effrey Burton Russell has brought his splendid “history of the devil” down to our own day in the fourth volume of his series, Mephistopheles (1986). The first was The Devil (1977), the second Satan (1981), and the third Lucifer (1984). We have not heard the last from him on this subject, for he plans a one-volume recapitulation and “retractation” or Augustinian reworking of the whole project. In what follows I wish not only to assess his present achievement but also to suggest topics and questions that need clarification or further attention. The core of the four volumes is a straightforward account of the origin of the figure of Satan among the Jews and its development in New Testament times (The Devil), its elaboration by the church fathers through Saint Augustine’s time at the turn of the fifth century (Satan), medieval perceptions (Lucifer), and theological and artistic presentations from the sixteenth century to modern times (Mephistopheles). From a doctrinal point of view, the first two volumes cover the most important material for the development of Christian beliefs in evil spirits. In the Middle Ages and Renaissance-Reformation period, there was mainly an elaboration or application of by then traditional views. After the seventeenth century, the history is as much the account of the breakdown of the patristic synthesis, or attacks against it, as of frivolous or nonbelieving applications of it in literature (and to a much lesser degree the visual arts). In my view, Russell’s first volume is noticeably less successful than the others, partly because it deals with subjects other than the JudeoChristian devil and partly because it relies heavily on a Jungian set of concepts that frequently cause him to talk at cross-purposes with other scholars and sometimes with himself.
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