The Devil and His Advocates by Erik Butler

Reaktion Books, 2021

ISBN-13: 9781789143737

Available: Hardcover, Kindle edition  ( Bookshop.org  |  Amazon.com )

In Erik Butler’s The Devil and His Advocates, the author argues that Satan is not God’s enemy in the Bible, but that he has been misinterpreted. In fact, he has been doing God’s bidding rather than acting as his own entity all this time. Butler uses the Old and New Testament, especially the trial of Job, to analyze the figure of Satan in literature, music, theology, and visual art from antiquity to the present. Butler asserts that Satan has been tasked by God to test human beings, whose piety leaves room for doubt. Butler argues that while Satan can be manipulative, he facilitates what mortals are inclined to do anyway, and he’s right.

In addition to biblical sources, Butler uses works of literature from Dante, Chaucer, Christopher Marlowe, Robert Burton, Jules Amédée Barbey d’Audervilly, James Joyce, Isidore Ducasse, Oskar Panizza, William Butler Yeats, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Gian Pietro Lucini, Gottfried Benn, C. S. Lewis and more to unveil the nature and depiction of Satan, or the satan (which is an eye-opening discussion itself in the first chapter) to discuss why and how Satan’s role, position, and even personality have been, essentially, misinterpreted or reinterpreted. Butler includes a chapter on music as well.

Butler includes references, an index, and illustrations in The Devil and His Advocates. While this isn’t a work of horror, The Devil and His Advocates has the potential to be a valuable research tool for anyone who wants to focus on Satan in their fiction. It could also be useful for numerous classes, such as literature, drama, religious studies, fiction writing, and more. Highly recommended.

Reviewed by Lizzy Walker