Mastema: When Hostility Gets a Name

Speaker 10:28

Relax. And welcome to Southern Demonology, the podcast that explores all of this and more. Welcome to <span data-t="40.

3">Southern Demonology. As always, I am your friendly neighborhood, ancient demonologist JJ. For the last episode, we <span data-t="49.

2">finally tackled a question that probably should have been addressed much earlier in the life of a podcast <span data-t="55.

9">with the word demonology right there in the title. Mainly, what exactly is a demon? And as is <span data-t="64.

6">usually the case whenever we deal with ancient religion, what seemed like an easy question became less and <span data-t="71.

8">less easy the further backward we went. We started in ancient Mesopotamia, where harmful supernatural beings were <span data-t="80.

7">certainly nothing new. There were spirits associated with disease, destructive winds, restless ghosts, and all manner of <span data-t="91.

0">other powers that an ancient person would very much prefer not to encounter. But what we did not <span data-t="98.

9">find was a single, clean category equivalent to what most of us mean today when we use the <span data-t="106.

2">word demon. A supernatural being could be hostile toward humanity without therefore belonging to some organized cosmic <span data-t="115.

0">kingdom of evil. A spirit might cause illness and yet remain part of the same supernatural order <span data-t="122.

6">governed by the gods. A destructive entity did not have to be a rebel against creation itself, <span data-t="130.

7">which is a distinction that becomes extremely important once we move forward into the world of Second <span data-t="137.

1">Temple Judaism. From there, we looked at older material in the Hebrew Bible, where the same basic <span data-t="144.

7">caution has to apply. The harmful spirit that afflicts Saul and the lying spirit from the Heavenly <span data-t="151.

8">Council in 1 Kings cannot simply be lumped together with the demonology we encounter centuries later. Their <span data-t="160.

5">historical setting and theological function are different, and in both cases, the harmful supernatural agency remains <span data-t="169.

8">inside divine sovereignty rather than belonging to an independent kingdom of evil. Only after moving into the <span data-t="178.

6">Second Temple period did the supernatural map begin looking much more familiar to us. As Jewish thought <span data-t="187.

8">developed within the Persian and then Hellenistic worlds, increasingly dualistic ways of organizing supernatural beings came <span data-t="199.

4">to the foreground. Spirits were not merely being evaluated according to whether they helped or harmed humanity. <span data-t="210.

1">They could now be increasingly understood according to the cosmic side to which they belonged. That does <span data-t="219.

3">not mean every Jewish writer suddenly agreed upon one perfectly organized demonology. Because if there is one <span data-t="228.

3">thing Second Temple Jewish literature will cure you of very quickly, it is the expectation that everyone <span data-t="236.

6">should agree. But evil was becoming more organized. And in the Book of the Watchers, one enormously <span data-t="244.

5">influential tradition gave an explanation for where at least some of those evil spirits came from. The <span data-t="251.

9">Watchers descend from heaven, violate the boundary between the heavenly and earthly realms, take human women, and <span data-t="261.

4">produce giant offspring. The giants are eventually destroyed, but their spirits remain upon the earth where they <span data-t="270.

0">become hostile spirits that afflict humanity. That gives us one origin story for demons. But it immediately <span data-t="278.

9">creates another question. If these spirits survive the flood and continue attacking humanity, are they simply roaming <span data-t="287.

8">around independently, or does anyone actually rule them? And this is where we meet one of my <span data-t="294.

1">favorite figures in the entire corpus of Second Temple literature. Mastema. Although, as with Satan, we need <span data-t="303.

0">to begin with a warning. Mastema was not originally a name. The Hebrew word mastema means something <span data-t="311.

3">much closer to hostility, enmity, or opposition, and it appears in the Hebrew Bible without referring to <span data-t="319.

6">a supernatural individual at all. Hosea uses the term as a common noun, and there is nothing <span data-t="327.

2">there requiring us to imagine some demonic prince standing behind it. That is important because one of <span data-t="335.

