Samael | Description, Judaism, Satan, Lilith, History, & Facts | Britannica (original) (raw)
Samael, in Jewish folkloric and mystical tradition, the true name of Satan.
Traditions and folklore
According to tradition, Samael is the king of all demons, the angel of death, the husband of the demonic Lilith, and the archenemy of Michael the archangel and of Israel. He is associated with Mars, the left side, the north, and Tuesday. His name is not to be spoken aloud in case doing so draws his attention, and thus he is referred to colloquially by vocalizing only the first two letters of his name.
Different authors attribute various negative acts of ancient Jewish history to him, including: planting the tree of knowledge in the Garden of Eden; riding or sending the serpent to tempt Eve; impregnating Eve with Cain; attempting to dissuade Abraham from sacrificing Isaac; causing the death of Sarah by informing her of Abraham’s intent to sacrifice Isaac; attempting to kill Jacob while he was still in the womb; arguing before God as the prosecutor against Israel during the Exodus from Egypt; hiding in the Golden Calf; taunting Moses; killing the prophet Isaiah; leading armies of rebellion against God; and receiving the scapegoat offered up on Yom Kippur. At the end of days, it is believed that Samael will be defeated by Michael, chained, and given to Israel to exact justice.
Physical descriptions of him include a range of supernatural characteristics: he flies like a bird with 12 wings, he is cross-eyed and has fire in his eyes, he has horns, and his height is a walk of 500 years. One text states that he has one long hair on his naval, which will bend at the sound of the shofar when the messianic times begin.
History and literary development
Samael is first mentioned in the pseudepigraphal (not included in any canon of scripture) text the First Book of Enoch. In contrast to the preeminent status that later texts ascribe to him, the Samael who appears in this ancient text (some portions of the text date to 167 bce) is one of several angels who rebel against God—not their leader—and descend to earth to fornicate with human women. Samael appears again in the Second Book of Enoch, which was likely written in the 1st century ce, but is there named as prince of the demons and a magician.
Samael appears in the Apocalypse of Baruch, probably written about 100 ce, which marks the origin of Samael’s association with the Garden of Eden and original sin, as he is cited as the planter of the tree, or vine, of knowledge, for which he was banished from heaven by God. This banishment led him to become envious of Adam and to disguise himself as the snake to tempt Eve, causing the two to sin.
In the Ascension of Isaiah, the Devil is referred to interchangeably as Samael, Belial, and Satan. This work expands Samael’s characterization and names him the embodiment of all evil, capable of overpowering and acting through humankind. The key characteristics of Samael’s evil—hostility to humanity, formerly angelic nature, and association with original sin—were taken for granted in all following literature.
Medieval Jewish writers continued to expand on Samael’s power. The midrash text Pirkei de-Rabbi Eliezer identifies Samael as the chief of the rebellious angels and first attributes many historical evil acts to him. As the personification of evil acting independent of God and hostile to humanity, Samael became a standard convention of midrashic literature as well as texts of Merkava and Hekhalot Jewish mysticism. Samael is mentioned in the Sefer ha-bahir, one of the foundational texts of Kabbala, in which tradition Samael’s role in mystic cosmology is explored and codified.
The seminal work on Samael is regarded as the treatise On the Emanation on the Left by Rabbi Isaac ha-Kohen. In this work, ha-Kohen cites Samael as the husband of Lilith for the first time. Ha-Kohen defines Samael and Lilith as a parallel evil version of Adam and Eve, calling them the rulers of the “left side,” while God and the Shekhina are the rulers of the “right side.” The author claims that the destruction of the satanic couple will be a crucial element of the apocalyptic events that herald the start of the holy messianic period.
On the Emanation on the Left does not appear to have become influential in the years immediately after its publication. However, the conception of Samael and Lilith as coupled manifestations of evil was incorporated into the Sefer ha-zohar, a classic text of medieval Kabbala. Sefer ha-zohar presents a dualistic cosmological conception of the universe, in which Samael and Lilith are the corulers of the “other side” or “left side” realm, a dark world which is not ruled by God. In the text, the name Samael is the main name of evil power in the universe. This cemented the status of Samael, and by extension Lilith, in Kabbalistic and other Hebrew literature and tradition in the ensuing centuries.