Christianity and Judaism

**Abrahamic religions** are religions emphasizing and tracing their common origin to the figure Abraham, or recognizing a spiritual tradition identified with him. They are one of the major divisions in comparative religion (along with Indian, Iranian, and East Asian religions). Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are the largest Abrahamic religions in terms of numbers of adherents.

Although Islam is just as big membership wise as christianity, and more so than Judaism, megaten games actually do not reference it in particular a large deal. Unlike other religions, symbols from it do not show up often in game. And overt references are limited to a few islam specific angels and demons, and allusions to the kaaba. Though there is an islam page on the wiki for the Islamic references.

Note that the depiction of yhvh in the games is more based on the kabbalah, and so info relevant to that is moreso on the kabbalah page.

## General info

**Christianity** is an Abrahamic
monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ
as presented in the New Testament. It evolved out of Judaism,
claiming that Jesus was the one who fulfilled the Jewish prophecy of
a messiah, and that it was the completion or fulfillment of the
process of the Jewish faith, which they claimed existed to lead into it. Some early Christians disagreed about whether they were properly
still jews or not, but they decided ultimately not, in part since
judaism was a cultural religion whereas they were spreading far
beyond the jewish people. The jews themselves obviously rejected
Christianity, saying that Jesus did not fulfill their prophecies, and
that Christians took them out of context. This itself of course shows
up in the gospels, as the reason that the jews wanted Jesus gotten
rid of, as a dangerous heretic.

Although christianity has a lot of
content, this page will try to cover all the most relevant aspects. Some things
that may seem to be important, like much of the goings on of church
services will be left out, since there's really not much about them
to say. This section is about **orthodox christianity.** Not orthodox
the specific church, but referring to mainstream churches as have
been most popular historically. There are other churches and ideas
that are somewhat christian, but **heterodox,** like Gnosticism or a
few modern ideas, some of which are christian in name only. Those
will be in their own section, to make this one slightly shorter.

Scholars agree that Jesus was a
historical figure, and that he was crucified, but there is much
disagreement about what his message might have been, since many of
the gospels were not written until decades later, and many were even
based off of eachother. What's more, a lot of christian content comes
not from the gospels directly, but from tradition and philosophy
surrounding them projected into them. There were many disagreeing
interpretations of Christianity in the early years, some with content
far more varied than that which you might expect to find now among
leaders. Over the few hundred years after Christ, one of these won
out and established creeds defining the others as heretics. And this
form had a lot of the content in it that is associated with
christianity now. But there is disagreement about whether this was
truly the most accurate interpretation of Jesus' message, even though
it set the standard for how Christianity would be seen since then, at times even using deadly force to put down other versions. A millennium later
the protestant reformation would happen, saying that the Catholics
had gotten it wrong, but even these protestants were heavily swayed
by the standard and creeds that had been set.

Obviously in-game, the most obvious
appearance of christian elements is in the appearance of the law side, namely the **Order of messiah,** (though not exclusively, such as lilith being crucified
in IV) and of course many of the main demonic characters often being angels, fallen angels (or demonized gods from the hebrew bible) and yhvh. The plot in game seems to imply that the
regular religions we know of did exist in the series' past., since
they are called by name in certain games, like DDS2, and in raidou
catholicism is mentioned directly. But at some point in their world's
history, the religions evolved into the forms seen in-game.

Messianism in a sense obviously takes on a tone of post-christianity,
where its name references the idea of a messiah, but is open ended,
implying the existence of multiple messiahs across various
traditions, including non christian ones, and generally shows crosses
without bodies on them. So it is expanding the story of Jesus, saying
that he was not the only one, and downplaying him himself, presumably
saying that his role was exaggerated in some sense in regular
Christianity. And of course more than once in-universe, other
messiahs show up in the role. The idea of the artificial messiah can
even imply semi secular versions, in which one has to rise to the
occasion rather than wait for divine aid.

One should
warn against drawing too direct a comparison between messians and
Christians however. It is true that aesthetically they most closely resemble
them, and even that there's some logic behind the comparison, but the in game religions are using the existing ones more as general inspirations then direct analogues. (Though I will mostly talk
about ways they are related). Even moreso note that a common staple
is that the angels themselves act even less like normal christians
than the messians do, and often the games involve the churches being
chewed out for acting incorrectly when the real representatives come
to earth. Note that angels, and even the jewish god are ideas which
also exist in other beliefs. And of course the fact that the order of
messiah also seems to be at odds with, and ultimately becomes an
enemy of yhvh himself. (Note also that law also heavily draws on esoteric christianity such as the hermetic order of the golden dawn.)

The main modern division now between
types of orthodox Christians is between **Catholics** and **protestants,** due
to the other breakoffs for the most part being relegated to
obscurity, often through active persecution. (Note that for the sake
of argument, the eastern orthodox by this division is considered a
type of catholic, and it is in their official name, even though they
rarely call themselves this, and are a distinct group from roman
catholics). The distinction of this division being that “Catholics”
believe in a line of priesthood established by Jesus that continues
on to now, and which they respect any proper iteration of as valid,
even if imperfect, whereas protestants do not believe in a direct
priesthood. (Some like Anglicans kind of do, and are between catholic
and protestant in a sense). Priests are special figures who are seen as being the only ones able to conduct certain sacraments.

**Judaism** encompasses the religion,
philosophy, culture and way of life of the Jewish people. Judaism is
an ancient monotheistic religion, with the Torah as its foundational
text (part of the larger text known as the Tanakh or Hebrew Bible),
and supplemental oral tradition represented by later texts such as
the Midrash and the Talmud. Judaism is considered by religious Jews
to be the expression of the covenant that God
established with the Children of Israel. With roughly 14.5 million
adherents worldwide, Judaism is the tenth-largest religion in the
world. Note that although judaism leads into christianity, judaism
itself is not a missionary religion and so does not seek to make non
jews into jews. Holding that only true jews should keep the full
faith. Jews consider the more scaled down version of its beliefs that can be followed by outsiders as **Noahidism** or **Noachidism.** Noahidism of course has the same metaphysics as judaism, but has less strict of moral demands, as Jews believe that certain moral commands were for jews only.

Note that old jewish worship centered around its temple in
Judaism. So the religion shifted heavily after its destruction from a
religion of priests who made sacrifices to one of rabbis. For this reason its ministers are of a different kind now than they were in biblical times.

**The bible** is the main book of
writings for christianity, divided into the old testament jewish
scriptures, and the new testament christian scriptures. However, the
new testament was not compiled until hundreds of years after christ. Most of
the writings from the new testament were from the next few decades
after though. One misconception is that the bible was constantly
edited over time. However, modern bibles look almost identical to
ones dug up from around when the books were written. The bigger issue

being how accurate the original content was. The bible is mentioned in an interview for II as the basis for the actions of the center.

**The torah** refers to the first five books of the 24 books of the tanakh. In rabbinic literature the word "Torah" denotes both the five books and the oral torah. The Oral Torah consists of interpretations and amplifications which
according to rabbinic tradition have been handed down from generation to
 generation and are now embodied in the Talmud and Midrash.
 According to rabbinic tradition, all of the teachings found in the
Torah, both written and oral, were given by God through the prophet Moses, some at Mount Sinai and others at the Tabernacle, and all the teachings were written down by Moses, which resulted in the Torah that exists today. Shekinah in dsj has a move with the word torah in it that repels all attacks from a chosen alignment.

In the japanese version of strikers, the first form of the final boss is called the holy torah. This is in reference to it giving a path towards an ostensibly ideal outcome.

## Old Testament

### Creation

**Creation** The story of history from
an abrahamic perspective begins in genesis. Taken literally, genesis says that the world was made in six days, (something devil
survivor says in its intro), but most of
the more important church organizations have officially declared a
metaphorical reading of creation acceptable. Catholics for instance
have said this for almost as long as evolution has been considered
hard science, and even before then,
reading it totally literally was not considered that important. Even
within a few hundred years after Christ, saint augustine more or less
implied that a vague evolution like process may be the case, and he said that that
christians should realize that non christians know science as well,
and not to look stupid in front of them by insisting things which may
not be true. What's more, this is not necessarily a post-hoc
rationalization, since many scholars believe that genesis was always
written as a metaphorical story. Which is why
adam in
a sense translates to humanity.

Strangely, even though most christian
churches say that believing in evolution and an old earth is
acceptable, some of them meet half way by declaring adam and eve
still literal individuals, or that a literal primeval “fall” of
mankind happened. This being because the idea of original sin
developed in more depth with Augustine relies on the literal event of
the fall. This leads to some odd rationalizations. And yet
interestingly matches megaten lore in a way. Since evolution is
talked about in many games, yet some derivative of the genesis events
where people were tempted by lucifer is still there.

In genesis, god creates the world in six days, and then rests. The beginning of devil survivor mentions these seven days. In game, the story of genesis is a
recurring motif and source of disagreement between the sides.
Obviously in the original story you have the snake (Later presumed to
be the devil, but it seems the jews may have literally just meant it
was a snake) offer them a fruit from the tree of knowledge of good
and evil, leading to them losing paradise. In-game, this seems to
translate obviously to a sense of order and chaos.

In some of the games, the design of
humans when not afflicted with demonic knowledge appears to be one that would live in harmony, with a
mentality in which internal strife would be effectively impossible.
Lucifer gives them knowledge of the idea of selfishness, which leads
them to begin doing things for themselves, rather than working in
harmony. SMTII and IV calls this “**knowledge**,” even
though in practice its treated more like a psychological orientation
than a type of information. The goal of law then, is often to change this
orientation back to one of unity in order to create a new paradise.
But this time, ensure demonic influence is done away with for good,
so that it can be established effectively indefinitely. In II they
even refer to the place the new world will begin from as eden. Note of course that in megaten this was not the original humanity, with a previous one being more chaotic. Which is why chaos demons often talk about being usurped.

Note also that many scholars consider genesis or the early bible writings to be inspired by the babylonian stories. In-game this has to do with the fact that yhvh is presented as usurping these earlier gods, most directly stated in devil survivor as having usurped marduk.

Interestingly, in gnosticism a religion
that broke off from regular christianity, the serpent was seen as a
good figure, or even as Jesus himself. Because the god of the old testament
was seen as immoral, and even Jesus was an emmisary from another
higher god. And the knowledge of the tree was secret spiritual
knowledge necessary to free one's self from their earthly prison.
Gnosticism was not as chaotic as it sounded however, since the
gnostics referred to the jewish god by many names, one of which was
child of chaos, with them wanting to return to the cosmic order. (but
that will be talked about in the later heterodox christianity post).

In strikers, the final area is called the tree of knowledge, in reference to the idea that emma is using knowledge to give you an ideal outcome. Interestingly, despite being law leaning, this is using the term knowledge in an opposite way than mainline associating it with chaos.

In smtv, the tree of knowledge, and knowledge itself have different connotations. In V, knowledge is hazy, but seems to be some type of abstract spiritual knowledge that is necessary in order to be a nahobino. YHVH took it from the other gods and put it in the tree of knowledge, from which it passed into humanity, providing another reason for demons to seek humans. In V it does not have any overt associations with knowledge of good and evil.

### Cain and Abel

After adam and eve is the story of
cain and
abel, which provides a large element of the plot of devil survivor. In the bible, there is a verse where God gives cain a protection that anyone who harms
him will be harmed seven times as badly. Naoya brings this up in megaten, claiming that this indeed happened to him in the past. Interestingly,
in mormonism, cain was also cursed with immortality. (Though
mormonism is not orthodox christianity). Which parralels naoya's reincarnations with a retained mind in game.
Some other old testament stories are mentioned in overclocked as
well, though strangely noah is left out. Possibly, since it would
disrupt the narrative of cain's life as an indirect immortal.

in the story of cain and abel, they were sons of Adam and Eve in the biblical Book of Genesis. Cain, the firstborn, tilled the soil, and his brother Abel was a shepherd. The brothers made sacrifices
 to God, each of his own produce, but God favored Abel's sacrifice
instead of Cain's. Cain murdered Abel. God punished Cain to a life of
wandering, but set a mark on him so that no man would kill him. Cain
then dwelt in the land of Nod, where he built a city and fathered the line of descendants beginning with Enoch.
 The narrative never explicitly states Cain's motive nor God's reason
for rejecting Cain's sacrifice, nor details on the identity of Cain's
wife. Some traditional interpretations consider Cain to be the
originator of evil, violence, or greed. According to Genesis, Cain was
the first human born and Abel was the first to die.

The game calls it the first murder. In-game, as punishment, cain is given endless reincarnations with preserved memory, but is given protection by having the curse placed on him that protects him, avenging those who might harm him sevenfold. He was given time to repent, and to focus on his sin also as an example that might be set by the first murder repenting. He however takes this as a chance to use his infinite lifetimes to prepare and find a way to kill god. Leading to being one of the main basis-es behind the plot of the game. In-game, abel descends to the
underworld or demon world due to his grudge at cain. Which is what provides his later ability to enter the war of bel, due to obtaining a demonic aspect.

Overclocked depicts cain's murder as if god knew it was likely to occur, seemingly allowing (among other potential goals) it to be used as an example for the benefit of many, by being an inspirational story. Various old testament stories are ascribed in overclocked as having a utilitarian motive to god allowing bad things to occur. With honda referring to it by saying "A single human is used to set an example for many. that is real character of god." And this is described as if while someone telling you that hot water might burn your hand, you might listen, but seeing it in action will provide a more effective example. Notably, yhvh in overclocked is not implied to be as corrupt in the same way seen in other games, with it being one of the few in-game universes where even the law side doesn't end up going against him.

### Enoch

Enoch is a figure in the bible, depicted as coming from the seventh generation after adam. Little is said about him in the bible itself, however, though it says that Enoch lived 365 years before he was taken by God.
The text reads that Enoch "walked with God: and he was no more; for God
took him", which some interpret as Enoch entering Heaven alive. Since in the old testament only two figures are described this way, being enoch and elijah, the question has come up as to what purpose he was taken for. While christians have no official reason given, many jews believed that he was transformed into the angel metatron. In overclocked, naoya refers to metatron as enoch, implying that he was once human. Metatron and sandalphon also have a mechanical appearance, described by kaneko as if they are like a cyborg, changed into angelic armor form.

### Noah

**Noah** The story of noah shows up as a motif in the series.
The story of noah implicates that at some point the world got so
bad that it was better to simply restart it than carry on thinking it
would improve. The most obvious iteration of this shows up in II,
where they literally build an ark due to how corrupt the world is, to preserve enough to make a better new one with a humanity that has different attributes. Biblically however, if you are dealing with an all
powerful God, it becomes questionable what makes that the only thing
it can think of to improve the situation. Interestingly, it is noted that at the time this
was written, the jews did not assume God was all powerful. Making the
story more reasonable in context. A few churches still consider it a
literal story, but most now do not. Divine judgement and smiting of
other forms obviously show up, but this is the most known story.

Megaten takes this idea and turns it into an idea of cycles, saying in some games that yhvh destroying and recreating worlds is a cycle that happens repeatedly (though to be fair it seems all worlds are fated to end all the same). Which sounds closer to a hindu cosmology than abrahamic. As such, the story of noah would then not be a one off story, but a type of thing that may have happened many times, or at any rate would happen many times if he stays in charge. Interestingly, in the early games lucifer says that this has always been under yhvh's control, whereas other chaos demons say that yhvh was an usurper. Which in some later games is described as as that he has always been in control of this version of the world-system, but was an usurper of the universe from a time when an older system existed. Either way, this implies an interesting context to yhvh's character. Because like they said in an early interview, he represents not just the jewish yhvh, but also some aspects of other religions as well.

In strange journey lucifer also says that the ark that withstood the flood cannot compare to what you are riding now. So it is mentioned directly. Also, In persona 5 a darker take is given to the idea of an arc, where in Shido's palace there are signs on the walls saying the arc of elite. Implying not caring about actually wanting to make something new, but merely letting harms come, and trying to protect yourself by riding them out. Which can imply pessimism about taking the harms seriously, or simply not caring about those who aren't protected.

The motif of Noah also shows up in nocturne for a different purpose. Isamu calls his nameless god Noah, since as a god of isolation, the motif of Noah calls to mind being the only beings in an empty world.

Later, in soul hackers 2, the game alludes to the part of the story of noah where god creates a rainbow as a symbol of never again flooding the world. In soul hackers 2, the great one who the phantom society seeks to call forth left several mystical essences called covenants. Due to the different colors they have a collective rainbow aspect, in reference to this. And while it is not limited to exclusively being seen as abrahamic, the great one in that game is coded as such, and the phantom society is described as primarily seeing it that way.

