Samael
Samael is an archangel with a résumé that reads like a list of accusations. Jewish tradition calls him the accuser, the seducer and the destroying angel. Yet he is not named in the Book of Job, where the adversary appears, and not named in the Book of Exodus, where destruction passes through Egypt. Later writers simply gave a name to those roles. His name has many spellings, including Smil, Samil and Samiel. Many of his duties resemble those of the Christian Satan, and he is sometimes described as a fallen angel. Even so, he is not necessarily evil. His tasks, such as destroying sinners, are also seen as serving good ends. So who is he in Jewish lore? Is he a rebel, a prosecutor in God's court, or a loyal servant with grim work to do? And how did one angel come to be a demon prince, a death angel, a symbol of Rome and a blind false god?
The earliest mentions of Samael come from the Second Temple period and the years just after the Temple's destruction. In the Book of Enoch, part of the Jewish apocrypha, he appears among the rebellious angels called Watchers. These Watchers came down to Earth to mate with human women. Samael is one of them, but he is not their leader. That role belongs to Samyaza.
The Greek Apocalypse of Baruch gives him a far larger part. There he is the dominant evil figure. Samael plants the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, and God banishes and curses him for it. Seeking revenge, he takes the form of the serpent and tempts Adam and Eve into sin.
The Ascension of Isaiah presents him as the embodiment of evil under a string of titles. Melkira means king of evil. Malkira, or Malchira, means messenger of evil. Belkira probably means lord of the wall, and Bechira means chosen of evil. The names Belial and Satan are attached to him too. In this text he takes control of King Manasseh and uses the king to accuse Isaiah of treason.
All of this was written long before the rabbis of the Talmud had much to say about him.
In the Talmud and the early midrash, Samael plays only a marginal role as an agent of evil. The Talmud does not link him with the angel of death. From the fifth or sixth century onward, though, he rises to become one of the most prominent demonic figures. Only in later midrashim does he receive the title head of satans.
Exodus Rabbah stages a heavenly court. Samael is the accuser and tempter to sin, while Michael defends the actions of Israel. Here Samael is identified with Satan. The text treats accuser as Satan's description of his function and Samael as his proper name. When the time comes to take the body of Moses, Samael also acts as the Angel of Death.
Pirkei De-Rabbi Eliezer pictures him as chief of the fallen angels and a twelve-winged seraph. He objects to the creation of Adam, goes down to Earth and tempts Adam toward evil. Riding the serpent, he persuades Eve to eat the forbidden fruit. This version may echo the Islamic figure Iblis, who refused to bow to Adam because he was made of fire while Adam was made of dust. The same midrash adds a darker claim. Samael fathered Cain with Eve.
In the smaller midrashim, he is promoted again, to ruler of hell.
Yalkut Shimoni, in its section I, 110, attaches a surprising list of roles to Samael. He is the guardian angel of Esau, which ties him to Rome. He is the angel who wrestled with Jacob. He is also the angel who ordered Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, and a patron of Edom.
As guardian angel and prince of Rome, he becomes the archenemy of Israel. The connection had a long afterlife. By the time Jewish culture took root in Europe, Samael stood for Christianity, because he was already bound to Rome.
So an angel who began as a name for the adversary ended up carrying the weight of a political and religious rivalry. In the mystical texts, that rivalry would be absorbed into an elaborate map of the divine and demonic worlds.
Kabbalah describes Samael as the severity of God. It lists him as the fifth of the archangels of the world of Beri'ah. His portions include the people who inherit the sword and bring war. They also include the goats and the se'irim, which are demons, along with the destroyer angels.
Samael and Lilith were both major demons in earlier traditions, but nobody paired them until the second half of the thirteenth century. In that account Lilith was created alongside Adam, intended for the role that Eve would fill. She then became Samael's bride. Together they produced a host of demon children, including a son called the Sword of Samael, or of Asmodai.
The Treatise on the Left Emanation makes Samael part of the qlippoth, prince of all demons and spouse of Lilith. The two parallel Adam and Eve, emanated together from the Throne of Glory as a counterpart. Asmodeus serves Samael and is married to a younger or lesser Lilith. The treatise also claims that God made Samael monorchid so their offspring would not fill the world. The source calls this claim unconfirmed.
The Zohar, a principal work of Kabbalah, calls Samael a leader of the divine forces of destruction. It repeats that he rode the serpent. It says he mated with Eisheth Zenunim, Na'amah and Agrat bat Mahlat, all described as angels of sacred prostitution. Later the same work calls him Azazel, which may be mistaken identity, since Azazel may combine the angels Ouza and Azrael.
