That _the serpent_ in the early part of Genesis denoted the same Satan, is probable enough; but this only goes to show, that that narrative is a legend imported from farther East; since it is certain that the subsequent Hebrew literature has no trace of such an Ahriman.
The Book of Tobit and its demon show how wise in these matters the exiles in Nineveh were beginning to be.

The Book of Daniel manifests, that by the time of Antiochus Epiphanes the Jews had learned each nation to have its guardian spirit, good or evil; and that the fates of nations depend on the invisible conflict of these tutelary powers.
In Paul the same idea is strongly brought out.

Satan is the prince of the power of the air; with principalities and powers beneath him; over all of whom Christ won the victory on his cross.

In the Apocalypse we read the Oriental doctrine of the "_seven angels_ who stand before God." As the Christian tenet thus rose among the Jews from their contact with Eastern superstition, and was propagated and expanded while prophecy was mute, it cannot be ascribed to "divine supernatural revelation" as the source.

The ground of it is dearly seen in infant speculations on the cause of moral evil and of national calamities.
Thus Christ and the Devil, the two poles of Christendom, had faded away out of my spiritual vision; there were left the more vividly, God and Man.