Frank 013 wrote:The problem here is that you are using the modern commonly accepted definition of Satan which was developed over hundreds of years. The original Satan was a title for an angel who spoke to the records of the sins of the people who were being considered for admittance into heaven, who was a trusted aid of god (a prosecutor) who acted under the direction of god, not a devil who fought against god. Where Satan does appear in the Bible, he plays the role of the Accuser.
Hi Frank, thanks. I don't accept that is a problem. Of course the concept of Satan has evolved over the years, as have the concepts of God and the trinity. You can't go back to one claimed original usage and say that is the only legitimate one. For example there is a tradition identifying Satan with Seth, the evil Egyptian god who chopped his brother Osiris into 13 bits. Thoth and Horus also had roles similar to what you describe in the Egyptian myth where the heart of the deceased was weighed against a feather to judge admittance to heaven. As well, the extensive use of Satan in the New Testament has quite a different meaning from 'the accuser'. There is a strong idea of Satan as a deceiver, for example in the description of him as
'father of lies'. This is the tradition picked up by Milton in
Paradise Lost. A really good book that I have just read on this topic is
The Origin of Satan by Elaine Pagels, also author of
The Gnostic Gospels and
Adam, Eve and the Serpent. She traces how the concept of Satan evolved in the early church as a way of demonising political opponents.
I'm pleased that we can have this conversation as this question of the definition of Satan is an important topic for morality and ethics. It raises the issue of whether what the world considers evil really is evil, and whether and how evil is a useful concept. I primarily interpret Satan in an ontological sense – that humanity has lost awareness of our true identity, and this loss has a pathological karmic energy as a main cause of suffering in the world.
For a quick summary of
Paradise Lost, have a look at my post in the sticky at the top of the PL forum.
According to the article on 'Satan' in the Jewish Encyclopedia, Satan's role as the accuser is found in the prologue to the Book of Job.
In Job, Satan is much more than an accuser. Rather, his role is to attempt to get Job to deny God by making him suffer (eg
here Satan afflicted Job with painful sores from the soles of his feet to the top of his head. Your use of the Book of Job takes a specific interpretation and generalises it. The role as evil deceiver is clear in Job.
In short Satan was an agent of god and even when seemingly acting as an independent entity it was largely assumed that god was working behind the scenes because it was impossible for the Satan to work against god.
Yes, Satan is under God's power, testing Job like a steel sword tempered in cold water. This is compatible with
Paradise Lost where God in effect uses Satan to toughen humanity up. Saint Paul had a similar view, saying at Romans 5:3-4 “we rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope,” effectively welcoming the Satanic domination of the world as character-building. However, the ultimate goal of God is that all things should understand and live according to their nature. Satan works directly against this purpose by corrupting understanding, with the short term deception nonetheless working towards a longer term victory for God.
The Satan name was later installed upon an evil angel that fought against god and was condemned to rule over hell, it was also implied that the snake in the Garden of Eden was this Satan even though it is not named so in the actual story.
You are right – Rev 12.9 says “The great dragon was hurled down—that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him.” but Genesis 3:1 says “Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, "Did God really say, 'You must not eat from any tree in the garden'?”” Obviously these memes from opposite ends of the Bible conflated by Milton's time so he naturally assumed the serpent was the devil incarnate when in fact the devil is not mentioned in Genesis. The term 'devil' does not even appear in the Old Testament.
So all of the correlations about the Satan/Morning Star (Actually a Planet) and the Jupiter/Christ star (Also a planet) are purely based off of modern interpretation and not what was believed at the time of their creation.
I am not just talking about conscious beliefs, but also about unconscious connections and intuitions of cosmic reality. I am drawing Neptune into the picture which of course was not known until 1846. The connection between Satan and Venus seems reasonably clear to me. Both are equated to Lucifer, Venus by the Romans and Satan by Christianity. The fall of Venus (now happening rapidly Feb 27, 2009) from its position as evening and morning star has a direct mythic analogy to the fall of Satan from heaven. Perhaps the Christian equation between Venus and Satan has something to do with the efforts to cast all pagan star worship as Satanic. Given the Christian hostility to pagan sensuality, it is easy to imagine the cult of Aphrodite was viewed as particularly Satanic.
The link between Venus and the five point star, the pentangle or pentagram, the main Satanic symbol, is quite clear. (Warning science ahead) Because 13 Venus years are almost precisely equal to 8 Earth years, there are 13/5 = 2.6 Venus years for each 8/5 = 1.6 earth years. The common "0.6" in the two cycles means that when Venus has orbited 2.6 times, the Earth has orbited 1.6 times, so they line up exactly* again with the sun. The five inferior or superior conjunctions are therefore at 1.6, 3.2, 4.8, 6.4 and 8 earth years = 2.6, 5.2, 7.8, 10.4 and 13 Venus years. For example, the inferior conjunction of Earth and Venus on 18 August 2007 was the fifth such event since the same date in 1999. These
five points form a perfect pentagram in space, the divine shape of Pythagorean lore and the Vitruvian Man by Leonardo, as discussed by Dan Brown in The Da Vinci Code.
*There is reportedly a 0.789 day slippage of this pentagram every 584 days so the whole shape rotates about once each millennium.
Although I suppose it is possible that the Greeks did do the math before hand and applied it to their gods, they had a much greater understanding of the Earth and Heavens than the later Christian “scholars”.
Agreed, Christianity caused the dark ages by its hostility to reason and science. Pythagoras knew that Venus as an evening star was the same planet as Venus as a morning star, and his school used the Satanic upside down pentacle as their symbol – it also has ten points like their tetrachtys.
If there is any writing establishing a link between Venus (A god of love and fertility) and Satan (a celestial prosecutor or later a devil), I would be greatly interested in seeing it. With the exception of the star (Planet) that was adopted by both myths I see almost nothing in common, it is an association I find to be rather weak.
Venus and Satan both represent pleasure, vanity and deceit, so there is a conceptual connection. I am not trying to say Venus is bad, as I disagree with the dogmatic Christian opposition to paganism and beauty. However, I am trying to set these values within a larger cosmic frame, and indicate the relative power of Christ and Satan in a new and speculative way.
It is also noteworthy to mention that Christ names himself as the “Morning Star” in the end of the bible where he lies and says that he will return swiftly… possibly exposing himself as Satan?
Makes you think…Later
Obviously the morning star is a beautiful ambiguous symbol. Remember
Peter said a thousand years is as a day to the Lord.
Jesus also said in Matt 24 that he would not return until after his teaching had been spread to the whole inhabited earth, which looks like a prediction of globalisation.