1">the most fascinating things about ancient demonology is watching abstractions gradually acquire personalities. We have seen <span data-t="347.

2">this process before. A word describes a function. A function becomes associated with supernatural activity. That <span data-t="357.

8">supernatural activity becomes personified. And eventually something that began as an abstract concept walks onto the stage <span data-t="368.

0">as a character with motives, authority, and a proper name. The dictionary of deities and demons in <span data-t="376.

4">the Bible suggests that this may be part of what happened with Mastema. The process is comparable <span data-t="384.

8">to other supernatural names in which an idea or destructive power gradually becomes personalized until the word <span data-t="394.

0">itself functions as the name of the being associated with it. And if you think about it, that <span data-t="400.

0">makes mastama's eventual role in Jubilees almost poetically appropriate. Hostility becomes a person, not merely someone who <span data-t="411.

2">happens to be hostile, but hostility itself given supernatural agency. The evidence from Qumran shows us that <span data-t="420.

8">this transition was not necessarily clean or complete. The word mastama can still refer simply to hostility <span data-t="431.

5">or hostile activity, while other texts speak about an angel of hostility and even plural angels associated <span data-t="440.

6">with hostilities. Sometimes the term appears in connection with Belial, whom we are going to spend quite <span data-t="448.

1">a bit of time with in the next episode. So when we meet Mastema in Jubilees, we should <span data-t="455.

1">not imagine that every earlier appearance of the word was secretly referring to the same person in disguise.

Ancient demonology does not work nearly that neatly. And thank goodness for that, because otherwise I <span data-t="470.

9">would have run out of podcast material years ago. What we instead have is a developing supernatural <span data-t="477.

9">vocabulary in which titles, functions, names, and characters overlap with one another. One author might emphasize Belial, <span data-t="492.

1">another, Satan, another, Mastama, while still another might focus on Azazel or some different supernatural antagonist entirely.

These figures can share functions without being identical. That last point is going to become extremely <span data-t="512.

8">important because Mastema looks very much like Satan in several places in Jubilees. But simply saying that <span data-t="522.

8">Mastema equals Satan and calling it a day strips away most of what makes him interesting. To <span data-t="531.

1">understand why, we need to talk about the book in which he really comes alive. The Book of <span data-t="537.

6">Jubilees is one of those Second Temple works that I find endlessly fascinating because it takes biblical <span data-t="548.

2">history and essentially says there are some things here that require explanation. And then it proceeds to <span data-t="557.

0">explain them. Sometimes very enthusiastically, Jubilees retells Genesis and the early part of Exodus while expanding the <span data-t="568.

0">stories, inserting additional traditions, resolving perceived problems, and placing enormous emphasis upon covenant, purity, chronology, festivals, <span data-t="581.

7">and obedience to the law. The entire work presents itself as revelation given to Moses at Sinai, <span data-t="590.

0">which gives the author the perfect framework for saying that the stories people already knew contained much <span data-t="597.

5">more beneath the surface than the biblical text itself explicitly revealed. And one of the things hiding <span data-t="605.

9">beneath that surface, according to Jubilees, is supernatural hostility. That brings us back to Noah. The Book <span data-t="614.

8">of Watchers had explained that the spirits of the dead giants remained upon the earth after the <span data-t="621.

4">destruction of their physical bodies. Jubilees inherits this tradition, but once again it does not merely copy it.

The book reshapes the Watcher narrative in its own way, even presenting the original descent of <span data-t="637.

5">the Watchers as having a positive purpose before their corruption. They are sent to teach humanity justice <span data-t="646.

6">and righteousness, but their interaction with human women eventually produces the same catastrophic result: giant offspring, <span data-t="657.

3">violence, corruption, judgment, and the survival of hostile spirits afterward. By the time we reach Gibeli's chapter <span data-t="667.

1">10, Noah and his descendants are living in a world that has supposedly been cleansed through the flood.

Except there is one rather enormous problem. The supernatural aftermath of the old world is still there.

The spirits attack Noah's descendants. They lead people astray, cause suffering, and destroy. So Noah prays, <span data-t="695.

