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238 Sammael
the slaying and dismembering of Osiris, who is
brought back to life by his wife Isis to become the
god and who, by overcoming death, saves
humankind from its consequences.
Salvation can be achieved in different ways in
different religious traditions. Typically, in the religious
traditions based on the worship of or devotion
to the founder, this figure is taken as the
exemplum to imitate, and the founder’s religious
doctrine is considered to delineate the path that
insures salvation (e.g., Christ and Buddha).
Devotion to saints and other religious guides
(such as shamans) also leads to the path of salvation.
Salvation also becomes possible through
certain rituals, as in the Christian sacrament of
baptism, which initiates the adept into the
Christian faith. Faith and grace as well insure
salvation, but human cooperation is always necessary
for the achievement of salvation (the
Christian divine grace calls for faith, Buddhist
enlightenment requires the state of emptiness, and
the prerequisite of Taoist enlightenment is the
achievement of the harmony of the opposites—
the coincidentia oppositorum). However, in other
religions salvation can be achieved through the
exercise of personal responsibility—with good
deeds, as in the Protestant ethic and in Ramanuja’s
theism, following an ethically and morally
oriented behavior.
In nonmonotheistic religions, such as in
Hinduism, salvation is perceived as a state of
mind—conceived of, depending on the system, as
liberation from pain into a state of unconsciousness,
or as a blissful state of enlightenment. This is
achieved conceptually as liberation from ignorance,
obtained through spiritual body and mind
practices, or exhaustion of the human condition.
In some religious traditions the soul, before
reaching the ultimate blissful state, spends time in
one of many intermediate levels of heavens, hells,
and/or purgatories before achieving salvation. The
Christian purgatory (from Latin purgare, to
cleanse, from purus, pure) is the temporary status
in which the soul repents and atones before reaching
paradise. In the Eastern traditions the soul
participates in the cycle of reincarnation until the
true state of enlightenment is achieved that will
end karmic rebirths.
See also Hell and Heaven; Hinduism; Islam
For Further Reading:
Eliade, Mircea, ed. Encyclopedia of Religion. New
York: Macmillan, 1987.
MacGregor, Geddes. Images of Afterlife: Beliefs from
Antiquity to Modern Times. New York: Paragon,
1992.
Obayashi, Hiroshi, ed. Death and Afterlife:
Perspectives of World Religions. Westport, CT:
Greenwood Press, 1992.
Zimmer, Heinrich. Philosophies of India. New York:
Bollingen, 1951.
Sammael
A combination of sam (poison) and el (angel),
Sammael has been considered both as evil and
good; as the chief ruler of the Fifth Heaven, as “that
great serpent with 12 wings that draws after him, in
his fall, the solar system” (Rev. 12), as well as the
angel of death, whom God sent to fetch the soul of
Moses at the time of his death. Sammael is
regarded in rabbinic literature as chief of the satans
and as the angel of death. In the Secrets of Enoch he
represents the prince of demons and a magician.
Sammael is mentioned in a number of sources,
such as Talmud Yalkut, where he represents Esau’s
guardian angel, and in Sotah, where he is regarded
as Edom’s angelic prince guardian. He is equated
with the serpent who tempted Eve and, by seducing
her, became the father of Cain in the Sayings of
Rabbi Eliezer. In the Zohar he is the dark angel
who wrestled with Jacob at Peniel.
Sammael is also cited in Waite’s The Holy
Kabbalah, as the “severity of God,” and as fifth of
the archangels of the world of Briah, where he
corresponds to the sefira Geburah. In Baruch III
and in The Ascension of Isaiah, Sammael and
Satan are used interchangeably. Sammael also has
a literary presence, as in Longfellow’s lengthy
poem The Golden Legend, where he is mentioned
as the angel of death.
See also Demons; Fallen Angels; Satan
For Further Reading:
Davidson, Gustav. A Dictionary of Angels Including the
Fallen Angels. 1967. New York: Free Press, 1971.
Ronner, John. Know Your Angels: The Angel Almanac
with Biographies of 100 Prominent Angels in
Legend and Folklore, and Much More.
Murfreesboro, TN: Mamre, 1993.