NOTE: This page is only about the version of the Devil in the Holy Bible, and not his hundreds of other interpretations of him such as Mormonism (Nephi), Satanism, or characters like Chernabog from Fantasia or the Benefactor from "The Shift." Therefore, none of the actions of Satan's innumerable alternate interpretations should be added here.
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For God knows that when you will eat of it fruit your eyes opened and you Will be like God, knowing good and evil.
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~ The Devil as the serpent tempts Eve in Genesis 3:5
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All this power will I give thee, and the glory of them: for that is delivered unto me; and to whomsoever I will I give it. If thou therefore wilt worship me, all shall be thine.
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~ Satan attempting to corrupt Jesus in the New Testament.
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I will ascend higher than the highest clouds; I will be the Most High.
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~ Lucifer planning his rebellion in Isaiah 14:14
Lucifer, also known as The Devil or Satan (שָּׂטָן), is the main antagonist of the Bible.
He is widely perceived as the divine embodiment of all evil, the concept of villainy itself, and the archenemy of all living beings, especially God the Father.
While he once have had redeeming qualities before his fall, he is totally debased from those factors, showing no known positive aspect of him whatsoever and doing whatever he can to obtain his endgame, and even if he is indicated to do good for others being his demonic army and accursed worshippers, that is only because he wants to keep them on his side. Made worse is that the gratifying rewards he promises his human followers are hardly things that can be obtained solely through him and he gaslights them to believe the contrary.
Having become the lead catalyst of sin, he is the most responsible for it having infected humanity as well as its general existence.
Despite being the divine representation of darkness and chaos, Satan has clear moral agency considering that as an agent of divine purpose, he is also highly articulate regarding proper procedure of such, making it clear that he knows right from wrong.
He easily sets the heinous standards of the Bible, given Satan is indirectly, lot of times directly responsible for all of the pain and suffering caused by people as he corrupts them all, though his intent of him knowing this is of constant relentless initiative. He is aware that much of his actions throughout the millennia are morally unsound, but still continues to endanger billions of people. He clearly was aware that he would curse humanity for thousands of years by just simple influences, making him heinous enough to qualify. He also achieves a high kill count in a cosmic level.
He is the theological symbol of evil.
Background[]
Even before he turned evil and while he was an angel of God, he was not truly loyal to Him and was always proud and desired to take His throne so he could become all-powerful.
He turned against God because he was prideful and self-loving of his own image, and because he wanted to rule Heaven and be more powerful and attractive than his maker.
He convinced one third of the angels in heaven to side with him and go against God. Hence, Satan committed the war in heaven by recruiting an army of renegade angels to help him try to usurp God, resulting in him being kicked out of heaven forever.
These fallen angels would later be known as demons who relentlessly seek to demonically possess the physical bodies of God's children to see to it that his malevolent will is done on Earth.
Hebrew Bible / Old Testament[]
He possesses a regular garden snake and tempts Eve to partake of the forbidden fruit against which God gave them his specific word. This makes him the exact reason why Adam and Eve, as well as the rest of humanity, are tainted by impurity, and why the snakes are condemned to crawl on land and be hated by humans.
He goaded Cain to murder Abel in cold blood. He laughed, and God marked Cain's skin, cursing him to wander the Earth with nobody being allowed to kill him.
Satan had the very idea pitched to God to torture Job, just because he wanted to prove that even a man like him could reject God if he suffers enough. He makes his life absolutely miserable as he took his wealth, killed his livestock, killed his servants, and eventually even killed his own children. He also cursed Job’s body with boils and pushed Job’s friends to accuse him of sinning; this madness continued for two years straight.
New Testament[]
He cripples an old woman, who remains infirm for eighteen long years.
Satan attempted to turn Jesus to his side, telling him to break his fast and provoke his father over Jerusalem by feigning a suicide. When this didn't work in his favor, he demanded he fall down and worship him forever, only backing down when left with no choice.
One of the reasons why Jesus didn't always do miracles for people was that whenever he does good things Satan stands right next to him, with Jesus hinting that Satan would attempt to use his luminous powers for his own gain.
He possessed Peter, one of the Twelve Apostles, to try and convince Jesus not to die for humanity to be saved. Jesus had to give Peter the harsh and firm cold shoulder to back Satan off.
Because of his actions placing humanity at high risks for damnation, Jesus saving humanity from eternal torment had to be done by being tortured willingly in Gethsemane and was executed with extraordinary brutality in Golgotha, with his death resulting to take every single sin in existence, making the savior suffer the worst fate ever known.
In Satan's last attempt to deceive humanity, he tried to get humanity to overthrow the Holy Camp of the saints in the New Jerusalem, which the population of the number was described to be of the sand and the sea, possibly being well over quintillions of people that left God no other option but to end them for their excessively hateful approach on seeking conquest of his kingdom.
What Makes Him Inconsistent?[]
His portrayal is far too inconsistent for him to be ranked elsewhere, being cited as a purely evil monster, a necessary force that willingly keeps the cosmos in balance, and a tragic grey character at different intervals. After all, if he ever stopped doing his job, immoderate amounts of light would be completely out of control, and that would not be good at all (keep in mind that too much of a good thing becoming a bad thing is as natural as it is inevitable as all things exist in duality).
While it doesn't justify it, even him cursing Job and the old lady was done with God's express permission for the latter's own purposes.
With only a very small handful of page time, his characterization is questionable as there isn't much given from him with a couple of things being his generic lust for unprecedented cosmic power, along with him being an extremely vengeful destroyer. Although he used to be the angel Lucifer, no elaboration is given on what kind of man he was back then, or his relationships with others, so it doesn't give him any characterization. He also never once physically appears in the Old Testament.
Trivia[]
As a reflection of all the darkness in the cosmos, Satan could potentially have moral agency issues unless he can comprehend or do things beyond his original purpose. Although if he did, those moral agency issues would be minor, since he showed clear sadism when committing the crimes that made him pass the heinous standard.
He's the second oldest Inconsistenly Heinous in all of media, being surpassed by Demeter. However, he is the oldest villainous IH in all of media, as of now.
He's currently the only Inconsistenly Heinous from the Abrahamic religions.
Although he's ranked as Inconsistently Heinous, Satan has the second mostPE depictions in all of fiction with the first being William Afton.
