Lucifer (Cathedral St. Paul Liege, Belgium)

Lucifer, Gustave Doré's illustration for Paradise Lost by John Milton.

Lucifer is a Latin word meaning "light bearer" (from lux, lucis, "light", and ferre, "to bear, bring"), a Roman astrological term for the "Morning Star" the planet Venus.^[1] The word Lucifer was the translation of the Septuagint Greek heosphoros, ("dawn-bearer"; cf. Greek phosphoros, "light-bearer"; itself the translation of the Hebrew Helel ben Shahar,^[2] Son of Dawn), used by Jerome in the Vulgate, having mythologically the same meaning as Prometheus who brought fire to humanity.

Passage 14:12 from the Book of Isaiah (see below) referred to one of the popular honorific titles of a Babylonian king; however, later interpretations of the text, and the influence of embellishments in works such as Dante's Inferno and Milton's Paradise Lost, led to the common interpretation in Christian belief that Lucifer was a poetic appellation of Satan.

Modern and late Medieval Christian thought derived from this interpretation the idea that Lucifer is a fallen angel who is Satan, the embodiment of evil and an enemy of God. In Christian literature and legend, Lucifer is generally considered to have been a prominent archangel in heaven, although Book of Ezekiel 28:14 says: "You were the anointed cherub who covers, And I placed you there." In the fully-developed theme of "The War of Heaven", Lucifer had been motivated by pride to lead a revolution against God. When the rebellion failed, Lucifer was cast out of heaven, along with a third of the heavenly host, and came to reside in the world.

Roman poetic appellation

A 2nd-century sculpture of the moon goddess Selene accompanied by Hesperus and Phosphorus: the morning star was later Latinized as "Lucifer" Lucifer is also a character in Islam which too has quite a similar explanation about him.

Lucifer is a poetic name for the "morning star", a close translation of the Greek eosphoros, the "dawn-bringer" (son of Eos, "dawn"), which appears in the Odyssey and in Hesiod's Theogony. Venus is characterized as the morning star because it rises on the early morning horizon before the sunrise. This very fact led the ancients to give it the name lucifer, as it announced the coming of the morning light.

A classic Roman use of "Lucifer" appears in Virgil's Georgics (III, 324-5):

Luciferi primo cum sidere frigida rura

carpamus, dum mane novum, dum gramina canent"

"Let us hasten, when first the Morning Star appears,

To the cool pastures, while the day is new, while the grass is dewy"

And similarly, in Ovid's Metamorphoses:

"Aurora, watchful in the reddening dawn, threw wide her crimson doors and rose-filled halls; the Stars took flight, in marshaled order set by Lucifer, who left his station last."

Statius expanded this trope into a brief but profuse allegory, though still this is a poetical personification of the Light-Bearer, not a mythology:

"And now Aurora, rising from her Mygdonian resting-place, had scattered the cold shadows from the high heaven, and, shaking the dew-drops from her hair, blushed deep in the sun's pursuing beams; toward her through the clouds, rosy Lucifer turns his late fires, and with slow steed leaves an alien world, until the fiery father's orb be full replenished and he forbid his sister to usurp his rays." (Statius, Thebaid 2.134)

Origins in Isaiah

Statue of one of twelve lucifers at the Holy Trinity Column in Olomouc

In the Vulgate, an early-5th-century translation of the Bible into Latin by Jerome, Lucifer ("light-bearer") occurs in Isaiah 14:12-14 as a translation of the Septuagint Greek word heosphoros ("dawn-bearer"), an epithet of Venus. The original Hebrew text of this verse was הילל בן שחר (heilel ben-shachar), meaning "Helel (bright one, or praising one, son of Shachar (dawn)". Helel, the morning star, was a Babylonian / Canaanite god who was the son of another Babylonian / Canaanite god Shahar, god of the dawn. Isaiah 14:12 is translated "How art thou fallen from heaven, O day-star, son of the morning!" in the American Standard Version translating Hebrew Helel as "day-star" and the Hebrew word ben as "son" and the Hebrew word shahar as "morning." The 1611 King James Version translates it as "Lucifer, son of the morning", carrying over lucifer from the Latin Vulgate, one of the Bibles used by King James' translators.

In Isaiah, this title is specifically used, in a prophetic vision, to allude to the king of Babylon's pride and to illustrate his eventual fate by referencing mythological accounts of the planet Venus:

14:4 You will recite this parable about the king of Babylonia: How has the oppressor come to an end, the arrogance been ended?

