUGH

0:37:020:37:05

Gosh!

0:37:060:37:07

What's the Judaic equivalent of Hell?

0:37:070:37:12

Ah, Gehinnom.

0:37:120:37:14

There isn't the same kind of picture of fire and brimstone and so forth.

0:37:140:37:20

After death we go through a period of evaluation, searching,

0:37:200:37:26

questioning, challenging of our past and our failures,

0:37:260:37:29

at the end of which time

0:37:290:37:31

just about everybody's guaranteed a place in Heaven.

0:37:310:37:33

I once thought if you did a Which? Guide to Religions, do you get a place in the world to come?

0:37:330:37:38

-we're pretty good on that.

-You're quite high. A high rating.

0:37:380:37:42

Christian tradition casts Satan as the overlord of the damned.

0:37:420:37:46

But Islam places him lower down the pecking order.

0:37:460:37:48

He is as much someone who will suffer in Hell as others will.

0:37:500:37:55

Right. So he doesn't have the job of being sort of Hell's janitor...

0:37:550:37:59

-that he does in Christianity?

-No. Absolutely not.

0:37:590:38:02

There's actually an angel whose job it is to be sort of the warden of Hell.

0:38:020:38:06

-Oh, there's a designated angel?

-Yes. There's a totally different person.

0:38:060:38:10

Whereas, in the vision of Hell which endures from medieval Christianity,

0:38:100:38:15

it's Satan who is very much in charge

0:38:150:38:17

of dishing out appropriate punishments.

0:38:170:38:20

All right - I admit it was wrong of me to shoot those elephants

0:38:200:38:23

and then rip their tusks out for the ivory.

0:38:230:38:26

It was greedy. It was brutal.

0:38:260:38:28

And it ruined everyone's enjoyment of the circus.

0:38:280:38:31

-Mm-hm...

-What?

0:38:310:38:33

Why are you smiling at me like tha...?

0:38:330:38:36

POUNDING FOOTSTEPS Oh, no...

0:38:360:38:39

ELEPHANT TRUMPETS

0:38:390:38:41

The Devil's army of demons loomed large

0:38:460:38:49

in the popular stories of medieval Christendom,

0:38:490:38:52

revolving around the lives of the saints.

0:38:520:38:54

The life of St Anthony,

0:38:540:38:56

in which the Devil and demons appear to Anthony

0:38:560:38:59

in the form of horrible beasts, and they beat him up at one point -

0:38:590:39:03

I think he makes the sign of the cross

0:39:030:39:04

and immediately they all disappear. But he's still left with bruises.

0:39:040:39:09

You weren't even safe from the Devil in your bed.

0:39:110:39:14

I'm getting quite a lot of flock coming to me,

0:39:160:39:18

and confessing that their bodies are committing mortal sins,

0:39:180:39:22

without their being able to control them,

0:39:220:39:24

whilst they're asleep.

0:39:240:39:26

-Yes, I'm getting a lot of questions about that as well.

-Hmm. Tricky one.

0:39:260:39:29

Can't we just blame it on the Jews?

0:39:290:39:32

That's always been our fallback, hasn't it?

0:39:320:39:34

-Not really.

-Actually there is one avenue...

0:39:340:39:37

Do you remember that ancient Jewish demon, Lilith?

0:39:370:39:41

Ooh - Adam's uppity first wife?

0:39:410:39:43

According to legend, she was a succubus,

0:39:430:39:46

who would visit men and women and extract bodily fluids.

0:39:460:39:48

Why don't we say, the Devil's got an army of such creatures

0:39:480:39:51

who consort with men and women while they sleep?

0:39:510:39:54

So it's not a mortal sin - cos the Devil's servants are secretly raping you.

0:39:540:39:58

I think our followers will find that explanation comforting.

0:39:580:40:03

And yet at the same time... terrifying.

0:40:030:40:06

Comforting yet terrifying - the old formula.

0:40:060:40:10

When has it ever let us down, eh?

0:40:100:40:12

Right, meeting over - let's break out the mead.

0:40:120:40:14

I sort of make my living on radio pretending to be the Devil and laughing at him.

0:40:170:40:21

Did the early Christians ever laugh at him?

0:40:210:40:24

Quite a lot of the time I think there's probably some

0:40:240:40:26

psychological need to make something fairly horrendous bearable

0:40:260:40:30

by making it humorous or kind of grotesque.

