Satan

(West Asian mythology)

Belief in malevolent beings which haunt the air and the secret places of the earth stemmed from early man's instinctive fear of the unknown, the strange and frightening. In West Asia this common superstition expressed itself potently in a variety of ways: the Egyptians struggled against Am-mut, the ‘eater of the dead’, and the serpent Apophis daily threatened the sun god Re; the Babylonians attributed sickness and misfortune to demonic attack, while at night men were endangered by Lilitu, a beautiful, winged succubus; the Hebrews had to cope with a host of fallen angels under the crafty leadership of Satan and Beelzebub; the Arabs fought off the assaults of countless djinn, ‘hidden ones’, inhabitants of the world before man; the Persians, the hardest pressed of all peoples, faced in the dreadful creations of Ahriman nothing less than absolute evil. It was the impact of Persian dualism on the Hebrews, after the Babylonian Exile, that led to the crystallization of the Devil in the form we recognize today.

In the Old Testament the word Satan originally meant ‘adversary’, the supernatural being that Yahweh allowed to test Job, ‘a perfect and an upright man’. But the idea of a spirit of evil was developed in apocryphal literature, especially the Book of Enoch, written down after 200 BC. The fall of Satan was explained in terms of envy; he was jealous of Adam and refused as ‘a son of god’ to pay him reverence and homage. Michael said he should worship ‘the image of God’ or face the wrath of Yahweh, but Satan and his followers refused. They were flung out of heaven, down to earth, and from that moment started the enmity between Satan and mankind. Other angels, however, fell earthward because of the sensual charms of the daughters of men. Thus did Shemhazai and Azazel, who fathered ‘the wicked demon Asmodaeus’, the Zoroastrian Aeshma. On the Day of Atonement the priests had to sacrifice a second ram. One scapegoat was for the sins of Israel, the other for Azazel. From the union of angels and women sprang the titans mentioned in Genesis, the giants who were drowned along with the ‘corrupt’ descendants of Adam in the flood.

Christianity inherited this demonology, to which was added the belief that the pagan deities were devils. St Paul was firm on this theological issue. ‘Ye cannot drink of the cup of the Lord, and the cup of devils.’ Beelzebub, or Baalzebub, ‘lord of the flies’, was a distortion of a Canaanite god's name probably meaning ‘lord of the house’. The idea also grew up that each soul had assigned to it a good and an evil angel. But in the apocalypse of Revelation the faithful knew of the final defeat of Satan, clearly identified as the ‘dragon’ of Genesis. According to the evangelist St Peter, Jesus Christ, having died, even ‘went and preached to the spirits in prison’. A graphic account of his descent into hell occurs in the apocryphal Gospel of Nicodemus, which dates from the fourth century.

The Gnostic ascetic Saturninus, a contemporary of Simon Magus, wrote: ‘Marriage and generation are of Satan.’ Because the world was under his evil sway, abstinence was the only way for the ‘spark of life’ to escape. In Gnostic mythology the Devil was in league with the female principle, who ‘is without foreknowledge, wrathful, double-minded, double-bodied, a virgin above and a viper below’.

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(sāt'n)
n.
The profoundly evil adversary of God and humanity, often identified with the leader of the fallen angels; the Devil.

[Middle English, from Old English, from Late Latin Satān, from Greek Satanas, Satān, from Hebrew śāṭān, devil, adversary, from śāṭan, to accuse, act as adversary.]

Originally the Hebrew noun satan in the Bible meant simply an adversary, someone hostile. Thus, for example, in I Kings 11:14, "The Lord raised up an adversary (Satan) for Solomon in Hadad the Edomite". In later books of the Bible, the noun came to mean a supernatural being in the heavenly entourage who accuses man before God. This role of Satan is made explicit in the prologue to Job (1-2), where Satan challenges the sincerity of Job's piety. Both here and in Zechariah (3:1, 2) Satan can act only within the limits set by God and is totally subordinate to Him. It has been suggested that the concept of a heavenly accuser of man grew out of the desire not to ascribe evil to God (compare II Sam. 24:1, where God makes David take a census of the people, with the later I Chr. 21:1, where David is provoked by Satan).

In the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha, the role of Satan is greatly enlarged, as it is in the Talmud and Midrash. Whereas previously he was subservient to God, he now incites man to disobey the will of God. Accordingly, he acquires the name Mastemah (Enmity) in the Book of Jubilees. In the Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs he is called Belial; in. the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Angel of Darkness. This development in the concept of Satan may have been due to Persian dualism.

He is the subject of many folk beliefs and is also referred to in the liturgy. However, in Kabbalah he is often replaced by other names for the prince of evil.

