The origin of the term “Satan” is generally considered to be in the Judaic tradition. At the time it was used to refer to an agent sent by God to put his followers to a test through adversity, in Hebrew meaning “the adversary”.

Later, the term was generalized and started to denote all those who opposed the Abrahamic religion. This is the first time it acquired the “opposer of God” denotation, albeit a cultural rather than a scriptural denotation. The Muslims took the term and further expanded it. “Satan” was the character’s known as Iblis representative. Iblis is the “fallen angel” and this way it denotes “the adversary” or “the transgressor” of God. Until now, this term had the purpose of identifying a “station”, or an “office” and not a specific being. During the Christian era, it was for the first time that this term started to be applied to a specific being, and to these days this is still cloaked in controversy.

The Catholic Churched tried at some point to change the term and refer to the Serpent of Genesis but it never actually appears in the original Hebrew texts. Modern Satanists say that there is and there never was a “person” or a “being”. They claim that the term “Satan” is a term of convenience that stands for the path of Rebellion against the dogma of “God” stemming from Judaeo-Christian origins.

A notable parallel can be observed between the Hebrew term Satan found in Sanskrit amalgamate “Sat-Tan”, even though a more comprehensive analysis of this ancient term is beyond the scope of this immediate definition.