Satan

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SATAN

SATAN . Although the name Satan sometimes has been connected with the Hebrew verb suṭ, which means "to roam" (perhaps suggesting that Satan acts as God's spy), it is more commonly derived from the root saṭan, which means "to oppose, to plot against." The word thus basically connotes an adversary. Its use in the Hebrew scriptures (Old Testament) covers three types of beings as opponents: (1) a human being, as in 2 Samuel 19:22, (2) an angelic being, as in Numbers 22:22–35, and (3) a particular adversary, as in Zechariah 3:1–2, where saṭan functions as a common rather than a proper noun and does not refer to "the Satan," but where the idea of a being having a distinct personality is still conveyed. This supernatural being not only acts as an adversary: his name itself means "an obstructor" (Russell, 1977, p. 190). In the New Testament, Satan as the Devil is called the "great dragon" and "ancient serpent" (Rv. 12:9). However, while echoes of a Canaanite myth of God's conflict with the dragon and the sea may be found in the Old Testament, Satan is not associated with these references but is clearly mentioned in three contexts (except for Psalms 109:6, in which he is inferred). The first of these contexts is in the Book of Job, where Satan belongs to the court of God and, with God's permission, tests Job. By contrast, in a second occurrence (Zec. 3), Satan, on his own initiative, opposes Joshua. The third passage in the Old Testament in which Satan figures (1 Chr. 21:1) is, according to George A. Barton (1911),

A further witness to the fact that Satan is now held to be responsible for evil. The chapter gives an account of David's census and of the punishment for it, and is dependent on 2 Samuel 24; but whereas it is said in Samuel that Jahweh said to David, "Go, number Israel" because he was angry with the people, it is said in Chronicles that Satan "moved David to number Israel." Satan is clearly a development out of the group of spirits which were in earlier days thought to be from Jahweh's court, members of which were sent upon errands of disaster to men. (p. 598)

Scholars seems somewhat divided on the question of the extent to which evil may be associated with Satan in the Old Testament. It has been argued that Satan "was not evil but became evil by identification with his functions" in the course of time (Robbins, 1966, p. 130). One might distinguish here between two approaches toward Satan in the Old Testament. According to one approach, represented by Giovanni Papini, Jeffrey Burton Russell, John Noel Schofield, Gustav Davidson, and others, Satan is still not quite God's adversary, only his minion. Other scholars, such as Edward Langton and Ronald S. Wallace, see a more definite movement toward an association of evil with Satan. But the transition from the saṭan of the Old Testament, which pre-figures the Devil in some way, to the Satanas of the New Testament, who is the Devil, is clear enough.

The figure of Satan in noncanonical Hebrew literature intensifies his identification with evil. He not only emerges as an adversary of God, but, as such apocalyptic works as Jubilees, the Testament of Reuben, the Book of the Secrets of Enoch (2 Enoch), and the Qumran documents show, he is also the leader of the fallen angels. It should be noted, however, that although Satan comes to stand for evil, in "Hebrew thought in the Old Testament there is no suggestion of any dualism, whether temporal, spatial or ethical… any philosophy of evil culled from the Bible must find room for evil within the concept of God and within his purpose." This also holds true for much apocalyptic literature; signs of temporal, spatial, and ethical dualism begin to emerge only in later Judaism. At the temporal level, the view is developed that history consists of two ages. The present age is marked by the Devil's power, which will be nullified at the end of the present age when the divine age is ushered in. At the spatial level, the kingdoms of the Lord and Satan are contrasted as being in cosmic opposition; at the ethical level, humans are seen as being affected by sin, which will be overcome in a divine denouement. Persian influence has been traced in this movement toward dualism. But Hebrew and Christian thought stopped short of specifying that the Devil is entirely evil in essence. This tension between explicit monotheism and implicit dualism became characteristic of Judaism and Christianity, as contrasted with Zoroastrianism, Manichaeism, and gnosticism. "The Devil," as Luther said, "is God's Devil."

Christianity synthesized Greek and Jewish concepts of the Devil. The word devil is actually derived from the Greek diabolos, which has the dual sense of "accuser" and "obstructor." If the Old Testament, according to later tradition, implicates Satan in the fall of humankind, the New Testament refers clearly to the fall of Satan himself in 2 Peter 2:4 and in Revelation 12:7–9. Again, in contrast with the Old Testament, the power of the Devil is often mentioned (e.g., Lk. 4:6). He is also identified with other names: Beelzebul ("lord of flies"), Beelzebub ("lord of dung"), and, with somewhat less critical certainty, Lucifer.