5">and God responds by ordering that the spirits be bound. If that command had simply been carried <span data-t="703.

7">out in full, this would probably be a much shorter podcast episode. Instead, Mastema steps forward. And <span data-t="713.

7">what happens next tells us almost everything we need to understand about his strange place within Second <span data-t="721.

7">Temple demonology. Mastema does not rebel against God. He does not attempt to fight the angels who <span data-t="730.

4">are going to bind the spirits. He does not gather his forces in some distant corner of the <span data-t="737.

1">cosmos and declare his independence. He asks that some of the evil spirits be allowed to remain <span data-t="746.

9">under his authority, because, according to his argument, human wickedness is great, and he requires them in <span data-t="755.

4">order to exercise the authority given to him. God permits one-tenth of the spirits to remain. The <span data-t="764.

4">other nine-tenths are bound. And this, my friends, is where Jubilees gives us something that looks like <span data-t="771.

7">a demonic hierarchy while simultaneously refusing to give us the absolute dualism that later traditions will often <span data-t="780.

9">assume. Mastama has subordinates. That makes him a very strange prince of demons. And it also makes <span data-t="828.

2">Jubilees much more sophisticated than the simple idea that good and evil have become two equal armies <span data-t="836.

6">staring at each other across the cosmic battlefield. That is not what we have here. The dualism <span data-t="844.

6">is real, but limited. Evil possesses structure without possessing independence. Mastama is an adversary without being an <span data-t="857.

0">equal opposite of God, and the spirits beneath him can belong to the hostile side of the <span data-t="863.

7">supernatural order while still existing under ultimate divine authority. This is one reason I think Mastma is <span data-t="872.

6">such an important bridge figure. If we jump directly from the Satan in Job to the later devil, <span data-t="881.

1">we make the history seem much cleaner than it actually was. The Satan in Job operates as a <span data-t="889.

3">member of the heavenly court. The Hebrew term there functions as a title, something along the lines <span data-t="897.

0">of the adversary or accuser, rather than necessarily as a proper name. He challenges the righteousness of <span data-t="906.

5">Job, but he has to request permission before acting, and his activity remains carefully limited by God. <span data-t="915.

2">Mastama shares that adversarial function, but something has changed dramatically. He is no longer merely testing one <span data-t="925.

0">human being from within the divine council. He has spirit. He commands them. He uses them. He <span data-t="934.

5">participates in a much broader supernatural struggle involving temptation, corruption, violence, idolatry, and opposition to the <span data-t="946.

3">covenant community. The adversarial function has expanded into administration. And that development becomes especially obvious in <span data-t="956.

6">one of the most famous stories involving Abraham, the binding of Isaac. Genesis 22 begins by telling <span data-t="965.

4">us that God tests Abraham. You all know the story. Abraham is commanded to take Isaac, his <span data-t="973.

7">promised son, travel to the designated mountain, and offer him there. There is enough theological literature devoted <span data-t="983.

4">to that chapter to crush someone beneath its collective weight. And I'm not going to attempt to <span data-t="990.

4">solve all of those problems here. Because this episode is supposed to be 30 minutes long, not <span data-t="996.

6">30 hours. What matters for us is what Jubilees does with the story. The author inserts Mastema <span data-t="1005.

4">into the background. It is Mastama who proposes that Abraham be tested. And the resemblance to Job <span data-t="1014.

0">immediately jumps off the page. In both stories, we have a righteous human being who has received <span data-t="1021.

4">divine blessing. A hostile or adversarial supernatural figure questions whether that person's righteousness will survive a <span data-t="1031.

6">genuine test. Permission is given, and the human being is placed in a situation of terrible suffering <span data-t="1040.

5">or danger through which faithfulness is demonstrated. Jubilees has effectively transferred the adversarial testing function into <span data-t="1051.

4">Mastama. That does not mean the author simply copied the character from Job, changed the name, and <span data-t="1057.

