The Old Enemy: Satan and the Combat Myth

by Neil Forsyth

The description for this book, The Old Enemy: Satan and the Combat Myth, will be forthcoming.

Genres: Religion, History, Nonfiction, Theology, Mythology, Satanism, Christianity

Hardcover

First published October 1, 1987

Reviews

[William2]

I think this is the coolest book I’ve bought in some time. It tracks the development of the idea of Satan in literary terms from Gilgamesh (c. 2100 BCE) through the writings of Augustine (c. 400 CE). It’s fascinating to read of the variations of the Gilgamesh epic (Babylonian, Sumerian, Hittite, Akkadian, Hurrian, et al.) as they are limited to the combat myth. The clarity of the writing is exceptional. The idea of Satan was not created wholesale out of nothing. It had its development, its evolution, too, like most things.

“Of all the tales told by Hesiod, it was the Prometheus and Pandora stories that were to have the most far reaching effects on the development of Christian tradition, once the Hellenistic fusion of Mediterranean and Near Eastern religious systems had taken place. Once Eve overlapped with Pandora, or Prometheus with Satan, the separate stories would never be successfully parted again. Hesiod’s misogyny infected the Eve of the Christian tradition, and the heroic rebel could never again be entirely untwined from the character of Satan.” (p. 87)

I find myself reading select pages two or three times because they astonish so. Though written with clarity this is a dense book that, even if you’re a scholar, requires a patient reader.

[Erick · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the second time I’ve read this book. It’s definitely an interesting investigation on the subject, although the author’s thesis that the idea of Satan has its roots in combat myth and early examples of such (like that of Gilgamesh and Huwawa), I don’t find particularly convincing.

Forsyth sees the theological notion of Satan to be just a natural progression from earlier Near Eastern myths. He specifically identifies the combat myth as being important to the idea of Satan. This is a difficult supposition to maintain convincingly. The first problem is that while the gods of polytheistic religions might battle enemies such as Tiamat or Anzu, their enemies’ relationship to human sin and evil in general is nowhere discernible. Another problem is that the figure of Satan in the bible mimics polytheistic gods more than he mimics any of their antagonists in the combat myths. Satan seems to display various characteristics of early Mesopotamian gods we find in the epics, or to be more specific, their Levantine counterparts. Satan takes on the attributes of Baal, Molech, Ishtar, Dagan, etc. If anything, it was the Satanic (i.e. the diabolical) aspects of these polytheistic gods that prefigured such a conception. There really is no other religious or mythological example that is a fitting analogue apart from that found in Zoroastrianism. In both the cases of Second Temple Judaism and Zoroastrianism, you have a conscious assimilation of previous gods into demons and/or devils. Angra Mainyu (aka Ahriman) is a convincing analogue for the figure of Satan in the Bible. Anzu, Tiamat, Huwawa are so tangentially similar as to not be compelling as direct precursors. It seems far more likely that when Hebrews became more monotheistic as opposed to henotheistic, they probably focused their religious practice initially on the Semitic god El, and all the other Semitic gods, such as Baal, Dagan, Ishtar, et al, became usurpers and thus devils. There’s some ambiguity here. In the more Canaanitic texts like Job, Satan is one of the morning stars, and it isn’t obvious that he is El’s antagonist. He is more the antagonist of man. The associated totems of Satan also make the subject more complex. Serpent/dragon and bull/goat are often viewed as animal symbols for Satan, but the disparity between the two symbols makes it seem like Satan was a composite of some kind. The fact that behemoth and Leviathan are apparently related to the above symbols indicates that there was certainly a relationship between these mythological beasts and the idea of Satan. Behemoth was thought to be some massive horned land animal, possibly resembling a bull, ram, or goat. Leviathan was thought to be a massive sea serpent or dragon. What is odd though is that the bull was El’s symbol, so it is surprising that such a symbol became associated with Satan. The subject is by no means simple. My feeling is that as humanity encountered spiritual evil that that evil was necessarily personified. This was brought about through religious revelation undoubtedly.

