III. Terminology

The Synoptic gospels contains fifty-three references to "daimonia." Daimonion was originally the Greek word for god and it occurs five times as such in the Iliad. Later on the word came to be used only for intermediary gods and by the time of the gospels its reference had been restricted to evil gods. Thus we may consider it as synonymous with another Greek term which appears twice in Luke, "pneuma ponera" or evil spirit. A third term is used synonymously with these in the gospels: "pneuma akatharta" or unclean spirit. Unclean spirit appears thirteen times in Mark. Matthew and Luke do not use it as often (twice and six times respectively) and John fails to use it at all. Why should a demon be described as unclean? There is little literary precedence for this New Testament term: the Old Testament has only one reference (Zechariah 13:2) and Greek literature does not seem to contain it at all.

Satan, the devil, Beelzebul, the prince of the demons, the prince of the world, the evil one, the tempter, and the enemy: all these words are used more or less interchangeably to designate the chief demon. "Satanas" is not a Greek word as have been the words considered thus far; instead it is Hebrew. It occurs three times in the Old Testament: first in the temptation of King David to number his armies,(6) second in the scene before God in Job (7) and third in a scene of Zechariah.(8) Satan was originally a common noun meaning adversary, but during the course of Jewish literature it be­came restricted to meaning only the chief demon. "Diabolos," based upon the Greek word "to slander" and meaning "the slanderer," is used synonym­ously with Satan in the gospels. This meaning of the word does not appear anywhere in previous Greek literature. "Diaholos" appears six times in Matthew and a like number in Luke, but is absent altogether from Mark, even though Matthew and Luke insert the word into passages paralleling Mark. The King James Version causes some confusion by translating both "diabolos”and “daimonion”as “devil” The Revised Standard Version corrects this by translating "daimonion" as "demon."

Beelzebul is spelled "beelzeboul" in the original Greek of the New Testament and for some reason was mis-translated by the Latin Vulgate into "Beelzebub." The word can be traced back to the Hebrew roots of "Ba' al" (lord) plus "zebul" (house, or alternatively, filth). Apparently it means lord of filth since Jesus seems to be making a pun upon the former in Matthew 10:25.

If they have called the master of the house Beelzebul, how much more will they malign those of his household.
A similar word appears once in the Old Testament (II Kings, first chapter) where King Ahaziah sent to "Baalzebub, the God of Ekron" to see "whether I shall recover of this disease." Here the King James spelling of the transla­tion is correct and means "lord of flies." This is probably the origin of the Vulgate mis-translation of Beelzebul.

The gospel according to John contains three references to "the ruler of this world" (Greek: archon tou kosmou). This term is not used in the synoptic gospels, but it is quite similar to "the prince of demons" (archonti ton daimonion) which we quoted above from Mark.

A problem is raised by the two references of Matthew to "the evil one" as a synonym for Satan. Each occurs in the explanation of a parable about sowing seed:
the evil one [Greek: o poneros] comes and snatches away what is sown in his heart."(9)

the good seed means the sons of the kingdom; the weeds are the sons of the evil one, [Greek: tau ponerau] and the enemy who sowed them is the devil."(10)
The problem is this: These two references are beyond doubt to a personnage corresponding to Satan. In fact the second one includes "diabolos" in the next line, and the first one parallels the words "diabolos" and "satanas," which are used instead in the corresponding passages from Luke and Mark. But how are we to interpret these next two passages from Matthew?
Let what you say be simply "Yes" or "No"; anything more than this comes from evil. [tou ponerau](11)

And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. [Greek: tau ponerau](12)
Is Matthew here speaking about Satan? Or is he purposely avoiding such a personification of evil? The Interpreter's Bible footnotes each passage: "or the evil one." Since Matthew does consider "the evil one" as Satan in previous contexts, we would seem justified in considering it so here. The gospel of John has Jesus speak similar words prior to Gethsemane:
I do not pray that thou shouldst take them out of the world, but that thou shouldst keep them from the evil one. [Greek: tau ponerau](13)
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6. I Chronicles 21: 1.
7. Job 1:6.
8. Zechariah 3:1.
9. Matthew 13: 19.
10. Matthew 13:38.
11. Matthew 5:37.
12. Matthew 6:13.
13. John 17:15.

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