The Origin of Satan by Elaine Pagels Read Free Book Online

objects:

    “How can Satan cast out Satan? If a kingdom is divided against
    itself, that kingdom cannot stand. And if a house is divided
    against itself, that house will not be able to stand. And if Satan
    has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand,
    but is coming to an end. But no one can enter a strong man’s
    house and plunder his goods unless he first binds the strong
    man; then indeed he may plunder his house” (3:23-27).

    According to Mark, it is apparently the “house of Israel” that
    Jesus sees as a divided house, a divided kingdom. Jesus openly
    contends against Satan, who he believes has overtaken God's
    own household, which he has come to purify and reclaim: Jesus
    wants to “bind this enemy” and “plunder his house.”
    As for the scribes’ accusation that Jesus is possessed by the
    “prince of demons,” he throws back upon them the same
    accusation of demon-possession and warns that in saying this
    they are sinning so deeply as to seal their own damnation (3:28-
    30). For, he says, whoever attributes the work of God’s spirit to
    Satan commits the one unforgivable sin:

    “Truly, I say to you, all sins will be forgiven to human beings,
    and whatever blasphemies they utter; but whoever
    blasphemes against the holy spirit is never forgiven, but is
    guilty of an eternal sin”—because they said, “He is possessed
    by an evil spirit” (3:28-30).
    THE GOSPEL OF MARK AND THE JEWISH WAR / 21

    Mark deliberately places these scenes of Jesus’ conflict with
    the scribes between two episodes depicting Jesus’ conflict with
    his own family. Immediately after this, the Greek text of Mark
    says that members of the family, who had previously declared
    him insane and had tried to seize him (3:21), now come to the
    house where he is addressing a large crowd and ask to see him.
    Jesus repudiates them:

    And his mother and brothers came, and standing outside they
    sent to him, and called him. And a crowd was sitting about
    him, and they said to him, “Your mother and your brothers are
    outside, asking for you.” And looking around at those who sat
    around him, he said, “Here are my mother and brothers! For
    whoever does the will of God is my brother, and sister, and
    mother” (3:31-35).

    Having formed a new family, and having appointed twelve
    new leaders for Israel to replace the old ones, Jesus has, Mark
    suggests, “re-formed God's people.” From this point on, Jesus
    sharply discriminates between those he has chosen, the inner
    circle, and “those outside.” He still draws enormous crowds, but
    while teaching them, he offers riddling parables, deliberately
    concealing his full meaning from all but his intimates:

    Again he began to teach beside the sea. And a very large crowd
    gathered about him . . . and he taught them many things in
    parables. . . . And when he was alone, those who were around
    him with the twelve asked him about the parables. And he said
    to them, “ To you has been given the secret of the Kingdom of
    God, but for those outside everything is in parables; so that they
    may indeed see but not perceive; and they may hear but not
    understand; lest they should turn again, and be forgiven ” (4:1-
    12, emphasis added).

    Although he often criticizes the disciples—in 8:33 he even
    accuses Peter of playing Satan’s role—Jesus shares secrets with
    them that he hides from outsiders, for the latter, he says, quoting
    Isaiah, are afflicted with impenetrable spiritual blindness.27
    22 / THE ORIGIN OF SATAN

    Criticized by the Pharisees and the Jerusalem scribes for not
    living “according to the traditions of the elders” because he and
    his disciples eat without washing their hands, Jesus, instead of
    defending his action, attacks his critics as “hypocrites” and
    charges that they value their own traditions while breaking
    God’s commandments. Then he publicly calls into question the
    kosher laws themselves—again explaining his meaning to his
    disciples