14:10 They will all proclaim and say to you, "You also have been stricken as we were; you are compared to us.

14:11 Brought down to the nether-world were your pride and the tumult of your stringed instruments; maggots are spread out under you, and worms are your covers.

14:12 How have you fallen from the heavens, O glowing morning star; been cut down to the ground O conqueror of nations?

(Isaiah, Artscroll Tanakh)

In modern Jewish theology, Helel in Isaiah 14 is not equated with the Jewish concept of HaSatan (the adversary). Instead, the prophet is speaking of the fall of Babylon and along with it the fall of her false gods Helel and Shahar. There is satan which is a Hebrew word meaning "adversary" and in the Tanakh one will find many instances of the word used to describe human and angelic adversaries to man.

Later Jewish tradition, influenced by Babylonian mythology acquired during the Babylonian captivity, elaborated on the fall of the angels under the leadership of Samhazai ("the heaven-seizer") and Azael (Enoch, book vi.6f). Another legend, in the midrash, represents the repentant Samhazai suspended star-like between heaven and earth instead of being hurled down to Sheol.

It is noteworthy that the Tanakh does not at any point actually mention the rebellion and fall of Satan by name. The name Satan itself merely means "enemy", apparently more of a title. A passage in Ezekiel 28 contains a lament over an "anointed cherub" who was in the "holy mountain of God". The passage goes on to describe this being's expulsion from the "mount of God." In the literal sense, this passage refers to the King of Tyre. However, ancient Christian commentators would frequently interpret Scripture allegorically and anagogically, as well as literally, and it was common for them to extend the meaning of this passage beyond the literal sense, and see an allegory of the fall of Satan in it.

The Helel-Lucifer (i.e. Venus) myth was later transferred to Satan, as evidenced by the first-century pseudepigraphical text Vita Adae et Evae (12), where the Adversary gives Adam an account of his early career,^[4] and the Slavonic Book of Enoch (xxix. 4, xxxi. 4), where Satan-Sataniel (Sataniel/Satanel "The Keeper of Hell") (Samael?) is also described as a former archangel. Because he contrived "to make his throne higher than the clouds over the earth and resemble 'My power' on high", Satan-Sataniel was hurled down, with his hosts of angels, to fly in the air continually above the abyss.

Christian tradition

The fall of Lucifer, Gustave Doré's illustration for Paradise Lost by John Milton.

Christian tradition of a literal fall from heaven drew upon the Homeric tradition, familiar to many.

"the whole day long I was carried headlong, and at sunset I fell in Lemnos, and but little life was in me" Iliad

Homer's description of the parallel supernatural fall relates the fall of Hephaestus from Olympus in the Iliad I:591ff; the fall of the Titans was similarly described by Hesiod. Through popular epitomes these traditions were drawn upon by Christian authors embellishing the fall of Lucifer.^{[citation needed]}

St. Jerome, with the Septuagint close at hand and a general familiarity with the pagan poetic traditions, translated Heylel as Lucifer in the Vulgate. This may also have been done as a pointed jab at a bishop Saint Lucifer, a contemporary of Jerome who argued against forgiving those condemned of the Arian heresy, but had returned to catholic Christianity. Much of Christian tradition also draws on interpretations of Revelation 12:9 ("He was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is also called the Devil and Satan"; see also 12:4 and 12:7) in equating the ancient serpent with the serpent in the Garden of Eden and the fallen star, Lucifer, with Satan. Accordingly, Tertullian (Contra Marrionem, v. 11, 17), Origen (Ezekiel Opera, iii. 356), and others, identify Lucifer with Satan.

In the fully-developed Christian tradition, Jerome's Vulgate translation of Isaiah 14:12 has made Lucifer the name of the principal fallen angel, who must lament the loss of his original glory as the morning star. This image at last defines the character of Satan, where the Church Fathers had maintained that lucifer was not the proper name of the Devil, and that it referred rather to the state from which he had fallen; St. Jerome gave it Biblical authority when he transformed it into Satan's proper name.

Identification with Satan

The "Sigil of Lucifer" (alternatively, the "Seal of Satan"), a magical symbol used by modern Satanists. Originates from sixteenth century Italian "Grimoire of Truth".