In the ministry of Jesus Christ, "there is a constant campaign against Satan from the temptation after Jesus' Baptism until his death on the cross, and, in each act of healing or exorcism, there is anticipated the ultimate defeat of Satan and the manifestation of the power of the new age," as is the case of Mark's gospel, the central part of which calls upon Jesus' disciples "to participate through suffering in his own confrontation with the power of Satan" (Davis, 1984, p. 952). Indeed, Mark and Paul are more inclined to use the name Satan ; other New Testament writers prefer other forms. Nevertheless, the motif of both the original (Rom. 16:20) and the ultimate and eschatological fall of Satan (Rv. 20:2, 7–10) undergirds the New Testament, though the latter is more prominent. The Devil is the lord of both aion and kosmos, words used in the context of sinful human society and probably suggestive of the dichotomy of spirit and matter in Greek thought. Russell summarized the chief characteristics of the Devil in the New Testament as follows (1977, p. 256): (1) he is the personification of evil; (2) he physically attacks or possesses humans; (3) he tempts people to sin in order to destroy them or recruit them in his struggle against God; (4) he accuses and punishes sinners; (5) he leads a host of evil spirits, fallen angels, or demons; (6) he has assimilated many evil qualities of ancient destructive nature spirits or ghosts; (7) he will rule this world until the coming of the kingdom of God, and in the meantime will be engaged in constant warfare against Christ; (8) he will be defeated by Christ at the end of the world. Above all, he is identified with temptation and death, like his counterpart Māra in Buddhism.

In early Christianity it was believed that the death of Jesus redeemed humankind from the Devil, who had been overcome in his own house by Christ's descent into hell (Mt. 12:29). Thus, although the idea of the final conquest of evil or the Devil is not unique to Christianity but is also present in Zoroastrianism and Judaism, "the unique note in the Christian message is the announcement that Satan is already being defeated in Christ" (Ling, 1961, p. 102). Despite this general picture, however, Russell notes that the position of the Devil remains anomalous in the New Testament, and the "elements of cosmic dualism in the synoptic gospels are much stronger in Luke than in Mark and Matthew and stronger in John than in any of the synoptics" (1977, p. 232).

Satan's name appears as Shayṭān in the Qurʾān, although it is not clear whether the name is Arabic or not. Shayṭān shares certain functions of the Judeo-Christian Satan, such as leading people astray (4:83), but there is a significant extension of this view in that Satan is accused of tampering with divine verbal revelation (22.52). However, it is in his role as Iblīs (2:34, etc.) that al-Shayṭān is most striking (Watt, 1970, p. 155). He is deposed for refusing to bow before man as the other angels had done, but is allowed, after his refusal, to tempt mortals. According to an established tradition, "Satan sits in the blood of Adam's children" and thus "could be equated with nafs, the lower principle, the flesh" (Schimmel, 1975, p. 193). In Islam, the figure of Satan achieves a mystical dimension not found in Judaism and Christianity, where the devil is more or less exclusively associated with evil and the underworld. This association may help "account for the Western tradition that Satan is not only Lord of evil and of death but is also associated with fertility and sexuality, a trait evident in the witches' orgy and in the horns the Devil often wears" (Russell, 1977, p. 64).

Satan plays an important role in the folklore of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Already by the end of the apocalyptic period he had been identified with the following mythological themes in Jewish demonology and folklore: darkness, the underworld, and the air, sexual temptation and molestation, the goat, the lion, the frog or toad, and the serpent or dragon. In rabbinic folklore, Satan is not linked with the legend of Lilith, but he appears to Eve as a beautiful angel, and tempts Rabbi ʿAqiva˒ (ʿAqiva˒ ben Yosef, first-second century ce) in the form of a woman. According to the Talmud he was created on the sixth day of creation. His great rival was Michael, the leader of the angels. Satan was deemed capable of assuming any form, and there are accounts in hagiographic literature of his grappling physically with Christian saints.

Both similarities and differences may be noted between Christian and Islamic perceptions regarding Satan. One difference, according to A. J. Wensinck (1971, p. 669) lies in the fact that "Muslim thought remains undecided as to whether he was an angel or a djinn and does not pronounce an opinion on the possibility of his being 'a fallen angel.'" A similarity is found in Satan's characteristic ability of assuming any shape, or none at all. His ability to appear as an angel, the dreaded "midday Devil" of the Psalms, was what made Mary fearful at the Annunciation. As a hātif (one who is heard but not seen), Satan similarly almost beguiled ʿAlī into not washing the body of the Prophet, until ʿAli was corrected by another hātif. Thus the imperative of distinguishing between good and bad spirits due to Satan's operations is common to both Christianity and Islam.