0:40:300:40:32

There is a tendency quite often to think of the Devil

0:40:320:40:37

and demons as being things that might get inside you.

0:40:370:40:40

And the way in which they get inside you is often through ingestion.

0:40:400:40:43

There's a very famous story about a nun who eats a lettuce leaf

0:40:430:40:49

without making the sign of the cross over it beforehand.

0:40:490:40:52

And there's, unbeknownst to her, a little demon squatting on the lettuce

0:40:520:40:57

leaf, and so because she's failed to exorcise it or get rid of it,

0:40:570:41:00

when she eats the lettuce leaf she also takes in the demon

0:41:000:41:03

and has to be exorcised in typically unpleasant fashion.

0:41:030:41:06

And that idea that just eating a salad might be something that

0:41:060:41:10

which comes with a kind of demonic risk

0:41:100:41:12

tells you something quite serious I think about

0:41:120:41:15

the ubiquity of the Devil.

0:41:150:41:17

But it also suggests a way of telling cautionary tales which

0:41:170:41:20

I think does have a sly wink to the reader.

0:41:200:41:23

Towards the High Middle Ages the Devil was seen as a figure of fun.

0:41:230:41:28

In a lot of churches we see grotesque gargoyles.

0:41:280:41:31

-Mmm.

-Are they scary, or are they amusing?

0:41:310:41:34

A tongue being stuck out, kind of thing.

0:41:340:41:37

So what do we mean by that medieval image?

0:41:370:41:39

I think we often confuse the medieval image of the Devil

0:41:390:41:43

with modernity,

0:41:430:41:44

which ties in more really with the Reformation

0:41:440:41:48

than the Catholic medieval world.

0:41:480:41:51

So, in the stories of the lives of the saints, and in the mystery plays,

0:41:510:41:55

people perceive the Devil as both comic and/or scary.

0:41:550:42:00

Though it's difficult to be sure

0:42:010:42:03

exactly what ordinary people believe.

0:42:030:42:05

Especially when much of the evidence comes from what survives of their popular culture.

0:42:050:42:10

After all - on that basis,

0:42:100:42:11

future historians might conclude that we all believed in vampires.

0:42:110:42:15

Pious people in general, by about 1600,

0:42:150:42:17

the Devil's a lifelong companion.

0:42:170:42:20

He's always there trying to destroy you.

0:42:200:42:23

But for ordinary people, he's clearly a physical presence,

0:42:230:42:26

which means you can outrun him.

0:42:260:42:28

You can overpower him if you're strong enough,

0:42:280:42:30

you can tweak his nose with hot tongs,

0:42:300:42:33

and you can get the best of him.

0:42:330:42:35

It's a kind of simple equation that the more devout you are,

0:42:350:42:38

the more seriously you take the Devil.

0:42:380:42:40

In northern Europe in the early 16th century,

0:42:400:42:43

new ideas emerged which tore Christian Europe apart,

0:42:430:42:47

and helped put the Devil even more firmly centre stage.

0:42:470:42:51

Ironically, this fear of Satan comes as part of the

0:42:510:42:54

overthrow of the Catholic world,

0:42:540:42:57

and in the coming of a Protestant and Enlightenment world

0:42:570:43:00

in which the world suddenly becomes weirder.

0:43:000:43:03

Do you think that there was an element that the Reformation,

0:43:110:43:14

because it stripped away all those protective rituals,

0:43:140:43:18

that people felt under more pressure, more frightened?

0:43:180:43:21

Well, the Devil gets bigger in Catholicism as well

0:43:210:43:24

in the same period.

0:43:240:43:26

Basically the 16th century is a great age for the Devil.

0:43:260:43:29

But you're absolutely right -

0:43:290:43:30

Protestants depend on an idea of constant struggle with yourself

0:43:300:43:35

to save your soul,

0:43:350:43:37

and total reliance upon God.

0:43:370:43:39

In other words, it's useless now going out

0:43:390:43:41

and founding a monastery to try and save yourself,

0:43:410:43:43

it's got to be a spiritual act.

0:43:430:43:45

And therefore the Devil inside, the Devil around,

0:43:450:43:49

the Devil constantly with you,

0:43:490:43:51

becomes a major part of your life, literally a daily event.

0:43:510:43:54

The Devil was certainly a fact of daily life for the man

0:43:540:43:59

who lit the fuse on the Reformation, Martin Luther.