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The noun Satan derives from the Hebrew word meaning "adversary". In three post-exilic books of the Bible, Satan appears as the accuser of man before God and as the inciter of man to evil. He remains, however, a member of the divine entourage and, as such, is subordinate to the will of God and is not an independent force of evil. This is clearly illustrated in the prologue to the Book of Job (chaps. 1-2) where Satan appears among the "sons of God" (Job 1:6), and insists that it is only because God has protected and shielded Job from all harm that Job has shown himself virtuous and God-fearing. God then agrees to put Job in Satan's power to test whether under adversity he would remain loyal and steadfast to God.

In a passage in Zechariah (3:1-2) Satan is also pictured as accusing an individual, this time the high priest Jeshua (Joshua) son of Jozadak. The third reference to Satan in the OT occurs in I Chronicles 21:1. The passage is to be compared with II Samuel 24:1 where God incites David to take a census of the people, a forbidden act entailing dire consequences. The chronicler, however, casts Satan, not God, in the role of inciter. The change is due to the later view that it is Satan, not God, who provokes man to do evil.

Satan is frequently referred to in the NT both by his own name and by a variety of other names. As the "Devil", he subjects Jesus to a number of temptations (Matt 4:1-11). It is Satan who is ultimately responsible for Judas Iscariot's betrayal of Jesus and Simon Peter's denial of knowing Jesus (Luke 22:3, 31). He appears as the "Wicked One" (Matt 13:19; cf Mark 4:15) in Jesus' parable of "The Sower" who robs men of "the word that has been sown in their hearts" (Mark 4:15). As the "Father of Lies", he is responsible for the Jews' lack of belief in Jesus' divine mission (John 8:44). Physical afflictions and pain are caused by Satan (Luke 13:16) and as the "Lord of Death", he brought death into the world (Heb 2:14). Under the title of "The Great Dragon", he is hurled down from heaven to earth (Rev 12:9). In one passage, Satan is termed "the Ruler of Demons" (Matt 9:34). He is subject to God's will and eventually will be subdued. He will be "cast into the lake of fire and brimstone" (Rev 20:10).

Concordance
I Chr 21:1. Job 1:6-9, 12; 2:1-4, 6-7. Zech 3:1-2. Matt 4:10; 12:26; 16:23. Mark 1:13; 3:23, 26; 4:15. Luke 4:8; 10:18; 11:18; 13:16; 22:3,31. John 13:27. Acts 5:3; 26:18. Rom 16:20. I Cor 5:5; 7:5. II Cor 2:11; 11:14; 12:7. I Thes 2:18. II Thes 2:9. I Tim 1:20; 5:15. Rev 2:9,13, 24; 3:9; 12:9; 20:2, 7

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The devil. In the Bible, Satan is identified with the tempter who encourages the fall of Adam and Eve; he is the accuser who torments Job in the hope that he will curse God; the one who offers Jesus all the kingdoms of the world if Jesus will worship him (see Get thee behind me, Satan); and the evil one who puts betrayal in the heart of Judas. Satan will one day be confined in hell, but until then he is free to roam the Earth.

Satan is the power of darkness opposed to the light of Christ; he is thus sometimes referred to as the Prince of Darkness.

Satan has been depicted in many ways: as a man with horns, goat hooves, a pointed tail, a pointed beard, and a pitchfork; as a dragon; and sometimes as an angel with large batlike wings.

A cynical view of the world by Ambrose Bierce

n.

One of the Creator's lamentable mistakes, repented in sashcloth and axes. Being instated as an archangel, Satan made himself multifariously objectionable and was finally expelled from Heaven. Halfway in his descent he paused, bent his head in thought a moment and at last went back. "There is one favor that I should like to ask," said he.

"Name it."

"Man, I understand, is about to be created. He will need laws."

"What, wretch! you his appointed adversary, charged from the dawn of eternity with hatred of his soul -- you ask for the right to make his laws?"

"Pardon; what I have to ask is that he be permitted to make them himself."

It was so ordered.

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Dreaming of Satan often indicates that there is some wrongdoing in the dreamer's life or environment. The dream may be the direct result of evil thoughts and deeds, either by the dreamer or by someone with whom the dreamer is involved.

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Most modern novelists and screenwriters have agreed that vampires usually were created by the bite of another vampire. However, that left them with a question, "Where did the first vampire come from?" Satanism emerged as the primary answer. The suggestion of Satanism was supported by Bram Stoker In his novel Dracula Stoker had his spokesperson, Dr. Abraham Van Helsing offer the following reflection upon his vampire adversary:The Draculas were, says Arminius, a great and noble race,though now and again were scions who were held by their coevals to have dealings with the Evil One. They learned his secrets in the Scholomance, amongst the mountains over Lake Hermannstadt, where the devil claims the tenth scholar as his due.