### The tower of Babel

**The tower of babel** is a vague story
that shows up in genesis where humans attempt to build a tower out of
some kind of pride, and God seeing it as some kind of challenge
confounds their language so that the work cannot be finished. The
story is ambiguous, but implies that God saw it as a literal threat, and something to worry about. Later Christians and Jews however
interpreted it merely as them challenging god through arrogance, and
not a real threat to God. Although this seems like an odd thing at
first to use for the core piece of power of the lord of bel in devil
survivor, it actually makes sense in context. Namely, that in
interpretations by which God sees it as an actual threat or opponent,
it makes sense to be the main basis of the power of what will become
the overlord that could challenge God. And in-game, this threat is
interpreted to have come from a strong basis of demonic power.

Babel as a word is related to the word
bel, which is an Akkadian word for "Lord" or "Master".
The Tower of Babel has been associated with known structures
according to some modern scholars, notably the Etemenanki, a ziggurat
dedicated to the Mesopotamian god **Marduk** by Nabopolassar, king of
Babylonia (c. 610 BCE). Implying that the original bel in game is
actually meant to be marduk. The "Bel" title became
associated with the Babylonian patron god Marduk, first as "Bel
Marduk", but eventually being commonly used by itself, "Bel".
When Bel is found in Assyrian and Babylonian personal names or
mentioned in inscriptions it can usually be taken as referring to Bel
Marduk and no other god. After Bel gained prominence, other local
gods called "Lord" were often identified totally or
partially with Bel by various civilizations, even if they had little
in common with the original Marduk. The Greek and Roman identified
Bel with their chief deities, using the names "Zeus Belus"
or "Jupiter Belus" when referencing Bel Marduk in Classic
Greek and Latin texts.

The babylonian marduk being slightly older
than the jewish religion parallels the dates loki gives in game,
albeit loosely. Jews having spent time there, considered their
religions opponents, but may have also been influenced by them.
Ironically, despite marduk being the opponent of yhvh in devil
survivor, in strange journey they are loosely conflated together,
since marduk is seen as having defeated the primal tiamat and chaotic
nature gods to establish order. Tiamat being one of the mother
godesses in strange journey makes the association overt. Since jews
were likely influenced by babylonian religion despite considering it
an opponent, this makes sense as well. The bible itself in Jeremiah
51:44-46 has YHVH saying he will defeat marduk. Not only that, but
the original hebrew version of Genesis 1 seems to have been written
by someone familiar with the Enuma Elish babylonian story, and a word
for the deep is derived from the word tiamat, which can loosely imply
a relation of YHVH in the role of marduk.

>I will punish Marduk, the god of
Babylon, and make him vomit up everything he gobbled down. Then
nations will no longer bring him gifts, and Babylon’s walls will
crumble.

Note that in the old testament, many
opposing gods had the word bel in their name like bel peor (later
spelled belphegor) or beelzebub. (though some of these names were
used as ironic insults). So a lot of demons running around with bel
in their name who want to challenge God parallels old testament lore.
At one point even a direct challenge being shown between elijah and
the prophets of baal. Being based on the old testament, before a main
devil opponent existed then, it would make sense that lucifer is not
a part of devil survivor's plot. Note also that the title bel in real
life originally referred to one god before being used for many.

So
this parallels the idea of one god being broken up into several. And
if the lord of bel sides with yhvh, this simply loosely represents
christianization (or for the time victories either literal or
projected of the jews) and incorporation of local themes. Since yhvh
lore may have been influenced by the stories of marduk, triumph and
incorporation makes sense thematically also. The book of daniel has a
prophet of God shown bringing babylon around to him, and has the king
have a vision about the future, seeing his kingdom and a few after
him, and finally one belonging to YHVH that never ends. (Extra note,
genesis is implied by some scholars to be metaphorical language
detailing YHVH's superiority over babylonian gods, which marduk / bel
is the main of).

### Sodom and Gomorrah

**Sodom and Gomorrah** were cities mentioned in the Book of Genesis and throughout the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament and in the deuterocanonical books, as well as in the Quran and the hadith. The story has angels visit abraham who tell them that the city will be destroyed due to the wickedness found there. Abraham pleads that it not be if righteous people can be found there, but keeps asking for smaller numbers when the task proved impossible.

Angels later went to visit lot who lived there to warn him to leave, but the people of the town demanded that lot turn the people over to them. Lot leaves, but his wife turns around to look at the divine judgement after they were warned not to and turns into a pillar of salt. The names of these cities became a common symbol for judgement.

In devil survivor belial has an attack called fire of sodom. Which is interesting, since it ascribes the destruction to a demonic rather than heavenly source. In strange journey mastema when using holy fire to turn demons into the shibboleth, a weapon that can harm horkos, he mentions that you must close your eyes because you cannot look at it.

### The founding of Judaism

**Judaism** Judaism proper is often
implied to have been started with **moses**, though many historians
now consider him to have been a mythological figure. Moses was born at a time the jews were implied to be slaves in egypt, but saw a vision of god in a burning bush leading him to go to the pharaoh to ask for them to be freed. The pharaoh refused, and so god sent plagues on him until he relented. The jews eventually left, only for pharaoh to come after them again, and drown when god split the sea just long enough for the jews to pass. They came to a mountain where yhvh lived, and that was when judaism proper was founded.

There is not
much very interesting to mention about moses that is relevant to
later christian theology, other than one interesting point. That
being that God is introduced as an angel of God, who it later simply
says was God. This is because the term "angel" was also used to refer to emanations of god at the time. Later interpretations would interpret this as the metatron, who was given the role of speaking for god, and at times even conflate metatron with god. This conflation
matches of course in game where angels often subtly refer to their
own actions as those of God, using god in a metaphorical sense, or like a group entity that various beings embody aspects of. Some
Christians imply that this means it was a pre incarnation Jesus.

>The angel of the Lord appeared to
him in a blazing fire from the midst of a bush; and he looked, and
behold, the bush was burning with fire, yet the bush was not
consumed. 3 So Moses said, “I must turn aside now and see this
marvelous sight, why the bush is not burned up.” 4 When the Lord
saw that he turned aside to look, God called to him from the midst of
the bush and said, “Moses, Moses!”

>the Lord himself shall descend from
heaven, with a shout, with the voice of the archangel.

Another interesting aspect comes up in
a part of the texts that often are glossed over. Ezekiel 20:25 says
"Wherefore I gave them also statutes that were not good, and
judgments whereby they should not live." Which seems to be a
confusing part where YHVH is taking credit for leading people into
evil. Modern writers present it as a punishment that is written
oddly, or interpret gave as "allowed." (the lead in verses
do say it was done as a punishment, though that is an odd
punishment). Though historians consider it a possible way for jews to
retcon earlier teachings they had by insisting that those were evil
all along. If one takes it literally, it works well with the plot of
IVA, where YHVH is behind both law and chaos all along, deliberately
allowing and propagating the chaos side to ensure that the war
between them never ends.

**The covenant** The Mosaic covenant,
found in Exodus 19-24 and the book of Deuteronomy, contains the
foundations of the written Torah and the Oral Torah. In this
covenant, God promises to make the Israelites his treasured
possession among all people and "a kingdom of priests and a holy
nation", if they follow God's commandments. As part of the terms
of this covenant, God gives Moses the Ten Commandments. These will
later be elaborated on in the rest of the Torah.

In IVA, krishna calls YHVH the god of
the covenant. Saying that yhvh's universe binds humans to a covenant
with him. That he makes the universe a crucible for human suffering,
and that those who will survive are those who submit themselves to
yhvh. Something about this universal structure is implied to let yhvh
have control over certain human observations, and thus gives him the
power to prevent the arising of new gods, as well as to demonize gods
he pleases through control over human knowledge. Thus why dagda feels
imprisoned in his current form thrown upon him by yhvh. This also
seems to make him able to see out of the eyes of any human, and so be
anywhere in existence he wishes. And also gives him the power to at
least in his universe recreate battles those people have undergone
using this power, to create phantoms to fight them off. By
interpreting things through human eyes.

In-game it seems that many people interpret that the covenant seems to imply a promised
reward of a new peaceful law world. But in IVA yhvh does not seem to particularly want to
create a law world, actively giving demons power
to upset it, which as the divine powers say is so that each apocalypse leads into a new genesis and new
cycle. So that people are always moving towards a world of order
through following his law, but never arriving. So perhaps this means that he does not care whether one wins long term as long as it remains under his control. The implication of this is that the law world was not the original goal of yhvh, but something that developed over time. Which is consistent with in real life how in the old testament there was no eschatology of a peaceful afterlife.

This term covenant
obviously calls to mind old testament times, even though the in game
promised reward also calls to mind concepts of the afterlife, both
from christian and jewish sources. Note yhvh calls himself the
embodiment of law in iva. Though note that "law" in the
sense he represents can be distinct from the goal of the law side,
leading to him as an enemy even on II. Since if they want law as in
order, note that in iva he commands laws while subverting order. For information about yhvh and law's goals check the ethics page.

**The ark of the covenant** is a structure created under the design of moses to hold the ten commandments, and seen as a seat of god. In smtii, certain chests are designed to look like it. And in the english version of strikers, emma's first form bears that name, likely in reference to it being a guide.

**Rivers in the desert**, the song from persona 5 seems to be a reference to Isaiah 43:19 which states "For I am about to do something new. See, I have already begun! Do you not see it? I will make a pathway through the wilderness. I will create rivers in the dry wasteland." Where wasteland can also be translated as desert. The implication likely being doing something both good and difficult. An interesting irony here is that god is the one speaking, so while the first time you hear it it can refer to you defeating shido, an interesting reverse can be that the second time the grail itself may think its the one speaking.

### Jezebel

**Jezebel** is described in the Book of Kings as a queen who was the wife of Ahab, the King of Israel. According to the Books of Kings in the Hebrew Bible, Jezebel incited her husband King Ahab to abandon the worship of Yahweh and encourage worship of the deities Baal and Asherah instead. Jezebel persecuted the prophets of Yahweh, and fabricated evidence of blasphemy against an innocent landowner
 who refused to sell his property to King Ahab, causing the landowner to
 be put to death. For these transgressions against the God and people of
 Israel, Jezebel met a gruesome death—thrown out of a window by members of her own court retinue, and the flesh of her corpse eaten by stray dogs.

Jezebel shows up in devil survivor as a bel, being a servant of belberith. This is a reference to her biblical story about following baal. Notably, she is depicted as a demon. This may be a reference to the fact that the phrase jezebel spirit later became a term for a spirit that influenced people sexually, or into false doctrine. Though the term was more often used metaphorically.

### Ahaziah of Israel

Although this is a relatively obscure part of the old testament that would otherwise not be very noteworthy, Ahaziah was king of Israel and the son of Ahab and Jezebel. During his reign the Moabites rebelled against his authority. What makes him noteworthy is that he tried to consult baal-zebub about his recovery after an injury, but his messengers were told by elijah that for trying to appeal to a god other than yhvh he would never be healed.

In SMTIV, the king of mikado in the present is king Ahazuya, which is an alternate spelling of Ahaziah. In game, he is deposed by the angels and tries to seek help from beelzebub / baal, in keeping with the original figure. This shows a parallel of mikado to the jews as god's chosen people, as well as problems that arise form turning away. Similar themes are shown in II with the center having problems in part due to allowing in chaotic influences such as belphegor, who is another baal of the old testament the jews fell into worshiping and which it says caused problems for them.

### Job

The beginning of the book of job shows the righteous Job blessed with wealth and sons and daughters. The scene shifts to heaven, where God asks Satan (*ha-satan*,
 literally "the accuser") for his opinion of Job's piety. Satan answers
that Job is pious only because God has blessed him; if God were to take
away everything that Job had, then he would surely curse God. Satan asks for permission to do this, and is granted it. Job is inflicted with suffering, but does not lose faith, and is visited by friends who tell him it is for a sin he committed but he declares that this cannot be the case, since he has done no great sin. Ultimately satan gives up tormenting him, and he is rewarded for his faith. The book is meant to show not only the perseverance of faith, but also that not all bad events are punishments, but some merely occur.

It shows up being referenced often in amane's eighth day in overclocked as an example of god allowing suffering to befall individuals as an example for the benefit of many. And as such is ascribed a kind of utilitarian tone. Although in the original bible there was no overt indication of utilitarian ethics used as a reason. As an example it is shown to be of the perseverance of faith, inspiring many.

### Ancient hebrew cosmology

The ancient hebrew cosmology is described in the book of genesis, and shown in some other areas of the old testament. It posits that the sky is in some sense a tangible dome, above which is water that can be let loose to cause rain. And the realm of god exists above this, in the heaven of heavens. The sun and moon and planets and stars all exist on the inside of the dome, making the realm of god unseen.

Although nothing depicting the rivers in the sky dynamic is seen in the games, the language of the firmanent is used in the plot of SMTIV, in order to explain the dome over tokyo. From the perspective of tokyo, angels are seen as coming from the top, out of beyond the dome. And at the end of the game, the portal to purgatorium and paradisio are placed there, giving the location a kind of additional religious significance.

### Old testament ethics

There is not much more from the old
testament that needs to be focused on. Obviously in parts, people
notice that some aspects like its morals seem grossly out of date.
There are differing religious interpretations of this. Some say that those were
necessary morals for the times, but not relevant now. Some say that those were
never good, but something God simply allowed the jews to do. (There's
a bit of this interpretation in the new testament as well, since
Jesus himself is reported as saying that Moses allowed certain things
due to the hardness of people's hearts that were still wrong). And of
course the last interpretation says that the old testament while
inspired, or perhaps not inspired but a recounting of semi accurate
events as never fully accurate, and so the information in it was not
Gods will for people then, and is not now. Since the new testament is
so different, and Jesus criticized the old morals, there is an
argument for this as well.

Note that in game, there are come parallels to the shift in ethics. Yhvh himself seems to act more old testament, while some of the angels or endings tend to act more new testament. Implying a distinction between whatever his paradigm was originally versus what is being built on it now (Though there is a mix of both in both cases, so one shouldn't assume it is a binary). Likewise, iva has the "original angel" (identified as satan) who is more balanced in tone split into the regular and fallen ones known of later. Showing a paradigm shift.

The last thing to mention from the old
testament to bring up is the specific events where it was insisted
that “God” commanded killing of large groups of people. This also
interestingly shows up in game, though again like with the story of
noah makes more sense in game than from the perspective of an
omnipotent god demanding it for arbitrary reasons. In the old
testament it is often for little reason at all other than to defend
the jews. Nowadays those who still consider it literal present it as
a test of faith of trusting God who has ineffable demands. But this
is dubious, since it presumes that God had no better solution than to
just tell people to do things that would be bad regularly, despite
being all powerful. (Fortunately, most of these stories are now
thought to have been made up by the jews, and not historical events).

Interestingly, the games at times find a way to make a more positive spin on
this from a utilitarian angle. Not every universe has the same yhvh. Some are corrupt, and so are still implied to be doing it for bad reasons. But others are not. Since the law side, and yhvh himself is not all powerful, but highly
knowing, being able to project for you what actions that seem bad in
the immediate sense will have longer benefits in the long term. And
so it still becomes an act of faith as to whether one thinks that whatever is being asked of one is
worth trusting. But one can go beyond the aspect of faith, to look at
the implications of the actions themselves to see their logic. Dx2 also gives a sympathetic motive, in that vanitas is depicted as a threat that commonly incarnates in and harms unstable worlds and that the world of law is a guaranteed way to prevent it.

Note
however, since even law figures ultimately tend to reject yhvh, it
also seems to be criticizing how he himself does things, even if it
is okay with having to kill for the greater good. Note that in the
law end of II a contrast is that satan saw killing as a necessary
evil for a greater good, but yhvh thinking he was above it all didn't
recognize it as mattering when it was in his name. So the implication is that yhvh may kill people like this even when not for a greater good. Implying that the same type of thing is being used both to criticize old testament logic, but give a justification for such an idea. And in general, even law figures can dislike the arrogant tone yhvh in-series gives off, seeing him as an unnecessary aspect of the system.

### Messiah

The old testament to christians leads into
the new testament with them having a prophecy about a messiah who
would save the jewish people. Jesus obviously being one who
Christians believe fulfilled this prophecy. And they see the old testament as a
whole in its entirety as a process of revealing Jesus that past then
became in some sense obsolete. (Interestingly, yhvh can then represent the old testament, becoming obsolete when the messiah comes, and why he is killed off in
II as an enemy). Jews in contrast say the messiah has not yet come, and they are still waiting for him. And that when he comes if will lead into the future world.

In judaism, messiah is a title for a savior and liberator of the Jewish people. The concept of messianism originated in Judaism, and in the Hebrew Bible, a messiah is a king or High Priest traditionally anointed with holy anointing oil. However, messiahs were not exclusively Jewish, as the Hebrew Bible refers to Cyrus the Great, king of Persia, as a kind of messiah for his decree to rebuild the Jerusalem Temple.