0:43:590:44:02

He was obsessed by the Devil. Martin Luther had terrible bowel problems...

0:44:020:44:08

I know. He thought the Devil lived in his bowels. And he saw him constantly...

0:44:080:44:12

Threw an ink pot at him in Wartburg Castle, the stain is still on the wall...

0:44:120:44:16

He was Devil-obsessed.

0:44:160:44:18

So there was no difference here between Catholics and Protestants in all of that.

0:44:180:44:23

And it was to do with the way that life was lived, and the frailty and fragility of life,

0:44:230:44:29

that the Devil became a very logical explanation.

0:44:290:44:31

It sounds mad now that the Devil was a LOGICAL explanation, but I think it was for people then.

0:44:310:44:36

Ken Russell's notorious film The Devils

0:44:360:44:39

dramatised just one sorry episode in the witch craze

0:44:390:44:42

which swelled across Europe and North America

0:44:420:44:45

in the 16th and 17th centuries,

0:44:450:44:47

and which saw the execution of thousands of people,

0:44:470:44:50

most of them women.

0:44:500:44:52

So apart from the Reformation, the sectarian hatred,

0:44:520:44:55

what other propellants fuelled the witch craze?

0:44:550:44:59

There are two reasons why witch trials peak around 1600.

0:44:590:45:02

The first is the Reformation and Counter-Reformation struggle going on,

0:45:020:45:07

so people are more worried about the Devil

0:45:070:45:09

and especially judges and officials are more ready to hear accusations.

0:45:090:45:13

But also climate's gone wrong - where it's the nadir, the bottom point,

0:45:130:45:17

for an official ice age, in which the weather has got worse for 200 years.

0:45:170:45:21

So you can't grow crops now for 30 days in the year

0:45:210:45:25

which you could a couple of hundred years before.

0:45:250:45:28

And the population's been growing ever since the late 15th century

0:45:280:45:31

to a point at which it's outgrowing its resources all over Europe.

0:45:310:45:35

There are just too many people. There's too little food,

0:45:350:45:37

so people are right on the breadline in a way they hadn't been before.

0:45:370:45:41

Witchcraft had once been seen as a minor legal offence.

0:45:420:45:46

But now it was the Devil's work.

0:45:460:45:48

Neighbour turned on neighbour, and whole communities were torn apart.

0:45:480:45:52

But then the witch craze just ran out of steam.

0:45:520:45:56

I think that people get tired of religious warfare

0:45:570:46:00

and persecution because it isn't working.

0:46:000:46:02

And they start inventing scientific laws to take the place of constant faith.

0:46:020:46:07

It's basically persecutions and experiments that fails.

0:46:070:46:10

And the Devil is part of that experiment.

0:46:100:46:13

The witch craze was the Devil's highpoint.

0:46:140:46:16

Soon, he would fade into a metaphor.

0:46:160:46:19

But writers continued to find him a compelling character.

0:46:190:46:22

And none more so than the English Puritan John Milton.

0:46:220:46:26

It's Milton who, in Paradise Lost, for the first time

0:46:260:46:29

gives you a kind of credible psychological portrait of the Devil.

0:46:290:46:35

What Milton wants to produce is a Satan who is created by God and goes bad

0:46:350:46:41

and now acts as God's instrument of temptation.

0:46:410:46:44

So he's got to be good at his job.

0:46:440:46:47

And, in Milton's fantastic verse and with his insight in psychology,

0:46:470:46:50

he makes Satan a totally plausible tempter.

0:46:500:46:54

Why then was this forbid? Why but to awe

0:46:540:46:58

Why but to keep ye low and ignorant

0:46:580:47:00

His worshipper; He knows that in the day

0:47:000:47:04

Ye Eate thereof Your Eyes that seem so cleere

0:47:040:47:08

Yet are but dim Shall perfectly be then

0:47:080:47:10

Op'nd and cleerd And ye shall be as Gods.

0:47:100:47:14

Milton's Devil in Paradise Lost

0:47:140:47:17

is so seductive, so magnificent, so...

0:47:170:47:22

You just fall for him.

0:47:230:47:24

I really don't believe that John Milton or most people of his time

0:47:240:47:29

ever felt sympathy for Satan.

0:47:290:47:31

What they do is watch on with horror at how plausible and how good he is.

0:47:310:47:35

But it's the modern age

0:47:350:47:37

that doesn't have the salvation and damnation mindset.

