Where did the figure of Satan come from - and what does it represent?

Even those who do not follow any particular religion - or even an atheist - know who Satan is, the biblical figure who represents evil. But what about the origin of this evil character, what is known about how his story came about and settled, and how he turned out to be this wicked entity that everyone knows and many fear?

In ancient times

According to Laura Geggel of the Live Science website, it is not today that the clash between good and evil exists, and it was in ancient times that different cultures began to create antagonists in order to explain the presence of these two forces in the world. In fact, the picture to represent wickedness apparently sprang from the idea that a “good” God could not be responsible for the bad and negative things that happened, and from there the other elements of this war between rivals appeared.

(Flipper / Shutterstock)

According to Laura, Zoroastrianism, one of the oldest religions on the planet, was one of the beliefs that first introduced figures representing the conflict between good and evil. They were Ahriman, a destructive and chaotic spirit, and Spenta Mainyu, his benevolent and harmonious twin, both created by the supreme deity, Ormazd.

Already in Judaism, with whom Christianity has a strong relationship and with whom it shares the Old Testament, there are some evil characters in the Holy Scriptures, but interestingly, Satan is not the most sinister, much less the most popular. However, some Jewish sects began to incorporate the figure of the Evil into their beliefs around the 1st century, but maintaining the notion that God and good had more power than Satan and evil.

More specifically, the first members of a Judeo-Christian faith to study the figure of Satan were the followers of Hasidic Judaism, a religious movement that emerged shortly before the time of Christ and which probably had a strong influence on Christianity. This group was contrary to Roman occupation in Judea at the time, and distanced itself from other Jewish movements by disagreeing with how their land was being governed.

The Hasidic then adopted a position of “sons of God” against the “sons of darkness, ” and began preaching about the end times, when God would come to punish and destroy the wicked - which, in this case, were all those to which the members of the movement were opposed, namely the Romans and the Jews who made alliances with them.

And in Christianity?

According to Laura, the personification of evil appears in the Holy Scriptures as an entity that comes to tempt Jesus, and the explanation for its presence lies in the idea that if God created all that exists and all that He has. Creation must be good, so Satan can only be something that was created by the Almighty as good, but that, for some reason, has gone astray and turned to the dark side of the force.

(Beliefnet / Shutterstock)

What's more, the interpretation proposed by theologians is that, as there was already evil in the world before God created man - you remember the passage of Adam, Eve and the Serpent, right? - that means that Satan must be a free entity and the good that has become evil, so he must have been a fallen angel.

Heavenly clash

Everyone knows that story that Satan had "fallen" from heaven, right? According to the most accepted interpretation, after creating day and night, God gave birth to heaven and its messengers, the angels - and among them, Lucifer stood out for its extraordinary beauty. But Lucifer, believing himself to be equal or even more powerful than the Creator, decided to organize a rebellion and even convinced a crowd in paradise to fight by his side.

(Wikimedia Commons / Corrado Giaquinto)

It turns out that Lucifer's gang - who turned into a terrible dragon for battle - failed to defeat the forces of God. Thus, the rebel angels were condemned to burn in the fire for eternity and Lucifer was transformed into Satan. Furious, he promised that he would take revenge on the Creator by destroying humans, disguised himself as a serpent, convinced Eve to taste and share the forbidden fruit with Adam, and both were eventually driven out of paradise.

Interpretations

It is worth remembering that, according to researchers, the passage that refers to Lucifer as a "fallen angel" presents a translation error of the term "son of the morning", which refers to the planet Venus and its movement in the night sky. Who would have “fallen” in this whole story was the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar, and the passage would refer to his death.

(My Jewish Learning)

Moreover, at no time does the book of Genesis refer to the serpent as Satan, and it is only in the book of Paul in the New Testament that this relationship between the two entities is created. There are other references to Satan in the Bible, but depending on the interpretation, rather than representing a specific character or a fallen angel, this evil figure often refers to people who have disrespected God with their attitudes and actions.

In this sense, according to Laura, scholars propose that the concept of Satan seems to arise when serious disagreements occur - as happened between Hasidic and other Jews - and groups now refer to opponents as those who will have to face the wrath of God. one day, like Satan. In other words, although over time the evil figure has turned into a scary and hideous-looking character, basically, Satan was born as an “idea, ” a concept used to represent whatever was very bad.