9">hoped nobody would notice. The supernatural worlds are already different. Job's accuser has no demonic host <span data-t="1067.

9">under his command. Mastama does. And that difference is incredibly important because the development is no <span data-t="1077.

5">longer merely about accusation. It is about the organization of evil. But there is something else going <span data-t="1086.

1">on with the binding of Isaac that I think deserves more attention. The initiative behind the disturbing <span data-t="1092.

6">command has shifted. Genesis says that God tests Abraham. Jubilees introduces Mastema as the figure who <span data-t="1101.

8">proposes the test. God still authorizes what follows. So Jubilees has absolutely not removed divine sovereignty <span data-t="1112.

2">or completely solved the theological problem. But it has created distance. The hostile impulse now has an <span data-t="1121.

9">intermediary. And this may help explain part of Mastema's development. The DVD raises the possibility that <span data-t="1130.

3">changing concerns about theodicy contributed to the increasing independence of hostile supernatural figures. Theodicy, for anyone <span data-t="1141.

0">fortunate enough never to have spent an afternoon tangled up in that particular philosophical briar patch, <span data-t="1147.

8">is essentially the attempt to reconcile the goodness and justice of God with the reality of evil <span data-t="1154.

3">and suffering. And one of the ways religious traditions can address that problem is through intermediaries. <span data-t="1162.

0">An older text can attribute a destructive action directly to God. A later interpreter, increasingly uncomfortable <span data-t="1171.

3">with that attribution, can retain divine sovereignty while introducing another figure through whom the destructive action <span data-t="1180.

2">takes place. Which brings us to Moses. Because if you thought Jubilee's inserting mastoma into the binding <span data-t="1190.

2">of Isaac was interesting, wait until we reached one of the strangest passages in Exodus. Exodus chapter <span data-t="1200.

2">4 contains an episode that appears so abruptly that I would not blame anyone for thinking some <span data-t="1207.

8">pages had become stuck together. Moses has finally agreed to return to Egypt. He is traveling with <span data-t="1215.

5">his family. God has just spoken about what Moses is to say to Pharaoh. Then, at a <span data-t="1222.

8">lodging place along the way, God encounters him and seeks to kill him. Zipporah circumcises their son, <span data-t="1232.

0">touches Moses with the foreskin, makes the famous statement about a bridegroom of blood, and whatever <span data-t="1240.

2">danger had been present immediately passes. Then the narrative continues. No explanation. No helpful narrator stepping <span data-t="1251.

1">in to tell you what in the world just happened. Nothing. It is one of those biblical <span data-t="1259.

3">passages that biblical scholars have stared at for generations while slowly developing migraines. There are enormous <span data-t="1270.

2">debates about who exactly was endangered, why circumcision solved the problem, whether we are dealing with <span data-t="1279.

2">fragments of an older tradition, and what precisely the original story may have meant. Jubilees takes a <span data-t="1289.

4">much simpler approach. Mastema tried to kill Moses. And once again, the change is revealing. The older <span data-t="1298.

6">biblical narrative places the supernatural danger directly within divine agency. The later Second Temple retelling gives <span data-t="1308.

7">the hostile action to Mastama. The danger remains. The event remains. Divine sovereignty remains. But hostility. <span data-t="1320.

1">Hostility has acquired a face. And that brings us directly back to Mastema's name. Hostility is no <span data-t="1328.

0">longer merely something that happens. Hostility has become someone who acts. That is why I think the <span data-t="1336.

4">phrase, hostility gets a name, captures Mastomer better than simply calling him Satan. He represents the <span data-t="1346.

2">increasing personification and organization of supernatural evil, but at the same time he retains enough of <span data-t="1354.

6">the older framework that he remains completely subordinate to God. The Exodus narrative gives Mastema even <span data-t="1363.

3">more to do. He becomes involved with the Egyptians and their opposition to Moses and Israel, which <span data-t="1371.

4">pushes him beyond the role of tester and much closer to the ruler of a hostile supernatural camp.

But even here the picture remains complicated because Jubilees gives Israel a very particular place within <span data-t="1388.

