Looking At The Origin of the Satan Myth

 How did "Satan" get his start?  Ever since Dante Allegheiri gave life to "Satan" in his renowned Inferno, the 2nd Book of The Divine Comedy, theologians and philosophers have been captivated in trying to track down how or where the original conception of "Satan" arose. These efforts have spanned centuries and many different traditions and ethnicities, with some modern philosophical expositions coming from those like the popular philosopher, Joseph Campbell (now deceased) in the last chapter of his The Power of Myth.  In most themes, a character resembling Satan (in the Christian tradition) has been associated with a particular abode called "Hell".   There Satan undertakes continuous punishment, torture of the souls of the "damned".

What we can also infer is that the idea of an eternal punishment preceded any Christian theology on it by at least one thousand years. Generally, the concepts diverged as one of two forms: Tartarus or the ancient Greek version of "Hell"  and the fiery Mithraic version. The last is putatively the obvious one appropriated for use by Christianity and this likely was adopted at the Second Council of Constantinople by which time Mithraism was in retreat even in the Roman Empire. (Recall here, Emperor Constantine's 'Edict of Milan" which essentially made Christianity the official state religion of the empire, though married to some traditional forms of the Roman Sol Invictus cult).

Some historical basics are needed before describing the Mithraic Shaitan: In the Graeco-Persian manifestation of Mithra (alt. Mithras) he was born of a virgin on the winter solstice, Dec. 25th. The leader of the cult was called a pope and ruled from a mithraeum. The Mithraists consumed a special meal (‘Myazda’) completely analogous to the Catholic Eucharist. And just like their Christian decedents, they celebrated the atoning death of a Savior who (according to Ized 28) was crucified. In addition, those who did not partake of the body and blood of Mithra-Mithras were condemned to “Hell’, designated as a “lake of fire”. Perhaps the best text for this is 'The Origin Of Mithraic Mysteries: Cosmology and Salvation in the Ancient World', Oxford Univ. Press, 1989, which articulated this particular concept. As noted therein, the "lake of fire" description most likely arose from the perception of flowing lava (such as after a volcanic eruption) forming a pit or "burning lake" which is quite reasonable if anyone has gone near to an actual volcano, say after an eruption. Such lava "lakes" are fierce enough to melt lead or iron and would certainly be a horrific temporary "hell" for a human, never mind an "eternity"!

The Mithraic Shaitan (see graphic) meanwhile presided over the dispatch of incoming culprit souls to the "lake". He generally informed them first of their transgressions, then enlisted lesser demons or agents to carry them into it where they'd be kept forever. The author doesn't go into tremendous detail on his nature but it appears to be a given this wasn't needed. It was left to later imaginative Christian "Demon theorists" to expatiate at length on the Christian carryover (see e.g. The History of the Devil’, by Dr. Paul Carus, as well as The Compendium Maleficarum of the Ambrosian monk Francesco Guazzo.)

What might be the earliest period or epoch for Shaitan's emergence? A clue is to track the time line for the texts based on the pagan epistles known as the Izeds (28 in number) appearing in the Zendavesta. The Zendavesta, literally "text and comment," was the doctrine of Zoroaster (Zarathrustra), comprised of eight parts, written at different periods, but of which the earliest have been assigned to the date of B.C. 1200-1000. In its present form it was collected by Ardeshir, the founder of the Sassanian dynasty, from oral tradition, at the time when he re-established the ancient religion of Persia. In effect, the concept of a Shaitan presiding over a fiery "Hell" (Lake of fire) could have well existed since 1200 B.C. or more than 1,200 years before Christ was claimed to refer to it. 

Regarding the Christian tradition, author Andrew Delbanco in a widely circulated article notes:

"The devil as a figure of identifiable aspect exists in the Bible only sporadically and in fragments that only later were assembled into a unified concept.  It took centuries for this to happen. The Christian devil emerged slowly as the amalgamation of all the scriptural elements--a process that can be followed at the linguistic as well as the doctrinal level. The Hebrew word Satan, which means obstructor or adversary, is given in the Book of Job to the agent of God who is sent to test Job's constancy, and to the obstacle against which David must prove his kingship in the first Book of Chronicles. 

This Satan, as one writer genially puts it, has "access to Heaven . . . and [is] evidently on good terms with the Almighty." When the Old Testament was rendered into Greek in the third century, the Greek word diabolos (from dia-bollein, to tear apart) was chosen to translate this Hebrew Satan, and at the same time a different Greek word, satanas, was used in the New Testament to denote, not a tempter sent by God to test men, but an enemy of God himself. This new Satan appears most vividly in the Book of Revelation as "that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan . . . cast out into the earth."   

