Comments on: Calling Satan, "the enemy."

By: Daniel Djadan

Daniel Djadan — Wed, 27 Jul 2011 23:46:00 +0000

In Tolkien’s books The Dark Lord is oft referred to as the Enemy. Perhaps that’s the origin of this Satan’s appellation.

By: Kristin Jones

Kristin Jones — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 14:56:00 +0000

teehee. We call him ‘the adversary.’ When the bible uses the term ‘Satan’ I was taught that this refers to him in the indirect sense, like as in the realms or machinery of…; as opposed to The Devil which refers to Lucifer himself. So I’m not sure why we need an even more indirect and less scary way to refer to the enemy!

By: Alvin Hord

Alvin Hord — Tue, 12 Apr 2011 00:21:07 +0000

Well did anyone ever think that not everyone is a Christian? Maybe that would be one of the reasons why we say enemy and not a make believe evil charactor.

By: Crimian

Crimian — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 15:35:42 +0000

"Satan" has been used as a proper noun in English (I'm not entirely sure whether this came from translation convention or common usage, originally.), but this is not necessarily the case in the original languages of the Bible. The Hebrew word (שָׂטָן) comes from a root that means to attack or accuse and means little more than "adversary" in and of itself; it is often used with "ha" (הַ) preceding it, making the full construction "ha-satan" (הַשָׂטָן) or "the adversary" i.e. "the enemy". In fact, the word is used to denote both heavenly and earthly enemies, even when the enemy is, in fact, good (e.g. the "angel of YHWH" in the story of Balaam). I don't believe that this is the case in the Greek as, logically, Greek words would have been used, rather than loan words, to denote enemies that lacked religious significance, although I could very well be mistaken.

With that said, I tend to use "the enemy" more than anything in writing and speech. This comes from a combination of habit and the fact that I'm typically referring to all of the hellish hosts collectively rather than a specific demon; how often is Satan personally oppressing a specific person? As you see, I have no problem with using "Satan" as a proper noun as a standard of reference, but not doing so is far from an aberration.

As for "mangling the language": I would agree that putting "satan" in lowercase when using it as a proper noun is a little odd and grammatically incorrect, but isn't this also the case with the unnecessary capitalization of any common noun, pronoun, etc. that is attributed to God? (I'm not saying that you do this; just throwing out that observation.)

If any of this came off as condescending or nitpicky, I'm sorry. I'm a language fanatic who is majoring in religious studies, so I tend to go overboard when the two subjects intertwine.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Sun, 13 Jun 2010 07:14:50 +0000

and Santa.

By: thoughtriver

thoughtriver — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 19:54:19 +0000

this made me laugh too, everyone I know calls the devil "the enemy". I know I have before.

By: Josh

Josh — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 15:55:33 +0000

satan was called 'the adversary/enemy" in the greek, so as Butch says, its actually the correct way to address his name

By: kristiB

kristiB — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 05:17:30 +0000

This happens to me all the time. Next time you take communion, listen to how many people cough after taking the grape juice. Its hard to stand in reverence when laughter is about to explode.

By: gabrielle eden

gabrielle eden — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 17:11:49 +0000

One thing we should never do is underestimate our enemy's power or be cavalier about our ability to conquer him. Michael the angel just said, "the Lord rebuke you" and didn't want to attack Lucifer himself. I would not be so cavalier, lest you find yourself eating your words later on.

He was considered the smartest, the most talented of angels, before he turned evil and was cast out. Know your enemy.

By: oldefashionedgirl

oldefashionedgirl — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 08:04:36 +0000

In the olden days, people thought that you would attract Satan's notice if you said the name. Thus, a myriad of nicknames, like Old Nick, the black gentleman, etc.