2">its supernatural geography. The nations can be associated with supernatural rulers and spirits, but Israel belongs <span data-t="1397.

8">directly to God. That means covenant is not simply a matter of identity or ritual obedience. It <span data-t="1408.

2">has supernatural consequences. Circumcision, obedience to the law, participation in the covenant, and proper worship all <span data-t="1418.

6">become part of the boundary separating the covenant community from the authority of hostile spirits. The <span data-t="1426.

4">DDD notes this particularly in relation to the angel of hostility tradition, where covenantal obedience protects <span data-t="1435.

4">Israel from the supernatural powers associated with opposition. And I think that marks a major development <span data-t="1444.

2">from the Mesopotamian material we discussed in the first episode. In Mesopotamia, if you encountered a <span data-t="1452.

0">harmful spirit, you might use an incantation, call upon a protective god, appeal to divine judges, or <span data-t="1461.

5">perform some other apotropaic rite. The question was how to remove the spirit. Jubilees is increasingly <span data-t="1471.

0">interested in a different question. Under whose authority do you belong? That is the language of jurisdiction.

And jurisdiction is exactly what Mastema possesses. Not unlimited jurisdiction, but delegated authority over a <span data-t="1488.

3">portion of the hostile spirits that remain in the world. Now, here is where I want to <span data-t="1494.

1">complicate something from the previous episode, and something I simplified too much in the first draft of <span data-t="1500.

6">this one. When we talk about the demonic remnants of the Watcher catastrophe, we often say that <span data-t="1506.

8">the giants die and their spirits become demons. That is certainly one major strand of the tradition. <span data-t="1516.

4">And the phrase used at Qumran, Spirits of the Bastards, is normally understood as referring to the <span data-t="1524.

3">spirits of the giant offspring. But that does not exhaust the supernatural population associated with the <span data-t="1532.

7">Watcher tradition. The Songs of the Sage, preserved in 4Q510 and 4Q511, gives us one of the <span data-t="1543.

7">most fascinating lists of hostile beings from Qumran. The sage proclaims divine glory for the purpose of <span data-t="1552.

2">terrifying hostile supernatural powers. Among those powers are the spirits of destructive or ravaging angels, the <span data-t="1562.

1">spirits of the bastards, demons, Lilith, and other frightening beings whose exact translation is debated. That <span data-t="1572.

6">list matters because the spirits associated with the angels are distinguished from the spirits of the bastards.

The second category fits very comfortably with the giant spirits we already know from 1 Enoch. <span data-t="1588.

0">The first is more complicated. Some scholars understand the expression as something like demonic agents of <span data-t="1597.

4">destruction, but others have argued that we should take seriously the possibility that these are the <span data-t="1604.

5">surviving spirits of fallen angels themselves. And there are other texts that make that possibility more interesting.

1 Enoch 19 speaks about the spirits of the angels who united with women and describes <span data-t="1622.

4">those spirits as standing upon the earth and corrupting humanity until the final judgment. So the picture <span data-t="1631.

0">is broader than a simple equation in which all post-watcher demons are the dead giants. There are <span data-t="1638.

5">traditions in which the spirits of the giants continue to afflict humanity. And there are also traditions <span data-t="1646.

2">that appear to preserve or at least allow for the continuing activity of the spirits associated with <span data-t="1654.

2">the fallen watchers themselves. That makes the demonic landscape surrounding Mastuma considerably more crowded and considerably <span data-t="1664.

6">more interesting. Because once we reach Quran, supernatural evil is no longer one neatly defined species <span data-t="1673.

6">descended from one primordial catastrophe. We find giant spirits, potentially watcher spirits, demons, lilith, destructive angels, <span data-t="1687.

0">and a variety of hostile beings, all appearing within an increasingly organized supernatural opposition. And that <span data-t="1696.

4">is exactly why we have to resist the desire to simplify Mastama into the ruler of, quote, <span data-t="1703.

