III. Jesus Struggles with Evil

There are probably a great number of theological rationalizations for the lines in Luke which state that Satan departed from Jesus "for a season." (Revised Standard Version: "until an opportune time.") It is to be noted that Matthew's parallel account contains no such phrase. This is a curious inconsistency. On the one hand we are presented with what is apparently an allegory to illustrate Jesus conquering Satan; on the other hand we are told that the victory was not complete. If one is going to make use of such allegory, why not make a definite statement, instead of leaving the most important question unanswered as does Luke? Matthew, of course, has no such trouble; Satan seems irrevocably vanquished. There is no manuscript disagreement on either passage. All the manuscripts of Luke contain "for a season," and all the manuscripts of Matthew omit this. This difference is a good starting point for a speculation that Jesus was perpetually haunted by Satan.

Jesus is often accused by his enemies (and even by "his friends" in Mark 3:21) of having a demon. We have quoted two such references under the question (2) and can add to these such passages as John 8:48 and Matthew 10:25. Jesus' apparent possession by demons and his continual struggle with Satan, seem to be related. But are they? Demons and Satan cannot be used synonymously. At times the Jews related the two by considering Satan as the ruler over the kingdom of the demons, and at times it even seems that one can be possessed by Satan himself (for example, Judas). But are the two types of possession identical? Possession by demons produces an illness or madness as such, whereas possession by Satan produces a calculatingly malicious action. The two are related by the idea that the physical and mental illness caused by demon possession is the punishment for the evil committed under the influence of Satan. (For example, the terrible and unnatural death of Judas seems to follow from his betrayal of Jesus at the behest of Satan.)(14)

At this point let us digress and consider "madness" in general, one form of which is now called psychoneurosis. One of the great authorities on the psychoanalytic theory of neurosis, Otto Fenichel, makes the following "Initial Essay at a Definition of Neurosis";

Thus we have in psychoneuroses, first a defense of the ego against an instinct, then a conflict between the instinct striving for discharge and the defensive forces of the ego, then a state of damming up, and finally the neurotic symptoms wbich are distorted discharges as a consequence of the state of damming up-a compromise between the opposing forces.(15)
Let us pay special attention to the use of the word "defense" in this quotation. There is nothing pathological about defense as such; in fact psychoanalytic theory tends to attribute most of what we call valuable character traits to the action of defense mechanisms such as repression, sublimation, identification, etc. But what happens if an inappropriate defense is used against a seemingly dangerous impulse? And what happens if such a defense mechanism fails at a critical time? These last two questions are very essential to the thesis of this paper. So far we have been considering evil spirits as the projection of evil impulses; there is no reason to consider such projection as pathological. Where, then, is the conflict of which Fenichel speaks? There is no conflict if a defense is successful. It is only when such a defense mechanism as projection or repression fails and the original impulse threatens to break through, that the neurotic symptom results.

It is time for the bombshell of our speculation. Perhaps Jesus repressed as a child a basic and extremely dangerous evil impulse. (This is not to say a thought in the instantaneous sense, but instead a thought which would have recurred many times in a certain context of life were it not repressed.) And that for some unknown reason, at the age of thirty, this repression weakened; the defense mechanism failed. In order to protect against the impulse, his mind would have resorted to a second defense mechanism: in this case projection. Thus Jesus' evil was projected onto an external world of demons. But instead of projecting the exact, appropriate evil impulse onto the outer world, which would have rendered it so obvious that the evil would have become consciously apparent, he projected various other forms of evil in place of it, or as distorted images of it, one might say. This is the answer which we promised to provide for the question about the apparent arbitrariness and lack of motivation for the forms of badness projected onto evil spirits.

The ideas of Jesus about the nature of demons fit in well with those of his contemporaries. Jesus found in the demonology of his time an appropriate outlet for his evil impulses; this was why he chose the defense mechanism which he did. The chief difference between the demonology of Jesus and that of his contemporaries lay not in the nature of demon characteristics, but in the extraordinary emotional intensity with which Jesus considered and acted upon these beliefs-just as if they were playing a part in a much more fundamental and personal conflict.

We have given unorthodox answers to the first two questions. Instead of discounting the statements of Luke and of the "friends" and enemies of Jesus, that he was often tempted by Satan or that he was possessed by demons, we have tended to agree with them. Our views will be justified if they can elucidate some old problems in a new way.

Question (3) concerns one of the most controversial of all Bible verses. The Interpreter's Bible notes that it "has given rise to endless speculation regarding 'the unforgivable sin'."(16) The statement is so unlike the ordinary forgiving attitude of Jesus that the King James translators took it upon themselves to modify the words "guilty of eternal sin" (RSV) into "in danger of eternal damnation." Why should Jesus react in a manner so unlike himself, as if he had lost his temper? He seems to have been thrown off balance by the words preceding his curse, the accusation that he was possessed by "an unclean spirit." The truth_hurts!_Or are we being unfair? Actually Jesus was not at all what one could call an "evil" man. On the contrary, he led a most righteous life. But it seems that, at least unconsciously, he thought himself quite evil.

Jesus is so disturbed during the Last Supper and at Gethsemane afterwards that he resembles a neurotic under extreme anxiety. All four accounts of this event indicate that he was struggling with evil. In Mark, the original gospel, Jesus says "My soul is exceeding sorrowful unto death." And he warns Peter to "Watch ye and pray, lest ye enter into temptation." Matthew echoes both these verses of Mark. Luke not only has Jesus warn the disciples of temptation twice instead of once, but he also elaborates Jesus' agony with the description of his sweating blood. Luke also adds the words warning Peter that Satan desires him, and indicates that Jesus, as well as Peter, has been wrestling with Satan:
When I was with you day after day in the temple, you did not lay hands on me. But this is your hour, and the power of darkness.(17)
And the gospel of John contains a long section in which Jesus prays that the disciples should be delivered from temptation.

Why was Jesus so anxious? We are not yet in a position to fully answer this question. Why do the authors of all four gospels (an unusually complete agreement) cite Jesus as warning the disciples to beware of temptation? This question we can answer. Jesus was projecting his own internal conflict onto his disciples. One need not read Freud to understand this.

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14. Luke 22:3.
15. Fenichel, p. 20.
16. The Interpreter's Bible, of. cit., p. 692.
17. Luke 22:53.

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