The serpent or snake is perhaps the best-known symbol associated with Satan. Genesis (3:1ff.) mentions the serpent but not Satan; in Romans (16:20), however, Paul suggests that the serpent was Satan, an association already made in apocalyptic literature. This would imply that Satan tempted Adam, but the consensus of early Christina tradition was that Satan fell after Adam (Russell, 1977, p. 232). There may be good reason for believing that not until Origen in the third century ce was it clearly established that Satan's sin was pride, that he fell before Adam's creation, and that he was the serpent in the garden of Eden. Agobard of Lyons (ninth century) saw him as becoming the serpent. In a Jewish text, the Apocalypse of Moses, it is written that the serpent who tempted Eve was merely the tool of Satan, who, as a sinning angel, tempted the serpent to share his envy of Adam and Eve. In later Jewish literature, the identities of Satan and the serpent coalesce, or are closely associated with one another.

Satan is referred to by two different names in the Qurʾānic account of creation: he is called Iblīs when he refuses to bow down before Adam, and al-Shayṭān ("the demon") when he is the tempter (Wensinck, 1971, p. 669). Although there is no allusion to the serpent in the creation account in the Qurʾān, the term shayṭān was probably applied by the Arabs to serpents (Lagton, 1969, p. 9). Once Satan had been identified with nafs, or a human's lower appetites, according to Annemarie Schimmel, the nafs was seen as taking the form of a snake. "This serpent can be turned into a useful rod, just as Moses transformed serpents into rods. More frequent, however, is the idea that the power of the spiritual master can blind the snake; according to folk belief, the snake is blinded by the sight of an emerald (the connection of the pīr's spiritual power with the green color of the emerald is significant). Thus, his influence renders the nafs -snake harmless" (Schimmel, 1975, p. 113). The contrast with the kuṇḍalinī in some forms of yoga is very striking.

Satan is persistently, if not consistently, associated with the serpent. Leaving aside the question of the actual nature of Satan as formulated by the Council of Toledo (447), or the tendency to consider him an imaginative personification of evil, the association with the serpent needs to be accounted for. Several views have been advanced. At a homiletic level, the serpent has been taken to represent cunning. At a psychoanalytic level, the serpent has been associated with emergent sexuality. From a broader, history of religions approach "the serpent is the symbol of the Gods of vegetation; without being the representative of sex as such, he represents the temptations of the divinities that sacralize sex" (Ricoeur, 1967, p. 249). But perhaps in the end one inclines toward the hermeneutic suggested by Ricoeur that the serpent

Represents the aspect of evil that could not be absorbed into the responsible freedom of man, which is perhaps also the aspect that Greek tragedy tried to purify by spectacle, song, and choral invocation. The Jews themselves, although they were well armed against demonology by their intransigent monotheism, were constrained by truth, as Aristotle would say, to concede something, to concede as much as they could without destroying the monotheistic basis of their faith, to the great dualisms which they were to discover after the Exile. The theme of the serpent represents the first landmark along the road of the Satanic theme which, in the Persian epoch, permitted the inclusion of a near-dualism in the faith of Israel. Of course, Satan will never be another god; the Jews will always remember that the serpent is a part of the creation; but at least the symbol of Satan allowed them to balance the movement toward the concentration of evil in man by a second movement which attributed its origin to a prehuman, demonic reality. (Ricoeur, 1967, pp. 258–259)

Although Satan has come to symbolize evil so closely as to become synonymous with it, he has also been associated with some positive concepts. He was worshipped in certain Gnostic circles for enabling knowledge to be brought forth. The Ṣūfī tradition has tended at times to see in him the ultimate monotheist who would bow down before naught but God, even in defiance of God's own command. It is also worth noting that there is no such fixed focus of moral evil as Satan in Hinduism (but see O'Flaherty, 1976), notwithstanding its shared cultural matrix with Buddhism, which did produce the figure of Māra. Despite the nuances of difference in Jewish, Christian, Greek, and Islamic conceptualizations of Satan, they may all share a common heritage.

Interest in Satan has intensified in the past decade, even before President Bush began to speak of the "axis of evil." Elaine Pagels (1995), who phenomenologically brackets the question of the existence of Satan, has carefully delineated the rise of Satan as it were in her works, drawing special attention to how the cosmological split implied by his existence also became a social split in the hands of sectarian groups like the Essenes between "Sons of Light" and "Sons of Darkness," which then runs like a dividing line throughout the history of Christianity in which enemies, both within and without, are identified as "agents of Satan," with Ayotollah's characterisation of U.S.A. as "the Great Satan" representing the inversion of this legacy. Others, such as Whitney S. Bodman (2003) have probed more deeply the sublimely positive role Satan comes to enjoy in Islamic mysticism at times, far beyond Rābiʿah's refusal to denounce him because she was too preoccupied with praising God.