Sacred Origins of Profound Things, page 40
Another theologian suggested that the infertile couple copulate just before they leave their front door for the doctor’s office. The physician would then spoon out a sample of sperm from the wife’s vaginal tract. This appealed to the pope, but not to doctors.
Rome opted for the idea of a couple using a mildly perforated condom. The man slips on a condom that he’s first punctured with needle holes. The presence of holes allows for the possibility of conception, hence fulfilling the theological imperative. After this trick sex act, the husband carefully slips off the condom with its residual sperm and rushes it to the doctor’s lab. Thus, no sin is committed.
HOW-TO
The rules for annulments are made in Rome, though marriage tribunals exist in every major diocese. Some dioceses are strict in granting annulments; others are favored for their laxity. A few marriage cases are so conceptually difficult that Rome is consulted, and there may even be a solemn ecclesiastical trial. But this is rare these days. Most of the time, local bishops have the power to annul and use it.
The cost for an annulment is coming down as the volume of cases goes up; in the United States, annulments now cost less than civil divorces. No lawyer is needed. The process takes six to eighteen months; two years if the case is tricky. The forms one must file can be found in many parish rectories.
Indeed, annulments have come to look very much like divorces by a different name. Given the multiplicity of grounds on which to base an annulment, tribunal officials have hinted that any broken marriage, if sufficiently scrutinized, can be rendered null and void.
It’s been reported that some clever couples (perhaps too clever)—most notably in the Catholic countries of Spain and Italy—write and notarize letters before their wedding, declaring their insincerity to spend a lifetime together. These pieces of paper can then be pulled out of mothballs and mailed to the Roman Rota when times get tough and one party, or both, wants out. The grounds: “intention against indissolubility.” The certain verdict: free to remarry.
are the children of annulled marriages bastards? Technically, yes. No marriage ever existed.
But that answer is inadequate. Unfair. And unappealing. Decades ago, Church canon law came up with a humane solution. The children of an annulled marriage are legitimate as long as one parent entered into the marriage with sincerity and without impediment. Thus, a wife, for instance, who has children, then later discovers her husband is a homosexual and gets an annulment, legitimizes her kids through her honesty and good intentions.
HOW HARD IS IT TO PROVE THAT A SPOUSE SUFFERS FROM PSYCHOLOGICAL PROBLEMS?
The presumption of law favors the validity of a couple’s marriage. Hence, as mentioned, the burden of proof rests on the spouse who impugns that validity. At least in theory.
“Psychological cases,” writes Joseph Zwack, “rely heavily on testimony from psychological experts.” Just as in a criminal trial, the two parties might well present experts in the same field who espouse antithetical points of view.
At a civil trial, the defense may cross-examine the prosecution’s witnesses, and vice versa. Not so in a tribunal case. “If an expert says that one of the parties was incapable of making or keeping a marriage vow,” writes Zwack, “the Tribunal is unlikely to question his or her opinion. That opinion, when received as evidence in the annulment case, becomes nearly unchallengeable proof of an invalid union.”
As mentioned, in 1992, U.S. tribunals granted 59,030 civilly divorced couples annulments. The breakdown of reasons was: 39,753 for “invalid consent,” 4 for “impotency,” 15,944 for “defect of form” (e.g., the newly-weds-to-be were not counseled by a priest), 3,329 for “other impediments” (e.g., emotional immaturity).
The harsh truth is that the Roman Catholic Church does indeed grant divorces, but since historically it has taken such an absolute stand against divorce, it is now forced to call its divorces annulments.
PART
IX
Extraordinary
Evil
CHAPTER
23
Satan
Lucifer to Genies
BEELZEBUB. DEVIL. Lucifer. Baal. Prince of Darkness. Evil One. Enemy of God. Tempter of Eve. Abaddon. Apollyon. Mephistopheles. Antichrist.
He is the Western world’s most powerful symbol of evil. He answers to many chilling names and incantations, seeds our darkest private thoughts, and he’s sufficiently sly to slip into something sexy when appropriate.
To the pure and virginal Eve at Eden, Satan slithered up in the phallic guise of a serpent. And was irresistible. To celibate medieval monks, Satan appeared as the apparition of a seductive buck-naked wench.