In Jewish eschatology, the Messiah is a future Jewish king from the Davidic line, who is expected to be anointed with holy anointing oil and rule the Jewish people during the Messianic Age and World to come. The Messiah is often referred to as "King Messiah". Note that despite his supreme importance placed on him for eschatological reasons, in early judaism he was likely meant to be a liberator in a more immediate sense, freeing the jews from their enemies.

In many ways the messiah in-game of the messians is based on the jewish messiah as much as jesus. Because while jesus was depicted as defeating sin in an abstract way, the jews are still expecting a human messiah who will effect lasting, liberating, utopian change. So this emphasis is both on the future, as well as this being someone who will tangible improve the world, defeating evil. Though even non abrahamic forms of messiah are mixed into it. Since messianism in-game draws on many things, including japanese yonaoshi cults.

In iva the term messiah is used a little differently, being treated as a synonym for hero in general. This going back to some of the earlier takes on the figure as someone who would save the people, but who wasn't quite as overt of an eschatological figure yet.

## God - General

In monotheism, God is conceived as the
Supreme Being and principal object of faith. The concept of God as
described by theologians commonly includes the attributes of
omniscience (infinite knowledge), omnipotence (unlimited power), omnipresence (present everywhere), omnibenevolence (perfect goodness), divine simplicity, and eternal and necessary existence.
In christianity, God is the creator and sustainer of the universe,
literally holding it in existence. Goodness in christianity is often
assumed to be a literal attribute of God in the sense that God is not
an entity that is merely good, but is goodness itself. So morality
exists in a sense dependent on God, since all moral facts are
contained within God. The idea of defining god as goodness itself is
perhaps an inspiration from platonic philosophy, and the idea of the
forms, especially the form of the good.

Note that while yhvh obviously does not have all
these qualities in-game, he is depicted as having some of them in metaphorical senses, or at least passing himself off as such.
 In iva, it establishes that he is in some sense related to the observations of people, and claims to use this power to see everything that goes on in the world at once (how literal this is being ambiguous). As the figure in the seat of power, he is the strongest being in his reality. And since he is tied to the great will in his world due to being the moderator, they depict this as in a sense him being everywhere at once. He tries to conflate himself with the great will when in power, which is where the moral facts would in a sense reside. But this relation erodes when he is targeted. In the end however, these things are meant to be percieved as stretches that are not literally true. This being most obvious when he claims to sustain the world, but this being revealed to be a lie to scare you off of fighting him.

Michael
in I says that “god” decides right and wrong, not you. Presumably
tying into this. Since when they say "god" in-game, its a
vague lumping together of yhvh, the avatars, the great will, and the
holy spirit into one referent. Since you sometimes target yhvh even on law endings, they obviously don't literally mean that yhvh decides morality, since they see him too as one who can fall afoul of it. There seems to be internal inconsistency among the messians as among any side as to whether yhvh's commands are inherently binding or not. With the development often being towards even the angels realizing he shouldn't be placed this high, or should be moved past entirely.

Although Christians and jews now both
believe god is omnipotent for the most part, it is likely that the
earliest jews did not. Since the old testament is vague on this at
parts. Which means the in game depiction of a limited god who has to
do some things due to limits that might seem odd if one had none
makes sense. Some more radical Christians now likewise believe that
god is not all powerful. This also explains the story of yhvh over
time usurping other gods. Since judaism was originally polytheistic, before becoming monotheistic. Something that may have been due to zoroastrian influence.

If this association is not obvious, God
is often associated with light or an infinite light. And in megaten
is often described this way. Mem aleph calls God an overbearing
light. Kagutsuchi has an attack called infinite light (while kagutsuchi is not itself an abrahamic figure, in game he conflates together a few ideas, one being the sephirot). The ending in
SJ makes a world filled with light, etc. Demons also call him an
arrogant god. Which from a polytheistic perspective where he is ignoring other gods can make sense.
 Even in the old testament during writings which may have
been polytheistic, god describing himself uses words that translate
to things like jealous.

**The Euthyphro dilemma** is an idea
came up with by plato, but which is an important concept now as part of
theology. Basically, it asks the question of whether what is good is
good because the gods says so, or whether they say so because it is
good. (assuming perfect gods). The issue of this dilemma is that if
god says something is good because it already is, then goodness does
not come from god. But if it is because god says so, then it seems
the decision is arbitrary. A christian answer that tries to subvert
this is to say it is not one or the other, but that these are the
same. And god cannot make arbitrary decisions, since corresponding to
inherent goodness is his nature.

However, some christian ethicists in
modern day have said that that is in a sense obfuscatory, since it is
nonsensical to say if you assume God is a sentient entity. So they
simply say that morality exists, and God perfectly represents it.
In megaten, both these interpretations appear. Corrupt versions of yhvh are associated with divine command theory, and the idea that following his commands is independently good, as he embodies this idea of divine commands. Non corrupt versions are seen differently, not inherently being presented as having binding commands, but giving guides to better ends, more in keeping with law's themes of peace or utilitarian themes. Note of
course most of these modern christian ethicists think God is still
infallible. (Though not all. There are some other radical
interpretations).

God is seen as timeless, and in some
sense incapable of change. (in iva satan even calls yhvh \*the\*
eternal unchanging truth of the world. Since yhvh tried to find a way
to make himself above certain changes that the rest of the world
inherently has). The term yhvh is even implied to mean by some
translations the one who is. Which is why in iva he says "I am
that I am," which is related to a common saying about him.
Implying one who simply is by their own power. Though in iva this is
meant to be him talking himself up a bit. How it is that God can be this
if he performs actions is left a little ambiguous. But some say that
those actions are somehow not changes, since they existed from
eternity.

How God's mind works if he cannot change is also a little
abstract. For instance, it has been asked whether if one suffers if
God is moved by it, or impassive. But the answer that people could
feel God's love, while God feels nothing and changes not at all is
dubious. The answer to this then was that God's constant state is
unchanging and emanating love, and so people who receive it
inherently do so, rather than situationally. This idea of
unchagingness and order is another reason that Christianity is used
for law. Not to mention that the idea of being unchanging mentally,
but constantly loving also closely resembles the stoic ideal that
made its way into law as well.

**Seeing God**. In IVA it is pointed
out that no human has ever seen yhvh directly, and yhvh only sends
messengers indirectly. II hinted at something similar to this, though
it was not directly stated, and in II there were exceptions whereas
in IVA there are implied to be none. This is a reference to certain
verses. 1 Timothy 6:16 who alone is immortal and who lives in
unapproachable light, whom no one has seen or can see. To him be
honor and might forever. Amen. 1 John 4:12 No one has ever seen God;
but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made
complete in us. It also references how in kabbalah the higher tiers
of god only interact with lower aspects of earth through emanations, with the godhead being by definition unable to be properly seen.

## God - Trinity

Now the Jews had long struggles with
polytheism. Many historians saying that YHVH was literally one among
many gods who eventually won out and the religion converted to
monotheistic form. Meaning that in its original form, Jews saw it as polytheistic, but with only one god being relevant to them. Jews themselves do not necessarily deny this,
albeit their explanation is that at the time the people simply did
not understand monotheism, and so often worshiped other false gods
like baal alongside the true one. But by the time christianity came
up, Jews had long since been monotheistic. Jews obviously were never, and are still not trinitarians (though kabbalah does potentially introduce some division in God, depending on interpretation.). The concept of the holy
spirit existed to them, but rather than as an entity, it existed as
more of an abstract presence of God.

Christians obviously ended up considering Jesus part of
God, but what many people don't know is that he may have never
implied this himself. The reason that there were so many ideas in
early Christianity was that it was ambiguous what Jesus' relation to
God was supposed to be. But to know what it was that won out, its
important to know what didn't. Most of the new testament makes no mention of Jesus being god, and the one book that does, which is the gospel of john still has theology that does not closely resemble trinitarianism. So here is some short descriptions of
ideas declared “incorrect” by the ones who won out and wrote the
creeds.

**Modalism** is the idea that God only
has one personality. But shows up in different forms, such as father,
son, and holy spirit.

**Partialism** while a new word is the
idea that God has different parts. One being the father. One being
the son. The reason this is considered wrong is hard to follow, since while there are three persons, orthodox trinitarianism denies that there are three parts.

**Arianism** asserts that Jesus is the
Son of God, but is entirely distinct from and subordinate to God the
Father. Arianism was a prevalent belief, and the main thing that the
creed writers were trying to crack down on. Many arians believed that
Jesus was a divine being created before the world, perhaps the first
entity created. This actually has precedent, which made it so
dangerous, since in most of the gospels Jesus does not claim to be
God, and in the one that tries to ascribe the most divinity to him he
even says "the father is greater than I."

**Adoptionism** is the idea that Jesus
was born as a regular human, but at some point in his life was
adopted as God's chosen son and the messiah. This closely
resembles how it happens in megaten with random people. Even though
special cases like zayin are sent as humans directly. Note that the
concept of the artificial messiahs, and random people chosen to
become them, who like in IV are only later filled with the holy
spirit, it seems that this messiah role is being implied. In Is visionary items, law hero even refers to the messiah as someone doing his best for god. And he himself obviously was not inherently born to be one.

**Orthodox trinitarianism** is the
belief that won out, and which most christian churches now officially
profess. And this belief is that while God has three persons, of
father, son, and holy spirit, they are each distinct persons, but...
there are no divisions or parts in the Godhead. This is something that seems contradictory, but which they claim is resolved in some incomprehensible way. Even some trinitarians consider
the idea of there being no distinctions obfuscatory, and a mistake
that the definers made. Some try to insist that it being non physical
is why it is hard to understand, but this is misleading, since ideas
like modalism are easily intuitive. Interestingly, jews consider christians polytheists for this reason,
and so are often forbidden to enter a church, but not a mosque.

However, biblical scholars note that in most of the original texts Jesus does not seem to be depicted as God. For instance, only in the book of john in the new testament is he described as such. In the others, despite importance being placed on him, this is never mentioned or implied, nor is any indication given of a new understanding of God. And even john is not a trinitarian in the normal sense, since he seems to depict Jesus as a lower aspect of god that represents him, similar to the gnostic idea. Here is a list of relevant verses.

http://biblehub.com/john/14-28.htm

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John+8%3A28&version=ESV

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Mark+13%3A32&version=ESV

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Hebrews+5%3A8&version=ESV

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+19%3A16-17&version=ESV

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+Corinthians+8%3A6&version=ESV

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Colossians+1%3A15&version=ESV

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Revelation+3%3A14&version=ESV

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John+20%3A17&version=ESV

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John+17%3A3&version=ESV

Note that at different times jesus says the father is superior. Disavows omniscience. Says that he is capable of learning. Is called the first creation. Says he is not all good like the father. Calls the father his own god, specifying a lower position, and disavowing full godhood, etc. To the majority of biblical writers Jesus is not seen as god. In john he is depicted as kind of god in an emanationist way. He is not the godhead, but an intermediary lesser part of god in between god and humanity. Its borderline gHowever, in the bible it seems that none of the new testament authors other than John considered Jesus to be God. Both never mentioning him being so, never implying a new understanding of God, and sometimes depicting his importance as some other type of figure. Trinitarians sometimes say however that while the gospels did not express this directly, it was a revelation that was arrived at in time.

Although this last part is not related to the concept of god as a trinity in an explicit way, in majin tensei ii they refer to the relation of the three worlds, paranoia, the axis, and amnesia (hell, earth, and heaven) as a trinity. That are three parts of a single whole, and none of which can exist without the other due to their inherent interrelation. With actions in each affecting the other.

## God - Persons

### Father

**God the father** (Ancient of days, is a name for God in the Book of Daniel) or **YHVH** / **YHWH** is seen as the creator of the world, and as the one the Jews
spoke with in the old testament. He is the one who the face of
YHVH
is generally meant to depict (with kabbalic interpretation of adam kadmon mixed in), though from a nontrinitarian
perspective he would just be “God” with no relation to other
parts being necessary.

Note that God having “avatars” in game is
not based on any orthodox christian ideas (but rather kabbalic ones), since the persons of God
are all seen as equally God, and not avatars. Though the avatars
names are taken from other names for him (some of which are implied
to be stolen names of other gods from the area the jews were from). In-game, yhvh does not take the form of a trinity, although various things in game used by the law side do have triangles as a trinity reference, such as the church logo in iv, abdiel's armor, or even triangles on the face of yhvh in iva.

The name yhvh itself is generally presumed to simply mean “I Am,” to signify
that God simply is, and is not dependent on other things. Another way
to refer to his name is tetragrammaton, which you will note is a term
that shows up on some summoning sigils
in game. This was something middle ages magicians did to hope that
using names of gods would bind demons from escaping with his holy
power.

Note that yhvh in iva literally depicts himself like a kind of cosmic father figure, referring to himself as your father. And his role in the lore of what his nature is seems to relate to this. In an interview they say his face is meant to be the same face that adam had, having designed adam after himself. This being based on the idea in genesis of god saying let us create man in our own image. And they also base this on the kabbalic idea of adam kadmon.

One other potential reasoning for this appearance is that in
the old testament the jews had rules against depicting god directly
as anything in particular, or describing god as looking like anything
in particular, due to that being limiting. However, there is a common
phrase that is often used to signify god's presence or attention
which is the “**face of god**.” This is also called the divine
countenance, which to draw a connection, in II yhvh openly uses the
word countenance directly, which means more or less “face.” This
phrase is generally used metaphorically, but some descriptions of it
are written in an almost literal fashion. And the phrase is common
enough that it is the “main” description so to speak, and the
fact that he says directly “countenance” is a confirmation. (Note, another inspiration may be a
play on words of the word godhead). Note that zayin in the added scene of II talks about how god does not just have one face, and that others can
become faces of god. Since YHVH is not god itself in megaten, since the law side uses the term god in a wider more ambiguous sense, but is a god which merely tries to represent this fullness. This is related to but distinct from the scene in
IV where:

Lucifer says that no matter how loyal
one is to god, he will never answer. In part this merely refers to
the reality of real life both in the religious sense of no direct
responses to prayer, but also the moral sense that if you do good
things, you're not necessarily going to be rewarded for it. But it
also has to do with things like In the Book of Exodus 33:20 God says
"Thou canst not see my face: for there shall no man see Me and
live", echoed in the Christian New Testament in the Gospel of
John 1:18: "No man hath seen God at any time". The
implication being that directly seeing the true reality of God is
impossible, and so people can only see limited projections.

In game
having to do with the idea that the great will is ineffable and
beyond direct experience, and yhvh himself stays remote, and that even angels act in an area of some
ambiguity. Which is why in IV, the archangels and mastema are at
odds, both claiming that god is on their side. This in part meaning
that yhvh or other avatars in game are not literally seen entirely as
god so to speak. Doubly so at times when even angelic law figures who
still speak highly of the concept of god are subverting yhvh.

Other designs for god to note are
things such as the eye of providence.
This is representation of God merely as an eye, to show being all
seeing. Something that shows up in game on some avatars, or on some
messian outfits. The plot of SMTII also resembles the form of it that is seen on the dollar bill, with the top of the pyramid coming off with the eye of providence inside. This also being in reference to conspiratorial new world order theories of the symbol that law draws on. Ancient of days
has a more confusing design. Two possibilities are the ark of the
covenant
where god was said to reside indirectly, and the catholic idea of a
monstrance on an altar
Both things that the design loosely calls to mind. The eye of providence also shows up in the vietnamese religion that draws on catholicism, cao dai, which shaddai from smtii may be based on.

Note that many of the old testament
jews were not montheists, but simply believed that yhvh was the one
god they should follow. Modern jews of course say that this is
because monotheism was an alien idea to early people. the first
commandment of the ten commandments does not explicitly say that
there is only one god, merely that he is their god, and they must not
hold any gods higher than him. Making it technically not inconsistent
to say that there are other lower gods, even though this is obviously
not the main interpretation of christians now. Note that in the law
ending of II zayin calls yhvh the highest god, which is a valid
interpretation of the first commandment. In IV, gabriel also talks
about people using the lord's name in vain, to refer to using it to
endorse their own actions. The second commandment.

YHVH, as the old testament god is seen
very different in Gnosticism, as an evil, or at best ignorant figure.
This was because due to his seeming immoral nature in the old
testament, some early Christians could not rationalize being the same
entity as the god Jesus spoke of who seemed to be about love. Which
of course parallels the idea that in megaten yhvh seems to be often
depicted as an imperfect or immoral figure. So much so that he is the
enemy often even of law figures. More information about that will be
on the gnosticism page.

### Son

**Jesus** is described as the son of god by christians, and by orthodox trinitarians also god himself. He was born to Mary, grew up and began preaching, and was crucified, being seen as resurrecting three days later.

