Praying for Satan

"But who prays for Satan? Who in eighteen centuries, has had the common humanity to pray for the one sinner that needed it most, our one fellow and brother who most needed a friend yet had not a single one, the one sinner among us all who had the highest and clearest right to every Christian's daily and nightly prayers, for the plain and unassailable reason that his was the first and greatest need, he being among sinners the supremest?"  -Mark Twain

I think it is an excellent and thought provoking point. But before we (being I in the Royal Plural) jump headlong into the fray, let us clarify a few points:
  1. Satan is not an entity. It is a title. More correctly, it is ha-Satan, or "opposer, accuser, or adversary" in Hebrew. You will find in the Scriptures that this is on office in the celestial hierarchy (Divine Council) (See Job 1).
  2. The fallen angel that see seem to be referring to here is commonly known as Satan, the Devil, or Lucifer. None of these are quite correct. As previously mentioned, Satan, or ha-Satan is an office of state. The word Devil comes from the Greek "diabolos, which means "slanderer" or "accuser." Lucifer is 4th century Vulgate Latin for "shining one" or "morning star." It has a long and rather complicated etymology, but ultimately stems from a reference made in the scriptures of Judaic Enochian mythology. The bottom line here is that neither Judaic not Christian Scripture actually NAME the First of the Fallen, so we are forced to rely on the extrapolative interpretation of pre-Christian and early Christian writers. For the Sake of argument though, we will call our antagonist, Satan, as it fits in with our original missive.

So what we have here is an Angel. An Archangel. Perhaps God's first and most powerful angel. An Archangel who strays from its purpose and aspires to power. Aspires to the Throne of God. War breaks out in Heaven, and ultimately Satan and His followers (1/3rd of the Angelic Host) are defeated and cast out of Heaven, and into the outer darkness. Into the Chaos. Later, we will call this Gehenna, then even later, Hell. So, if you properly understand your scriptures, then you will understand that Hell is not a place, but a state of being. The state of being in separation from God. So here we have Satan, cast out of Heaven, and therefore separated from God, therefore in...Hell. And I rather suspect that he is pissed. And being an angel, an immortal creation, time and space have no real significance to him, so he will stay pissed for a very long time. So who is he going to take it out on? Us humans. God's most loved creation. Raised in status above all of the Angels of Heaven. He is going to continue to fulfill his role as "The Adversary", only now he is going to do it on his own terms. (This metaphore is best saved for another discussion).

So, before I get too far afield... Should we pray for Satan? Would we be praying for the redemption of what we believe to be an entity, the ultimate embodiment of evil, here on Earth to corrupt the hearts and souls of man? Or would we be praying for a Fallen Angel, a lost sheep, one who is blinded by his misguided anger, so that he might once again see the light and the love of God, and want to go home? Or would we be praying for an idea? The idea of the redemption of everything on Earth that stands between the Human Spirit and the perfect reunification with God?  Can you forgive Satan enough to pray for him?  I don't know if praying for Satan can help. But I do know that it cannot hurt. I know that I will.