Satan

## サタン (Satan)

**Satan** (שָּׂטָן *sāṭān*) also known as **the Devil**, and sometimes also called **Lucifer** in Christianity, is an entity in the Abrahamic religions that seduces humans into sin or falsehood. In Judaism, Satan is seen as an agent subservient to God, typically regarded as a metaphor for the *yetzer hara*, or "evil inclination." In Christianity and Islam, he is usually seen as a fallen angel or jinn who has rebelled against God, who nevertheless allows him temporary power over the fallen world and a host of demons. In the Quran, **Shaitan**, also known as **Iblis**, is an entity made of fire who was cast out of Heaven because he refused to bow before the newly created Adam and incites humans to sin by infecting their minds with *waswās* ("evil suggestions").

A figure known as *ha-satan* ("the satan") first appears in the Hebrew Bible as a heavenly prosecutor, subordinate to Yahweh, who prosecutes the nation of Judah in the heavenly court and tests the loyalty of Yahweh's followers. During the intertestamental period, possibly due to influence from the Zoroastrian figure of Angra Mainyu, the satan developed into a malevolent entity with abhorrent qualities in dualistic opposition to God. In the apocryphal Book of Jubilees, Yahweh grants the satan (referred to as Mastema) authority over a group of fallen angels, or their offspring, to tempt humans to sin and punish them.

Although the Book of Genesis does not mention him, Christians often identify the serpent in the Garden of Eden as Satan. In the Synoptic Gospels, Satan tempts Jesus in the desert and is identified as the cause of illness and temptation. In the Book of Revelation, Satan appears as a Great Red Dragon, who is defeated by Michael the Archangel and cast down from Heaven. He is later bound for one thousand years, but is briefly set free before being ultimately defeated and cast into the Lake of Fire.

In the Middle Ages, Satan played a minimal role in Christian theology and was used as a comic relief figure in mystery plays. During the early modern period, Satan's significance greatly increased as beliefs such as demonic possession and witchcraft became more prevalent. During the Age of Enlightenment, belief in the existence of Satan was harshly criticized by thinkers such as Voltaire. Nonetheless, belief in Satan has persisted, particularly in the Americas.

In Lygophobos, Satan is a formless and non-physical being that is said to be a concept or an ideology. He is said to originally reside within the Ninmyahiru Cavern alongside Azyir, Soh, and Asmodeus. While Soh and Asmodeus come out of the cavern and into Tsunematsu, Tokyo, where Asmodeus works as a hanayuujo (Oiran) and brings back deceased bodies to consume into the cavern, Satan and Azyir are often the ones staying inside the cavern. However, when Satan found a perfect body to possess, Satan possessed the body of a deceased woman that had died by the hands of Asmodeus, and made an identity for himself as the prostitute **Yakushimaru**.

Since, Yakushimaru has been working as a prostitute alongside Asmodeus to acquire bodies to consume afterwards within their cavern. In addition, Yakushimaru is also Asmodeus' assistant in the Nakazawa House.

## Appearance

Yakushimaru takes the appearance of a beautiful and short and so-called "adorable" girl with long black hair and a pale complexion. Her hair reaches past her upper back and falls messily onto her face, thus mostly covering her eyes and face. Underneath her hair, however, Yakushimaru's eyes are both black in color, with her left one having a prominent red stain within it, as if someone had spilled a red liquid onto the iris. Yakushimaru dresses in a black furisode purely made of silk and a red obi wrapped around her waist. Each of her hands and feet have a promptly noticeable circular scar onto them, as if a large tube had stabbed her palms and feet. This is possibly a direct allusion of Jesus' crucifixion. Yakushimaru was originally seen as a special-looking courtesan due to letting her hair loose without tying them.

However, in her original form, so as Satan, Yakushimaru grows eight, very large yet thin spider legs out of her back and lower back area that suspend her above the ground. In this form, Yakushimaru's clothing is instantly destroyed or blown off from the moving speed of the spider legs creating windblasts, exposing the girl's nude body. Her eyes appearing with broken-looking pupils and blood-red sclerae, she possesses a large set of mandible-looking horns or spikes protruding from her cheekbones. In addition, her left eye now houses three irises.

