“The first inquiry is whether the term Devil, as here used, actually represents the malignant Deity of the Christians, or an antagonistic, blind force, the dark side of nature. By the latter we are not to understand the manifestation of any evil principle that is malum in se, but only the shadow of the Light, so to say. The theories of the kabalists treat of it as a force which is antagonistic, but at the same time essential to the vitality, evolving, and vigor of the good principle.
Plants would perish in their first stage of existence, if they were kept exposed to a constant sunlight; the night alternating with the day is essential to their healthy growth and development. Goodness, likewise, would speedily cease to be such, were it not alternated by its opposite. In human nature, evil denotes the antagonism of matter to the spiritual, and each is accordingly purified thereby. In the cosmos, the equilibrium must be preserved; the operation of the two contraries produce harmony, like the centripetal and centrifugal forces, and are necessary to each other. If one is arrested, the action of the other will immediately become destructive.
This personification, denominated Satan, is to be contemplated from three different planes: the Old Testament, the Christian Fathers, and the ancient Gentile altitude. He is supposed to have been represented by the Serpent in the Garden of Eden; nevertheless, the epithet of Satan is nowhere in the Hebrew sacred writings applied to that or any other variety of ophidian. The Brazen Serpent of Moses was worshipped by the Israelites as a god; being the symbol of Esmun-Asklepius the Phoenician Iao. Indeed, the character of Satan himself is introduced in the 1st book of Chronicles in the act of instigating King David to number the Israelitish people, an act elsewhere declared specifically to have been moved by Jehovah himself. The inference is unavoidable that the two, Satan and Jehovah, were regarded as identical.
Another mention of Satan is found in the prophecies of Zechariah. This book was written at a period subsequent to the Jewish colonization of Palestine, and hence the Asideans may fairly be supposed to have brought the personification thither from the East. It is well-known that this body of sectaries were deeply imbued with the Mazdean notions; and that they represented Ahriman or Anra-manyas by the god-names of Syria. Set or Sat-an, the god of the Hittites and Hyk-sos, and Beel-Zebub the oracle-god, afterward the Grecian Apollo.
The prophet began his labors in Judea in the second year of Darius Hystaspes, the restorer of the Mazdean worship. He thus describes the encounter with Satan”: “He showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the Lord, and Satan standing at his right hand to be his adversary. And the Lord said unto Satan, ‘The Lord rebuke thee, O Satan; even the Lord that hath chosen Jerusalem rebuke thee; is not this a brand plucked out of the fire?” We apprehend that this passage which we have quoted is symbolical. There are two allusions in the New Testament that indicate that it was so regarded. The Catholic Epistle of Jude refers to it in this peculiar language: “Yet Michael the archangel, when contending with the Devil, he disputed about the body of Moses, did not venture to utter to him a reviling judgment, but said, ‘The Lord rebuke thee.’”
The archangel Michael is thus mentioned as identical with the Lord, or angel of the Lord, of the preceding quotation, and thus is shown that the Hebrew Jehovah had a twofold character, the secret and that manifested as the angel of the Lord, or Michael the archangel. A comparison between these two passages renders it plain that “the body of Moses” over which they contended was Palestine, which as “the land of the Hittites”, was the peculiar domain of Seth, their tutelar god. Michael, as the champion of the Jehovah-worship, contended with the Devil or Adversary, but left judgment to his superior.
Belial is not entitled to the distinction of either god or devil. The term BELIAL is defined in the Hebrew lexicons to mean a destroying, waste, uselessness; or the phrase Belial-man signifies a wasteful, useless man. If Belial must be personified to please our religious friends, we would be obliged to make him perfectly distinct from Satan, and to consider him as a sort of spiritual “Diakka”. The demonographers, however, who enumerate nine distinct orders of daimonia, make him chief of the third class, a set of hobglobins, mischievous, and good-for-nothing.
Asmodeus is no Jewish spirit at all, his origin being purely Persian. Breal, the author of Hercule et Cacus, shows that he is the Parsi Eshem-Dev, or Aeshma-dev, the evil spirit of Concupiscence, whom Max Muller tells us “is mentioned several times in the Avesta as one of the Devs, originally gods, who became evil spirits.” Samael, is Satan, but Bryan and a good many other authorities show it to be the name of the “Simoun” – the wind of the desert, and the Simoun is called Atabulos or Diabolos.”
H. P. Blavatsky
The Mark Of God: Understanding Your "I AM Presence" 