Satan

Satan (Heb., ‘adversary’; Arab., al-Shaytan). In Jewish, Christian, and Islamic tradition, the chief enemy of God.

Judaism

In the older books of the Hebrew Bible, the word sātān is a common noun (e.g. 1 Samuel 29. 4), and is a human adversary (1 Kings 11. 14, 23, 25). Apart from the figure of the serpent in Genesis 3, there is no figure to correspond to the later tradition. This begins to emerge after the Exile, perhaps under Zoroastrian influence. In Job, ‘the Satan’ is a heavenly figure who tests Job, but always with God's permission (e.g. chs. 1 and 2). In the amoraic period, he becomes a significant individual. He is said to have been responsible for all the sins in the Bible (PdRE 13. 1), and the reason for blowing the shofar on Rosh ha-Shanah is ‘to confuse Satan’ (BRH 16b). In later Judaism (especially kabbalah) he becomes known by other names, e.g. Samael.

Christianity

The cognate term ‘the devil’ (Gk., diabolos), which has become the usual word in Christian tradition, alternates with ‘Satan’ in the New Testament (see also BEELZEBUB). Here the Jewish picture is elaborated.

The identity of Satan as a fallen angel is asserted by Revelation 12. 7–9. The devil, ‘Lucifer’, fell through pride, because he would not submit to God. Satan's defeat by Christ on the cross led to ‘Christus Victor’ theories of atonement, revived and made important in the 20th cent., by G. Aulén: the conquest of personified evil reinforced many Christians in their resistance to totalitarian dictators.

Islam

Al-Shaytān is, in the Qurʾān, the adversary. The term describes Iblīs (Gk., diabolos, ‘devil’) and his descendants as they cease to be simply rebellious jinn, and become subverters or tempters of humans (eighty-eight times in thirty-six chapters).