![At 3-33 on 9th oct, some children Playing inside Aayin Camp Benue [Photo Credit Popoola Ademola Premium Timesv]](https://i0.wp.com/media.premiumtimesng.com/wp-content/files/2026/03/WhatsApp-Image-2026-03-07-at-05.54.10.jpeg?resize=360%2C180&ssl=1)
Èṣù is not Satan and has never been. There are many other imputations that have been baselessly put on Èṣù as well as the other Yorùbá Òrìṣà. Not only is Èṣù not Satan, Èṣù is also not a god in the mould of European gods and goddesses, not in the least a “trickster god” like Loki, the mischief maker of the Norse mythology. Based solely on Yorùbá thought, as expressed in available orature, Òrìṣà are neither gods, divinities nor deities of any sort. They are simply Òrìṣà and no more.
I was recently invited to a forum with the theme “Èṣù is not Satan.” My immediate reaction was that the question, “Who is Èṣù?” is much better grounded than the proposition, “Èṣù is not Satan,” and I expressed this sentiment to the organisers. It was quite gratifying to note that the question, “Who is Èṣù?” featured prominently in the day’s discussions. My preference for the question, “Who is Èṣù” over the proposition, “Èṣù is not Satan,” is based on the open-endedness of the later. Having demonstrated that “Èṣù is not Satan”, what next? However, being a Christian, an active Christian apologist for that matter, and knowing very well that we, Yorùbá Christians, are not totally guiltless of suggesting and reinforcing the view that Èṣù is connected to Satan, I think I owe it a duty, both to my Christian faith and my Yorùbá heritage, to carefully consider the proposition, “Èṣù is not Satan.”
|
|
It suffices at this point, to say that Èṣù is a Yorùbá Òrìṣà. Òrìṣà is a key concept in Yorùbá indigenous knowledge. Òrìṣà manifest as archetypal phenomena, around which knowledge of both the material and non-material elements of the Yorùbá environment is built. They also form the basis of approved practices and routines by which the Yorùbá seek to live harmoniously with these material and non-material elements of their environment.
As a consequence of colonisation, many Yorùbá now see Òrìṣà as gods, deities or divinities in the mould of European gods and goddesses, accepting sometimes misleading comparisons between Yorùbá Òrìṣà and these European gods and goddesses. In this same manner of error, many Yorùbá, particularly Christians, now misperceive Èṣù as Satan. This misperception is one of the issues that the “Èṣù is not Satan” movement seeks to address. There is little or no controversy about the fact that Èṣù is not Satan. Èṣù emanates from Yorùbá ontology, while Satan is a Judeo-Christian conception. As it is with many conceptual constructions, there are seeming feature overlaps, but in essence, Èṣù is certainly not Satan.
|
|
|---|
Like most contemporary Yorùbá, I had learnt to associate Èṣù with unmitigated evil while growing up. However, I was constrained to engaged the disparity between Èṣù as an Òrìṣà, as distinct from evil, for the first time, while working on a video documentary in 1997. Distinguished playwright and stage director, Ben Tomoloju was commissioned to write and produce the masterpiece theatrical work, Askari: A Vote for Tolerance. This was in a remarkably proactive effort of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the Nigerian Red Cross Society. By this effort, they sought to pre-empt and prevent a possible outbreak of cascading violence in Nigeria. Uncontrollable violence was anticipated as a result of the determined and growing resistance mounted by the civil society and the generality of the Nigerian public against the draconian regime of Sani Abacha. Nigerians were demanding the restoration of Abiola’s stolen presidential mandate, which Abacha was resisting with peculiar violence.
In the stage presentations of Askari to audiences in South Western Nigeria, griot extraordinaire, Mr Sulaiman Aremu Ayilara (AKA Ajobiewe) provided extemporaneous poetic verses in support of various scenes. In a number of the scenes, the then prevailing atmosphere of a foreboding of anticipated violence in Nigeria was attributed to evil, which the average Yorùbá may interpret as “iṣẹ́ Èṣù”; the handiwork of Satan. Ajobiewe’s poetic effusion was captivating as usual.
We recorded the readings, rehearsals and other pre-performance activities, as well as the performances, the discussions and comments of the audiences at various venues around the country. Then, we settled down to watch the video rushes and write the script for the documentary. As we went over and over the video rushes, the distinction between the Judeo-Christian notion of evil and Èṣù kept playing out on my mind each time there was a snide reference to Èṣù. This was the beginning of my study of Èṣù as a Yorùbá Òrìṣà, as distinct from the connotations of evil the word had acquired. I have learnt a lot during these 27 years of private but formal study and I am still learning. Whilst I continue to learn, I have come to the conclusion that the disparity between the Judeo-Christian notion of evil as epitomised in Satan on the one hand and Èṣù, the complex Yorùbá notion of non-determinism on the other hand, is not in doubt.
