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Samael

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This article is about the angel or demon. For other uses, see Samael (disambiguation).

Samael is an important figure in Talmudic and post-Talmudic lore, a figure who is accuser, seducer, and destroyer. Legends mentioning Satan refer equally to him, such that Samael is often taken to be the true or angelic name of the Devil, some also use the name Lucifer (light-bearer), but this is a mistranslation of Isaiah 14 where Helel was a Babylonian / Canaanite god who was the son of another Babylonian / Canaanite god named Shahar. An early Christian translator used the Latin word lucifer as a translation for Helel (both have the same meaning of "morning star." So Lucifer as a name for a devil came about as a result of a translation of a word being used by later people as a proper name.

Helel was the god of the morning star and his father was Shahar, god of the dawn. So Isaiah is saying that with the fall of the King of Babylon so falls his false gods Helel and Shahar. Ergo Lucifer is not a name of Samael. Samael cannot always be simply identified with Satan, because some translations of the Book of Enoch confirm Satan's angelic name to be Satanail.

The etymology of Samael is "Venom of God," as he is sometimes identified with the Angel of death. But the name could also be derived from that of the Syrian god Shemal.

Literature and print

• Samiel, or The Black Huntsman, is the demonic antagonist in the Weber opera Der Freischütz
• The Italian comic writer, Hugo Pratt, uses Samael in a few of his stories: 'Corto Maltese; Romeo and Julliet' (Shamaël) and 'West of Eden' (Samaël)
• Samael is the occluded deity who imposed chaos — disorder — onto Horselover Fat's life in the novel Valis, by Philip K. Dick
• Samael is a name used by Lucifer before The Fall of Man in the Sandman comic book series written by Neil Gaiman
• In Mike Carey's comic series Lucifer, Samael is the name of Lucifer before he left heaven.
• Sammael, one of the Forsaken in the The Wheel of Time series of novels.

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Lucifer (DC Comics)

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Lucifer

Lucifer #16

Publisher DC Comics First appearance (dream) Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen #65 (December 1962), (historical): DC Special Series #8 (February 1978), (modern) The Sandman #4 (April 1989) Created by Neil Gaiman, Sam Kieth, and Mike Dringenberg

Characteristics Alter ego Samael Affiliations None Previous affiliations The Host, the Triumvirate of Hell Notable aliases Lucifer Morningstar, Lightbringer, Atse'Hashke, the Maker Notable powers nigh-omnipotence, infinite will

Lucifer is a comic book published by Vertigo, an imprint of DC Comics.

Date: 2015-12-17; view: 953