The Adversary Who Acts by Permission

Mastema is an important figure for understanding how ancient Judaism handled the problem of evil, because he occupies a middle position between an independent devil and an agent of God. He is the chief of the hostile spirits in the Book of Jubilees, a second-century BCE retelling of Genesis and Exodus; his name means "hostility" or "enmity." What is theologically striking is that Mastema does his work only by God's permission.

When, in Jubilees, God moves to destroy all the demons after the Flood, Mastema petitions that a tenth be left to him to carry out the testing and punishment of humankind, and God grants it. It is Mastema, not God, who prompts the testing of Abraham (taking over the role Genesis assigns to God), and Mastema who assists the Egyptian magicians against Moses. He thus functions as an "adversary" (the literal meaning of satan) who is nevertheless within the divine order, permitted to tempt and afflict as an instrument of God's purposes. The figure marks a stage in the development from the ambiguous "satan" of the Book of Job, a member of the heavenly court, toward the fully independent Devil of later tradition.