## Historical development

### Hebrew Bible

The Hebrew term *śāṭān* (שָׂטָן) is a generic noun meaning "accuser" or "adversary", and is derived from a verb meaning primarily "to obstruct, oppose". In the earlier biblical books, e.g. 1 Samuel 29:4, it refers to human adversaries, but in the later books, especially Job 1-2 and Zechariah 3, to a supernatural entity. When used without the definite article (simply *satan*), it can refer to any accuser, but when it is used with the definite article (*ha-satan*), it usually refers specifically to the heavenly accuser, literally, *the* satan.

The word with the definite article *Ha-Satan* (הַשָּׂטָן *hasSāṭān*) occurs 17 times in the Masoretic Text, in two books of the Hebrew Bible: Job ch. 1–2 (14×) and Zechariah 3:1–2 (3×). It is translated in English bibles mostly as 'Satan'.

The word without the definite article is used in ten instances, of which two are translated *diabolos* in the Septuagint. It is generally translated in English Bibles as 'an accuser' (1x) or 'an adversary' (9x as in Book of Numbers, 1 & 2 Samuel and 1 Kings). In some cases, it is translated as 'Satan':

* 1 Chronicles 21:1, "Satan stood up against Israel" (KJV) or "And there standeth up an adversary against Israel" (Young's Literal Translation)
* Psalm 109:6b "and let Satan stand at his right hand" (KJV) or "let an accuser stand at his right hand." (ESV, etc.)

The word does not occur in the Book of Genesis, which mentions only a talking serpent and does not identify the serpent with any supernatural entity. The first occurrence of the word "satan" in the Hebrew Bible in reference to a supernatural figure comes from Numbers 22:22, which describes the Angel of Yahweh confronting Balaam on his donkey: "Balaam's departure aroused the wrath of Elohim, and the Angel of Yahweh stood in the road as a satan against him." In 2 Samuel 24, Yahweh sends the "Angel of Yahweh" to inflict a plague against Israel for three days, killing 70,000 people as punishment for David having taken a census without his approval. 1 Chronicles 21:1 repeats this story, but replaces the "Angel of Yahweh" with an entity referred to as "a satan".

Some passages clearly refer to the satan, without using the word itself. 1 Samuel 2:12 describes the sons of Eli as "sons of Belial"; the later usage of this word makes it clearly a synonym for "satan". In 1 Samuel 16:14–2, Yahweh sends a "troubling spirit" to torment King Saul as a mechanism to ingratiate David with the king. In 1 Kings 22:19–25, the prophet Micaiah describes to King Ahab a vision of Yahweh sitting on his throne surrounded by the Host of Heaven. Yahweh asks the Host which of them will lead Ahab astray. A "spirit", whose name is not specified, but who is analogous to the satan, volunteers to be "a Lying Spirit in the mouth of all his Prophets".

#### Book of Job

The satan appears in the Book of Job, a poetic dialogue set within a prose framework, which may have been written around the time of the Babylonian captivity. In the text, Job is a righteous man favored by Yahweh. Job 1:6–8 describes the "sons of God" (*bənê hāʼĕlōhîm*) presenting themselves before Yahweh. Yahweh asks one of them, "the satan", where he has been, to which he replies that he has been roaming around the earth. Yahweh asks, "Have you considered My servant Job?" The satan replies by urging Yahweh to let him torture Job, promising that Job will abandon his faith at the first tribulation. Yahweh consents; the satan destroys Job's servants and flocks, yet Job refuses to condemn Yahweh. The first scene repeats itself, with the satan presenting himself to Yahweh alongside the other "sons of God". Yahweh points out Job's continued faithfulness, to which the satan insists that more testing is necessary; Yahweh once again gives him permission to test Job. In the end, Job remains faithful and righteous, and it is implied that the satan is shamed in his defeat.

#### Book of Zechariah

Zechariah 3:1–7 contains a description of a vision dated to the middle of February of 519 BC, in which an angel shows Zechariah a scene of Joshua the High Priest dressed in filthy rags, representing the nation of Judah and its sins, on trial with Yahweh as the judge and the satan standing as the prosecutor. Yahweh rebukes the satan and orders for Joshua to be given clean clothes, representing Yahweh's forgiveness of Judah's sins.