4">the demons, as though everyone in the Second Temple period shared a single taxonomic chart. Jubilees gives <span data-t="1712.

4">him authority over the hostile spirits in its own retelling of the Watcher tradition. Other texts preserve <span data-t="1721.

7">overlapping but not identical populations of supernatural evil. And eventually, Qumran will place those populations within <span data-t="1732.

9">an even more comprehensive dualistic structure. Before we get there, though, I want to return to one <span data-t="1741.

0">detail from Jubilee's chapter 10 that I think gets overshadowed by Mastama's negotiation. Noah's descendants are <span data-t="1749.

9">suffering from spiritual affliction. Most of the spirits are bound, some remain. So what happens to humanity?

The answer is fascinating. Noah receives knowledge of healing. An angel teaches him medicines derived from <span data-t="1769.

3">plants so that the diseases and afflictions by the spirits can be treated. And Noah records that <span data-t="1776.

6">knowledge for his descendants. I love this passage because it absolutely destroys our modern tendency to <span data-t="1784.

4">divide supernatural and physical explanations into two mutually exclusive boxes. If a disease has a supernatural <span data-t="1794.

2">cause, we assume medicine shouldn't work. If medicine works, then we assume the supernatural explanation must disappear.

Jubilee sees no contradiction at all. A hostile spirit can cause the illness. A plant can <span data-t="1812.

9">treat it. The existence of medicine does not cancel demonology, and demonology does not cancel medicine. <span data-t="1821.

3">They belong to the same explanatory world. And that becomes even more interesting when we remember what <span data-t="1828.

9">caused the original Watcher catastrophe. Knowledge. Or, more specifically, knowledge transmitted outside its proper boundaries. The <span data-t="1841.

5">Watchers teach forbidden arts, and those teachings contribute to humanity's corruption. Yet here an angel gives <span data-t="1850.

5">Noah legitimate knowledge that allows humanity to resist the consequences of that corruption. So the problem <span data-t="1859.

1">was never knowledge itself. It was authority who gives it. For what purpose? Within what boundaries? That <span data-t="1869.

5">question sits at the heart of Jubilees. The right calendar matters because authority matters. The proper <span data-t="1877.

8">festivals matter because authority matters. Circumcision matters because covenantal boundaries matter. The law matters because <span data-t="1889.

0">obedience identifies where a person belongs. And Mastama exists almost as the supernatural negative image of <span data-t="1901.

0">that system. He works through corruption, temptation, pollution, misdirection, and the violation of proper boundaries. Yet <span data-t="1912.

1">even he cannot step outside the ultimate authority that defines those boundaries. This is one reason I <span data-t="1919.

4">hesitate to call Jubilees radically dualistic. The book certainly moves us much farther toward a universe <span data-t="1927.

1">divided between opposing supernatural forces. But the opposition is profoundly unequal. Mastama is not God's opposite. <span data-t="1937.

7">He is not an eternal anti-God. He is a subordinate antagonist whose activity is tolerated within limits. <span data-t="1947.

8">That may sound like a technical distinction, but it changes everything. If you have two equal cosmic <span data-t="1955.

4">principles eternally opposed to one another, you have one kind of dualism. If you have one supreme <span data-t="1963.

0">God and a subordinate evil ruler who has temporary permission to operate, you have something else. That <span data-t="1984.

0">is one reason the next episode is so important. Because when we enter the sectarian writings from <span data-t="1991.

2">Qumran, the language of opposing camps becomes much sharper. There we encounter the Prince of Lights and <span data-t="1998.

8">the Angel of Darkness, the spirits of truth and falsehood, the lot belonging to God and the <span data-t="2006.

5">lot belonging to Belial. And eventually the expectation of an eschatological war in which earthly history <span data-t="2015.

6">and supernatural conflict mirror one another. Mastama points toward that world, but he has not quite <span data-t="2023.

6">arrived there. And I think the best way to understand why is to compare him once more <span data-t="2030.

6">with the Satan of Job. The Satan in Job has a role. Mastama has a domain. That <span data-t="2038.

