Pynchon, Dante and Divine Light

[Tim Strzechowski]

"Satan" is the Hebrew word for "adversary," and since the Book of Job 
employs the use of this Adversary ("in Hebrew Scriptures, an angel whose 
task is to roam the earth and expose human wrongdoing," according to Alter 
and Kermode) as he deals with God over whether Job will curse God, the 
Hebrew word for that character became equated as the name of that character. 
Hence, calling that character "Satan" begins with Job.

Elaine Pagels, in _The Origins of Satan_, does an excellent job of examining 
how the character we have come to call "Satan" was really thanks to the four 
writers whose gospels of Jesus would become part of the NT canon (Mark, 
Matthew, Luke, and John).  She explains how each writer engaged in a form of 
propaganda literature in his effort to promote the changes to Jewish 
tradition proposed by the prophet Jesus.  Gradually, over the hundred or so 
years that span the writing of those four Gospels, "Satan" becomes no longer 
a vague literary device but a specific character, an embodiment of the 
"Other" to which Jewish tradition is alligned.

And in _The Satanic Epic_, Neil Forsyth writes:

"The apocalyptic tendancy to use the combat myth to polarize moal issues 
into black and white opposites, and so to demonize 'the Other,' even those 
like the Jerusalem Jews who are closest to oneself, was especially strong 
among the first Christians, but in the process that led to the invention of 
the Satan figure the tendancy was carried one step further.  It was 
customary that the enemy figures in the myths have personal names [...] the 
bright rebel of Near Eastern tradition, who appears in various forms as 
Athtar, Phaethon, or Helel, the harbinger of Dawn, eventually becomes 
Lucifer (light-bearer) in Jerome's Latin Bible" (p.36).


Robert Alter and Frank Kermode, _The Literary Guide To The Bible_.  Harvard 
U Press: Cambridge, 1987.

Elaine Pagels, _The Origin of Satan_.  New York: Vintage, 1995.

Neil Forsyth, _The Satanic Epic_.  Princeton U Press, 2003.

Also, see Gerald Messadie, _A History of the Devil_.  Kodansha: New York, 
1996.



> Hi David, just check your Dante!
> Wasn't Lucifer an archangel, bringer of light indeed, before he  failed 
> and was punished by god, fell from the sky and dived into the  abyss of 
> Inferno? His fall created Inferno inside the Earth (that's  how Hugo  puts 
> it in long and crazy poem called The End of Satan).
> Dante (Virgile) calls him "vermo reo che 'l mondo fòra" (horrible  worm 
> which drills/digs? the world), XXXIV, 108.
> I can't spend much time finding other sources, but this one might  help 
> you!