Satan 1:3

 

As man’s search for civilization and God progressed I became aware of the folly that is free will. By allowing man to bathe in this great gift, God also provided him with the cloth to dry himself.  When man’s skin became pruned with excess he had a foil to turn to.  A scapegoat to explain away his gluttony and greed.  Why did man partake of the apple and kill his brother? 

The Devil.  Satan. 

How easy it was.  To turn woeful eyes towards the clouds and weep for forgiveness.  It was not his fault that the blood of children stained the streets.  It was the fault of the serpent.  Man’s immorality had a source if not a face.  

In hearing these stories and feeling the weight with which they were thrown, I shuddered in horror.  These were the creatures I envied.  These were the divine creations I had once marveled at.  These selfish, immoral, and hypocritical beasts that worshipped God as they wielded swords in His name.  They feared His wrath so they attributed their actions to me.

Me. 

I stood on a mountain and watched as a man feverishly built an ark because he feared the wrath of a vengeful God.  For all who would listen this man spoke of God. This God was going to purge the earth of man’s sins.  And in the shadow of this vessel men gathered.  They ridiculed its builder and the stories of a flood that never came. 

The ark stands their still.  Its builder had been right.  There was a terrible flood threatening to cover the earth. 

Evil.

Satan 1:2

 

I watched men perish.  And as family and friends wept at the grave of a fallen loved one I stood beside them.  To learn and to listen.  I heard stories, passed down orally through the generations of God and His adversary.  I came to understand that when Man spoke of God he spoke of our Creator.  The Grand Designer.  Creator of the heavens and the earth.  And in the clouds God reigned, looked down upon His creation, and passed judgement.  This God was a wicked God and one who did not tolerate disobedience among His creations.  And the grand example, as was told, was the Adversary.

And who was this Adversary that man spoke of?  

This Adversary was me.  I was the serpent who apparently served as the example to all that the greatest of man’s sins was pride. It was pride that drove the serpent to tempt Eve with an apple.  My Eve.  Passed down through the generations this story took on a life of its own.  In Man’s mind, Adam and Eve were the first and from them were borne all.  They were the conduit by which God populated the earth.  Eve from Adam’s rib and from them Mankind.  Man did not know that Eve was the more powerful of the two or that eons of development took place before Eden was seeded.  

Man also spoke of life after death.  Of this I had no evidence.  I had watched beasts perish for centuries.  I had never seen the remnant of a perished being.  If this was possible I knew not. But Man knew of God and this surprised me.  Man’s version of the Creator was flawed and grew more flawed as time, and generations, passed.  But the concept was there.

I spoke to no one.  I walked among God’s favored one’s and grew bitter.  He had somehow revealed Himself to them and in the process I had become the villain.  A devourer of Man and Man’s souls.  All ills were attributed to the Adversary.  He who had fallen from grace and the right hand of God.  I began to believe that Man knew something more than what I saw on the surface.  That some great truth had been revealed to them as I withered in the darkness and was eventually imprisoned in this form.

The Devil was the creation of Man.  As the Devil became linked to the serpent of Eden thus did I.  I was the fallen one Man spoke of.  I was the Tempter, the Adversary, the Bright Star, poor Lucifer.

Man wove the thread of the robe that adorned the Devil’s back and I put it on.

Satan 1:1

 

Satan.  That is the name Man, in his infinite wisdom and foolishness, has given to me.  Does it sadden me?  Yes.  Not the name in itself for it is simply a word as is any other.  Yet this word has meaning when spoken.  It is Man’s word for evil.  It is what I am attributed to have brought to His world.  My contribution to His creation.  And for my actions in Eden I am damned.

Was this true?  For years I contemplated this question.  Not the question of evil for I know Man to be the perpetrator alone.  Men need not the help of another to bring about evil.  The question of truth I sought concerned my damnation.  The facts are true.  I loved this world, His creation.  I further found comfort, solace, and joy in Eden.  And in Eve I found something even greater.  For that I was thrust into this mortal shell that has no end.  

Am I then immortal?  Is this my punishment? Is this world my prison?  

As I grew bolder I allowed myself to walk among men.  I was awkward and noticeable but not in the sense of who I was.  To others I was a simpleton.  One to be pitied.  And when a fist was raised in my direction for some unknown social folly I had committed I cowered.  I felt pain, yes.  But my mortality would not end with it.  Not as did the mortality of man.

Where did man go when he died?  This question had never entered my thoughts before.  I watched His creatures flourish and then perish.  More creatures took their places, evolved, and died out to make way for the next.  Man had evolved in this way.  Why did there have to be something after death?

To Man there had to be more.  It was not acceptable for Man to feel that after their mortality had ended there was nothing.  They looked to their Creator for answers.  Some claimed to have the answers.  This interested me as did nothing else.  What was it they claimed to know?  What knowledge had they been granted in their short time upon this world that I was not conscious of?

I sought to find the answers. The more I was shunned the more I learned about Man and his own tragic views on why he was and how he fit in with God’s design.

Cruciatus 1:4

 

With each village, town, and city I passed through I learned more about what had become of Eve and of Adam.  I learned of their offspring.  I heard amazing tales of events that had occurred long ago in the minds of Man but seemed as only yesterday to me.  Twisted tales that had taken on new shapes with each telling.  I learned of Eden, of an apple, and of a snake.  I learned of evil and of temptation.  I learned of the Original Sin.

Evil?  

Man looked to the heavens and attributed all that was to the Creator.  Our Creator.  How could they know of Him.  When had the beasts of His world discovered from whence they came?  I made it my goal to learn all that Man had learned.  To know all that he knew of his past. I knew most of the truth yet I knew none of it.  I knew not why I was or why I had been damned.  If God no longer watched over His children then why had my actions condemned me? And what of this evil that men spoke of?  Was there an origin?

As much as I resembled man in my appearance I was not his brother.  I did not age nor did I feel pain in the mortal sense that man felt pain. My flesh knew pain yet it could not vanquish me.  I could not perish as did God’s “favored” creations.  Yes.  I saw them as “favored” for it was by interfering in His design that I was punished.  They were the favored ones.  I did not require food nor drink although I could partake of both. I understood man’s languages after hearing but a few words.   As I was there existed no other.  None that I knew of.  The world I had loved was to be my prison and I its sole prisoner.

And Man had a name for me.  Many names. In my search for the origin of Evil I need not look any further than where I stood.

13 Then the LORD God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?” 

       The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.” 

GENESIS

Cruciatus 1:3