An interesting point is that christians
identify him as the logos, which was the stoic word for God.
Christians often consider this an implication of divine order taking
on flesh. Jesus' sacrifice by being crucified is seen as a necessary
event by many Christians, in order to establish the right for humans
to be with God, and undo original sin. Though this idea was developed
over time. (Note that this christian concept of salvation needing to repair god and man's connection that was damaged by sin is absent from Judaism).

The idea of the messianic sacrifice obviously often shows
up in the games, even though the person of Jesus not mentioned directly in most games, aside from strange journey.
Aleph in II however acts as a kind of expy of Jesus, and any figure called a messiah seems to be taking on the general role.. Even in law, you
can loosely interpret him fighting yhvh as a shift to new testament
logic which was much better than what was before. Zayin when dying
even calls hiroko the new holy mother of the new savior. The persona
Messiah
in persona 3 is meant to call jesus to mind, with the beam
being slightly cross like, and represents the main character sacrificing himself. Likewise there is also a random demon named
agony
that is loosely Jesus, despite having no plot based association, and
is neutrally aligned.

Jesus
is obviously associated with crosses. Though despite being crucified on one,
the cross did not become a symbol of christianity for hundreds of
years. With an earlier symbol being derivatives of the Jesus fish. However, one should also note that crosses are not only
associated with jesus in christianity. To refer to working for his
ends, or making sacrifice Jesus in the gospels uses the phrase “take
up your cross and follow me.” So artistic depictions of other holy
people with crosses is not uncommon. And so zelenin having one in
SJ
is not some form of odd depiction. But can just symbolize being
someone who willingly took up their cross. Likewise,
messianism
uses a blank cross rather than a crucifix, which since they await new
messiahs also implies an open question of who the new one to take it
may be.

The death and resurrection of Jesus is also often
considered very important, and offered as a core representation of
Jesus ultimately paying the price for man's sins, and ultimately winning over sin and death. Which is another reason he is the ultimate persona in p3, being the one whose's sacrifice overcame death itself. Note law hero as
messiah in I also
resurrects. The second coming of jesus is meant as a representation of this from the
other side, emphasizing his ultimate victory. (Not that its hard to
win if you're all powerful.) Jesus's mother mary is said to have been
a perpetual virgin in some denominations, though others limit it to
only jesus was conceived that way, but that he had siblings.

Hiroko
is based on her, but also apparently on eve, being represented as a
second wife to adam in versions of the story where lilith was the
first (though Christians do not believe this). And hiroko's whip is
meant to also symbolize the snake in eden. Note interestingly that if
you take the neutral path, YHVH criticizes the method of aleph's
conception. Note that black
maria
is a chaos aligned idea of mary combined with some vague paganism,
based on a real idol. Showing the syncretism. Hiroko then also had a virgin birth, due to aleph having not been concieved normally.

The interesting thing to focus on here
in terms of the messiah is the fact that in-game, since law seems to
be at odds with yhvh at times, the law side itself's goals is really more about the
messiah than it is about YHVH. This is likely a subtle jab in part
about the fact that the peaceful Jesus is not really aligned with the
earlier old testament violent idea of God even though Christians see it this
way. (More information about this on the Gnosticism and ethics pages). And yhvh
in game in some sense worked around this, presenting himself as still
the god of this new peaceful ideology even though he is not himself peaceful, since his version is structured more around using it to make a world of constant veneration for him in II.
Note how the messiahs in-game are often shown as being made or designated more by the angels directly, which can show them being behind the role. With law hero's messianic form in smti being described as being created not necessarily by a miracle, but by technology and indirect means.

Note that at the end of II on law satan
crumbles to dust, and Gabriel says that her role (at least as an angel) is over, since she is bound to yhvh in some way. (Likely also because she was no longer needed to set up the new world). But says that the messiah is still needed
and has a place. This is because the messiah is seen as being needed as a direct leader of the people in a way that the angels are not as directly. While messianism when formed is implied to have considered yhvh its head, part of the story shows the development of the idea over time.

Christianity obviously thinks that
Jesus and YHVH are not only on the same side, but are the same entity
in some sense. But there is still a christian lore related logic to
why the messiah would be against yhvh. Humans were unable to enter
heaven in the old testament according to christianity until the
sacrifice of Jesus. So you can use this to parallel the true law
coming not from YHVH, but from the messiahs who are adding something
to the original system, changing it from the original, both in terms
of content and possible outcome. But like how christianity built from
Judaism, messianism is still moving forward from that particular
system, and trying to use parts of it while expanding on it, and
getting rid of the negatives rather than making a new one altogether.
This related to the fact that the basis of the angels working kind of
like a hive mind, and people not having easy access to the choice to
do evil is a useful basis and logic to establish a larger order. Even
though YHVH originally designed it to be a tool of control for his
own benefit.

Note that in megaten the concept of a
messiah is not used exclusively by the law side. In chaos, in II when
yhvh dies he asks lucifer if he thinks aleph and hiroko will be
worshiped as saviors. And after the end daleth refers to him as one. The implication is that it is mainly a law archetype though, and shows up depicted as one for p3. But other sides can imply a similar concept at times in comparison.

Apocalypse expands the idea of the
messiah, with messiah now being used as a general term for any main hero. This is a semi unrelated use of the word messiah though, and shouldn't be conflated directly with the specifically lawful archetype.

The day that Jesus resurrects from the dead is known as easter. While ishtar is normally seen as a chaos demon, one potential reason why she was treated as a law goddess in redux is the fact that some say that the name easter is ultimately derived from ishtar. Being likewise tied to the spring season, and bringing forth new life.

Persona 5 expands a bit on the idea of Jesus, relating him to a similar situation to what the phantom thieves are in. Talking about how Jesus was rejected by society and an outcast for going against the common grain with, even being put to death for it. But a priest points out that even suffering can have a positive message. Because the story of Jesus is about redemption and forgiveness, and that one must remember that one's anguish can come with or bring new hope. This presentation is interesting, because megaten games rarely tend to depict law slanted figures as the underdogs, where even in smtii where zayin was, it was to other law slanted figures. Of course, in p5 they don't call Jesus a law figure, but being continuous with the other games, and the archetype of messiah the implications can still be associated with it.

### Holy Ghost

**Holy spirit** (no affiliation with
the demon of the same name, which has more to do with holy souls) in
christianity is considered a third person of God, rather than just an
abstract presence like in judaism. However, despite being a person,
it is never shown in any speaking role, and merely does things like
help in some abstract way to bring forth the world, conceive Jesus,
rest on him, and is known for bestowing gifts of virtue. Since the
holy spirit after Jesus ascended was seen as a force which gave the
apostles spiritual gifts that enhanced their abilities, he is often
associated with the gifts of the holy spirit, various virtues and
improvements one can take into themselves.

For this reason, the holy
spirit shows up in IV in the last fight on law as something you are
filled with if you answer correctly, becoming a stoic sage. And in SJ
on law, zelenin says you found it and will use it to help mankind, it being depicted both as a force of transformation, as well as it being said that all mankind will become part of it. In
game it is described as an abstract force more than as a person,
but even in Christianity where it is seen as a person, this is often
the case. At any rate, in game it is considered a strong force of the
power of law that it filling you is equivalent to becoming perfected
in it. It may even be implying that it is the lawful force of the
great will acting more tangibly within people in general. Note that the two games it is mentioned in, both events
seem to take place without yhvh being involved, since in SJ he was
even sealed away at the time. This being another point about the autonomy from the lawful side's view of divinity from yhvh.

Note also, that the holy spirit is also
considered a stabilizing force. Certain Christians, and especially
Catholics see it as something that on some level protects the true
doctrine from falling out of existence. So the idea of it as
something of a long term force of order makes sense.

**False god** is a term used in Judaism
to refer to any gods who were not yhvh. And later in christianity
became used as a term for the same, but also any object given undue
importance. It is possible that this term became the basis of the
fake yhvh, due to being a very common phrase.

The idea of the fake yhvh unfortunately
is not something that comes drectly from christianity directly. But
it is a metaphorical representation of some things which do. For
instance, Jesus criticizing the pharisees for following their own
traditions and insisting it was from God. In the general sense it
simply represents that people can be grossly mistaken about what God
wants, but still see themselves as following him. Even so much so as
to think they are receiving messages. Its possible that this is also just a manifestation of the idea of the false god in general.

**Communion** fits into this section,
since it should be emphasized that while most protestants see it as
more symbolic, that Catholics and EO believe that communion
consecrated by a valid priest transforms into an actual manifestation
of Jesus. The details are a little ambiguous as to how, but it is
meant to be understood as an actual transformation of the elements,
albeit on an abstract level beyond measurement. Christian services
often revolve around the idea of communion, though for protestants
seeing it as less important than for catholics. The
most popular explanation is used through derivative of the philosophy
of aristotle, saying the substance changed, but the accidental
appearance remains the same.

Aristotelian philosophy, and greek
philosophy in general has a heavy tie to christianity. (which is a reason for why law sometimes calls to mind greek themes), Communion as a term implies intimate relation,
and a group relating together. In-game, it is only loosely referred
to in SJ, as people communing with eachother and God on the altars
on law. Which is presumably deliberate, since it calls them altars. And communion the process to catholics implies taking the essence of god into yourself, which games do depict.

In persona 5 the item sacramental bread shows up as an item that does holy damage. This obviously representing the bread used for communion.

**Altars** are things at the front of
some churches which are used as the central focus of the service. At
the end of SJ it says that skyscrapers were transformed into altars
to commune with God, implying that this type of thing is now spread
to the world at large. In catholic masses, the communion is prepared
on the altar, which is the central aspect of the service. Prayer
services in general are suggested visiting on sundays for spiritual
benefits in most denominations, but Catholics try to make doing so
mandatory.

**Grape juice** ironically fits into
this section, since an interesting historical piece of knowledge is
that grape juice in the modern sense is actually a new invention. In
the past, grapes would become wine over time, leaving grape juice
that was not yet wine as seen as a form of stage moving towards it.
But grape juice in the modern distinct sense was only invented after
the pasteurization process for the prevention of its fermentation.
Wesleyan Methodists required for the Lord's Supper that "unfermented
wine only should be used at the sacrament," due to being against
drinking as many denominations were, which was a problem since it
would be unable to stay unfermented long. Grape juice as a distinct
drink from “not yet fermented wine” which was easy to prevent
fermentation of long term was actually invented in part for this
purpose. And the welch's company stems from the name of the process'
inventor.

## Angels, and other entities

### Angels

**Angels**
in Christianity are seen as spirits who work for God, and fallen
angels those who rejected doing so. Note that by official lore, there
is no median state. So in game they almost absolutely show up as
either angels for law, or fallen angels for chaos. Note though it was
not religious teaching, in folklore many peasants actually believed
that fairies were a kind of neutral angel, too bad to stay in heaven,
but not evil enough to become demons. So they were relegated to
neutral earth spirits who can be helpful or harmful alternately.
Which adds some interesting context to the fairy race, which itself
is often a staple of neutral. Judaism on the other hand has various ideas on angels, ranging from the idea that them rebelling is impossible to there being demons similar to christianity.

In order to allay questions about
whether demons can repent, in christianity this is seen as impossible. Because angels
don't just have thoughts, but in some sense are seen as a thought
that individual sub-thoughts are different manifestations of. So they
made one choice for eternity of their eternal nature, and past then
whatever they are never changes. Merely manifests in different ways
at times. In some judaism this is taken a step further, where angels have no ability to rebel at all, because they are too oriented to goodness. But even in those kinds they have relative freedom in how they do tasks.

Interestingly, the winged art of angels
is not really biblical. They are usually described looking like
regular humans, or as crazy things with multiple heads and eyes
covering them. But in art, angels are often shown as serene, with
emotionless expressions. And demons are often shown more passionate.
So the choice of angels to be represented as cold for law makes
sense, especially since even in more official christian works they
tend to be depicted as having only peaceful expressions.
Interestingly of course, even though Jesus was also often depicted as
able to not respond emotionally when insulted or attacked, this was
never made into a large ideal for most of christianity in an overt
way. So the depiction of that as a lawful ideal is a combination of
other things, as well as depictions of angels, etc. The angelic
hierarchy is not biblical, but many of the names are. The nine choirs
that show up in game is the most common accepted arrangement. This is
not really a matter of faith however, just an interesting novelty
that Christians present as a possible arrangement.

One more interesting point is that even
though later christians saw angels as in a binary of all good or all
evil after making a choice, there is a bible verse "Do you not
know that we will judge angels? How much more the things of this
life!" being told from paul to his followers. Interestingly
giving humans the authority to judge even supernatural figures.
(Though obviously not God). Making the fact that humans can target
angels even have some biblical precedent. Even for being lawful, in
II saying that the angels of the center are not living up properly to
the ideology of law.

In judaism there is a wider variety of belief about angels. Some believe that no angels are fallen, and that demons do not exist, or that they do but are a different type of being from angels. Some believe that demons exist, but still indirectly are made to serve god. Some believe that they division between angels and demons is not absolute to begin with, and demons are just wicked angels. As a whole judaism however considers demons to be less of a direct bug in the system or thing opposed to god, and is more liekly to see god as directly using them.

One interesting thing to note is that while angels are associated mainly with benevolence, they are associated with judgement more at the time of the apocalypse. Since megaten games take place during apocalyptic situations, the way the angels are depicted in some way reflects these events. But note how in-game this same level of judgement isn't depicted as implying in the past from angels at other times.

**Michael**
is primarily known as the angel who defeated satan / lucifer in
battle before the beginning of the world. In the old testament, in
the book of daniel
he
was also seen as a great spiritual protector of the jews. He is
associated with fighting, and more rarely also seen as an angel of
death.

**Gabriel**
is seen as an angel who delivers messages in the old and new
testaments, most notably Visiting mary to give her the offer to be
the mother of Jesus. Gabriel
is often depicted carrying a lily (Mary’s flower), a scroll or a
scepter. Gabriel is often also associated with horns (the instrument), even though
this association is vague.

**Gabriel's Horn** (also called
Torricelli's trumpet) is a geometric figure), which has
infinite surface area but finite volume. The name refers to the
tradition identifying the Archangel Gabriel as the angel who blows
the horn to announce Judgment Day, associating the divine, or
infinite, with the finite. Note that despite many holding this
tradition, the bible never states who the trumpeter will be. This has
nothing to do with Christianity, but is interesting anyways.

**Raphael**
is an angel often associated with healing. (Which is why
he
shows up as a doctor in demikids) He is mentioned in the book of
tobit where he uses fish to make medicine.

**Uriel**
is an angel that is not considered canon by many christians, due to
not showing up in any official scripture that christians used, but
was often considered the fourth archangel along with the other three
in extra canonical lore.
His qualities vary, and he shows up in many kinds of roles. Jews however have some more important texts referring to him.

**Haniel,** also known as **Anael**, **Hanael** or **Aniel**, is an angel in Jewish lore and angelology, and is often included in lists as being one of the seven archangels. Haniel is generally associated with the planet Venus, and is the archangel of the Sephirah Netzach. The name Haniel probably derives from Hebrew *hana'ah*, "joy", "pleasure".

**Choirs of angels**. Since the bible mentions various forms of spiritual entities, various people from before christianity up until now began formulating them into different hierarchies and describing their nature. There are many different arrangements, but one of the most popular from lowest to highest is listed below. The angels are divided into groups of three, where the lowest three are associated with individual people, and interact with them the most, the middle three are associated with larger material patterns such as kingdoms or even the physical world, and the highest three are remote and are associated mainly with serving God directly and being in his presence. Note that this scale about how much they have to do with humans is related to how in iva the angels under merkabah and the ones in yhvh's universe seem to have two different ideologies, with the former being concerned with the world of peace and the latter with yhvh being served.

**Abdiel** is a name used in the bible for various people, but which later became the name of an angel in paradise lost. In paradise lost, abdiel is depicted as the sole angel who hears out lucifer without falling, denouncing him and returning to the others. While the book does not suggest that this implies being on the verge of falling, many interpretations, including that in megaten will read abdiel as someone about to fall who later resisted it. In the backstory of v it is suggested that abdiel was tempted by lucifer and so took on self imposed punishments in repentance. She tries to serve yhvh, only to eventually realize during the plot of v that yhvh is dead, and so staying true to the message may involve breaking the tangible rules. And so she takes on the form of a fallen angel to show this willingness to do so.

In the book the phrase is used to describe abdiel: "among the faithless, faithful only he." This becomes semi literal in V, in which abdiel becomes the only fallen angel who remains working for law.