Sex and the Devil have always gone hand in hand.
Sex is the Devil in early Christian teachings.
Surprisingly, Satan as God’s archenemy, a fallen archangel hell-bent on destroying Creation, first surfaces in the New Testament, late in religious history. The Satan we fear is a Christian construct.
Satan’s origins are revealed in the evolution of his various names—from the luminous “Lucifer” to his cryptic calling card “666,” the area code of Hell.
The story begins in Heaven.
LUCIFER: CHRISTENDOM, FIRST CENTURY C.E.
Lucifer is the name Christians, late in the first century C.E., conferred on Satan prior to the archangel’s fall from the celestial sphere, when he was still a glorious white-robed, feather-winged splendor in God’s good graces.
The word “Lucifer,” though, was not always associated with images of disobedience and wrongdoing.
In classical mythology, Lucifer is the bright Morning Star, the visible planet Venus that glows above the horizon in the eastern predawn sky. Personified as a muscular male bearing a lighted torch, Lucifer has scant legend associated with his lustrous name; merely the poetic connotation that he heralds daybreak.
Lucifer beginning to reign over the souls of sinners.
Indeed, his name proclaims “light-bearer,” from the Latin lux, “light” + ferre, “to bear.”
How did Christians come to stigmatize the name “Lucifer”?
MIXING METAPHORS. The Christian origin of Lucifer comes from combining two biblical lines, written nine centuries apart, on the surface having nothing to do with each other:
“I beheld Satan fall as lightning from heaven” (Luke 10:18).
“How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning!” (Isa. 14:12).
Luke, writing in 65 C.E., is reporting Jesus’ comment on the fallen archangel’s blinding luminosity. Christians in Luke’s day already believed in the heavenly war waged between obedient and defiant angels.
Isaiah, writing in the eighth century B.C.E., metaphorically used “Lucifer” (he actually used the Hebrew word helel, meaning “Shining One” or “Morning Star”) as sarcastic contempt for the mighty Babylonian monarchy that recently had fallen, vanished as does Venus from the daytime sky.
In translating the Hebrew Bible into the Latin Vulgate, the language in which Christians read their Scripture, helel was rendered as “Lucifer.” Isaiah’s metaphorical usage of the Morning Star was read by Christians as the fall of the disobedient archangel.
Revelation is rich and allows for more than one interpretation. Church fathers later saw in Isaiah’s statement a prefigurement to Jesus’ comment (in Luke) on Satan. Maybe Isaiah was sarcastically poking fun at the fallen Babylon, but the Holy Spirit, through divine revelation, had packed the prophet’s line with double intent: the literal meaning of words, and the figurative puzzle of prophecy. So Church fathers said.
FRICTION MATCH. The Hebrew word helel, “Shining One,” gives us two origins. Translated in Latin Bibles as “Lucifer,” it gave Christians a proper name for God’s disobedient archangel.
In Greek Bibles, helel was translated as Phosphoros, the name of the Morning Star in Greek mythology. Centuries later, in 1680, British physicist Robert Boyle discovered a new element that ignited from friction and he named it “phosphorus.” When smeared on the end of a small splinter of wood and scratched, it produced the first friction match, which was called a “Lucifer.” A modern-day light-bearer.
MILTON’S PARADISE LOST: ENGLAND, SEVENTEENTH CENTURY
The appellation “Lucifer” gained wide popularity in the Middle Ages, and achieved literary status in John Milton’s Paradise Lost.
In Milton’s masterpiece, one-third of the heavenly host of angels assemble under Satan’s banner for a three-day battle before they are defeated and flung into Hell—where Satan resolves to build a new, alternative empire. Hence, Satan is the first empire builder, the first imperialist.
Arrogantly, the fallen archangel embraces his brave new world with Milton’s meter: “Better to reign in hell, than serve in heaven.”
In leaving Heaven, Satan becomes the first explorer: “Farewell happy fields / Where joy forever dwells; hail horrors, hail / Infernal world, and thou profoundest hell / Receive thy new possessor.”
For Milton, Satan was the archetypical antihero.
Traditionally, Satan’s sin, the cause of his expulsion from Heaven, is said to be pride, chief among the deadly sins. Today, Satan’s sin would be called rebellion, or political ambition, for he dared to question authority, claiming equality with his superior.