One tale about the Baal Shem Tov even claims he summoned Samael to do his bidding.
In the apocryphal Gedulat Moshe, as retold in The Legends of the Jews by Louis Ginzberg, Moses travels to the last heaven. There he sees two angels named Af and Hemah, meaning Anger and Wrath. Each stands five hundred parasangs tall and is forged from chains of black fire and red fire. God made them at the beginning of the world to carry out His will.
Moses is disquieted until Metatron embraces him and says, "Moses, Moses, thou favorite of God, fear not, and be not terrified."
Then Moses notices another angel, unlike all the rest and frightful in appearance. This angel is so tall that crossing his height would take five hundred years. He is studded with glaring eyes from crown to soles. Metatron tells Moses that this is Samael, who takes the soul away from man. Samael is on his way to fetch the soul of Job the pious.
Moses prays not to fall into this angel's hands.
Other traditions name Samael as one of the seven archangels. They make him ruler of the Fifth Heaven, commander of two million angels and chief of all the destroying angels.
Among the texts found in the Nag Hammadi library, the Apocryphon of John, On the Origin of the World and the Hypostasis of the Archons give Samael a very different role. He is one of three names of the demiurge, whose other names are Yaldabaoth and Saklas.
In the Gnostic account, Yaldabaoth claims sole divinity for himself. The voice of Sophia answers by calling him Samael, because of his ignorance. On the Origin of the World explains the name as blind god and says his fellow Archons are blind as well. This matches the Christian devil, who in 2 Corinthians 4 blinds people. In the Hypostasis of the Archons he is the first sinner, and the First Epistle of John calls the devil a sinner from the beginning. His boasting merges the Jewish god with the devil. He appears as a lion-faced serpent.
The Gnostic and Jewish versions probably started from the same source. They then developed independently. In the Jewish telling, Samael remains only an angel and a messenger of God.
Some books confuse him with Camael, an evil power in the Coptic Gospel of the Egyptians. The name Camael is close to words meaning like God, but with a waw missing. Jewish tradition supplies a possible link: before God banished it, the snake had the form of a camel.
Anthroposophists count Samael among seven archangels. They cite Saint Gregory's list of Anael, Gabriel, Michael, Oriphiel, Raphael, Samael and Zerachiel. Each is imagined as a global zeitgeist, or time-spirit, with a special assignment lasting about 360 years.
In 1821, Carl Maria von Weber's opera Der Freischütz gave the name Samiel to its Devil-like Black Huntsman, probably derived from Samael. In The Wheel of Time, one of the Forsaken is called Sammael. In the Megami Tensei video game franchise and its spin-offs, Samael appears among the demons.
Neil Gaiman's comic series The Sandman makes Samael the original name of Lucifer Morningstar. The television series Lucifer echoes this in its sixth episode of season one, when Linda tells Lucifer that Samael was one of his names before the fall. The Darksiders games make him a demon lord, heavily implied to be a fallen angel.
In the seventh episode of season three of Record of Ragnarok, Samael is one of three angels, alongside Lucifer and Azazel, who befriend Beelzebub.
The most unusual appearance comes in Hugo Pratt's Corto Maltese comics. There Samael, or Shamael in some editions, is an Ethiopian shaman and hermit who claims to be the earthly incarnation of the archangel.
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Common questions
Who is Samael in Jewish tradition?
Samael is an archangel in Talmudic and post-Talmudic tradition. He is cast as accuser, seducer and destroying angel, and later as the main angel of death and head of satans.
Is Samael the same as Satan?
Not exactly. Some texts, such as Exodus Rabbah, identify him with Satan. In early Talmudic and Midrashic literature he is not yet identified with Satan, and his duties are also seen as serving good ends.
Was Samael the serpent in the Garden of Eden?
No. In the midrash Pirkei De-Rabbi Eliezer and in the Zohar, the serpent is a beast that Samael rode while tempting Eve.
How is Samael connected to Lilith?
Late in the thirteenth century, Kabbalistic writing paired the two. Lilith became Samael's bride, and together they produced a host of demon children.
What does Samael mean in Gnostic texts?
In Nag Hammadi texts, Samael is one of three names of the demiurge, alongside Yaldabaoth and Saklas. On the Origin of the World explains the name as blind god.
Why is Samael linked with Rome?
Sources such as Yalkut Shimoni call him guardian angel of Esau, which ties him to Rome. As prince of Rome he became the archenemy of Israel and, in Europe, a representative of Christianity.
All sources
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