Many modern Christians have followed tradition and equated "Lucifer" with Satan, or the Devil. The King James Version of the Bible, which has been enormously influential in the English speaking world for several centuries, retains the reference in Isaiah 14:12. In addition, a parallel description of Lucifer's fall is thought to be found in Ezekiel chapter 28 ("A Prophecy Against the King of Tyre"), which contains a lament over an "anointed cherub" who was in the "holy mountain of God". He is described as "perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee." The passage goes on to describe this being's expulsion from the "mount of God", apparently because his "heart was lifted up because of thy beauty, thou hast corrupted thy wisdom by reason of thy brightness." Afterwards the passage describes the eventual fate of this corrupted cherub: "therefore will I bring forth a fire from the midst of thee, it shall devour thee, and I will bring thee to ashes upon the earth in the sight of all them that behold thee. All they that know thee among the people shall be astonished at thee: thou shalt be a terror, and never shalt thou be any more."

There is dispute between the accurate translations in Ezekiel 28 concerning who is being addressed and the description of the address itself. At-khĕruwb (את-כרוב) [Above Hebraic translation of "Thou [art] the cherub") breaks gender violations in the written language. Ath, as it is used in the previous translation, is feminine as a pronoun; while kĕruwb is a masculine noun. Ath can also be used as a genderless direct object of a verb, yielding its objective form. For these reasons, some translations interpret this passage as "The cherub I created for you (King of Tyre)." This distinguishes the fall of the man who was protected, and brought to great wealth by God's graces and overseeing hand (given the cherub he was appointed), from the cherub. In this translation, God's wrath was directed at the man who gave up his perfection for commerce and self-ratified intelligence. The cherub was both the agent of protection for the King and also facilitated the destruction of him. On the same platform, the use of Eden (עדן) as a proper noun is argued to be out of context, and most likely takes the descriptive form: pleasure, luxury, or delight.

In addition to Isaiah and Ezekiel, various Old Testament scriptures referring to occult powers such as witchcraft, more theological details about fallen angels can be found in the Pseudepigrapha, which are generally not considered canon. In the book of Job, Satan, who has been wandering the earth, has a discussion with God and makes a deal with him regarding Job, the terms of which change in increments throughout the story of Job.

Latter-day Saints (Mormons) hold to the belief, confirmed by the teachings of their modern prophets, that Lucifer (Helel in Hebrew) was a particularly brilliant and powerful archangel, a son of Elohim (God the Father) and brother to Yahweh (God the Son, Jehovah or Jesus) and to all of the children of Elohim including all of the souls of humanity. This "bright god" (direct translation of Helel) according to LDS teaching became obsessed with pride and attempted to take over Elohim's family and subvert The Father's plan for His children which was to give them freedom of choice coupled with a law of consequences, to allow them to fall into darkness or to ascend to divinity (or any state in-between those extremes) through the mediation of a Savior. Lucifer tried to persuade Elohim's children to accept his plan of guaranteed righteousness, returning to Heaven without risk, but losing their chances of becoming divine and making him, Lucifer, their God to replace Elohim. This offer was in contrast to that made by Yahweh (Jehovah), the Father's eldest and most obedient son, to follow the Father's (Elohim's) plan and allow Elohim's children to be tested, offering himself as the sacrificial Savior to bring the faithful back into the Father's presence. A great struggle of wills ensued (war in heaven) in which the Father's plan was upheld and Lucifer with his followers were cast out of Heaven and exiled to Earth where they were permitted to tempt Elohim's children. When the purposes of Elohim are fulfilled and his children have been adequately tried, Lucifer and his followers will be further exiled to a state called "Outer Darkness", which is described as a state in which they will be completely cut off (by their own choice) from the Light and Love of Elohim (the Father), Yahweh (The Son) and the Holy Spirit. (References include LDS Standard Works, LDS Gospel Principles, and [www.lds.org])

De-identification with Satan

Many modern Christians note that the Old Testament itself does not actually contain a literal account of the rebellion and fall of Satan. Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28 are directly concerned with the temporal rulers of Babylon and Tyre, rather than a supernatural being; allegorical readings of these and other passages were typical of medieval scholarship but are usually not considered legitimate in modern critical scholarship. Accordingly, in most modern English versions of the Bible (including the NIV, NRSV, NASB and ESV) the proper noun "Lucifer" is not found; the Hebrew word is rendered "day star", "morning star" or something similar.