0:47:370:47:40

Milton's Satan is really a hero.

0:47:400:47:43

Intentionally or not, Milton humanised Satan,

0:47:430:47:46

giving him a complex psychology.

0:47:460:47:49

And psychology was where the Devil's future lay.

0:47:490:47:52

With thinkers like Jung.

0:47:520:47:54

Carl Gustav Jung had this notion that there really was evil.

0:47:540:47:58

It wasn't just that there was an absence of good

0:47:580:48:01

or that there was something that was a little bit disturbing

0:48:010:48:04

or would lead to rising disquiet.

0:48:040:48:06

There really was something evil.

0:48:060:48:08

Now, this is not very fashionable.

0:48:080:48:10

The idea of absolute evil is a very traditional idea.

0:48:100:48:13

And I think there's something in it.

0:48:130:48:16

An evil that you cannot write out of the script -

0:48:160:48:19

something that is there in the universe that is just bad.

0:48:190:48:22

Jung may arguably be the greatest psychologist of religion,

0:48:230:48:27

but he still struggled with

0:48:270:48:29

paradoxes which have troubled religious believers for centuries.

0:48:290:48:32

The problem with Jung is he said two things.

0:48:320:48:35

On the one hand, he says there's absolute evil that's totally real.

0:48:350:48:38

And, on the other hand,

0:48:380:48:40

we project all our shadowy personal difficulties

0:48:400:48:43

and problems and perversities onto the Devil. So it's both, really.

0:48:430:48:47

In you projected outwards

0:48:470:48:50

and already out there, waiting to act.

0:48:500:48:54

The Devil was disappearing from people's spiritual lives,

0:48:550:48:58

melting into an abstract concept.

0:48:580:49:01

But he was about to start a new career.

0:49:010:49:04

He may have lost his teeth and claws,

0:49:040:49:05

but he'd put on a top hat and tails.

0:49:050:49:08

When did the urbane Devil first appear?

0:49:080:49:11

The urbane Devil first appears in the Renaissance and post that.

0:49:110:49:15

There's an interest in the psychology of the Devil for the first time

0:49:150:49:20

in a big way.

0:49:200:49:22

And that leads through to the nicer, kinder,

0:49:220:49:25

more civilised Devil of modern times -

0:49:250:49:27

the Devil as a gentleman, the polished Devil,

0:49:270:49:29

the Devil as the equivalent to the debauched aristocrats

0:49:290:49:32

or the confidence trickster

0:49:320:49:34

that fits a smoother kind of society.

0:49:340:49:37

And he's the Devil of today, he's the Devil of Bedazzled.

0:49:370:49:40

Bedazzled was a comedy filmed at the height of the swinging '60s.

0:49:420:49:47

Where Satan took the satirical form of Peter Cook,

0:49:470:49:50

seen here mucking about on location with Dudley Moore.

0:49:500:49:53

-What sort of things do you do to tempt people?

-Nasty things.

0:49:530:49:56

For example, if I was tempting you, I'd probably size you up

0:49:560:49:59

and see you being of a portly build - forgive me saying that...

0:49:590:50:03

Of course. Very nice.

0:50:030:50:05

I'd come up to you with a cream bun and say, "Why don't you eat that?"

0:50:050:50:09

Thus tempting you to eat the bun and get fat

0:50:090:50:11

and fall into the sin of gluttony. It's tremendous work.

0:50:110:50:14

Peter Cook's 1967 version of the Devil

0:50:140:50:17

added to a movie tradition that was already over 70 years old.

0:50:170:50:22

The Devil instantly became a figure in early cinema.

0:50:220:50:26

There are movies featuring the Devil well before the turn of the century.

0:50:260:50:31

Georges Melies, the French special effects wizard

0:50:310:50:35

who was also a conjuror,

0:50:350:50:38

depicted the Devil in several films.

0:50:380:50:40

He was, I think, the first person to make a film of Faust,

0:50:400:50:43

which has been made every 20 minutes ever since.

0:50:430:50:46

DRAMATIC PIANO MUSIC

0:50:460:50:48

Very often, the cinema treated the Devil as a largely comic figure.

0:50:500:50:53

It was only occasionally that it touched upon something more sinister.

0:50:530:50:58

Made in 1943, The Seventh Victim

0:50:590:51:01

suggested Satanists might be on the loose in downtown Manhattan.