Stoker directly developed his theory that vampirism was ultimately related to Satanism from Emily Gerard's book The Land Beyond the Forest. The book spoke of the Scholomance as a school somewhere in the heart of the mountains of Transylvania. There the devil himself taught the secrets of nature and magic. Ten scholars attended at any given time. Payment for the schooling came in the form of one scholar, who remained behind to serve the devil after classes were over. Lake Hermannstadt was near present-day Sibiu. Raymond T. McNally and Radu Florescu have noted that at the town of Paltinis Pietrele, near Sibiu, was a place called pietrele lui Solomon (the rocks of Solomon). Wandering students stopped here to swear their oaths to Solomon (the wise king of the Bible), who was believed to know the secrets of alchemy. They suggest that Gerard had heard of this spot and reported on it in a somewhat garbled manner, thus creating a story about the mythical Scholomance. While largely ignored in post-Dracula fiction, several recent novels (Drake/Andersson, Warrington) have developed the Scholomace theme.

Quite different from Stoker's reading of Gerard, there was a much stronger and older tradition that tied vampirism to Satanism. Among the Slavs , it was believed that the vampire existed in the realm outside of the acceptance of God and the church. Vampires originated among people who were witches (worshippers of Satan), people who had committed suicide, or those who were excommunicated. In Russia , the vampire was called eretik (heretic: a person who has departed from the true faith of Orthodox Christianity). People outside the realm of the church were thought to be dealing with the devil.

Unacceptable to God, the vampire was unable to deal with the sacred on earth. It could not stand the presence of holy objects such as the crucifix or the eucharistic host . It stayed away from churches. It was condemned to live in the darkness. After death, the vampire was rejected by the Earth, and, according to the theology of the Eastern Church, its body would remain intact and incorruptible.

While most stage and film productions about Dracula neglect the question of his originFrancis Ford Coppola in his movie Bram Stoker's Dracula Drawing upon McNally and Florescu's modern accounts of Vlad the Impaler the historical character who, in part, stands behind the fictional Dracula, Coppola pictured Vlad fighting the Turks. Wrongly informed that Vlad had lost the battle, his wife Elizabeth committed suicide. The church refused to hold her funeral or allow her to be buried in holy ground. Her soul could not be saved; she was damned. Vlad was so much in love with her that in his grief he rejected God. He plunged his sword into the cross in the chapel, and drank the blood that flowed from it. He vowed to return from the grave accompanied by the powers of darkness to avenge his love's untimely death.

The movement of the vampire myth into modern pluralistic and secular culture has created noticeable changes in the myth. Non-Christian writers have tended to place the vampire in a completely secular realm (vampirism as a disease) or to create a supernatural myth not based on Christian presuppositions or the existence of the devil. Such alternative myths are most evident in the novels of Chelsea Quinn Yarbro and Anne Rice.

Rice, in particular, has used her presentation of vampires as a means to struggle with her own Roman Catholic background, aspects of which, including any belief in the devil, she had rejected. In Interview with the Vampire the new vampire Louis believed that he was a child of the devil and hence eternally damned. However, he soon realized that he knew nothing of the devil. He questioned one of the Parisian vampires and was told that neither God nor the devil existed. Louis eventually accepted this view of the devil's nonexistence as a step toward realizing his own responsibility for his life-the bad parts of which could not be accounted for by reference to supernatural evil.

On the other hand, novelist Traci Briery has made effective use of the Satanic myth. In The Vampire Memoirs, she created the story of Agyar, the original vampire. Several thousand years ago, Agyar began a quest for immortality. His journey took him through bizarre and horrible rituals to distant places, including hell. He received immortality at the cost of his own soul. Agyar was the source of all modern vampires who, like him, could not stand the presence of such holy objects as a cross.

Where vampires have a secularized or heroic existence, they have been set against Satanism and its followers. Yarbro had her vampire hero St. Germain confront a group of Satanists who had been promised his lady love. In the movie Dracula's Widow, Vanessa, the wife of the late Dracula, attacked and killed a group of Satanists in modern-day Hollywood.

It is worthy to note that "Dracul," commonly translated as "dragon," also may be translated as "devil"; such an association has been used on occasion to tie the historical Dracula, Vlad the Impaler, to Satanism and hence to vampirism.