The cliché “as proud as Lucifer” is two thousand years old and denotes the haughty pride that precedes an almost certain comeuppance.
BEELZEBUB: NEAR EAST, PRE-SIXTH CENTURY B.C.E.
“Go, enquire of Baal’zebub, the god of Ekron, whether I shall recover of this disease” (2 Kings 1:2).
The speaker is the king of Ahaziah, who’s fallen mysteriously ill, and he’s dispatching a messenger.
The unknown author of 2 Kings, probably a Jewish prophet in Babylon during the sixth century B.C.E. Exile, does not use Baal’zebub in reference to Satan; it’s merely the title of the Phoenician pagan god at Ekron.
The Hebrew phrase Baal’ zebub literally means “god of flies,” or “lord of dung.” (It’s a corruption of the older Baal’zebul.) Among several Semitic peoples, Baal was a fertility god, who in some cultures accepted the sacrifice of children to ensure a bounty of more children. A firstborn was burnt as an offering to Baal so the parents could be assured a large family.
The early Israelites, scorning idolatry and human sacrifice, linked the name “Baal”—which at an earlier time may have meant “Master of the heavenly house”—with the word “dung” to create a nasty slur, which they hurled at their enemies, and at unbelievers.
Both the Greeks and the Romans adopted “Beelzebub” to characterize a master of evil.
Christians identified Beelzebub with Satan on the basis of three virtually identical passages from the Synoptic Gospels of Mark (c. 60 C.E.), Luke (c. 65 C.E.), and Matthew (c. 65–75 C.E.); called Synoptic because they provide similar synopses of Christ’s life. (John, c. 95 C.E., offers a different perspective.) One passage suffices:
He has Beelzebub, and by the prince of the devils he casts out devils. (Mark 3:22)
The generic word “devil” is from the Greek diabolos, meaning “slanderer.”
Beelzebub, literally, “god of flies.”
ISRAELITE SATAN: PRE-SIXTH CENTURY B.C.E.
satan. Satan.
The first word was known to the early Jews, but not the second.
The Hebrew noun satan means merely “enemy,” and as a verb it means “to plot against.” Nothing more sinister than that. Both the noun and verb are scattered thorough Hebrew Scriptures with these relatively benign connotations.
The noun satan is believed to have evolved from an older verb infinitive liston, meaning “to oppose or obstruct.”
Almost nowhere in the Hebrew Bible is the word satan used as a proper name referring to a demonic being, or to God’s archrival.
Rather, in Hebrew Scriptures, satan refers to: (1) any human who plays the role of accuser or enemy, (2) a divine messenger sent to earth to stir up trouble, (3) legitimate members of God’s heavenly court who object to his decisions, such as the appointment of Joshua as chief priest.
It should not be surprising that the ancient Israelites recognized no single archenemy of God who dwelt in the netherworld, for as a people they had yet to articulate a clear concept of Hell. (See Hell.)
Nor did the ancient Israelites need a Satan to dispatch plagues, pestilence, famine, and heartache; their God of Abraham, a wrathful Lord, worked all this on his own.
For the Hebrew people, not until around the third century B.C.E. does a character emerge as the archvillain of Yahweh and humankind. However, even then, figures variously named vie for the notoriety: Mastemah, Semyaz, Beliyaal, the Devil.
JEWISH SATAN: BOOK OF ZECHARIAH, C. 520 B.C.E.
As an appellation of a particular angel, a legal prosecutor in God’s celestial court, Satan first appears around 520 B.C.E. in the Book of Zechariah:
The Lord rebukes thee, O Satan; even the Lord that has chosen Jerusalem rebukes thee. (Zech. 3:2)
God and the angel Satan are deep in disagreement, but are not yet archad-versaries.
Next, Satan as a particular angel appears in the Book of Job (1,2), but here he is merely a divine troublemaker who questions Job’s integrity and suggests God torturously test the prophet. Nonetheless, Satan is clearly subordinate to God, unable to act without God’s permission, and a member-in-good-standing in the celestial court: bene ha-elohim, “one of God’s own.”
