Anthony Freeman reviews The Devil: A Very Short Introduction by Darren Oldridge. Oxford University Press, Oxford 2012. Pbk. 121 pages. £7.99.
This engaging little book is well up to the high standard we expect from OUP's excellent series of 'very short introductions'. It does for the Prince of Darkness a similar service to that done for the Deity in Karen Armstrong's A History of God. Sidestepping the question of whether a creature who personifies absolute evil objectively exists, Darren Oldridge traces the historical development of the idea of the Devil and the undoubted influence that the figure has had in Western thought.
Such an approach fits well with the Sea of Faith's traditional focus on the human end of religion and ethics. Although not denying the Devil's existence, Oldridge undermines its likelihood by shining a spotlight on Satan's various transformations, first within the Christian scriptures, then through the high noon of his influence in the middle ages and the Reformation, and finally in the course of his 'slow but noisy retreat from the centre of Western life'. The sheer variety of images on offer provokes the sceptical question: even if there were an objective reality behind them, to which of the competing descriptions would it correspond?
The chapter offering this 'short history of the Devil' includes a section on witchcraft. It is salutary to be reminded that the legal persecution of witches is not ancient but dates only from the dying years of the middle ages, and reached its zenith in the seventeenth century – the supposed age of enlightenment – when at least a hundred people were hanged in the East Anglian witch hunt of 1645–47.
Oldridge makes the interesting point that while belief in the Devil, as in the God he opposes, has now become a matter of choice, 'theologians have been more willing to abandon the idea of a personal force behind evil than a personal force behind good'. And among the populace at large, while the horrors of genocide and terrorism are seen as evidence of some massive evil, this is not expressed in terms of the Devil. He speculates that devil-language fails people wanting to articulate their response to evil today, because of the idea – at least as old as Augustine in the fifth century – that evil is essentially negative, the absence of good.
Following the historical overview comes a chapter titled 'The Devil and humankind'. This covers among other things the experience and explanation of temptation, the association of the Devil with the weaknesses of the flesh, and the place of demonic possession and exorcism in the Christian tradition. This last goes back to the foundations of Christianity in the healing ministry of Jesus, an inescapable element of the gospels which even contemporary liberal scholars cannot discount entirely. They may seek psychological explanations for such phenomena, but conservatives like Pope Benedict (who encourages the work of Catholic exorcists) and evangelical pastors exercising violent 'deliverance ministries', still claim scriptural support. A chapter on the depiction of the Devil in art and literature illustrates the way that on the whole it is writers who have been more convincing than artists, since 'lacking a physical body, [Satan] cannot be portrayed truly in corporeal form'.
Turning to the place of 'The Devil today', Oldridge points to a contradictory set of indicators. On the one hand, 'the Devil has not gone away', with a poll in 2005 showing that 60% of Americans believed in the evil one. On the other, despite a return (post 9/11) of the concept of evil to public life, the linking of this 'evil' to demonic forces has been restricted to the American religious right, and 'such views remain outside the mainstream of Western politics and culture'.
The picture is not encouraging. While the Devil is used as a humorous figure by advertisers and continues to be honoured as a grim adversary by religious conservatives, the secular world is deprived of any effective vocabulary to explore and confront human wickedness. Oldridge concludes that, 'It is more often the failure to act than the desire to cause harm that allows innocents to suffer. If the prince of darkness existed, he would surely rejoice that this truth is so easily forgotten.'
Anthony Freeman is a retired priest in the Church of England. His book God in Us was published by SCM Press in 1993.