The Papal Vault: Satan and the Origin of Evil
History of the Papacy Podcast
History of the Papacy
4.4 • 531 Ratings
🗓️ 9 May 2026
⏱️ 25 minutes
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Summary
This is the fifth installment of Garry and Steve’s Guide to the Apocalypse. In this episode Garry and I discuss the narrative arch of the character Satan. It is curious why his stock went down over the course of Second Temple Judaism. Join us as we try to see why this reassessment took place.
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Music Provided by:
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“Procession of the King” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
"Danse Macabre" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
"Virtutes Instrumenti" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
"Virtutes Vocis" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
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"String Impromptu Number 1" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome back to the history of the papacy podcast, a podcast about the popes of Rome and Christian church. |
| 0:18.2 | Prepare yourself to step behind the ropes and leave the official tour of the story |
| 0:22.9 | of the pop shaded and evil. |
| 0:44.8 | But what is the background in the text, history, and the tradition about evil and Satan? |
| 0:50.3 | We'll fumble around and maybe even play with fire. |
| 0:53.6 | Oh, sounds spooky. |
| 0:55.2 | I'm looking forward to hearing it. |
| 0:57.2 | Oh, I'll be in it. |
| 1:00.4 | An evil, where evil comes from, that's something that really isn't, it isn't explained very well in older Judaism or even in really Greco-Roman paganism, it really it's the Persians |
| 1:18.8 | who have a really concrete reason why there's evil. |
| 1:24.8 | Yes, they came up with a dualistic idea, didn't they? In the Old Testament, evil, in effect, comes from God. And the author of Jubilees found that a profoundly disquieting idea. And I suppose during the entire Hellenistic period, it was considered to be, well, you know, |
| 1:46.1 | how can God possibly let these things happen? So they came up with the idea of Satan, |
| 1:53.2 | who is barely mentioned in the Old Testament. And in the Old Testament, Satan is simply |
| 1:59.1 | the prosecuting attorney. |
| 2:00.9 | He's not the evil in any sense at all. |
| 2:03.5 | In the Book of Jubilee, the Book of Jubilees is the first to construct a complex character, |
| 2:10.8 | which it calls Mastema or Mastema, who is clearly Satan and the source of all evil. |
| 2:18.4 | Before we move on, this whole idea of the angels, |
| 2:22.1 | like angels like Satan, |
| 2:23.5 | who's a fallen angel and the watchers, |
| 2:27.2 | that's such a bizarre concept that we don't really talk that much about. |
| 2:33.1 | These watchers are angels who were, they were sent to teach men, but they fell into sin. |
... |
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