The author seems to believe that the mythological development was a wholly linear progression manifested through the various narratives in the Judaic texts. I don’t really subscribe to that as such. I do think he investigates the relevant Judaic texts, I just don’t necessarily think the progression is so clear cut. Just as Huwawa is so tangential as to be practically irrelevant, I’m not even sure that the Enochic figures of Shemihazai and Azazel are necessarily pre-figurements of the Satan we find in the New Testament. I also don’t follow the author in his conclusion that the Adam and Eve narrative was competing with the Enochic one when it came to a religious explanation of the existence of evil. The author also describes ancient Judaism as “antifeminist.” Such a term being used is painfully anachronistic. Yes, he may have only meant anti-women, but he chose such a loaded term that I found its presence totally absurd.

All in all an interesting book. I’ve done a lot more reading since I read this the first time. I found more areas of criticism than I was conscious of the first time around. The author does explore the relevant Judaic texts and the discussion is intriguing even if the conclusions are faulty.

[Andrew Marr · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's not possible to adequately summarize this book. Forsythe traces the myths of the origin of evil from Assyrian and Babylonian myth up to the theological synthesis of St. Augustine of Hippo. The whole concept of an "adversary" is shown to be ambiguous. When is a person or a deity and adversary? The Sumerian myth of Huwawa that starts us off is a far cry from the cosmic adversary of Zoroastrian and Christian myth. Huwawa seems to be a forest spirit who is defending the forest from the destruction of Gilgamesh who wants to cut down the forest to build the royal palace. These days, many ecologically sensitive readers would think Huwawa was the good guy, not he hero Gilgamesh. When Forsythe trace Near Eastern and Greek myths, showing many signs of mutual influence, the distinctions between deity and rebel are constantly blurred. Zeus, for example, rebels against Chronos and then is the object of rebellion. When he examines Zoroastrianism, Judaism and Christianity, Forsythe recounts the torturous history of the origin of evil. The myth of the Watchers in Enochic literature, for example, cites evil's origins in the sexual lust of the Watchers for human women, a myth alluded to in Gen. 6: 1-4. Other myths, especially Zoroastrian and Christian, put evil's origin in pride. Looming over much of the mythology is the theme of fraternal strife as cosmic strife. Zoroastrian myth comes across to me as strife between two siblings at the origin of the cosmos. As one who works extensively with the thought of René Girard, the anthropological dimensions of these myths is of great interest. It is interesting, and congruent with Girard's theories, that the Hebrew scriptures and the New Testament, tend to move in an anthropological dimension. In Genesis, for example, we have Cain vs. Abel rather than Ahura Mazda vs. Angra Mainyu. Christianity inherits a confused tradition for the origins of evil and the gaping holes in the Hebrew Bible are filled in with much speculation. Accounting for evil in a way that is not hopelessly fatalistic proves to be a huge challenge. Augustine's synthesis of all the threads known to him is an impressive accomplishment but one fraught with paradox and ambiguity. I hope that these admittedly fragmentary remarks picque a reader's interest in a detailed and exhausting survey of a most important topic.

[Ben · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dense, erudite and well worth the read, this is a definitive study of the ambiguous adversary archetype and its development from the combat myths of Sumeria and Canaan to the Satan of the early medieval christian church. Forsyth seems as comfortable exploring the figure of Humbaba in the Epic of Gilgamesh as he does probing the complex relationship between Augustine and Manichean dualism. The most interesting part of the book for me dealt with Origen's imaginative development of 'Satan' as a fallen angel and the debt such a concept had on middle Platonism, but every chapter is fascinating. My only complaint is that the sheer density of information means a second reading is required to fully digest the whole.

[Jacob Parker · Rating 4 out of 5]

I little dense, but the information was worth every word.

[Mike · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book. Writing a review of this is going to be a challenge for me, it was just so packed, so dense. Perhaps one day I will write a review of this.

[Bennie Castle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nothing but gems

[Alexander LaBarbera · Rating 4 out of 5]

Foundational yet teleological.