As many know, I have an interest in the Christadelphian movement, and, as a result, historic anti-diabolism. The following is from Amos Bronson Alcott (1799-1888) who, when discussing the temptation in the wilderness in the Synoptic Gospels, argues that “Satan” is an internal, not external, tempter:
JOSEPH: I should not think
Jesus would have gone into the wilderness where the devil could tempt him–I
should think it was wrong to let the devil speak to him.
MR. ALCOTT. What do you mean
by the devil?
JOSEPH. He is the same as
you read about in Milton's Paradise; he lives in hell; he tempts people to do
wrong; sometimes he tempts me, and makes me do wrong.
MR. ALCOTT. Does not Joseph
make himself do wrong?
JOSEPH. Yes; but he causes
me to.
MR. ALCOTT. When you tell
him to go away earnestly, can you not help doing wrong?
JOSEPH. Yes; but if there
were not Satan I never could do wrong.
MR. ALCOTT. Is not Joseph
the Satan–have you not made a mistake in thinking the tempter was out of
yourself? (Amos Bronson Alcott, Conversations with Children on the Gospels,
2 vols. [Boston: James Munroe and Company, 1836], 1:159)
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