XPost: alt.christnet.theology, alt.christnet.demonology, alt.religion
XPost: alt.religion.christianity, alt.christnet.satanism
From: hayesstw@telkomsa.net
On Tue, 21 Aug 2018 09:52:34 -0700, Paul S Person
wrote:
>On Tue, 21 Aug 2018 03:19:42 +0200, Steve Hayes
> wrote:
>>Aye, but the original source material is what you would need to
>>consider if you were trying to find out whether Satanism preceded
>>Christianity.
>
>It occurred to me that I don't know what you are actually looking for:
Well the original question on Quora was "did Satanism predate
Christianity?"
And my answer was No, I thought it onlt appeared about the
Renaissance, and wasn't aware of any evidedence before that,
So my question here was whether anyone was aware of any evidence for
Satanisn before the Renaissance.
>1. If by "Satanism" you literally mean "worship of Satan", as opposed
>to The Devil, Lucifer, Belial, Belias, Malebolgia, and so on, you may
>have a /very/ hard time deciding the issue.
Well, as Satan and the Devil are basically the same character, I don't
think ti would make much difference.
>2. Just because some ancient author /says/ so-and-so worshipped Satan
>doesn't mean they actually did. And finding documentary evidence for
>/actual/ Satanism may not be easy: not only would any documents have
>most likely been burned by the Church (or scraped clean and reused by
>the Monks), but it is not clear that there would be any to begin with.
But even knowing that some ancient autgher said it would mean that the
concept was there
>3. Witches may not be the best choice for this. For one thing, the
>only witch we see in action in the OT is clearly a spiritualist
>clairvoyant conducting a seance. For another, women who identified as
>witches in the Middle Ages may have started worshipping Satan only
>after the Church asserted that that is what witches do.
But as I said originally, it was the church asserting that witches did
it was what gave satanists the idea.
>
>4. A better choice might be astrologers/alchemists/occultists -- the
>guys said to have drawn pentacles (either to stand in for safety or to
>keep the demon safely contained) and summoned demons. /They/ might
>have worshipped Satan as the master of the demons and so perfectly
>placed to order one to appear when summoned.
Again, whjat I said oruiginally -- that Satanism emerged in the same
circles as alchemy and ritual magic.
>5. OTOH, there is a tradition in the Bible of regarding pagan deities
>as demons. (This is, of course, separate from the tradition of
>regarding them as nothing whatsoever apart from the idol itself.) It
>is possible that one or another of the Greek/Roman gods was identified
>with Satan, either in pre-Christian or early Christian times. So, if
>you are looking more for when the /concept/ of Satanism arose (that
>is, when "others" were said to worship Satan) rather than the
>/actuality/ of Satanism, it may turn out to have been very early
>indeed.
Well yes, there was a pagan tradition of demons being indferior
deities, and Christians saw worshipping such creaatures as idolatry,
and any such creature that accepted such worship must have gone over
to the dark side, which is how demons got their bad reputation among
Christians.
>All of which has, no doubt, already occurred to you.
Aye, but running over the main points again helps to clarify one's
thoughts.
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