The Birth of Satan by T. J. Wray & Gregory Mobley

Author:T. J. Wray & Gregory Mobley
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781466886889
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

Legends of the Fall

As attested by the many names for the Prince of Demons in these texts, Satan, by whatever name, emerged as a potent character in the Jewish religious imagination during the Intertestamental Period. The narrative about the Watchers in 1 Enoch and Jubilees gives one version of how Satan fell: Satan was prince of the demonic spirits of the fallen giants sired by fallen angels known as the Watchers and born from the oh-so-fair daughters of men. We have referred to this particular story as the Watchers myth.

In addition to this myth, there are other versions of how the angels fell (or where Satan went wrong or why evil continues to plague the righteous) in literature.46 Among these alternative “legends of the Fall” are tales that narrate what can be called the Lucifer myth. Many people mistakenly believe that “Lucifer” is simply another name for Satan from the Hebrew Bible. Who is Lucifer and how did his name come to be associated with the Devil? The Lucifer myth consists of two motifs: the Devil’s fall from heaven, and his identification with the name “Lucifer.”

This first motif appears in the Life of Adam and Eve, a first-century C.E. work that has been associated with the Pharisee movement, Satan is banished to the earth because he refused to genuflect before the newly created Adam. According to that work, Satan said: “I will not worship one inferior and subsequent to me. I am prior in creation; before [Adam] was made, I was already made. He ought to worship me” (Life of Adam and Eve 12:3). The Qur’an (2:34) also preserves this tradition, about how all the angels were commanded to worship “the image of the Lord God” (i.e., Adam, made in “the image of God”), but Satan refused.

It was as if this one son of God could not abide being displaced in the affections of the Divine Father by the creation of humans. Because of his jealous and proud refusal to kowtow to the new child, Satan was expelled from heaven to earth, where he now obsessively tortures the descendants of his rival, Adam. So whereas in the Watchers myth, sexual lust led the rebel angels to fall for human women, in this version, as in the biblical proverb, it is pride that cometh before the Fall (Prov 16:18).

A variation of this legend, about Satan’s fatal sin of pride, also appears in 2 Enoch, and this version, indirectly, provides us with the motif of Lucifer. According to 2 Enoch, Satan, a high-ranking officer in the cosmic army, known in the Hebrew Bible as the saba’ot or the “[angelic] hosts,” attempted a heavenly palace coup d’etat. When he failed, he was expelled from heaven and now flies through the air, “ceaselessly, above the Bottomless” (2 En 29:5–6).47 This story of Satan falling from grace echoes several speeches from the prophets that mock the pretensions of ancient potentates and prophesy their eventual demise. For instance, Isaiah 14:3–23 taunts the king of Babylon:

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