**1: Angels**. Plain angels are the ones most concerned with the affairs of living things. Within
the category of the angels, there are many different kinds, with
different functions. The angels are sent as messengers to humanity.
Personal guardian angels come from this class. Guardian angels are the christian
idea that each person has a angel
assigned to them who stays with them at all times.

**2: Archangels** are angels of a higher status, who many of the named angels come from. Interestingly, while times they are referred to seem to imply that they are the highest ranking ones (the world translated to arch literally meaning highest in rank) angelic hierarchies often place them second lowest. There is said to be seven archangels who stand before the lord, from whom the main cardinal archangels come.

**3: Principalities** are the angels that guide and protect nations, or groups of peoples, and
 institutions such as the Church. The Principalities preside over the
bands of angels and charge them with fulfilling the divine ministry.
There are some who administer and some who assist. The Principalities are shown wearing a crown and carrying a sceptre.
 Their duty also is said to be to carry out the orders given to them by
the upper sphere angels and bequeath blessings to the material world.
Their task is to oversee groups of people. They are the educators and
guardians of the realm of earth. Like beings related to the world of the
 *germinal ideas*, they are said to inspire living things to many things such as art or science. Note how this description matches their in game appearance.

**4: Powers**. The primary duty of the "Powers" is to supervise the movements of the
heavenly bodies in order to ensure that the cosmos remains in order.
 Being warrior angels, they also oppose evil spirits, especially those
that make use of the matter in the universe, and often cast evil spirits
 to detention places. These angels are usually represented as soldiers
wearing full armor and helmet, and also having defensive and offensive
weapons such as shields and spears or chains respectively. Again, note how this matches their in-game appearance.

**5: Virtues** are angels are those through which signs and miracles are made in the world.

**6: Dominions** regulate the duties of lower angels. It is only with
extreme rarity that the angelic lords make themselves physically known
to humans.
The Dominions are believed to look like divinely beautiful humans
with a pair of feathered wings, much like the common representation of
angels, but they may be distinguished from other groups by wielding orbs
 of light fastened to the heads of their scepters or on the pommel of
their swords. This concept of beauty and looking more like regular angels being

**7: Thrones** are a class of celestial beings mentioned by Paul of Tarsus in Colossians 1:16 (New Testament). They are living symbols of God's justice and authority, and have as one of their symbols the throne. They are associated with the wheels in ezekiel's vision. Christian theologians that include the Thrones as one of the choirs
don't generally describe them as wheels, describing them as adoring elder men who
listen to the will of God and present the prayers of men. The Twenty Four Elders in the Book of Revelation are sometimes thought to be part of this group of angels. The association with ezekiel is why the thrones in-game show up shaped like wheels.

**8: Cherubim** in the bible
cherubs are often described as having the head of a human, lion, eagle, and
ox, and four wings, covered all over in eyes. The numerous depictions of cherubim assign to them many different roles; their first listed duty having been the protection of the Garden of Eden. Angelic status is not attributed to cherubim in the Old Testament (at least not explicitly); only in later sources are they identified as a hierarchical rank of angels. They are sometimes associated with knowledge of god. Interestingly, scholars note that in the original bible there isn't really any indication that cherubim are meant to be the same types of thing as angels, coming off more like babylonian lamassu or egyptian sphinx.

**9: seraphim** literally translated "burning ones", and used sometimes as a synonym for serpent. Mentioned in Isaiah 6:1-7, Seraphim are the highest angelic class and they serve as the caretakers of God's throne and continuously shout praises: "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!" According to Isaiah 6:1-8,
 the Seraphim are described as fiery six-winged beings; with two wings
they cover their faces, with another two they cover their feet, and the
last two they use to fly. They are sometimes associated with perfect love of God to contrast perfect knowledge of the cherubim.

### People

**Saints** are sometimes considered
elevated extra high, to the status of angels, or even higher.
Protestants sometimes accuse Catholics of idolatry, for paying too
much veneration to the saints.
But Catholics insist that this is not improper as it is a lower form
of veneration than to God. Likewise, protestants and non christians
alike accuse the practice of saint veneration as having evolved from
pagan polytheistic ideas, disguised to blend in with Christians.
Which in some cases, it is known that they did this, merging gods
with some ideas of saints. But the practice in general may not have
inherently been this. This interestingly ties to the distinction
between gods who work with the lawful side in general, versus angels.
There is an interesting precedent for polytheistic gods to have been
slowly incorporated in subtle ways. And just like in real life, those
gods / saints would still no doubt get some of their own veneration,
so log it does not elevate them higher than God. As opposed to
angels, who it seems are rarely venerated as distinct entities in
game. In real life angels are rarely prayed to as well, though it is
not unheard of for Michael.

In strange journey, on the law route
the angels begin referring to you as a saint, talking about at
various times such as like on one side quest you having earned the
right to wield the flames of judgement (referring to the weapon
called megido fire, which refers to the spocalypse), or saying that
while controlling demons is too dangerous for humans, your status as
a saint makes it acceptable for you.

**Rabbi** a Jewish scholar or teacher,
especially one who studies or teaches Jewish law. Rabbis as a distinct thing from the old jewish concept of priests came about due to the destruction of the temple, which was considered important for the practice of their religion. In SMTII the battle machines used by the messian church that project a picture of a bishop are called rabbis.

**Monks** and **nuns** may be conveniently defined as a member of a community of people, leading a more or less contemplative life apart from the world, under the vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, according to a rule characteristic of the particular order to which they belong. The word monk is not itself a term commonly used in the official language of the Church. Monks and nuns are distinguished from priests by not being able to do sacraments. Notably, in IV, the church is called a monastery, implying that the people inside are thought of as monks.

**Clergy.** In catholicism, priests, and
their higher rank bishops are in a special consecrated state that
gives them special religious privileges such as doing particular
sacraments implied to have specific effects. One thing that
distinguishes catholics from protestants is believing in a specific
priest class or not. Though some protestants still do. Catholics consider the eastern orthodoc church to still count as a true church due to still having a line of priests, but do not count most protestants.

Priests
are the people who are specially ordained in Catholicism and
orthodoxy to perform religious functions. For denominations which do
not believe in apostolic succession they generally use the term
minister instead. A **bishop**
is a higher rank than
priest,
and **archbisop**, cardinal, and finally **pope** as the highest rank.
Orthodoxy has a similar arrangement, but with no pope. Monks and nuns
are considered a different type of thing than a priest is, and can't
perform sacraments.

Interestingly, in IV it implies that messians
consider monks and priests kind of interchangeable. In IV the
monastery in mikado acts as the de facto religious body. Monks as the
only main clergy being more of a buddhist idea. (Hugo also looks like
a buddhist monk obviously.) Messians at least in II seem to have some
kind of a head bishop. Though since that was the corrupt church, it
may be critiquing this arrangement. Messians do use the term priest,
but we never really see what goes on in church services themselves,
and so can't really say whether they think there are special magic
sacraments or not. (The inside of their churches sometimes lack
altars, which means at least they don't follow a catholic
arrangement). At least in games like II after the ending it seems no
priests were saved, and no new ones were instated, so its doubtful
that they as an ideal think its a specific rank one must be given by
another deliberately. Unless after the end the implication is that
they were no longer needed.

**Elders**. An elder in Christianity is a person who is valued for wisdom and holds a position of responsibility in a Christian group. The term elder is not often used however, and shows up more as a vague label than a well known title. In some Christian traditions (e.g., Eastern Orthodoxy, Roman Catholicism, Anglicanism, Methodism) an *elder* is an ordained person who usually serves a local church or churches and who has been ordained to a ministry, filling the preaching and pastoral offices. In other Christian traditions (e.g., Presbyterianism, Baptists, Plymouth Brethren), an elder may be a lay person
 charged with serving as an administrator in a local , or be ordained to
 such an office, also serving in the preaching (in this case referring
to teaching done during church gatherings) and/or pastoral roles. There
is technically a distinction between the idea of ordained elders and lay
 elders, often the two concepts are conflated in everyday conversation
(for example, a lay elder in the Baptist tradition may still be referred
 to as being "clergy", especially in America).

The word elders has another meaning in christianity. Revelation 4:4
 declares, “Surrounding the throne were twenty-four other thrones, and
seated on them were twenty-four elders. They were dressed in white and
had crowns of gold on their heads.” The book of Revelation nowhere
specifically identifies who the twenty-four elders are. However, they
are often considered representative of the Church. Some consider them to be angelic beings, equating them with thrones however.

These concepts of elders may tie to the angels being depicted as "elders" in II as well. Though it may be conflating the two roles.The elders in SMTII are the highest rank of the messian church above the bishop. Though Little detail is given on the internal workings of this, or which of the two concepts it is based on.

**Pope Joan** was, according to popular legend, a woman who reigned as pope for a few years before it was discovered she was female during the Middle Ages.
 Her story first appeared in chronicles in the 13th century and
subsequently spread throughout Europe. The story was widely believed for
 centuries, but most modern scholars regard it as fictional.

In persona 5 she shows up as one of your personas, signifying with the others being willing to do your own justice even if the cultural standards are against it. And morgana says that if someone is good at their job, why care about their sex. An obvious jab at the pointlessness of an all male clergy. Interestingly of course, by being a pope she represents not destruction but a shift in context and improvement of an existing structure. And so despite not being in mainline, still adds some interesting context to the dynamics present in it.

**Saint Lucia** or Saint Lucy is the Christian patron saint of the blind.
She was a devout young woman whose belief in consecrating her virginity
for God and whose urge to spend her life on alms enraged her pagan
betrothed, who then reported her as a Catholic to the magistrate. After
her refusal to burn a sacrifice to the emperor, she was immediately
sentenced into execution. Christian traditions state that her body was
filled with holy spirits that the guards were not able to take her in by
 force, and they decided to cut her throat and gouged her eyes. Even so,
 she was still able to see and continued prophesising. As a final act,
the guard stabbed and killed her. Catholic and Orthodox Christians
venerate her now as a martyr and saint. In persona 3, lucia is the persona of fuuka.

**Mary** was the mother of Jesus
according to the new testament. The gospels of Matthew and Luke in
the New Testament describe Mary as a virgin and Christians believe
that she conceived her son while a virgin by the Holy Spirit. This
took place when she was already betrothed to Joseph and was awaiting
the concluding rite of marriage, the formal home-taking ceremony. She
married Joseph and accompanied him to Bethlehem, where Jesus was
born. The Gospel of Luke begins its account of Mary's life with the
Annunciation, when the angel Gabriel appeared to her and announced
her divine selection to be the mother of Jesus. She is not present in
most biblical stories, though is in a few including the crucifixion.
According to the Catholic and Orthodox teaching, at the end of her
earthly life her body was assumed directly into Heaven; this is known
in the West as the Assumption. She has a bigger role in catholicism,
being presumed to be given a special role as the highest entity in
heaven below god, but a smaller one in most protestantism.

The most common analogue Mary in the games shows up most often not as
a law or even neutral, but a chaos demon as black maria. Which is based on how icons of mary were appropriated as a symbol of the Vodou Spirit Erzulie Dantor. However, A law demon equivalent being maria who was in nine, and now deep strange journey and V. Note that since protestants consider
mary less important than catholics, protestant themselves often
consider the catholic veneration of mary to be confusing her and her
role with pagan goddess figures, which is one reason some protestants
accuse catholics of being polytheistic with mary and the saints.
References to mary also show up where hiroko is considered the virgin
mother of aleph, and in the law ending of II is called the new holy mother. In redux, maria is the head law godess, describing herself as having been at odds with mem aleph since ancient times. In giten it depicts her as not stemming from the human mary, but rather an aspect of ishtar that became a seperate pure goddess archetype.

One of the most important events associated with mary are the The Marian Apparitions at Lourdes, which were were reported in 1858 by Bernadette Soubirous, the 14-year-old daughter of a miller from the town of Lourdes in southern France. She claimed to see appearances of a lady several times who initally did not tell her her name, before it was decided that it was an appearance of mary. In the end, she was instructed to dig up a spring, which led to water that is seen as having miraculous properties of healing disease. In soul hackers 2 there is an item called lourdes water that functions the way the water is described in the aparition, being something that heals maladies.

**Wisemen** were the people who came to
visit Jesus at his birth. Despite tradition, the bible does not say
that there were three of them. The three wise
men
in SJ are obviously named after this, although probably not meant to be those figures literally.

**Crusaders**.
crusaders
are obviously just a thing that happened rather than an official part
of Christianity. But note that many of the designs of messians in II
looked like
knights
or crusaders. A criticism being here that regardless of opinion on
the general ideology, that it can manifest in ways that are
objectively understood as bad by everyone.

The Crusades were a series of religious wars sanctioned by the Latin Church in the medieval period, especially the campaigns in the eastern Mediterranean aimed at recovering the Holy Land from Islamic rule. The term "Crusades" is also applied to other church-sanctioned campaigns fought to combat paganism and heresy or to resolve conflict among rival Roman Catholic groups, or to gain political or territorial advantage. The term *Crusades* itself is early modern English, modelled on Middle Latin *cruciatae*, and has in more recent times been extended to include religiously motivated Christian military campaigns in the Late Middle Ages.

**Jews**. An interesting side note is
that the messian
magus
outfit may be inspired by the old jewish outfit designs that you will
see in depictions of the bible. Note that the second design has a
jewish star over the cross. In part implicating the religions simply
being subsumed into eachother by this point.

**Saint Brigid of Kildare** or **Brigid of Ireland** is one of Ireland's patron saints, along with Patrick and Columba. Irish hagiography makes her an early Irish Christian nun, abbess, and foundress of several monasteries of nuns, including that of Kildare in Ireland, which was famous and was revered. Her feast day is 1 February, which was originally a pagan festival called Imbolc, marking the beginning of spring. The saint shares her name with an important Celtic goddess and there are many legends and folk customs associated with her. Some scholars suggest that the saint is merely a Christianization of the goddess. Others suggest that she was a real person who took on the goddess's attributes.

**Saint George** (between AD 256–285 to 23 April 303), according to legend, was a Roman soldier of Greek origin and officer in the Guard of Roman emperor Diocletian, who was sentenced to death for refusing to recant his Christian faith. As a Christian martyr, he later became one of the most venerated saints in Christianity, and was especially venerated by the Crusaders. He is often depicted in the legend of Saint George and the Dragon, which describes the saint ↵taming and slaying a dragon that demanded human sacrifices; the saint ↵thereby rescues the princess chosen as the next offering. In strange journey there is an ex mission where angels ask you to slay a dragon (mother harlot and the dragon she rides), and on completion say your actions mirror the saints.

**Dybbuk**. In Jewish folklore, a dybbuk is a malicious possessing spirit, believed to be the dislocated soul of a dead person. In the devil summoner games it shows up looking like a spirit that looks similar to preta (which is also a ghost) though wearing a jewish hat.

**Iron chariots**. In judges 1:19 there is a confusing passage about jews being unable to defeat their enemies because their enemies had iron chariots. Some translations translate this such that god could not help them due to this reason. In strange journey, the angels emphasize that the ships you ride in are made of iron. This being symbolic in-game of human technology making humans able to contend with forces they previously considered divine and above them.

### Demons

**Abbadon** is an angel offhandedly
referenced in the book of revalation watching over the bottomless
pit. One of the interesting aspects of him is that the book is not
clear whether he is a demon or angel. He commands locusts (with human
heads wearing crowns, like those seen in raidou 2 to torment the wicked, but it is not made clear whether this is them
being given over to a demon, or a direct divine judgement. This
ambiguity is played with in II where abbadon is a demon who says that
he was bribed into doing something for the center in exchange for a
chance to become an angel again. In the hebrew bible, it is also the
name of a place, the bottomless pit. Which is why
in II he is also a kind of void. And in IV is not even an entity, but
just a word for black holes.

**Satan / lucifer** in Christianity is
seen as a fallen
angel,
who rebelled against God and is the strongest or highest of all the
fallen angels. He is identifies as the serpent that tempted eve,
leading to a snake motif. Interestingly for the monotheistic aspect,
Satan is referred to as the god of this world once in the bible,
implying that phasing angels as lower gods was terminology that some
used. The Book of Revelation describes how Satan was cast out of
Heaven, having "great anger" and waging war against "those
who obey God's commandments". Ultimately, Satan will be thrown
into the lake of fire. The word
lucifer
was originally used for something else, and as not used as a name for
satan until the fourth century. Satan was not originally seen as a
ruler of a kingdom of hell, which is an idea that is more folklore
than religion.

Note that satan's description of being
highly emotional work with the passionate theme of chaos. Note also
that the fact that revalation talks about how he will ultimately
lose, and God was perhaps using him for some ill defined greater good
explains the plot in iva of that even going chaos is all part of some
abstract scheme of God that you are not meant to be able to escape from him with. Satan is also
called the prince of the world, which since chaos has an earth theme,
contrasting law's heaven / sky theme can be a tie in there.

