The Prince of Darkness

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This is a wonderfully literate and engaging survey of the history and literature surrounding Satan. The author, Jeffrey Burton Russell,

Russell begins with a survey of the idea of evil and the earliest understanding of evil as a force or power that opposed its contradictory power of good. This binary division of good from evil provided a neat explanation of why there was evil in the world. Unfortunately, this explanation did not fit into the monotheistic position that there was one all-powerful God who was also all-good. Fitting evil, and its prototype, the Devil, into such a worldview is something that has engaged the western world for the last three millennia.

Russell follows the trail of the Devil and evil from Mazdaism through Judaism and into Christianity. Russell's narrative is constantly interesting and informative. Russell provided the single best discussion of Origen's theology concerning universal redemption and the redemption of the demons that I have heard. Unlike some reviewer's I found that Russell was extremely even-handed when dealing with non-Christian belief systems.

I particularly liked his development of the Devil in modernity. His discussion of Milton, Goethe and Flannery O'Connor were sufficiently captivating that I intend to listen to Milton's Paradise Lost on the grounds that it is a foundational piece of the Western literary tradition that I have overlooked.

This is a good survey that provides some depth. As a survey, it covers a lot of territory in a quick and fascinating way.