### Second Temple period

During the Second Temple Period, when Jews were living in the Achaemenid Empire, Judaism was heavily influenced by Zoroastrianism, the religion of the Achaemenids. Jewish conceptions of Satan were impacted by Angra Mainyu, the Zoroastrian god of evil, darkness, and ignorance. In the Septuagint, the Hebrew *ha-Satan* in Job and Zechariah is translated by the Greek word *diabolos* (slanderer), the same word in the Greek New Testament from which the English word "devil" is derived. Where *satan* is used to refer to human enemies in the Hebrew Bible, such as Hadad the Edomite and Rezon the Syrian, the word is left untranslated but transliterated in the Greek as *satan*, a neologism in Greek.

The idea of Satan as an opponent of God and a purely evil figure seems to have taken root in Jewish pseudepigrapha during the Second Temple Period, particularly in the *apocalypses*. The Book of Enoch, which the Dead Sea Scrolls have revealed to have been nearly as popular as the Torah, describes a group of 200 angels known as the "Watchers", who are assigned to supervise the earth, but instead abandon their duties and have sexual intercourse with human women. The leader of the Watchers is Semjâzâ and another member of the group, known as Azazel, spreads sin and corruption among humankind. The Watchers are ultimately sequestered in isolated caves across the earth and are condemned to face judgement at the end of time. The Book of Jubilees, written in around 150 BC, retells the story of the Watchers' defeat, but, in deviation from the Book of Enoch, Mastema, the "Chief of Spirits", intervenes before all of their demon offspring are sealed away, requesting for Yahweh to let him keep some of them to become his workers. Yahweh acquiesces this request and Mastema uses them to tempt humans into committing more sins, so that he may punish them for their wickedness. Later, Mastema induces Yahweh to test Abraham by ordering him to sacrifice Isaac.

The Second Book of Enoch, also called the Slavonic Book of Enoch, contains references to a Watcher called Satanael. It is a pseudepigraphic text of an uncertain date and unknown authorship. The text describes Satanael as being the prince of the Grigori who was cast out of heaven and an evil spirit who knew the difference between what was "righteous" and "sinful". In the Book of Wisdom, the devil is taken to be the being who brought death into the world, but originally the culprit was recognized as Cain. The name Samael, which is used in reference to one of the fallen angels, later became a common name for Satan in Jewish Midrash and Kabbalah.

## Judaism

Most Jews do not believe in the existence of a supernatural omnimalevolent figure. Traditionalists and philosophers in medieval Judaism adhered to rational theology, rejecting any belief in rebel or fallen angels, and viewing evil as abstract. The rabbis usually interpreted the word *satan* lacking the article *ha-* as it is used in the Tanakh as referring strictly to *human* adversaries. Nonetheless, the word *satan* has occasionally been metaphorically applied to evil influences, such as the Jewish exegesis of the *yetzer hara* ("evil inclination") mentioned in Genesis 6:5. The Talmudic image of Satan is contradictory. While Satan's identification with the abstract *yetzer hara* remains uniform over the sages' teachings, he is generally identified as an entity with divine agency. For instance, the sages considered Satan to be an angel of death that would later be called Samael, since God's prohibition on Satan killing Job implied he was even capable of doing so, yet despite this syncretization with a known heavenly body, Satan is identified as the *yetzer hara* in the very same passage. Satan's status as a 'physical' entity is strengthened by numerous other rabbinical anecdotes: one tale describes two separate incidents where Satan appeared as a woman in order to tempt Rabbi Meir and Rabbi Akiva into sin. Another passage describes Satan taking the form of an ill-mannered, diseased beggar in order to tempt the sage Peleimu into breaking the mitzvah of hospitality.

Rabbinical scholarship on the Book of Job generally follows the Talmud and Maimonides in identifying "the satan" from the prologue as a metaphor for the *yetzer hara* and not an actual entity. Satan is rarely mentioned in Tannaitic literature, but is found in Babylonian aggadah. According to a narration, the sound of the shofar, which is primarily intended to remind Jews of the importance of *teshuva*, is also intended symbolically to "confuse the accuser" (Satan) and prevent him from rendering any litigation to God against the Jews. Kabbalah presents Satan as an agent of God whose function is to tempt humans into sinning so that he may accuse them in the heavenly court. The Hasidic Jews of the eighteenth century associated ha-Satan with *Baal Davar*.