Satan shows up in paradise lost as a
villain. However, many note that paradise lost seems like a very
sympathetic representation of him, almost as an anti hero. Some later
occultists take it as a positive representation, or one which
unknowingly sways in that direction. So lilith giving out a copy of
this in IV, and someone being inspired towards a chaotic way by it
parallels how some people see the book. In SMTII, lucifer has a spherical mound, which may reference the central spherical mount he sits on in paradise lost. His stage in nocturne may also convey this vibe.

Interestingly, one should note that the main demons on chaos are not all fallen angels. The others are often demonized gods who are lumped in with him. Beelzebub as baal, belial, things like mara, etc. Though christian demonology often treats them as fallen angels, these figures are demonized versions of other pagan gods. And megaten treats them like this. Lucifer as a universal symbol of rebellion against order leads the side, and a few fallen angels with it, but many of the others are meant even in game to represent more that they are gods of other religions who were demonized rather than anything that came from the angels in particular.

In japanese christianity, satan is referred to as akuma. This is derived from a term from japanese folklore for malevolent fire spirits.

**Ha Satan.** If you
are wondering why satan shows up as an angel rather than a fallen
angel in the games, and as a distinct entity from lucifer, there are
a few reasons. The primary one is that the figure represents not
primarily the satan of Christians, but of judaism. In judaism, satan
is not always interpreted as a fallen angel, but sometimes an angel with a dark tone, judging and
tempting for god, with what he is associated with varying by
different stories. He is often considered an angel of judgement and
death. In the story of job, note that although he does try to tempt
job, at the time this was not seen as him being an enemy of god, but
simply a way to test the faithful. It wasn't until later stories that
he was interpreted as an enemy of god. And that is the interpretation
that christianity stuck with. However, despite the name satan being
relegated to the devil, one pope did include samael, jewish satan's
other name as among the good angels as a distinct entity.

A second thing we are meant to read
into the megaten character of satan is some of the ambiguity of other
apocalypse figures. For instance, abbadon among other figures in the
apocalypse are called angels, and are unleashed in some sense as an
act of judgement on the world. Yet the figures themselves its not
clear whether they are seen as angels or fallen angels. And many
Christians consider them fallen. But jehova's witnesses think it is a
name for Christ himself. Megaten notes this ambiguity in II. And note
that megaten in raidou II seems to be implying that they were not all
meant originally as anti god figures, but as beings of judgement. (or
as it says beings of grief).

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Revelation+9

For instance see here, they seem to be
bound in a dark place before being unleashed. Yet by some
interpretations these are angels of judgement in a similar vein as
the old testament satan. Ones who are held back and unleashed at
particular times. This also shows up in the themes of satan's artwork
and role in games. In many games he is shown covered in chains, like
he is kept tied up. And in II, set, the other half of his soul is
kept sealed in the abyss with the demons. This represents the
interpretation of some of these apocalypse figures as dark toned
angels of judgement. Ones that get confused with demons. Note that
this ambiguity does not extend to apocalypse's satan itself. But
satan here in megaten seems like somewhat composite figure of some of
these things. Since old testament ha-satan is an angel of judgement,
for continuity it is reading some of potentially similar concepts
from revalations into him. And when the jewish satan is described as
an angel it does tend to be large and dark and red and sometimes with
chains himself.

One last association to explain why 666
is associated with law satan (he has six of everything in his design)
and in final the seven headed dragon. One major reason is the conflation of law with conspiracy theories, listed under the listing of the beast on this page. But it is also because in part, the evil
figures in the story of revelations are not really presented
distinctly as chaotic figures, but in part as evil orderly figures
(one reason being that it is often seen as a metaphor for the roman
empire persecuting christians). For instance, having the mark of the
beast allowed you to function in the future society. Which is
presented similarly to being chosen to be spared from judgement by
god, likely sarcastically.

Since the games aren't interpreting jewish
satan as a different figure, but just a different interpretation, it
is reading a little of the lawful aspects of him from revelation as
well onto the angel of judgement. And he too is presented as a figure
who goes against yhvh in II, justifying being associated with one who
does in revalations. But the figure in game does not because he
rejects the order of judgement, but because yhvh is seen himself as
violating it. It does make satan's character come off odd in game,
and like the tone of his design is bipolar and all over the place.
But this is a result of him being in a sense a composite figure of
different bits of lore that are all slightly similar. He's meant to
be seen not like the other angels who are seen in the religion's
functioning day to day, but like these separate more ambiguous
apocalypse figures. When interpreted as still angelic in nature.
Because note that in most of the games, apocalyptic things are
associated more with law. Since they imply finality, and leading into
the end of history connotations if the new world.

Note that he also has a bit of shiva, or buddhist fierce deities
worked into his design in II. Implying association with the
destructive part of divinity. And though it is less related, note
that in IVA, law and chaos are associated with the concepts of
preservation and change / destruction, like the hindu associations
with vishnu and shiva. Which since the main figures for them turn out
to be the different aspects of satan, gives it in part a kind of
hindu tone. Note that in hinduism many of the top gods are seen as
aspects of one god.

In SMT IVA, the dragon that is
described as having seven heads and ten horns and on his head ten
crowns is used as a design for satan (the law aligned jewish
interpretation of satan, though in IVA despite still being labeled as
law aligned his role is more ambiguous). In game, he is a fusion of
merkabah (the four archangels) and lucifer. Which calls to mind how
in the old testament satan was an angel in good standing, but in the
new testament the role of temptation was considered an act of the
fallen, with good angels countering it.

This is actually a sarcastic
criticism of christianity trying to disguise that it was ultimately
YHVH behind these things in the old testament. Since the beast is
described in revalations as getting some of its own power from the
dragon (who seems to be the devil in revalations) in-game, they
likely decided to take this as a result of fusion back with the roles
of the good angels to reveal the underlying old testament reality.
(despite satan in game looking like the dragon rather than the beast)
There is also other aspects to this design. From an old apocryphal
jewish text:

"In the last heaven Moses saw two
angels, each five hundred parasangs in height, forged out of chains
of black fire and red fire, the angels Af, "Anger," and
Hemah, "Wrath," whom God created at the beginning of the
world, to execute His will. Moses was disquieted when he looked upon
them, but Metatron embraced him, and said, "Moses, Moses, thou
favorite of God, fear not, and be not terrified," and Moses
became calm. There was another angel in the seventh heaven, different
in appearance from all the others, and of frightful mien. His height
was so great, it would have taken five hundred years to cover a
distance equal to it, and from the crown of his head to the soles of
his feet he was studded with glaring eyes, at the sight of which the
beholder fell prostrate in awe. "This one," said Metatron,
addressing Moses, "is Samael, who takes the soul away from man."
"Whither goes he now?" asked Moses, and Metatron replied,
"To fetch the soul of Job the pious." Thereupon Moses
prayed to God in these words, "O may it be Thy will, my God and
the God of my fathers, not to let me fall into the hands of this
angel."

So it seems that the IVA satan is also
taken as this depiction of samael (which to jews is another name for
satan) who is "different in appearance" from the other
angels, as well as combining it with these depictions of these other
angels, being depicted as fire and shadow and chains, and being the
first creation of god, in order to execute his will. So even as a
good angel we were meant to see him as terrifying in appearance. So
the general appearance of him was meant to be scary already, making
it make sense to lump it and the beast together thematically via its
place in the plot-role.

In SMTII, the kuzuryu with nine heads may also be meant to allude to the seven headed dragon. Especially due to its connection with mountain peaks, and revelations also talks about seven mountain peaks. Being a similar idea, but with nine instead of seven.

**Antichrist.** Contrary to popular
idea, the bible does not define the antichrist as one particular
person, but is ambiguous, with most scholars thinking it more likely
means a type of person than a single individual. As if it is more of
an archetypal person that many people can be. In general, meaning any
strong force trying to oppose Jesus. Some also interpret it as an
alternate name for one of the beasts. The closest to this as if it were a single figure there is would be something like daleth who was set up in II to be an anti force to the center's messiah. (not a demon obviously, but makes more sense lumped into this category).

**The Beast** actually refers to two
beasts described in the Book of Revelation. The first beast comes
from "out of the sea" and is given authority and power by
the dragon (Satan). This first beast is initially mentioned as coming
out of the abyss. The second beast comes from "out of the earth"
and directs all peoples of the earth to worship the first beast. The
second beast is also referred to as the false prophet. The two beasts
are aligned with the dragon in opposition to God. They persecute the
"saints" and those who do "not worship the image of
the beast" and influence the kings of the earth to gather for
the battle of Armageddon. While the number of the beast is most often
known as 666, some early manuscripts have it as 616. Some interpret
the beasts not as talking about far future events, but as about the
roman empire itself, and emperor nero. The scarlet beast is shown
being ridden by a
harlot
who "reigns over the kings of the earth", and is in some
ways interpreted as a representation of their greed that causes them
to persecute Christians.

The reason the number 666 is associated with satan in smtii despite him being a law demon relates to the fact that a lot of modern conspiracy theories treat revelations symbolism as tied to a kind of conspiracy with illuminati like forces using it to take over the world. And this type of conspiracy is also associated with law. In part being because these conspiracies were absorbed into some japanese things too, such as aum shinrikyo. Which despite purporting to be buddhist, drew heavily on the book of revelations.

**The four horsemen**,
contrary to some namings are not really given names by the bible,
(aside from death) but rather are described. Megaten gets this right
by simply describing them as well. Interestingly, they too are
figures who it is not really made clear by the text whether they are
good or evil. Some even suggest (though this is not a mainstream
interpretation) that one of them was meant to represent Jesus.

**Gargoyles** or grotesques refer to stone statues with a frightening appearance placed on top of gothic cathedrals, with the former term generally delineating ones specifically used for the purposes of siphoning water away from the building as a spout. The meanings of them tended to vary, with some being seen as a depiction of evil, though some were also seen as apotropaic devices, having a fierce demeanor to frighten away evil. In SMTII, the place set is sealed has gargoyle statues on the outside, in keeping with the gothic aesthetic law often uses in the early games. The focus on demonic religious artwork for law parralels the chaotic use of wrathful deity statues.

**Other demons / gods** like
beelzebub
or
moloch
were often not really demons themselves in the bible, but rather
terms for other culture's gods in the old testament. Often the names
were not the real names, but rather insults. Official christian
doctrine does not see these as official demon names, but they were
popularized as them over time through books like paradise lost. Which
makes the idea of other gods being cast down and turned into demons a
literal part of christianity, since it happened in a semi literal
sense with christian folklore turning recountings of other gods into
literal demons. Note that some other gods that christianity came in
contact with later became mixed with folklore ideas of saints.
Explaining why polytheistic gods in megaten often will have some show
up alongside angels, and others alongside demons. More information about those on the caananite religion page.

Note that for the chaos side in reverse, lucifer leads it as a symbol of rebellion against order or lack of order, but the main other figures are not generally fallen angels but other gods. Showing that its particularism shines through. Its goal not being a "fallen angel" side, but for individual gods to support their own things within the chaos. And lucifer being the symbol of the chaos overall.

An interesting thing to note about
these other gods is that many times in the old testament the jews are
shown worshiping them, and falling into polytheism, and this leading
to bad results. Interestingly, including
belphegor
known as baal-peor, a god the jews began worshipping. And note that
in II you have zayin find out that the center has tyrant race demons
working as their generals. Belphegor being one of them. So showing
the influence of belphegor making the followers of yhvh make mistakes
is itself biblical content. Since the interview for II defined the
center as dark law, showing a joining of the bad aspects of both
sides due to a bad mixing of the ideologies.

Another interesting aspect about
worshiping other gods, and the jews not following yhvh is that
sometimes when they did this they would be punished or abandoned for
a time. This also ties into the plot of II where the messian church
for being corrupted and turning evil was abandoned by god, and itself
put on the list for erasure. Though since it seems it was not known
that these demons were there, that this was not necessarily about
worshiping them directly, albeit about giving them power.

**Possession** refers in christianity to when a demon takes power over a person or place or object, forcing them to do crazy seeming things. The process of undoing possession is called exorcism. In strange journey your crew gets possessed by asura for a period, and they talk about possession and exorcisms during then. Possession is also mentioned at other times, like in devil survivor where amane is possessed by jezebel.

**Shedim** is a term jews use for lesser spirits who are seen as demons, but were not angels. And are often the figures who show up as other religions' gods. They are analogous to the islamic concept of jinn. Karger explanation on the kabbalah page.

**Rahab**. From the Talmud, rahab was a chaotic entity of the sea associated with the primordial powers of creation. It is depicted as a primordial being defeated by god for the sake of the creation of the world in the book of isaiah. And is a comparable figure to tiamat in the story of the defeat of tiamat by marduk. It is often interpreted as the same being as leviathan. Rahab later became a particular demon, inhabitant of the sea, especially associated with the Red Sea. In SMTII it shows up as a light chaos race demon, implying that it is being interpreted as one of the archaic gods that were replaced by the more orderly ones.

**Leviathan** is a creature with the form of a sea monster from Jewish belief, referenced in the Hebrew Bible in the Book of Job, Psalms, the Book of Isaiah, and the Book of Amos. And is a comaprable figure to rahab, often being interpreted as the same figure. In smt nine it is a thing that god is going to use to end the world.

**Behemoth** is a beast mentioned in Job 40:15–24. Suggested identities range from a mythological creature to an elephant, hippopotamus, rhinoceros, or buffalo. Metaphorically, the name has come to be used for any extremely large or powerful entity. Behemoth, along with leviathan are described as things that will be served up to the righteous at the end of time.
The Book of Enoch (60:7–9) describes Leviathan as a female monster dwelling in the watery abyss (as Tiamat), while Behemoth is a male monster living in the desert of Dunaydin ("east of Eden"). Being the primal beast of the land in the way that leviathan was of the sea. it later became seen as a demon. The most notable appearance of behemoth in the games is that he was one of the demons on the meggido ark in II. Though what the reason is for this is unknown.

**Ziz**. The ziz is a giant griffin-like bird in Jewish mythology, said to be large enough to be able to block out the sun with its wingspan. There is only passing mention of the Ziz in the Bible, found in Psalms 50:11 "I know all the birds of the mountains and Zīz saday is mine." He was seen as the ruler of birds as leviathan was of fish and behemoth was of beasts.

**Goetia** is a practice that includes the conjuration of demons, specifically the ones claimed to be summoned by the Biblical figure, King Solomon. The use of the term in English largely derives from the 17th-century grimoire The Lesser Key of Solomon, which features an Ars Goetia as its first section. It contains descriptions of the evocation, or "calling out", of seventy-two demons, famously edited by Aleister Crowley in 1904 as The Book of the Goetia of Solomon the King. These are of course not considered to be true christian content.

**Myrmecoleon**
or ant-lion is actually thought to be from the bible, kind of
accidentally. It comes from a mistranslation of a word for lion that
in the middle ages was translated as ant-lion. Leading some to
interpret it as a mythical beast that was half lion and half ant.

## Morals

Most people know of the general
morals of Christianity, and so like for every religion this page won't bother going over general things that are not relevant to megaten. It will be limited to a few relevant factors. If you want a more general list of why christianity is associated with law in general view the theism section. In addition to what is stated below, of course christianity is often known for some seemingly arbitrary sex rules. But interestingly this association does not really show up in-game.

One thing that ties christianity to law, and which a lot of people don't realize the very collectivist and
even
quasi socialist
focus it had early on. Jesus made donating large sums of your wealth,
perhaps all of it, the staple moral action you should do, such that
when he recounted the last judgment, most of the things he was
recounting was whether people did a good enough job taking care of
the poor. And a large slice of his demands were different variations
on this. Spreading his teachings across the world as he commanded was
in a sense, saying that this mentality, and a social arrangement
based on making it necessary were his plans for the future.

While Jesus himself was a little
ambiguous about the details of this beyond emphasizing the extent which
you should do it, the later bible book acts of the apostles described
a social system where everyone more or less shared everything, giving
their resources into a large collective with checks to make sure that
it was given where it was needed. And this was implied to be the
ideal form of life, with even a story of God punishing people for not
complying with the system.

So even though christianity is rarely
associated with this type of emphasis on restructuring society around help of the poor nowadays, except in a few obscure
places, that general setup being used for law actually makes sense.
The interesting thing is that the games themselves highlight the
distinction. When you have universally bad groups who claim to be
law, like the center, (and parts of mikado, though in mikado they
never really called themselves lawful to as large a degree, with
isabeau seeming to say they were not.) who very conspicuously look
like modern bishops, and have chaotic elements, it is meant to be a
criticism that what the religions ended up as is often a lot more
detrimental than the ideal version that comes directly from the
stated content might imply. The center also having conspicuous
crusader designs (and perhaps pharisee ones, for rigid traditionalist
jews) rather non subtly highlighted things like the crusades being
overtly out of context applications of religious content as well. And
even aside from ending, you have the center literally following a
false YHVH they made in their own image, to “subtly” point out
that a lot of christian content doesn't necessarily come from Jesus,
whether or not Christianity is true.