9">is a major difference. The Satan questions. Mastama administers. The Satan tests Job after receiving permission. <span data-t="2050.

0">Mastema receives permission to maintain an entire portion of the hostile spiritual population. The Satan belongs <span data-t="2059.

2">to the divine court. Mastama increasingly presides over a hostile supernatural sphere while remaining subordinate to <span data-t="2068.

0">the same God he opposes. That is not merely the same character with a different name. It <span data-t="2074.

6">is a different stage in the conceptual organization of supernatural evil. And this may be one of <span data-t="2083.

3">the most important developments in the entire history of demonology. Because once evil spirits possess leadership, <span data-t="2092.

9">the next conceptual step becomes much easier. They can possess ranks, territory, purpose, a shared identity, <span data-t="2104.

6">an opposing community, and eventually an army. I think we tend to underestimate how significant that <span data-t="2113.

0">development is because we have inherited the completed structure. If I say Prince of Demons, nobody finds <span data-t="2122.

2">the idea strange. Of course, demons have a prince. Of course, evil spirits form hierarchies. Of course, <span data-t="2131.

6">the supernatural world contains opposing armies. Those assumptions have become so natural to later religious imagination <span data-t="2140.

8">that we forget someone had to develop them. Earlier, harmful spirits did not require a commander. The <span data-t="2148.

8">Mesopotamian demons we discussed previously could simply be dangerous powers encountered in illness, storms, death, or <span data-t="2158.

1">other threatening experiences. Jacobson even notes that the great god An could be described as the father <span data-t="2165.

6">of innumerable demons and evil spirits, alongside the gods themselves, which is about as far removed from <span data-t="2174.

0">the later concept of a separate anti-divine kingdom as you can get while still maintaining supernatural <span data-t="2181.

9">beings that want to ruin your day. By the time we reach Jubilees, the picture has changed. <span data-t="2189.

8">The spirits have a prince. And once they have a prince, evil is beginning to acquire political <span data-t="2198.

8">structure. That phrase may sound strange, but I mean it quite literally. Ancient descriptions of the <span data-t="2206.

5">divine world often borrow human social models. Gods have courts, kings, councils, messengers, armies, officials, territories. <span data-t="2221.

8">Once supernatural evil becomes organized, it begins borrowing the same imagery. There can be a prince <span data-t="2230.

2">because there can be subjects. There can be a kingdom because there can be jurisdiction. There can <span data-t="2236.

7">be war because there are now opposing communities capable of fighting one another. Mastama is therefore <span data-t="2244.

2">not simply an interesting demonic character, he is evidence of a conceptual transformation. Hostility has become political.

And that brings us back to his name one final time. Mastama means hostility. At first, <span data-t="2263.

8">it is simply a word. In some texts, it remains a word. In others, it becomes associated <span data-t="2271.

8">with supernatural hostility. Then we encounter the angel of hostility. Finally, in Jubilees, Mastom stands before <span data-t="2281.

5">us as a proper personality, commanding hostile spirits and negotiating for the continuation of his authority. <span data-t="2290.

9">The noun has become a prince. And maybe that is why Mastma feels simultaneously familiar and strange. <span data-t="2301.

8">He resembles Satan because he performs adversarial functions that later tradition associates with Satan. He tests, <span data-t="2312.

6">he accuses, he tempts, he seeks destruction, he commands evil spirits. But he also preserves features of <span data-t="2324.

8">an older supernatural worldview that later popular demonology often forgets. He asks permission. He operates within limits.

He cannot prevent his spirits from being bound. His authority exists because it is allowed to exist.

He is an enemy without being an equal rival, which creates one last theological problem that <span data-t="2353.

4">Jubilees never completely resolves. If Mastema is evil, why allow him to continue? Why permit one-tenth of <span data-t="2363.

8">the spirits to remain? Why permit Abraham to be tested? Why allow Moses to be attacked? Why <span data-t="2372.

9">allow supernatural hostility any jurisdiction whatsoever? And this is where the relationship between demonology and human <span data-t="2383.

