SATAN, ACTUALLY

The Idiot's Guide to Satan

By Caitlin Cutt, Literature Editor

Illustration by Jasmine Gagnier, Union Staffer

Did you know the real Santa is from Turkey? Fact. See, as a writer, I like to point out all the stuff people think they know a lot about but really don’t. Hey, another figure people think they know all about is Satan. But just Like Santa Claus, Satan is an enigmatic figure of many names and faces. They also both make small children cry when they arrive in person. No, I’m not saying that Satan’s “just misunderstood.” He’s the worst. But if you think about it, Satan is kind of the best of the worst. Therefore, in the unholy spirit of our Satan issue, here is a little-known, or widely misunderstood body of Satanic facts. It’s a hell of a thing. (I’m the editor of this page and I am going to keep that bad joke, no matter how bad it is.)

SATAN-CLATURE

You know when really annoying people, who can’t think of anything to say, talk about how the Eskimo’s have a zillion words for snow because it’s everywhere? Well, Christians are like that with Satan… sort of. First, there’s just Satan. He made his debut in the book of Job, where God makes a deal with Satan, betting him that the honorable Job will remain faithful to God, no matter what Satan does to Job (I bet you thought the first deal with the Devil was in Bedazzled, right?). But no matter how much Satan messes with his life, Satan loses the bet, and after that he disappears from the book, due to the fact that Satan is a really sore loser.

Lucifer, who’s derived from the “fallen son of dawn” (Isaiah 14:12), who’s identified with the “accuser” who makes many appearances in the Old Testament. While the word “lucifer” appears in 2 Peter, it’s not used in reference to the Devil. Somewhere along the line though, since the New Testament, the Latin word Lucifer has been used as a sort of evil nickname.
Then there’s Beelzebub, which is a name with a very complicated history. In a “Christian” context, this could have been derived from a Philistine god “Ba’al.” (In 1 Kings, the priests of Ba’al are mentioned a few times.) However, “Baal” is found in many Semetic cultures, and “Zebub” is either the name of an actual place, which historians have yet to locate, or a prince. It’s thought that, in an effort to make fun of the god of their enemy, the Chosen People turned the name into a really, really, great pun: Ba’al Zebub. Get it? Well, if you knew Hebrew it would be hilarious. In Hebrew “zebub” is the collective noun for “flies”…Lord of the Flies? Anyway, as the years went on, early demonologists and Christians began to use the name interchangeably with the Devil, or high-ranking demons.

WHAT THE DEVIL?

Now that you’ve taken time to really get familiar with Satan and his many faces (really, why did you do that?) and you feel like you got it, let me confuse you more: None of the images you associate with Satan actually came from the Bible, unless you think he looks like an angel. If you were wondering where the whole “horns” thing came from, feel free to saddle that one on Dante. His description of the Evil one in The Divine Comedy, which pulled from countless deities and daemons around the world, inspired the iconic images that have persisted through time, freaking out people for centuries.

Also, “Satan” does not make an appearance in Genesis. In fact, he’s never directly mentioned until Job (which, to be fair, is one of the oldest books in The Bible). The being that persuades Eve to eat the fruit (it’s not called an apple, either) is a serpent. If you want, you can blame John Milton for making you think otherwise. He dramatized the great Fall of Man, giving Satan a really kick-ass backstory in his masterpiece, Paradise Lost, which provided “motivation” for Satan to transform into a snake and take down man. Apparently “because” wasn’t really cutting it. You can also blame Milton for basically making women the cause of all men’s problems. Special.