None of this is to say that Jesus
didn't also have moral views which would put him at odds certain modern ones. He did
things like criticize divorce also, which led Catholics to assume
that this means it is never allowed, with some ambiguity over the
total meaning. He didn't leave that much content in that area as one
would assume, and what stories there are are presumably well known,
so there's no reason to recount all of them. Interestingly as well,
contrary to the idea that Christianity is about commands that were
not to be questioned, Jesus would often use thought experiments
asking people to reason for themselves what the answer was. So while
on the one hand, the declaration of the good life was seen as
absolute, on the other people were expected to do some of the work
themselves.

Something that ties it to law's
peaceful and stoic attitudes is Jesus' whole turn the other cheek and
“if you live by the sword you will die by the sword” statements.
Jesus at first was a very cynic like figure, who was implied to be
very calm, not even reacting much while being put to death.
Unfortunately, while strength of mind to represent temptations became
big as a teaching in Christianity, the aspect of remaining calm did
not. And traditionalism became a huge part of it within even decades
after his death. Another aspect tying law to christianity of course is not just its ethics, but presented afterlife.

Even beyond social views, note that
christianity in real life rarely comes off as a socialist law
philosophy relative to other options. This being because over time,
they realized that their utopia would not be overly easy to make, and
past the fall of rome everything was restructured and starting very
soon after christ they moved from a radical religion to a more
conservative one. So they are more neutral now, or if you meet the
wrong ones even more chaotic, for war mongering ones who think they
still need to defend against muslims, and that taxes are theft. A bit
of dark law as well, which is where you get the angels chewing out
the mistake churches from in various games. Which of course is why it
helped for them to add mastema on neutral in IV. Since law in some
earlier games was radically different than the ideologies most
actually associate modern Christianity with. And it is based more on
its metaphysics, metaphors, and some early content than a realistic
interpretation of most modern christians.

Another point which is not necessarily
morality directly, but a way to phrase it is that the idea of God's
most important part being an abstraction of the collective that
people are all part of as law implies, while not something Christians
literally believed has a heavy basis in the representation of how
Jesus described morality. For instance, in the last judgment, the
judge of mankind (Assumed to be Jesus or God, though Jesus never
explicitly says it was him) tells people that whatever they do for
eachother they do for him. Which taken literally would imply “him”
being spread out among all people, and your work for him being for
the collective of people in general. Making morality and acting for
others effectively the main religious duty. Contrary to worship being
primary. Even the our father is a prayer to ask for more strength to
do good, rather than worship for its own sake. And Jesus rarely
visited the temple. The new testament also calls the church the body
of christ at times. Which while meant to be metaphorical, is heavily
used christian language that can easily be used to extrapolate the
same association. There is even language referring to different
people as different members of a body.

Saint Augustine later says: "Let
us rejoice then and give thanks that we have become not only
Christians, but Christ himself. Do you understand and grasp,
brethren, God's grace toward us? Marvel and rejoice: we have become
Christ. For if he is the head, we are the members; he and we together
are the whole man.... the fullness of Christ then is the head and the
members. But what does 'head and members' mean? Christ and the
Church." Language like this is often used on Law, most overtly
in strange journey where it says the entire world becomes one
harmonious spirit. No doubt including God as the (literal) head, to
imply a larger body for it to be the head of. (Ironically, this works
well in metaphor with yhvh being a head. Implying that the world is
his body. Like leviathan's design. Though II implies that it is
incorrect for him to rule directly.)

**The** **Ten Commandments**, also known as the **Decalogue**, are a set of biblical principles relating to ethics and worship, which play a fundamental role in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. The commandments include instructions to worship only God, to honour one's parents, and to keep the sabbath, as well as prohibitions against idolatry, blasphemy, murder, adultery, theft, dishonesty, and coveting. Different religious groups follow different traditions for interpreting and numbering them. Despite being called the ten commandments, the original description of them was not numbered.

The ten commandments show up in early concept art of yhvh's second form in iva. He has the ten commandments, but with swords behind them, perhaps showing that despite his ostensible claim to being lawful, his influences ultimately contain chaos.

**Divine command theory** (also
known as **theological voluntarism**) is a meta-ethical theory
which proposes that an action's status as morally good is equivalent
to whether it is commanded by God. Note that this does not tell you
what the content will be, merely from where it is derived. Christianity of course believes morality rests in some sense in god, and is derived from god's nature, and so the commands of god are absolute. YHVH in iva represents divine command theory explicitly. More information about this is in the yhvh section of the ethics page.

**Justification by faith** is a
concept in christian theology that implies that a core concept of
being considered just in the eyes of god is to have faith in jesus,
such that the righteousness of him is considered implicitly
transferred to you. Since the righteousness is external, it is also
referred to as **imputed righteousness**. It is believed in by the forms of christians who think righteousness is inherently impossible or incoherent outside of the context of god. More information about this is in the yhvh section of the ethics page.

**Natural law** is another concept
which started in greek philosophy, but explains a lot of
traditionalist christian morality, since its concepts are often used
to express it. Namely that there's a law inherent in nature that
things' natural states somehow necessitate. In modern ethics this
idea is rarely used in its classical sense. But this is an argument
that traditionalist Christians have used to make anti gay arguments,
by expressing that homosexuality in some sense goes against the
natural proper functions of sex. If that sounds meaningless, its
because it is. Which is why this idea doesn't really exist in ethics
anymore, due to you having to make a large amount of assumptions to
even begin building a theory off of it. And fortunately, most
churches are moving towards dropping it, though a few have reasons
which make it harder for them. Like catholic infallibiltiy, where
they believe that any official teaching of theirs is protected by the
holy spirit, and thus incapable of being wrong. Which means for them
to change will mean a radical restructuring of their teachings. In
practice, more and more catholic churches and parishioners are simply
slowly moving away from focus on the more extreme anti
gay
aspects. Many other churches are simply revising their teachings.

Note of course that natural law blended
so easy with Christianity, since from the time of Judaism it thought
of morals as imperatives. Which lenient or not, can explain another
reason why it is associated with law, since some other people like in
the east phrased it in other ways. In practice this was not meant to
mean that they didn't consider morality as important, though it is
just a different expression. A lot of people have a misconception of
eastern religion as nihilistic for this reason though.

**Grace** is a christian idea that is
common in many traditions. Many of them hold the strangely self
depreciating idea that original sin made humans of their own power
incapable of good. And so it is accompished only with the help of
God's grace. or instance, Pelagianism is the belief that original sin
did not taint human nature and that mortal will is still capable of
choosing good or evil without special Divine aid. And is officially
considered a heresy by many christian denominations. Interestingly,
this idea is referenced in devil survivor where in the intro it
points out that if the lord does not live within you, all living
beings hold darkness in their hearts. Though in this sense, this is
presumably meant in a more metaphorical sense, where the lord in part
is an archetype of order and law, not just a literal entity who has
to give you something. And so acting that way inherently taps into
this. Grace is an extra self depreciating idea, since it is defined
as something given that people are not owed. As if God was not
morally required to save anyone, but does so due to being loving.
Most denominations tie the idea of grace to salvation as well. In
SJ's end, zelenin says that it is by god's grace that people now live
in eternal peace.

**Sin** is of course a term used in
Christianity to refer to immoral actions. But it also has the
connotation of being a violation of gods will, or being anything that
violates the ideal relationship between an individual and God.
Interestingly, note here that in II zayin says that yhvh has sinned.
Which means that in context, sins are not actions against yhvh so to
speak, but the higher great will. If you consider being in tune with
the collective will to be the absence of sin, it explains why
collectivism properly practiced would then be law. And why ancient of
days complains about “violations” of the collective dispensation
of the universe.

**Mortal Sin** refers in Catholicism
especially to any sin severe enough to send someone to hell, such as
murder. If one commits one, they must repent and confess it to be
back in good grace. In nocturne, the lady in black says that hijiri
commited a mortal sin, and this is the reason for his punishment.

**Original sin** refers to the sin of
adam, or sometimes metaphorically an inherent disposition to sin
people can have due to free will. This being the taking of the
knowledge of evil from lucifer. Obviously law then is trying to undo
the damage this caused, and do away with it for good.

**The seven deadly sins**, also known as the **capital vices** or **cardinal sins**, is a grouping and classification of vices of Christian origin. Behaviors or habits are classified under this category if they directly give birth to other immoralities. According to the standard list, they are **pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony, wrath,** and **sloth**, which are also contrary to the seven virtues. These sins
 are often thought to be abuses or excessive versions of one's natural
faculties or passions (for example, gluttony abuses one's desire to
eat). Historically there would sometimes be two more, those being vanity / **vainglory**, which is unjustified boasting, and **acedia**, which is is the neglect to take care of something that one should do.

In persona 5 the main level are described as corresponding to the sins, though including vanity and perhaps acedia as distinct. That being in order: Castle of Lust, Museum of Vanity, Bank of Gluttony, Pyramid of Wrath, Space Station of Greed, Casino of Envy, and Cruise of Pride. The pyramid at least in the western version is also depicted associated with sloth, though this reference is apparently missing in japan. And the last area, mementos is depicted as sloth / acedia in the sense that the main group of the population doesn't want to have to think for themself. Here, the sins are implied to be tied to negative shadow vices that people don't want to admit about themselves, being shadow aspects. The reason the shadow world being associated with mainly negative qualities in p5 having to do with the fact that shadows are these qualities one doesn't want to identify with.

One of the points of persona 5 with you discovering the prison of regression in the depths of mementos is that ultimately mankind's core sin is sloth. they make the point that while the other issues come up often enough, that realistically it ultimately comes down to people not wanting to have to expend more personal effort to solve problems. And even many that exist do because many don't choose to stop them.

In iva, there are some jars containing some of the deadly sins that push them into anyone who gets too close. And in SJ, the first few areas may be depicted as based on them. Interestingly, all the games tend to use an arbitrary amount of them, never depicting exactly seven.

**Baptism** is a bathing in water and
ritual for entry into the church. Although important to many
denominations, some saying that lacking it means putting one's self
at risk of losing heaven. Both the gaians and messians in smti have a ceremony to baptize you into their church at different times if you seek it.

**Confession**, in many religions, is the acknowledgment to another of one's sins (sinfulness) or wrongs. In Catholic teaching, the Sacrament of Penance is the method of the Church by which individuals can confess sins committed after baptism and have them absolved by a priest. Although it is not mandatory, the Catholic rite is usually conducted within a confessional box. This evolved from an early christian practice where people were to confess wrongdoings to others in the community in general. In persona 5 you can visit a church that has a confessional box in it, where you are noted as being able to reflect on your past. And this allows characters to re-gain skills that they dropped earlier due to lack of skill slots.

**The problem of evil** is the
philosophical question of asking whether the suffering that exists in
the world is compatible with the idea of an all-good, all-powerful
and all-knowing God. The implication being that a god with this power
would have a moral obligation to prevent it, and that the absence of
doing so is not compatible with being good if one has the power.
Attempted answers to it involve real moral choice being necessary for
virtue fulfillment, or free will necessitating certain kinds of
outcomes to be meaningful.

In megaten this is brought up by naoya. Naoya says that if god was truly absolute, his creation would never falter. But humans cause tons of problems, and demons and natural evils exist, and god's plans can even be frustrated. Something he says proves god's limited nature. This being of course accurate in-game, since yhvh in game is depicted as a powerful, but not absolute, and so naoya's criticism being accurate as a reflection of the problems. This being meant as an actual critique that is also relevant to the real world.

Megaten on top of the problem of evil taken literally due to yhvh not being perfect, it has another extension to this in that in games like iva yhvh is shown as playing both sides. And as such him wanting the world as it is to be deliberate, since he keeps it as a neutral struggle between the sides, rather than having created it more peaceful as he claims. Which is used in iva as a critique of him and why even the law side turns against him. So its an issue of how certain evils only exist because he is not quite as people see him.

**Vague law association** Galatians
2:20 says: I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live,
but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by
faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. Which
corresponds to in IV lilith talking about how being lawful means
giving your mind and body completely over to god. In practice little
is meant directly by this verse in christianity, though many
Christians do think that to act good you need the grace of god, which
coming from god directly implies acting by his power.

**Memento mori** (Latin for "remember that you have to die") is the medieval Latin Christian theory and practice of reflection on mortality, especially as a means of considering the vanity of earthly life and the transient nature of all earthly goods and pursuits. It is related to the *ars moriendi* ("The Art of Dying") and similar literature. *Memento mori*
 has been an important part of ascetic disciplines as a means of
perfecting the character by cultivating detachment and other virtues,
and by turning the attention towards the immortality of the soul and the
 afterlife. This phrase is a heavy aspect of the themes of persona 3, which revolves heavily around death, and different responses to its presence, ranging from thinking it devalues life, to the possibility of ignoring it, to facing it, and ultimately the crowning response of self sacrifice associated with the archetype of messiah.

**Phrases**. Although this doesn't
entirely fit in this section it doesn't fit anywhere else either, so
it will be included here. There are a few phrases from christianity
that show up in games. **Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus Dominus Deus**
Sabaot**\* is said by one of the angels fusing into seraph in strange**
journey. Which translates to Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of Hosts.
**Mene, mene, tekel, upharsin** is said at the beginning of IV. Its
translation is only to names of coins, but it is from the story of
daniel where he says that it means that you have been weighed in the
balances and found wanting. **Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?** is also
said at the beginning of IV, being the words Jesus said on the cross,
which are "My God, My God, why have you forsaken Me?"
Though those words are actually a quote from the old testament psalms
chapter 22. The full verse of which is "1 My God, my God, why
have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, so far from
the words of my groaning? 2 O my God, I cry out by day, but you do
not answer, by night, and am not silent." The contrast of these
two verses at the beginning of IV might be to imply law and chaos,
talking about both judgement, as well as not being able to rely on
God. Note that the crucifixion and resurrection in Iv is undergone by
lilith, which can add to that being the chaotic implied verse.

On ash wednesday people say remember
that you are dust and unto dust you will return. sometimes this
phrase is shortened as dust to dust. In iva yhvh says that humans
were once only dust. Though again, he is being misleading, since
their souls existed before then.

**Matthew 5** has a lot of phrases like
"Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy"
that yhvh quotes in iva. Part of the game is denying this as an
inherent truth however, since it comes off as part of yhvh's empty
promises.

## Afterlife

**Heaven**, or **the heavens**, is a common religious, cosmological, or transcendent place where beings such as gods, angels, jinn, saints, or venerated ancestors are said to originate, be enthroned, or live. Heaven is often described as a "higher place", the holiest place, a Paradise, in contrast to Hell or the Underworld or the "low places", and universally or conditionally accessible by earthly beings according to various standards of divinity, goodness, piety, faith, or other virtues or right beliefs or simply the will of God. Some believe in the possibility of a Heaven on Earth in a World to Come.

In christianity, heaven is described as the place where god and angels live, although it is not necessarily understood as a tangible place, so much as a mode of being due to spirits not having tangible bodies. A common understanding is that the saved dead go there when they die, but christians groups disagree about how this works. Namely, they believe that in the end, ultimately there will be a new heaven and a new earth, and that people will ultimately have a bodily ressurection, rather than merely existing as disembodied spirits. But the relation of this eschatological process to the existing heaven, and to what degree these new places will be united is left ambiguous. Christians also disagree on whether the saved really live in heaven now versus sleep until the last judgement. Likewise, judaism generally holds similar beliefs about bodily resurrection, although original judaism had a wide variety of beliefs, and judaism tends to hold more to reincarnation as well as an in between. (more info below in the eschatology section).

Some of this translates to the in game depiction. The goal of law is ultimately a new world, seen as heaven on earth, not just to move spirits to the angelic realm. Although in some games, human spirits are seen in or described as living in there for a time. Although the in-game depiction is also based on buddhist ideas of reincarnation and a cyclical world, rather than just christian ones. the realm of the angels is referred to as heaven in some games, like redux.

Sometimes there is described as being seven heavens in christianity or judaism. Seven Heavens is a part of religious cosmology found in many major
religions such as Islam, Judaism and Hinduism and in some minor
religions such as Hermeticism and Gnosticism. The Throne of God is said
to be above the seventh heaven in Abrahamic religions. These are based on the planets that were known about at the time. So note that while modern art depicts heaven as looking like the sky of earth and having clouds, the medieval depiction also included space and planets in its description. Giving context for why yhvh's universe in iva is depicted as in space.