2">moral responsibility becomes incredibly interesting. Mastema argues that humanity itself is wicked. His spirits tempt, but <span data-t="2395.

0">human beings remain capable of responding. The supernatural enemy does not eliminate human responsibility. Instead, evil <span data-t="2405.

4">becomes something that exists both outside and inside humanity. There are hostile spirits, but there are <span data-t="2413.

1">also human choices. There is demonic temptation, but there is also covenantal obedience. And Jubilees never <span data-t="2423.

5">allows one to completely replace the other. That tension will become even more pronounced at Qumran. The <span data-t="2432.

0">community rule can describe human beings as belonging to opposing lots, while simultaneously describing two spirits <span data-t="2442.

0">operating within humanity. Belial can possess a dominion, yet individual human beings are still expected to <span data-t="2451.

8">obey or rebel. Supernatural evil increasingly explains why the world is broken, but it does not completely <span data-t="2461.

8">excuse the people living inside that broken world. And perhaps that is one reason these figures become <span data-t="2469.

8">so useful. Mastama allows the author to say that evil has supernatural organization without saying that <span data-t="2478.

6">God has lost control of creation. He allows the author to create distance between God and hostile <span data-t="2487.

8">actions without removing divine sovereignty. He allows evil spirits to possess leadership without granting their leader <span data-t="2498.

0">equality with God. He allows temptation to have an external source without erasing human responsibility. And <span data-t="2508.

2">he allows older biblical stories to be reread inside a newer supernatural framework. That is a tremendous <span data-t="2517.

4">amount of theological work for one demonic prince. So where does that leave us? In the previous <span data-t="2525.

6">episode, we watched the category of demon develop from a much older and messier supernatural landscape. We <span data-t="2534.

1">saw that harmful spirit did not automatically mean morally evil rebel, and we followed the gradual <span data-t="2542.

0">development of a more dualistic taxonomy in which supernatural beings could increasingly be classified according to <span data-t="2551.

0">their alignment with a cosmic side. We then encountered the Watcher tradition, where the catastrophe of <span data-t="2559.

4">Genesis 6 became an explanation for the origin of hostile spirits. The spirits of the dead giants <span data-t="2567.

4">survived the destruction of their bodies and continue afflicting humanity, while other Second Temple traditions, including <span data-t="2575.

7">material reflected in the Songs of the Sage and 1 Enoch 19, preserve the possibility of continuing <span data-t="2583.

4">hostile spirits associated with the Fallen Watchers themselves. Jubilees inherits that complicated supernatural world and gives <span data-t="2595.

0">part of it a prince. Mastama begins as hostility and becomes hostility. He commands evil spirits, proposes <span data-t="2605.

0">the testing of Abraham, attacks Moses, assists Israel's enemies, and seeks to corrupt humanity. At the <span data-t="2614.

6">same time, his power remains limited, derivative, and temporary. He is not the sovereign of an independent <span data-t="2623.

4">kingdom. Not yet. What he represents instead is one of the most important transitional moments in the <span data-t="2631.

8">development of Jewish demonology. Evil has acquired leadership. And once evil possesses leadership, the movement toward <span data-t="2641.

4">a full supernatural kingdom becomes much easier. That is exactly where we are heading next. Because when <span data-t="2650.

7">we enter the sectarian world represented by the Dead Sea Scrolls, we find a supernatural conflict that <span data-t="2657.

8">has become extraordinarily comprehensive. There is Belial whose authority reaches across the forces of darkness. There <span data-t="2666.

7">are spirits assigned to opposing moral camps. Human beings themselves are described according to cosmic lots. <span data-t="2677.

6">History is moving toward a final confrontation in which earthly and heavenly warfare become inseparable. And <span data-t="2687.

4">the language is no longer merely about a prince bargaining to retain a tenth of some hostile spirits.

It is about dominion. That is the word I want you to keep in mind for the <span data-t="2699.

2">next episode. Dominion. Until next time, my friends, stay safe out there.