Page:Legends of Old Testament Characters.djvu/26

4 with His spirit, all the angels of every degree adored him, except Eblis; he, through pride and envy, scorned to do this, and disobeyed God. Then God cursed him, and He cut him off from all hope in divine mercy, and He called him Scheithanan redjiman (Satan devoted to misery), and He cast him out who had been before an angel of the earth, and keeper of terrestrial things, and a guardian of Paradise."

But the general opinion seems to have been that the fall of the angels preceded the creation of man. Ibn-Ezra dates it on the second day of creation, others on the first day when God "divided the light from the darkness." Manasseh Ben Israel says that God has placed the devils in the clouds, that they might torment the wicked with thunder and lightnings, and showers of hail and tempests of wind, and that this took place on the second day, when the firmaments were divided.

As the fall of Satan took place through his aspiration to be God, so it is closely connected with the origin of idolatry and false worship; for now that Satan is cast out of heaven, he still seeks to exalt himself into the place of God, and therefore leads men from the worship of the true God into demonolatry. Thus the gods of the heathens were regarded by the first Christians as devils aspiring to receive that worship from men on earth which they sought and failed to obtain in heaven. Thus St. Paul tells the Corinthians that "the Gentiles sacrifice to devils." The temptation of Christ can only be fully understood when we bear in mind that pride and craving for worship is the prime source of Satan's actions "All these will I give thee," he said to Christ, "if Thou wilt fall down and worship me." It was a second attempt of Satan to set himself above the Most High. Among the heathen, traditions of the Angelic apostasy and war have remained.

The Indian story is as follows:— At the head of the apostate spirits is Mahisasura, or the great Asur; he and those who followed him were once good, but before the creation of the world they refused obedience to Brahma, wherefore they were cast down by the assistance of Schiva into the abyss of Onderah. Mahisasura is also