**The empyrean** is the place in the highest heaven, which in ancient cosmologies was supposed to be occupied by the element of fire (or aether in Aristotle's natural philosophy). The Empyrean was thus used as a name for the firmament, and in Christian literature, notably the *Divine Comedy*,
 for the dwelling-place of God, the blessed, celestial beings so divine
they are made of pure light, and the source of light and creation. In the English version of dsj the final area the wisemen are fought in is called the empyrean ascent, though it is depicted as distinct from heaven, and as a mysterious place. Note that since the empyrean is not originally a christian concept, this appearance may relate to this idea.

**Salvation** is an important issue in
Christianity, and is divided in multiple ways. In christianity, salvation is stated as the saving of the soul from sin and its consequence. Judaism has no equivalent of salvation, saying that sin is not inherently irrevocably corruptible in this way. Note that in game, the term salvation is occasionally used by the divine powers or law side to refer to some kind of being saved. Though it is a more general term than is used here, and not always applied to an afterlife.

Note that the current christian concept of salvation as if people were destined for hell if this was not directly shifted by the sacrifice of Jesus was not really christianity's original belief, and likewise is more or less absent from the gospels. With salvation having a more ambiguous tone. This was another idea developed later on. Note one more thing is that Christians don't just believe you become a spirit in heaven post death. They generally believe in the resurrection of the body, and that you will have a restored physical nature as well. One in a new world.

As far as afterlives go, the most important
thing to lay out though is that there are three main beliefs on what
the distinction between possible afterlives in christianity is.

**Eternal conscious torment** is the
idea that people sent to hell stay there forever.

**Annihilationism** is the idea that
people sent to hell cease to exist.

**Universalism** is the idea that
people sent to hell are purified there, and everyone eventually is saved. In more radical interpretations there is no hell
at all.

Obviously the first of these was the
most popular historically, but the others have serious cases for them
that even in early Christianity were heavily discussed. Due to
neutrality between them, many churches will often have standards that
they say they know gets you saved, but they make no claim as to
what happens to anyone else. And say that maybe we may hope that there is no
eternal hell, and that all others will be saved eventually after a
time.

Due to the cosmology being cyclical, and reincarnation existing in the games, none of these closely matches the paradigm set up by it. In game, law's views are a combination
of multiple of them in a sense. Amane points out that ideally they
will eventually even be able to save chaos demons. Presumably hoping
for a final brainwashing of all life to not need any quarantine
zones. In the meantime, they keep demons sealed away. Note that the
abyss or where the demons are sealed in game is generally not
considered bad in the sense people often imagine hell, either. The idea of hell being specifically about torture seems specifically associated with corrupt iterations of yhvh who show up as entities even law dislikes.

The obvious metrics for salvation are
faith and works. But different groups disagree on which matters more
for salvation, whether one or both do, or whether neither does since
there is not even any purgatory, but you should do them anyways.
Sole fide protestants are known for scaling it down to pure
faith, saying that that is all that's needed with no leniency. Which
is interesting, since this view is pretty anti-biblical, with only a
handful of out of context verses to support it, and many which
contradict it. Catholics are a little better, saying that while both
faith and works are necessarily if you know, if you don't know that
Catholicism is the true faith, then for you maybe only works. (Though
some of them say that if you are not christian you go to an
intermediary afterlife called limbo). Some other protestants are more
ambiguous or more works focused. Note here that in-game, in iva especially some corrupt versions of yhvh consider faith in him to be the basis of ethics. More information about that in the yhvh section of the ethics page.

The interesting thing about this is
that the gospels themselves are pretty clear that the standards are
mainly works. Its impossible to read many of these verses and get
anything else out of it, since they're not overly ambiguous.

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+25:31-46

http://biblehub.com/matthew/7-21.htm

http://biblehub.com/1\_timothy/4-10.htm

http://biblehub.com/1\_corinthians/6-9.htm

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+John+2%3A2-5&version=NIV

http://biblehub.com/matthew/19-17.htm

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=James+2:24&version=ESV

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+Corinthians+13:2

http://biblehub.com/philippians/2-12.htm

http://biblehub.com/luke/23-34.htm

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=James+2:14-26

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Mark+9%3A40-41&version=NIV

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Romans+2:6-14

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Jeremiah%2017:10

http://biblehub.com/matthew/16-27.htm

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=2%20Corinthians%205:10

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Peter%201:17

http://biblehub.com/revelation/20-12.htm

http://biblehub.com/1\_corinthians/7-19.htm

http://biblehub.com/james/2-20.htm

http://biblehub.com/luke/1-6.htm

Faith was seen as a virtue, but merely
one among others. More it was assumed that proper faith would help
you do works. Paul in his own writings did focus on faith more, but
even that was a few offhand vague declarations to be humble aimed at
a specific group. So its a little reaching to try to crowbar works
out of the primary position. Especially since Jesus in the gospels
did not emphasize himself as much as later people did. It would be
odd to crowbar into them content about focusing on him that wouldn't
have made sense when you realize he didn't say it about himself, so
much of it was definitely from later.

Note as well that in megaten it doesn't
seem that there exists any “hell” proper. Demons are sealed in
the abyss, which is not quite the same as what we call hell. Even
hijiri if he is aleph has a punishment that is not quite hell. The
abyss seems more like a quarantine zone than anything designed for
punishment.

In the games, salvation is presented ambiguously, but usually means actually saving people in real life from death or suffering. The law side tends to use it as a term for overall good outcomes for you (which interestingly may have been the meaning used by some early christians). In II specifically, one thing contrasting zayin with the center is that they don't seek to save more than a small handful of people. Whereas zayin in the visionary items is depicted as someone who wants to save everyone if possible, or as many as possible if it is not possible to save them all. But to at least aim for the most, rather than to specifically choose a lesser number.

**Atonement** Note that although it is
not a large part of the bible, most Christians believe that Jesus'
death was in some sense tied to opening the gates to heaven, allowing
salvation. Because people were inherently corrupted by and bound by
sin until he acted as their substitute for punishment, and before
then it was not possible to be saved. And so those who died earlier
in some sense had to wait for this to move on. Interestingly,
although christianity obviously has Jesus and YHVH as on the same
side, generally depicted as parts of the same entity, megaten having
the messiah be opposed to YHVH (as shown in the plot of II among
others) is an interesting twist on this. Since as a parallel its
having the real goal not be available just from yhvh alone, but
coming from the messiah, and not being available before his coming.
Only here its blaming yhvh for this, and making them ultimately
opposed, rather than it be all working together. Even though
ironically the messiahs being law aligned makes it look as if they
are together.

**Olam ha-ba**, ( Hebrew: “the world
to come”) in Jewish theology, either “the world after death” or
the new creation or restoration of the world that is to follow the
messianic millennium. There is ambiguity about what this exactly will
entail, as judaism is not clear about its eschatology. So there is
disagreement about it being more like earth or a permanent heaven.
Modern judaism believes that almost all beings will reach this other
than a tiny percentage of the most evil who contain no goodness to
redeem. And that the period of purification after death is not very
long. Such as around a year. Note that jews have no concept of
salvation like the christians. So they don't phrase this as being
saved from sin.

**Early judaism** was noted for not having any particular afterlife belief. And said many things, many which contradicted ranging from going to heaven to reincarnation to ceasing to exist. One interesting one to focus on that comes from ecclesiastes though, is the idea that people's spirit returned to the whole spirit of god, losing its self identity. And that new entities were born from this same spirit of God. Which sounds very close to how the great will is treated in game, and how people return to it before their essence is used for new entities / or outright reincarnation.

Likewise, note that the fact that no afterlife of eternal peace was promised in early judaism is another reason that the law worlds are associated more with the messiah than with yhvh. Implying that he existed since before this plan, and while he is willing to make use of it can also work outside of it depending on the game.

**Sheol**, in the Hebrew Bible,
 is a place of darkness to which all the dead go, both the righteous and
 the unrighteous, regardless of the moral choices made in life, a place
of stillness and darkness cut off from life and from God. The inhabitants of sheol are called "shades" (rephaim) and are thought to lack strength or a personal life. This belief was not uniform in the old testament, but was a common one. Showing that concepts of the division of heaven and hell did not exist at this point in time. In majin tensei ii, sheol is the name of one of the core parts of the abyss. This name being a more neutral one for death shows its place in the overall system.

**Soul sleep** refers to some beliefs in some forms of christianity which hold that the dead are not currently conscious and remain asleep until the last judgement, or in some cases for a specific time. In megaten you can of course draw a parallel to how souls which return to the axiom do not seem to be personally conscious in an aware sense during this time. At least not in the same way as when in the form of a human or demon. Or when the soul is inert its consciousness level seems to be low if any.

## Eschatology

Christianity believes that time is
linear, and at some point time as we know it will have an end, and
which will lead into the new eternal world, which may or may not be
physically part of this universe. An interesting thing about law is
that some of its content is based not on christian active ideology,
but on its idea of an afterlife as something they plan to actively
make and sustain. It even parallels socialist ideas of the creation
of socialism as the end of history in some sense, since states rising
and falling and various types of events would no longer occur, only
eternal peace for the most part.

Various aspects of the book of revelations are referenced in the games. Desu talks about seven trumpets. Various games such as nocturne or dds2 have a black sun, which is mentioned. And of course all the figures from revelations that show up.

**Meggido** or **armageddon** is a term
used in revalation to refer to a place that armies would gather for a
final battle in the end times. Variously interpreted as either a
literal or a symbolic location. The term is also used in a generic
sense to refer to any end of the world scenario. Note in II they name
the ark after this, implicating that it was meant to signify a final
end to the fighting, and a new beginning. And of course it shows up
as a spell name.

**Thousand year reign** refers to a
period in revelation specified as a time near the end of the world
that leads into the eternal kingdom. The actual number of years was
not meant to be literal, merely to mean long time. It is unclear what
this idea is meant to signify, since it is a period where Jesus is
said to reign directly, leading into the afterlife, but which at the
end of the dragon gets out, but is defeated for good. Since
revalation may be very metaphorical, there may be some purpose behind
this that the original description is lost of. Or it may just be
specifying a slow gradual improvement until the perfect world is
reached. The idea that this period itself was some kind of distinct
thing was branded as a heresy by some, who specified that this
description was not a distinct period, but merely the beginning of
the eternal kingdom.

Thousand year kingdom is obviously used in megaten as a term to directly specify an indefinitely long peaceful period on earth. Though in megaten this term is used to specify an indefinite period, and is treated at least in the immediate sense as the final goal in and of itself.

**Kingdom of heaven** is a closely
related concept which has ambiguous meaning. In some of the gospels,
they spoke of the kingdom of heaven being at hand. Some think it
means the literal afterlife and future world was coming soon. Others
think that it means some kind of spiritual inner state, or world you
are meant to create by following the precepts of Christianity. It is
related to, but distinguished from the thousand year reign. It seems
they combined both terms for the phrase millenial kingdom, but which
the fan translation translated as thousand year kingdom. Though there
is also a vague distinction of course, since mastema says he comes
from the kingdom of light, which is a different thing than the
millenial kingdoms they are creating on earth. (Though the final goal
may to eventually replicate them more fully. Certainly in SJ it seemed
so.)

**New heaven** and **new earth.** Many
people have an idea that the christian afterlife is your soul going
to live in heaven with no body. But it should be noted that to
historical Christians, this idea may have seemed incoherent. This
being because the idea of a soul as a distinct thing that can exist
without a body is not actually a common historical christian idea.
They believed it was a thing in some sense tied to the form of the
body. And that people were both together. (sometimes even expanded to
body, soul, and spirit). Like the jews, they believed in the physical
resurrection of the body at the end of time. And some (not all)
likewise believed that heaven was in some sense physical. Note also,
the literal ascension of Jesus into heaven, and Thomas being shown
that he had a physical body. There are of course varying beliefs on
this, and whether your “glorified body” counts as strictly
speaking physical or spiritual though. The importance of some level
of physical obviously shows up in smt as well, where most demons, and
humans in general tend to want to have tangible forms. Note that in
the end of SJ, zelenin says there will be a new earth. Note here that
the idea of time being linear and ending with eternal heaven is
another reason angels are law. It is a permanent outcome being moved
towards. Distinct from some other religions which have no or less of
an idea of a permanent end in this way, or if there is one it is not
god guided. There are some disagreements about whether people go to
heaven on death, or only at the end of the world.

**Theosis** is an idea in the eastern
orthodox church of divinization, and sharing in God's nature in
heaven. Though to prevent idolatry, it should be noted that they are
not becoming Gods themselves, just sharing in the nature. If you want
an example, what it is like is more like if you were made of glass,
and placed in an area full of light. The existence of the glass would
be a thing that now fully has the light pervading fully all aspects
of it, and reflects and has inner light, such that you can say the
light is within it. But the light does not originate in it, and it is
by being within the light source that this is possible.

This ties into ideas, especially like
in the added scene of II of becoming a “face” of God. And likewise, the ending of Strange Journey where everyone becomes part of the holy spirit. Not having
your own divinity, but being seen as an extension of God's divinity.
This being perhaps an explanation for how the avatars function, and
perhaps even YHVH to an extent, being an extra special case of
containment of some kind of inherent inner divinity of the larger
abstract sense of the ordered properties of the great will that they
are tuning into. This was assumed to be something that happened after
death, though some forms of christian mysticism did try to work in
this happening to them even in life. Note that the orthodox idea of
hell loosely relates to the glass metaphor, since the orthodox
believe that heaven and hell are the same thing. But your reaction to
it is different depending on your own moral state. So imagine being
really shitty dirty dark glass that the light just sits on and makes
overhead rather than shines through. And it being uncomfortable for
you.

**Limbo**. An interesting note that
some might not know is that some Christians, Catholics especially
believed in a neutral afterlife distinct from heaven or hell for
people who were more neutral in some way. Or perhaps were virtuous,
but not religious, and so could not be sent to hell, but were not
seen as good enough for heaven. (There was disagreement about whether
one could get to heaven proper without being christian). This
ironically draws an alignment base here, since in game it talks about
where you are born based on your karma. And so the neutral afterlife
in game would simply be being sent to another place like earth.
(though the games also talk about different heavens ruled by other
gods, implying that there could be neutral ones as well.) And thus
there being a distinction. Another note in game is that the law and
chaos sides are both nicer to you when you face them as neutral than
as the opposing alignment. So the idea of being punished less as
someone neutral relative to bad has precedent.

One contrast of the medium though is that in revalations, God says "But since you are like *lukewarm* water, neither hot nor cold, I will *spit* you *out* of my mouth!" depicting a negative attitude towards trying to skirt the middle.

**Purgatory** is an idea some
denominations have of a purifying place one goes to before heaven to
slowly refine one into a heavenly state, by burning out their sins.
Note that in views in which hell is not eternal, hell and purgatory
are the same thing. In SJ's law end, zelenin refers to earth as
having been in a time of purgatory that is now coming to an end.
Implying an intermediary stage which is now leading into a heavenly
one. For the world as a whole, rather than individuals.

Note the fact
that purgatory erases your sin and effects you mind by doing so is
one of the many reasons law is associated with brainwashing. Others
being angels trying to influence you positively (though demons do
negatively as well), etc. Not to mention that in heaven, your mind
can never change from its peaceful mentality. Likewise, in IV the law related last area is called purgatorium, which is an alternate version of the word purgatory in some languages. With the final room being called paradiso, implying a place reached after the earlier parts. This similarly implies existing for the sake of purification of the world. In digital devil saga, the junkyard is also called purgatory in the intro, tying it to a vague intermediary area of strife.

**Hell** is obviously seen as a place
of punishment or suffering. However, some christian denominations say
that people are not strictly speaking kept here, but rather stay by
their own power if they become too corrupt to want to be in the sight
of god. An interesting thing is that in SJ, the last area, and chaos
ending are depicted by showing the primal earth as covered in lava.
But obviously is meant to look like people's ideas of hell and fire.
In the eastern orthodox church heaven and hell are actually the same
place, but for the corrupt it is a place of suffering due to not
wanting to be close to God. Interestingly, the bible is not very
clear on hell, and what it is or even if it is eternal. Note
interestingly that in megaten there seems to be nothing that directly
resembles the traditional christian concept of hell. Since the demons
worlds do have aspects of it, but are not places of pure suffering.
YHVH promises aleph something in II that resembles it, minus the
reincarnation, but how literal it is is ambiguous. In dsj alex accuses you of creating hell on some routes.

Hell was originally often believed to literally be under the ground. And was depicted this way in ddante's inferno. This provides some context for why the chaos side is associated with both the earth and hell. Since associating them together, and using the underground heated area as a metaphor, you get a contrast with space and the sky. In persona 5, the overview depiction of mementos seems to be based on the artwork of dante's hell. Which is fitting since it represents the sins of mankind at large.