0:51:010:51:05

You're a poor, wretched group of people who have...

0:51:050:51:09

taken the wrong turning.

0:51:090:51:10

Wrong?

0:51:100:51:12

Who knows what is wrong or right?

0:51:150:51:18

If I prefer to believe in satanic majesty and power, who can deny me?

0:51:180:51:23

What proof can you bring that good is superior to evil?

0:51:230:51:26

But it wasn't until the late '60s that another film set in New York

0:51:280:51:33

took the Devil and his followers to a genuinely disturbing level.

0:51:330:51:37

Rosemary's Baby was a game-changer for all kinds of movies.

0:51:370:51:42

It was a game-changer for horror films. It also made the Devil scary.

0:51:420:51:46

The Devil is here on Earth and his worshippers,

0:51:460:51:49

although they look like eccentric old cranks, are dangerous.

0:51:490:51:53

In the early '70s, The Exorcist graphically told the story

0:51:530:51:57

of a young American girl possessed by a demon.

0:51:570:52:00

Box office takings were huge, as audiences queued up to be appalled.

0:52:000:52:05

It was disgusting.

0:52:050:52:06

Well, I wouldn't take my wife to go and see it.

0:52:060:52:08

I just found it really horrible and had to come out.

0:52:080:52:11

I couldn't take any more.

0:52:110:52:12

It was about the most horrifying film I've ever seen.

0:52:120:52:15

-Really horrifying?

-Yeah.

0:52:150:52:17

It'll give a lot of people a lot of ideas.

0:52:170:52:20

What was the Church's reaction to The Exorcist?

0:52:200:52:23

The Catholic Church was, on the whole, pretty favourable.

0:52:230:52:26

Because?

0:52:260:52:27

Because it spoke about...

0:52:280:52:31

the presence of evil in the world

0:52:310:52:33

and the way in which the Church has a place in...fighting that evil.

0:52:330:52:38

Catholic priests... I mean, they're the cavalry in the piece.

0:52:380:52:41

Absolutely.

0:52:410:52:43

One of these children has been born of the Devil.

0:52:450:52:48

Is it this one?

0:52:480:52:50

One of these?

0:52:500:52:51

Or the son of the United States Ambassador to Britain?

0:52:520:52:56

The answer lies in the story of...

0:52:560:52:59

The film crew relaxed when they could.

0:53:050:53:07

Just what they needed to prepare them

0:53:070:53:09

for the dark, tragic, surprising events that were to come.

0:53:090:53:12

So, the Devil could be bone-chilling and bone-strengthening.

0:53:150:53:20

But, if some have been keen to exploit him,

0:53:200:53:22

the major Christian churches seem to have marginalised him,

0:53:220:53:25

almost as if he is an uncomfortable relic -

0:53:250:53:29

though he still can pop up in person.

0:53:290:53:31

Exorcists certainly exist

0:53:310:53:33

but, really, they don't figure largely in the life of the Church.

0:53:330:53:37

That's not to say they're not important -

0:53:370:53:39

it's just not central to what the Church is about.

0:53:390:53:43

SCREECHING FROM LAPTOP

0:53:430:53:46

This is one place where some people feel they can have

0:53:460:53:50

a direct personal encounter with the Devil. It's an exorcism.

0:53:500:53:53

Some of you have probably tuned in hoping you might see an exorcism

0:53:530:53:57

but there's not much point showing any

0:53:570:53:59

because they're basically all the same.

0:53:590:54:01

Someone is told that they are possessed, they behave accordingly -

0:54:010:54:05

bit of thrashing around, a lot of shouting -

0:54:050:54:08

then the Devil appears, always talks...

0:54:080:54:10

-LOW-PITCHED CROAKY VOICE:

-..in a voice like this.

0:54:100:54:13

Never sounds like Joanna Lumley, for some reason.

0:54:130:54:17

And, of course, this kind of thing has been going on for centuries.

0:54:170:54:22

In the Bible, Jesus performs many exorcisms.

0:54:220:54:26

Although, it doesn't mention shackling a girl to a chair.

0:54:260:54:31

But this seems to be people's notion of what meeting the Devil

0:54:310:54:35

would be like.

0:54:350:54:36

It's a sort of...cultural cliche.

0:54:360:54:39

Oh, and for what it's worth, next time you're sacrificing an animal

0:54:390:54:43

-to the forces of darkness, don't use a tortoise.