Briery, Traci. The Vampire Memoirs. New York: Zebra Books, 1991. 431 pp.
Coppola, Francis Ford, and James V. Hart. Bram Stoker's Dracula: The Film and the Legend. New York: Newmarket Press, 1992. 172 pp. Reprint. London: Pan Books, 1992. 172 pp.
Drake, Asa [pseudonym of Dean Andersson]. Crimson Kisses. New York: Avon, 1981. 292 pp. Rev. and exp. ed. as Andersson, Dean. I Am Dracula. New York: Zebra, 1993. 350 pp.
Rice, Anne. Interview with the Vampire. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1986. 448 pp. Reprint. New York: Ballantine Books, 1987. 346 pp.
Stoker, Bram. The Essential Dracula. Ed. by Raymond McNally and Radu Florescu. New York: Mayflower Books, 1979. 320 pp.
Warrington, Freda. Dracula the Undead. New York: Penguin Books, 1997. 300 pp.

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• Genres: Rock

Biography

One of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal's most convoluted family trees belongs to the band known predominantly as Satan. Besides regularly undergoing name changes (Blind Fury and Pariah were only two of the aliases employed each time the group decided their original name was compromising their chances of success), the band's history regularly intersected that of any number of competing groups out of the Northeast, most notably Blitzkrieg and Skyclad. The seeds of the band that would become Satan were planted in Newcastle, England, toward the end of 1980, when a semifirm lineup consisting of vocalist Trevor Robinson, guitarists Steve Ramsey and Russ Tippins, bassist Graeme English, and drummer Andy Reed finally coalesced. The band's first single, the imminently collectable "Kiss of Death," was released by independent label Guardian Records in the first months of 1982, and after welcoming new drummer Sean Taylor and replacing singer Robinson, first with one Ian Swift, then with the more experienced Brian Ross (ex-Blitzkrieg), sessions began for a full-length album. The very heavy, almost thrash-like Court in the Act opus finally emerged in January 1984 through Neat Records (who else?) and was given mostly enthusiastic reviews. An equally successful bout of touring across the Channel in Europe followed, but the group was handed a major setback when the ever restless Ross decided to quit shortly after their return in order to resurrect Blitzkrieg. Lou Taylor, former frontman with Kevin Heybourne's post-Angel Witch project, Blind Fury, was soon tapped as replacement, but his domineering ways soon led to the questionable adoption of the Blind Fury handle, causing no small amount of confusion among the fans and effectively disassociating what used to be Satan with any benefits arising from their recently released album -- smart one boys! Taylor also convinced the band that they would be better served by toning down their intensity somewhat for 1985's more hard rock-oriented Out of Reach, which was released by the fledgling Roadrunner label. Not surprisingly, the album's poor performance in the marketplace inevitably raised serious doubts about all of these stylistic changes and name-swapping shenanigans, resulting in the abrupt and convenient dismissal of both Taylor and Out of Reach as one and the same big mistake, followed by yet another about-face to resurrect the Satan name. Enlisting with German record company Steamhammer, Satan hired new singer Michael Jackson (not "Jacko," of course) and saw a return to heavier fare, first on 1986's Into the Future EP, then with 1987's semireturn to form, Suspended Sentence. Oddly enough, both of these releases fared far better in continental Europe (where they toured with Running Wild later that year) than back home in the U.K., revealing a territorial shift in heavy metal appreciation that also affected the careers of English contemporaries like Savage and Jaguar. Still, it was by now clear that Satan's window of opportunity was most definitely closing, and as if to prove themselves further unworthy of true stardom, the band once again decided to drop their moniker in exchange for the purportedly less confining Pariah -- whatever! The Satan saga ends here, but in later years, Pariah would go on to record two albums before certain members departed to join the ranks of avant-folk-thrashers Skyclad. ~ Eduardo Rivadavia, Rovi

For a list of words related to Satan, see:

• Beyond the Grave - Satan: the devil
• Christianity - Satan: supreme evil spirit residing in hell

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See words rhyming with "Satan."

  See crossword solutions for the clue Satan.

This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)

Dansk (Danish)
n. - Satan, djævelen

Nederlands (Dutch)
Satan

Français (French)
n. - Satan

Deutsch (German)
n. - Satan

Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - Σατανάς

Italiano (Italian)
Satana

Português (Portuguese)
n. - Satã (m)

Русский (Russian)
сатана, дьявол

Español (Spanish)
n. - Satanás, Satán

Svenska (Swedish)
n. - Satan

中文（简体）(Chinese (Simplified))
撒旦, 恶魔

中文（繁體）(Chinese (Traditional))
n. - 撒旦, 惡魔

한국어 (Korean)
n. - (크리스트교에서) 사탄, 악마, 마왕

日本語 (Japanese)
n. - 悪魔, サタン

العربيه (Arabic)
‏(الاسم) ألشيطان, أبليس‏

עברית (Hebrew)
n. - ‮שטן‬

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