What is the source of this description of one of Satan’s techniques?
Neither Gen. 3:1–5 nor Job 1:6–12 nor 1 Kgs. 22:19–23 offers a precise
parallel. It is in the pseudepigrapha that we find the closest conceptual
parallels. For the idea of Satan or the devil adopting a disguise, we find in
the Testament of Job (first century b.c. or a.d.) no fewer than four different disguises mentioned—as a
beggar (6:4), as the king of the Persians (17:2), as a great whirlwind (20:5),
and as a bread seller (23:1). The notion of an angelic disguise is found in two
places (first century a.d.). In
the Life of Adam and Eve (Vita) 9:1
Satan transforms himself “into the brightness of angels” before beguiling Eve
for a second time. In the Greek text of the Life,
the Apocalypse of Moses, Satan comes
to Eve over the walls of Paradise “in the form of an angel (ἐν εἴδει ἀγγέλου)” (Apocalypse
of Moses 17:1) and tempts her to disobey God’s command (cf. Gen. 3:3). But
we need not posit Paul’s reliance on these Jewish traditions for the expression
ἄγγελος φωτός. It could be a Pauline coinage, prompted
on the one hand by the common association of Satan with darkness (6:14–15) and
deception (4:4) and of God or Christ with light and illumination (4:6; Rom.
13:12, 14; Eph. 5:11–14), and on the other hand by his own experience and
observation of Satan’s various stratagems (2:11). (Murray J. Harris,
The Second Epistle to the Corinthians: A Commentary on the Greek Text [New
International Greek Testament Commentary; Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2005],
774-75)
Of course, Paul
would have had experiential knowledge of this, too:
Only in apocryphal literature are there references to Satan changing
himself into an angel of light. But Paul did not have to consult this
literature to learn about Satan, for he experienced firsthand the schemes of
the devil. He had repeated encounters with Satan, who had power to afflict him
physically (12:7), to obstruct his work in the church (1 Thess. 2:18), and to
display “all kinds of counterfeit miracles, signs and wonders” (2 Thess. 2:9).
(Simon J. Kistemaker, Exposition of the Second Epistle to the
Corinthians [New Testament Commentary 19; Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Book
House, 1997], 375)
It may be doubted whether S. Paul is here alluding to anything in the
O.T., as Satan presenting himself before the Lord among ‘the sons of God’ (Job
1:6, 2:1), or to anything similar in Jewish tradition. A reference to the
Temptation of Christ is less unlikely. More probably the saying alludes to the
common experience (‘fashioneth himself’; present tense of what is usual) that
in temptations what is sinful is sometimes made to look quite innocent, or even
meritorious. Comp. ‘children of light’ (Eph. 5:8), ‘sons of light’ (1 Thes.
5:5), and contrast the power of darkness (Col. 1:13; Lk. 22:53). (The
Second Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Corinthians, ed. Alfred Plummer [The
Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges [Cambridge: University Press, 1903],
104)