-TORTOISE GULPS

0:54:430:54:46

Quite often, over the years, when I've been having fun playing Satan onstage,

0:54:460:54:51

I've caught myself thinking,

0:54:510:54:53

"Should I be treating the Devil as flippantly as this?"

0:54:530:54:57

Because I know that there are many, many people out there

0:54:570:55:00

for whom the Devil is unequivocally real and ever-present.

0:55:000:55:05

And there is no denying that some people commit the most horrific acts

0:55:050:55:10

while claiming to be under orders from Satan.

0:55:100:55:13

Just as some people commit the most horrific acts

0:55:130:55:16

while claiming to be combating Satan.

0:55:160:55:19

I haven't set out to change anyone's mind about the Devil,

0:55:210:55:24

just to tell his story.

0:55:240:55:26

The story of how he started out very small and got very big.

0:55:260:55:31

And then small again.

0:55:310:55:32

But could he ever disappear?

0:55:320:55:35

The Devil will always be with us, as long as we have

0:55:360:55:39

a post-Christian culture with a lot of Christians in it,

0:55:390:55:41

because he's so good to think with.

0:55:410:55:44

You can use the Devil as a metaphor, as a personal bogey,

0:55:440:55:49

as a joke.

0:55:490:55:51

He's really useful. I guess that's why God created him.

0:55:510:55:54

Do you think you could have God without the Devil?

0:55:540:55:57

I think you could,

0:55:570:55:58

but whether you could have a straightforward relationship

0:55:580:56:03

between humans and God without the Devil

0:56:030:56:06

is a problematic question.

0:56:060:56:08

Yes, lots of the things that were ascribed to the Devil in the past,

0:56:080:56:12

like illness or disability or lightning,

0:56:120:56:15

all of these things - we know what causes them now, and we know it isn't the Devil.

0:56:150:56:19

Science has produced quite a lot of answers for things

0:56:190:56:22

but there are still things that puzzle us.

0:56:220:56:24

If you ask if people believe in the Devil they say no. If you ask them if they believe

0:56:240:56:28

there's such a thing as evil, they will often say yes.

0:56:280:56:31

Do you think that without the definition of evil

0:56:310:56:36

that the Devil supplies,

0:56:360:56:38

it would be hard to give a shape to God?

0:56:380:56:41

No, because the Church teaches that God existed before the Devil, that good existed before evil.

0:56:410:56:47

A lot of us who don't believe in the Devil

0:56:470:56:49

would feel we recognise evil when we see it -

0:56:490:56:51

we'd be able to point at it.

0:56:510:56:53

Did you think that the Devil provides an important face for evil?

0:56:530:56:57

No, I think he provides an important excuse for evil,

0:56:570:57:00

and that's much worse.

0:57:000:57:02

And one of the dangers with the way that the Devil

0:57:020:57:05

has tended to be developed in all the religions

0:57:050:57:09

in which he is a major force

0:57:090:57:11

is that he is used, as it were, as a final answer,

0:57:110:57:14

to questions that I believe we should never stop asking.

0:57:140:57:18

That may well be true

0:57:180:57:21

but, in a sense, the Devil is one of the heroes of our civilisation

0:57:210:57:25

because without him, great monotheistic religions would have struggled

0:57:250:57:29

to make sense of evil and suffering.

0:57:290:57:31

Without him, we'd have missed out on a lot of great literature

0:57:310:57:35

and great art.

0:57:350:57:37

And without the Devil, we wouldn't have had an alibi.

0:57:370:57:41

How was that?

0:57:430:57:44

Yeah, yeah, not bad.

0:57:440:57:46

-I liked the bit about me being a hero.

-Oh, good. Yeah, yeah.

0:57:460:57:49

-Only, um...

-What?

0:57:490:57:51

Well, quite a lot of it seemed to be suggesting

0:57:510:57:53

that I might be fictional.

0:57:530:57:56

-I found that a bit unsettling.

-Oh, I'm sorry.

0:57:560:57:58

-Ooh, by the way, you know when you made me sign that contract?

-Yeah?

0:57:580:58:02

-16 years ago?

-Yeah?

-You walked off with my pen.

0:58:020:58:04

I am ALWAYS doing that. Still got Piers Morgan's biro.

0:58:040:58:08

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd

0:58:320:58:35

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0:58:350:58:39

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