2. The Satan of Job, Zechariah, the Chronicler, and the Similitudes of Enoch.—In the Prologue to Job we have the first trace of the Satan or Adver- sary, 7.¢. the angel whose function it is to act as Accuser and to execute God’s purposes of judg- ment. As a member of God’s council (18) he stands in contrast to those angels whose ministry is con- cerned with errands of mercy, but while an angel of evil he is not in his own nature an evil angel. Although showing a strong disinclination to be- lieve in human virtue, he does not in Job, as in Jude, contend with God; he is content to act by His permission. But while he is not here repre- sented as an evil spirit, he is yet on the way which led later to his being so conceived. He performs his task with a too evident relish, and instigates God against Job (2°). It is still a question among critics whether the Book of Job is pre-exilic, but the other OT writings in which the word Satan is used to denote this minister of God undoubt- edly belong to the Jewish period. In Zec 312 he appears as the pitiless accuser whom J” repels. The cruel and malicious way in which he exercises his office against the broken-down Church of the Restoration calls forth the rebuke of Divine grace. Here there is an approach to the conception of him as an evil spirit, without his being regarded, how- ever, as an embodiment of all evil; he is still God’s servant. In 1 Ch 211 Satan is used without the article as the distinctive designation of the spirit who stands up against Israel as their enemy. It is at his instigation that David numbers the people, an act ascribed in earlier times to J” (2S 241). The possibility of such an interchange is owing to the fact that in either case the angel who tempts David is the minister of J”. Angels are but the ministers of His will. Even to the ‘lying spirit ’ mentioned in 2 Ch 18?! we are not to ascribe an evil character, That passage does not prove that at this stage evil spirits were not only believed in, but viewed as having power to ‘ possess’ individual men. The spirit who misled the infatuated Ahab is Jehovah’s messenger, and goes forth from His immediate presence. In the Satan of Zechariah and the Chronicler, then, even more than in that of J ob, there seems to be some approach to the conception of an evil spirit. At the same time he has not yet become an actual demon. The period was oné of transition : foreign influences were at work among the Pal. and Bab. Jews, and primitive Semitic beliefs were undergoing a process of transforma- tion. Thus in the earlier’ post-exilic age Satan was neither a Heb. angel pure and simple, nor a Jewish demon of the developed type familiar to us in NT. Later, in the Similitudes of the Book of
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Enoch, written, according to Charles, B.c. 95-80, he appears as ruler of the angels whom he has made subject to him (548, cf. Mt 12%), These, who are designated Satans, have access to heaven, but are subject to the Lord of spirits (407). Like those of Satan in NT, their functions are tempting (69% 6, cf. Mt 41#, Lk 223), accusing (407, cf. Rev 121°), and punishing (53° 561, cf. 1 Co 5°). It was long before Satan came to be conceived in Pales- tine as Beelzebub, or prince of devils. There is, in fact, a strange reticence regarding the existence and nature of Satan in the literature of the period between the Testaments. He is not mentioned in the Apocrypha (Satan being most probably used in Sir 21*7 merely in the general sense of adversary) or by Josephus. There is not, however, the same silence with regard to demons. Under the influ- ence of Mazdeism a more concrete form was given to floating Semitic superstitions about evil spirits. Not that this influence went very deep, for Persian aa oa could not seriously affect Hebrew mono- heism.
It is a moot point whether the conception of Satan may not have been taken over from the Persians. This is denied by many scholars, ¢.g. Oehler, who maintains that ‘the Satan of the OT is devoid of essential characteristics which must be pres- ent to justify a comparison with Ahriman’ (O7' Theol. ii. p. 291, Eng. tr.). So also Renan. Cheyne thinks it ‘a matter for argu- ment. But who can fail to see that the Satan of the Book of Revelation is the fellow of Ahriman?’ (OP, p. 282). G. A. Smith, while admitting the difficulty of the question, ranges himself on the negative side (The T'welve Prophets, ii. p. 319). According to Wellhausen, however,—who thinks that ‘the influence of Parsism upon Judaism was not so great as is usually assumed,’—‘ Satan has some relation to old Hebrew con- ceptions (1 K xxii.), but nevertheless is essentially the product of Zoroastrian dualism’ (art. ‘Israel’ in Hneye. Brit.), Bruce suggests that the divergence of 1 Ch 211 from 28 241, referred to above, may have been due to a feeling on the part of the Chronicler, begotten of Iranian influence, that temptation was no fit work of God (The Moral Order of the World, p. 63). The influence of the Persian dualism, which represents Ahriman as the antagonist of Ormazd, may also possibly be reflected in Zec 8. Here Satan appears as accuser of Joshua the high priest, standing, as was customary upon such occasions, at his right hand (Ps 1096). The rebuke administered to him exactly coin- cides with that of Jude9, where Michael the archangel is said to have disputed with him about the burial of Moses. It is, however, doubtful whether in Zec. Satan is not used merely in the general sense of the Adversary; the occurrence of the article seems to preclude the view that we have here a regular proper name as in 1Ch 211. In the art. ZOROASTRIANISM in vol. iv., J. H. Moulton, while characterizing as ‘absurd’ the idea that Satan was borrowed from Angra Mainyu, is ready to concede that ‘the ranking of demons and the elevation of one spirit to their head may have been stimulated by Parsism.’ This writer also allows that ‘the abandonment of earlier ideas, like Azazel and the serpent’ ‘in favour of the Satan,’ is to be ascribed to Persian influence. See, further, art. SATAN in vol. iv.