In 1 Chronicles 21:1, Satan appears as a proper name. Satan is said to incite King David to take a census of Israel, which results in the death of seventy thousand Israelites. Hebrew scholars say that the term “Satan” was a later substitution for the phrase “the Lord,” who played a part in the massacre. In other words, to theologically clean up the wrathful God’s image, Satan was made to take the rap.
Here we see the beginnings of the polarization that was to come: God will be all-good; Satan will be all-evil. It’s called dualism.
SATAN GETS WICKED DURING THE EXILE:
BABYLON, 586 TO 539 B.C.E.
The Jews, during their traumatic sixth-century B.C.E. Exile in Babylon, came under the influence of “Persian dualism”—belief in the continuous battle between the forces of good and evil. Persian philosophers summed up the never-ending war with two archetypes:
• Ahriman, the Destructive Spirit and Fiend hell-bent on defiling Creation, and
• Ormazd, or Virtuous Man, who is isolated, alone, frightened, and forever struggling to remain righteous.
The chief Persian philosopher, Zoroaster, taught that a divine being could never do evil. Evil and good are disparate concepts. Oil and water. The two never mix. Evil flows solely from an inherently polluted source.
The troubled Jews listened and learned. God, they heard, cannot be vicious, vindictive, vengeful. God does not cause plagues, earthquakes, and torment for mankind. Someone fundamentally villainous does these wicked things—and does them with pleasure.
The Jews in Exile took this Persian dualism to heart. Their God was good. That’s undoubtedly why some Jewish scribe went back to the massacre scene in 1 Chronicles 21:1–14 and deleted “the Lord,” substituting “Satan.” O, wicked Satan!
Compare 2 Samuel 24:1, where God incites King David to take a census of the people with the later 1 Chronicles 21:1, where the king is provoked by Satan:
Satan, from a fifteenth-century manuscript.
The anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and he moved David against them to say, Go number Israel. (2 Sam. 24:1)
And Satan rose up against Israel, and provoked David to number Israel. (1 Chron. 21:1)
We may never know how much revision of this sort was done, but in a short time all evil doings were attributed to Satan. In the later Jewish Talmud, a collection of civil and religious laws, Satan assumes a much larger role. He incites humans to disobey the will of God.
Thus, satan, “an adversary,” had evolved into Satan, God’s archenemy and humankind’s chief tempter.
Christians adored dualism. Good/bad. Black/white. Virtue/sin. God/Satan. Celibacy/sex. It would become the basis for their early theology.
Indeed, Christian writers would eventually thumb back to the early pages of Genesis and recognize in the nameless serpent “more cunning than any beast of the field,” the one who destroyed Paradise for everyone: Satan.
CHRISTIAN SATAN: NEW TESTAMENT, FIRST CENTURY C.E.
In the New Testament, Satan truly blooms into his unique function as the Evildoer—if not yet into his singular form as horned, hairy, and cloven-hoofed, with trident in hand. That imagery would come after the inventory of his duties.
Saint Paul, writing about two decades after Christ’s death, nails down the dualist view that had been emerging in late Old Testament writings. We are told that God’s forces are clothed in an “armor of light,” whereas Satan rules “the dominion of darkness.” Dualism: light/dark. Cool/hot. Above/below. In other words, Heaven/Hell.
Clearly the villain of Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and the Book of Revelation is Satan, God’s chief adversary, the personification of evil. The Devil, we’re told, can imitate an “angel of light” and command the air, or troll the earth as a fire-breathing “dragon.” This last image derives from ancient myths of the Near East in which gigantic primordial beasts wreak havoc on Creation. Satan is:
• Author of all evil (Luke 10:19).
• Personal tempter of Jesus Christ (Matt. 4).
• “That old serpent who is called the devil” (Rev. 12:9).
Jews who refuse to accept Christ as the Messiah are referred to as “the synagogue of Satan” (Rev. 2:9, 3:9).
In the Middle Ages, the Church used New Testament passages such as “Ye are of your father and the devil” (John 8:44) to propound the doctrine that Jews were the “spawn of Satan,” possessing even his repulsive visage. Regarded as less than human beings—as sorcerers, magicians, and evildoers—Jews were persecuted because in rejecting Christ, they’d sided with Satan.