The actual physical form for this being likely didn't arrive until Gustave Dore rendered the illustrations to accompany Milton's magnificent literary work, 'Paradise Lost'  and Dante Allegheiri's Inferno..    Paging through the unabridged and fully illustrated version of the former work (Arcturus Publishing, 2013) it is little wonder so many millions came to regard "Satan" as a humanized form with bat like wings. Why?  Because these are the prominent Dore illustrations in the book.  Meanwhile, impatient  Vatican dogmatists and former Inquisition tenders and others were not impressed, and sought to create the image of a more horrific being to scare the unfaithful (including heretics and atheists) to get religion, e.g.

This worked up to a point, at least until the Enlightenment.  But the emergence of scientific analysis and testing -  combined with prioritizing reason over faith -   disclosed all such imagery to be basically bunkum and balderdash.   They were the imaginary expulsions of the amygdala in assorted regressed brains captivated by the supernatural in its most debased forms.   True fact?  By the late 20th century most intelligent humans had already concluded Satan was an ignorant myth - like the Boogeyman-  designed to scare people into better behavior.

Hard core rationalists and atheist -Materialists eased mass fretting about Satan by showing it is simply the mental projection of the most primitive brain imperatives onto the external world. And yes, this imperative  is capable of  rape, economic exploitation and mass murder as well as genocide. A supernatural Satan need not be invoked, only the ancient brain residue of reptiles – acting collectively – aided and abetted by a language -obsessed neocortex, which finds it as easy to create neologisms to represent non-existent phantasms as to think. It thereby does the reptile brain’s bidding, manufacturing sins, as opposed to attempting to halt it.  

This theme was augmented - but in a slightly different form - with the arrival of religious scholar  Elaine Pagels' monograph, 'The Origin Of Satan'.   Therein we are bid to accept that (p. 11):

"Satan is a reflection of how we perceive ourselves and those we call others'. Satan has, after all, made a kind of profession out of being 'the other' and so Satan defines negatively what we think of as human. "   

She then launches into a discussion of how "Satan" and the "Satanic" have become useful but pejorative labels of how we regard others with no relation to one's own group. Hence describing an outgroup - whether heretics, atheists, Muslims or black & brown immigrants. "We" equals human and "they" equals "non-human" or even "Satanic."   Savvy atheist critics (e.g. Frank Zindler) were also quick to point out that - in most of the horrific versions of Satan circulated, say by the Vatican's relics -  the entity had dark or black skin. A coincidence?  No.  Merely reinforcing Pagels' point that Satanic imagery was most often associated with those idenitified with the greatest "otherness".   Hence, all the more reason to reject these fantasy offerings and their supernatural basis.

In this perspective,  as Pagels makes the case, the scriptural contributors actually needed a character like Satan for their fables to make any sense. E.g. p. 12:  

 "The gospel writers realized that the story they have to tell would make little sense without Satan."  

 Thus, the gospel writers needed a cosmic "bad guy' to heap all the otherwise unexplainable incidents onto, from Jesus being betrayed by one of his own followers, to the same followers thrown to the lions by the Romans.  

All valid -  albeit superficial reasons -  to invoke the "Prince of Darkness",  except  we now know he is a grotesque myth. It makes more sense to invoke the unevolved brain regions and their attendant dynamics  noted earlier to explain behavior labeled "evil".  Another great outcome of the skewering of the Satan myth is that the whole enterprise of the "demonic" families created by the Vatican had to be tossed into the rubbish.  Some of those entities used to terrify generations of the faithful are depicted below:

Bertrand Russell, in his book Why I Am Not A Christian, precisely identifies ‘religion’s source of terror’ ("Hell")  to account for the hold it has on so many. He notes how fear has been ‘dignified’ by use of this source: the demented hell concept and its associated demonic- Satanic beings -  to the point people no longer think it disgraceful[1] . Russell correctly points out that by dignifying fear as a coercive tool to drum people into the fold, religions lose any claim to credibility.   This is all the more reason to consign all such supernatural fear  mongering - whether invoking Hell, Satan or demons- into the historical dumpster.

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[1] Russel, R.: Why I Am Not A Christian, Touchstone Books, p. 54, 1957.