Surprisingly, probably the most important evidence that Èṣù is not Satan is to be found in Bibeli Mimo, the Yorùbá translation of the Holy Bible. Bishop Samuel Ajayi-Crowther was an outstanding Yorùbá patriot and an accomplished public intellectual. This is eloquently attested to by Professor Jacob Ade Ajayi, foremost scholar of West African, as well as Yorùbá Church history, and Professor Femi Osofisan, a writer of no mean repute, distinguished theatre teacher and scholar.
But how did this connection between Èṣù and Satan come about? There have been many suggestions, some plausible and some laughable. The most laughable is that Bishop Ajayi-Crowther, the main first-language speaker of Yorùbá, who was involved in the translation of the English Bible to the Yorùbá language, intentionally chose to misrepresent Èṣù in retaliation for his being sold into slavery. All I can say to that insinuation is that a people who turn their heroes into villains, for whatever reasons, need to be pitied.
Surprisingly, probably the most important evidence that Èṣù is not Satan is to be found in Bibeli Mimo, the Yorùbá translation of the Holy Bible. Bishop Samuel Ajayi-Crowther was an outstanding Yorùbá patriot and an accomplished public intellectual. This is eloquently attested to by Professor Jacob Ade Ajayi, foremost scholar of West African, as well as Yorùbá Church history, and Professor Femi Osofisan, a writer of no mean repute, distinguished theatre teacher and scholar. Many non-Yoruba scholars too have written on Crowther, paying glowing tributes to his intellection and pastoral maturity. Building on their testimonies on Crowther’s patriotism and erudition, I offer the following findings from my 27 years of study of Satan, Èṣù and Bibeli Mimo, the Yorùbá translation of the Holy Bible.
In the King James version of the Holy Bible, there are 56 references to Satan. The first occurrence is in 1 Chronicles, Chapter 21, Verse 1. In English, it reads: “And Satan stood up against Israel …”. It was translated to Yorùbá as “SATANI si duro ti Israeli …”. The second occurrence is in Job Chapter 1, verse 6 and it reads in English as, “Now, there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan came also among them.” It was translated to Yorùbá as, “Njẹ́, ó di ọjọ́ kan, nigbati awọn ọmọ Ọlọ́run wá ipé niwaju Oluwa, Satani si wá pelu wọn.” The third occurrence, all the way to the 16th occurrence are also in various verses of Job. In all of these verses, Satan was translated as Satani. The last (i.e., the 56th) occurrence of Satan in the Bible is found in Revelations Chapter 20, Verse 7, which in English is, “Satan shall be loosed out of his prison”, and in Yorùbá, it was translated as “a о si tú Satani sile lati inu tubu re wá.”
In summary, of the 56 references to Satan in the English Bible, 55 of them were translated as Satani. The only occurrence in which Satan was not translated as Satani is found in Psalm 109 verse 6, where it was translated as “Olufisun” (accuser), apparently, for reasons of necessary contextualisation. I am yet to find any occurrence in any of the versions of the Yorùbá Bible that I possess and read regularly, where Satan was translated to Yorùbá as Èṣù. These include Bibeli Mimo, published by the British and Foreign Bible Society in 1900, Bibeli Iroyin Ayo (Good News Bible) published in 2005, as well as the Diglot Bible (Bibeli Elédèméjì) published in 2014, both of them by the Bible Society of Nigeria. This demonstrate that at no time between 1900 and the present time did anybody deliberately mistranslate Satan as Èṣù in the Yorùbá Bible. Another phenomenon of Judeo-Christian ontology that the Yorùbá culture does not recognise is Lucifer. Lucifer appears in the Bible in Isaiah 14 verse 12 and was translated as Lusiferi in the Yorùbá versions of the Bible.
This is not to say though, that the word Èṣù does not appear in the Yorùbá Bible. The point is that it was never used as the Yorùbá translation for Satan. Crowther’s challenge in translating concepts unfamiliar to Yorùbá culture from Judeo-Christian, as well as European cultures, is very well appreciated. I was privileged to have moderated the process of localising Microsoft Windows and Office Suite for Hausa, Igbo and Yorùbá cultures between 2012 and 2016. This experience offered me the grace of empathy for Crowther and his team in the onerous task of translating the Bible to Yorùbá.
