Satan

the name applied to the personification of an evil power opposed to the God; the great adversary of man; the devil. Satan is mentioned but three times in the Old Testament, once each in the books of Job, Chronicles, and Zachariah. In fact the doctrine of one who works evil in opposition to the Lord, or the doer of good, is not taught by the Old Testament. The Old Testament Hebrew doctrine of Jehovah as given in the book of Isaiah is as follows:

There is none beside me. I am the Lord and there is none else. I form the light, and create darkness; I make peace, and create evil; I the Lord do all things.

The doctrine of Satan as an evil power contending with the power of good finds its counterpart in the theologies of Babylon, Persia, and other eastern nations, where a plurality of supernatural powers was an article of belief. The Anglo-Saxon race inherited from ancient sources, no doubt, a similar belief in adverse powers,--"For Satan finds some mischief still for idle hands to do." The Satan of the New Testament, who tempted Christ, and the Satan of Milton's Paradise Lost, who was cast out of heaven, appear to be modern ideas for which little foundation is laid in the Old Testament.