Satan in The Life of Adam and Eve
Sahib Iblis [Balasa]
3 November 2022, rev. 8 February 2024
In this 1st c. Hebrew text, a dialogue between Adam and Satan unfolds. Satan tells Adam he was exiled for refusing to see humanity as a mirror of God.
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At one point in the account, Satan finds Eve weeping at the waters of the Tigris:
IX. Come out of the river and lament no more. Cease now from sorrow and moaning. Why are you anxious and your husband Adam? The Lord God has heard your groaning and has accepted your penitence, and all we angels have entreated on your behalf, and interceded with the Lord; and he has sent me to bring you out of the water and give you the nourishment which you had in paradise, and for which you are crying out. Now come out of the water and I will conduct you to the place where your food has been made ready.When Adam sees Eve with Satan, he begins weeping at the sight of it himself:
X. O Eve, Eve, where is the labour of your penance? How have you been again ensnared by our enemy, through whom we have been estranged from our abode in paradise and spiritual joy?Hearing Adam, Eve again weeps. In another outward display, she cries out:
XI. Woe to you, you devil. Why do you attack us for no cause? What have you to do with us? What have we done to you, for you to pursue us with craft? Or why does your malice attack us? Have we taken away your glory and caused you to be without honour? You enemy, why do you harry us to the death in wickedness and envy?
In response to Adam and Eve weeping, Satan responds with the following:
XII. O Adam! all my hostility, envy, and sorrow is for you, since it is for you that I have been expelled from my glory, which I possessed in the heavens in the midst of the angels and for you was I cast out on the earth.In response, Adam feigns incredulity and ignorance, and hurls out questions:
What do you tell me? What have I done to you or what is my fault against you? Seeing that you have received no harm or injury from us, why do you pursue us?Satan then relays the account of his exile for refusing to worship Adam as God:
XIII. Adam, what are you saying? It is for your sake that I have been hurled from that place. When you were formed, I was hurled out of the presence of God and banished from the company of the angels. When God blew into you the breath of life and your face and likeness was made in the image of God, Michael also brought you and made us worship you in the sight of God; and the Lord God said, Here is Adam. I have made you in our image and likeness.When he had been goaded by Michael, Satan replied:
XIV. It is not for me to worship Adam.
Michael persisted, but Satan cleaved to his fundamental stance:
I will not worship an inferior and younger being than I. I am his senior in the Creation, before he was made was I already made. It is his duty to worship me.
Impatiently, Michael replied by warning Satan of what lay ahead:
XV. Worship the image of God, but if you will not worship him, the Lord God will be angry with you.To this, Satan then defiantly replied:
If He be angry with me, I will set my seat above the stars of heaven and will be like the Highest.This last statement is usually attributed to the standard Christian view of the revolt and exile. It occurs in Isaiah 14:14. However, in this context, the statement is made only after Satan refuses to worship humanity. In replying to Michael, Satan remarks that if God rebukes him, he will assume the inner mantle of divinity.
The host is asked to worship Adam as a likeness of God. Everyone obeys, except Satan. Satan's followers also spurn Adam, and are exiled as well:
XVI. And the Lord God was angry with me and banished me and my angels from our glory; and on your account we were expelled from our abodes into this world and hurled to the ground. Straight away we were overcome with grief, since we had been robbed of such great glory. And we were grieved when we saw you in such joy and luxury. And with guile I cheated your wife and through her action caused you to be expelled from your joy and luxury, as I have been driven out of my glory.A full six or seven centuries before Iblis is presented in both Christian apocryphal literature and the Quranic narrative, we have the above early account of Satan in which his curse and exile are prompted by his disdain for humanity.