Colonisation is a blight. There are many other inconsistent ideas we seem to have adapted into Yorùbá ontology over time, consequent on our colonial past and our neo-colonial present. It is helpful that we are trying to make amends. We are better off, making these amends now. If we do not, circumstances will, sooner or later, because truth will, one day, catch up with falsehood, even with a twenty-year head start; “kí irọ́ máa lọ lógún ọdún, òótọ́ yíó le bá ní ijọ̀ọ́ kan.”
The deep thought that went into formulating such words as arákùnrin and arábìnrin to satisfy the need to distinguish male and female members of the Christian fellowship, in a culture that chooses not to be distracted with gender must be acknowledged. It offered the late Governor of Ondo State, Oluwarotimi Akeredolu a worthy sobriquet, “Arákùnrin.” Expressing such concepts as “belief” and “faith” in the word “ìgbàgbọ́” (ìgba ìgbọ́, the acceptance of what you are told) is also testimony to deep thought. Realising that the Yorùbá indigenous concept of “orò” is different from “religion” as expressed in Christianity, and therefore deriving “ìsìn” for worship and “ẹ̀sìn” for religion is not only testimony to the rich morphology of the Yorùbá language, but also to the ingenuity of the translators, with Crowther at the helm.
When the translators got to the end of their tether and found no meaningful Yorùbá word to express ‘myrrh’, the third gift offered to Jesus by “wise men from the East”, it seems they “manufactured” the word “òjíá or òjìá”. After decades of deliberate consultation with Yorùbá elders and culture gatekeepers, it now appears that the word was never part of the Yorùbá vocabulary in pre-Christian times. I am yet to find a meaning for the word. Any enlightening information on the word from readers of this article will be most appreciated.
The above challenges are similar to the ones my team faced in localising computer operating systems and software tools from the Microsoft stable. I salute the translators of the Bible, with a depth of empathy. Crowther’s struggles in communicating the Judeo-Christian ideas behind “Satan”, “Lucifer” and “the devil” should be palpable to any close reader of the Yorùbá Bible. The lexico-semantic contortions he frequently deployed to address conceptual lacunae speak volumes about the challenges he and his team faced. He solved the problem posed by the ideas behind Satan and Lucifer, easily, by loaning Satani and Lusiferi. For “the devil” however, he seemed to have faced a major challenge. Had he chosen again to rely on loaning in this case, would it have been “dẹ́fù”, “dẹ́fùlù” or even “dẹ́fù/dẹ́fùlù náà”? Devil, not being a proper name, unlike Satan and Lucifer, he had to use various words, depending on the context in which the idea occurred in the English Bible. Some of his translations for “the devil” include “òbúkọ” (he goat), “iwin burúkú” (negative spirit), Òrìṣà and Ẹ̀mí Èṣù. Crowther’s general attitude to translating the Yorùbá Bible as observed from his choice of words should leave no one in doubt that he never saw Èṣù as Satan. This must be taken as a major boost to the “Èṣù is not Satan” campaign.
Èṣù is not Satan and has never been. There are many other imputations that have been baselessly put on Èṣù as well as the other Yorùbá Òrìṣà. Not only is Èṣù not Satan, Èṣù is also not a god in the mould of European gods and goddesses, not in the least a “trickster god” like Loki, the mischief maker of the Norse mythology. Based solely on Yorùbá thought, as expressed in available orature, Òrìṣà are neither gods, divinities nor deities of any sort. They are simply Òrìṣà and no more. Even if we have lost the etymology of the word Òrìṣà to orature, it is till to Yorùbá orature we have to resort for a reconstruction of its meaning. The valuable details of what we know of the various Òrìṣà, based on the oratural verses by which they are described should be sufficient. We do ourselves no favour by looking at them through European prisms and referring to them as gods, neither with lower case “g” nor upper case “G”.
Colonisation is a blight. There are many other inconsistent ideas we seem to have adapted into Yorùbá ontology over time, consequent on our colonial past and our neo-colonial present. It is helpful that we are trying to make amends. We are better off, making these amends now. If we do not, circumstances will, sooner or later, because truth will, one day, catch up with falsehood, even with a twenty-year head start; “kí irọ́ máa lọ lógún ọdún, òótọ́ yíó le bá ní ijọ̀ọ́ kan.”
So, having now established that Èṣù is not Satan, what next? Who or what is Èṣù?
Tunde Adegbola, a language technologist, culture activist and director of Alt-i (African Languages Technology Initiative) wrote from Ibadan.