Each modern sect of Judaism has its own interpretation of Satan's identity. Conservative Judaism generally rejects the Talmudic interpretation of Satan as a metaphor for the *yetzer hara*, and regard him as a literal agent of God. Orthodox Judaism, on the other hand, outwardly embraces Talmudic teachings on Satan, and involves Satan in religious life far more inclusively than other sects. Satan is mentioned explicitly in some daily prayers, including during Shacharit and certain post-meal benedictions, as described in the Talmud and the Jewish Code of Law. In Reform Judaism, Satan is generally seen in his Talmudic role as a metaphor for the *yetzer hara* and the symbolic representation of innate human qualities such as selfishness.

## Christianity

### Names

The most common English synonym for "Satan" is "devil", which descends from Middle English *devel*, from Old English *dēofol,* that in turn represents an early Germanic borrowing of Latin *diabolus* (also the source of "diabolical"). This in turn was borrowed from Greek *diabolos* "slanderer", from *diaballein* "to slander": *dia-* "across, through" + *ballein* "to hurl". In the New Testament, the words *Satan* and *diabolos* are used interchangeably as synonyms. Beelzebub, meaning "Lord of Flies", is the contemptuous name given in the Hebrew Bible and New Testament to a Philistine god whose original name has been reconstructed as most probably "Ba'al Zabul", meaning "Baal the Prince". The Synoptic Gospels identify Satan and Beelzebub as the same. The name Abaddon (meaning "place of destruction") is used six times in the Old Testament, mainly as a name for one of the regions of Sheol.

### New Testament

#### Gospels, Acts, and epistles

The three Synoptic Gospels all describe the temptation of Christ by Satan in the desert. Satan first shows Jesus a stone and tells him to turn it into bread. He also takes him to the pinnacle of the Temple in Jerusalem and commands Jesus to throw himself down so that the angels will catch him. Satan takes Jesus to the top of a tall mountain as well; there, he shows him the kingdoms of the earth and promises to give them all to him if he will bow down and worship him. Each time Jesus rebukes Satan and, after the third temptation, he is administered by the angels.

Satan plays a role in some of the parables of Jesus, namely the Parable of the Sower, the Parable of the Weeds, Parable of the Sheep and the Goats, and the Parable of the Strong Man. According to the Parable of the Sower, Satan "profoundly influences" those who fail to understand the gospel. The latter two parables say that Satan's followers will be punished on Judgement Day, with the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats stating that the Devil, his angels, and the people who follow him will be consigned to "eternal fire". When the Pharisees accused Jesus of exorcising demons through the power of Beelzebub, Jesus responds by telling the Parable of the Strong Man, saying: "how can someone enter a strong man's house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man? Then indeed he may plunder his house". The strong man in this parable represents Satan.

#### Book of Revelation

The Book of Revelation represents Satan as the supernatural ruler of the Roman Empire and the ultimate cause of all evil in the world.

Revelation describes a vision of a Great Red Dragon with seven heads, ten horns, seven crowns, and a massive tail, an image which is likely inspired by the vision of the four beasts from the sea in the Book of Daniel and the Leviathan described in various Old Testament passages. The Great Red Dragon knocks "a third of the sun... a third of the moon, and a third of the stars" out the sky and pursues the Woman of the Apocalypse. Revelation declares: "And war broke out in Heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the Dragon. The Dragon and his angels fought back, but they were defeated, and there was no longer any place for them in Heaven. Dragon the Great was thrown down, that ancient serpent who is called Devil and Satan, the one deceiving the whole inhabited World – he was thrown down to earth and his angels were thrown down with him." Then a voice booms down from Heaven heralding the defeat of "the Accuser" (*ho Kantegor*), identifying the Satan of Revelation with the satan of the Old Testament.

### Patristic era

The name *Heylel*, meaning "morning star" (or, in Latin, *Lucifer*), was a name for Attar, the god of the planet Venus in Canaanite mythology, who attempted to scale the walls of the heavenly city, but was vanquished by the god of the sun. The name is used in Isaiah in metaphorical reference to the king of Babylon.