Revelation 12, meanwhile, is taken as a reference to Christ's triumph over Satan at his crucifixion rather than a description of a pre-historic event. Christians who reject the Lucifer myth generally believe that the origin of evil (theodicy) is unexplained in Scripture.

Liberal Christian scholarship often denies the existence of a literal personal being called "Satan" altogether, rendering the Lucifer myth irrelevant. It is argued that the name Satan itself (Hebrew: שָׂטָן) merely means "adversary" or "accuser", which may be a personification.

Other instances of the Morning Star in the New Testament

In the Vulgate, the word lucifer is used elsewhere: it describes the Morning Star (the planet Venus), the "light of the morning" (Job 11:17); the constellations (Job 38:32) and "the aurora" (Psalms 109:3). In the New Testament, Jesus Christ (in II Peter 1:19) is associated with the "morning star" (phosphoros).

Not all references in the New Testament to the morning star refer to phosphoros, however; in Revelation:

Rev 2:28 And I will give him the morning star (aster proinos).

Rev 22:16 I Jesus have sent mine angel to testify unto you these things in the churches. I am the root and the offspring of David, [and] the bright and morning star (aster orthrinos).

In the Eastern Empire, where Greek was the language, "morning star" (heosphoros) retained these earlier connotations. When Liutprand, bishop of Cremona, attended the Byzantine Emperor Nicephorus II in 968, he reported to his master Otto I the greeting sung to the emperor arriving in Hagia Sophia:

"Behold the morning star approaches, Eos rises; he reflects in his glances the rays of the sun— he the pale death of the Saracens, Nicephorus the ruler."^[5]

The Morning Star in the Qur'an

At-Tariq, "The Night Comer", is the 86th surah (chapter) in the Quran. It begins:

Bismillah ir-Rahman ir-Rahim

1. By the heaven and the Morning Star

2. Ah, what will tell thee what the Morning Star is!

3. The piercing Star!

4. No human soul but hath a guardian over it.^[6]

The latter verse is sometimes interpreted as a reference to the personal guardian angel.^[7]

The four crown princes of Hell

Lucifer has been acknowledged by the Satanic Bible as one of the Four Crown Princes of Hell, particularly that of the East. Lord of the Air, Lucifer has been named "Bringer of light, The morningstar, Intellectualism, Enlightenment."

Freemasonry and Luciferianism

Freemasons have been accused by various Christian organizations of worshipping Lucifer, despite the fact that Freemasonry does not consider itself a religion, and has members from many religions including Christianity. This theory originates with the famous Taxil hoax perpetrated by Léo Taxil, who had himself been expelled from Freemasonry within months of joining. According to the theory, leading Freemason Albert Pike had addressed "The 23 Supreme Confederated Councils of the world" (Taxil's invention), instructing them that Lucifer was God, and was in opposition to the evil god Adonai. Taxil also promoted a book by Diana Vaughan (actually written by him) that purported to reveal a highly secret ruling body called the Palladium which controlled the organization and had a Satanic agenda. As described by Freemasonry Disclosed in 1897:

With frightening cynicism, the miserable person we shall not name here [Taxil] declared before an assembly especially convened for him that for twelve years he had prepared and carried out to the end the most sacrilegious of hoaxes. We have always been careful to publish special articles concerning Palladism and Diana Vaughan. We are now giving in this issue a complete list of these articles, which can now be considered as not having existed.^[8]

Despite the fraud having been revealed for over a century, Pike's spurious address and other details of the hoax continue to be quoted by anti-masonic groups.^[9]

Arthur Edward Waite wrote an exposé of this hoax, titled Devil-Worship in France. Waite produces evidence that this was what today we would call a tabloid story, replete with logical and factual inconsistencies.

See also "Lucifer and Satan" at the Grand Lodge of British Columbia and Yukon website.

Persian and Sufi Traditions

Joseph Campbell (1972: p.148-149) illustrates an unorthodox Islamic reading of Lucifer's fall from Heaven which champions Lucifer's eclipsing love for God:

One of the most amazing images of love that I know is Persian – a mystical Persian representation as Satan as the most loyal lover of God. You will have heard the old legend of how, when God created the angels, he commanded them to pay worship to no one but himself; but then, creating man, he commanded them to bow in reverence to this most noble of his works, and Lucifer refused – because, we are told, of his pride. However, according to this Muslim reading of his case, it was rather because he loved and adored God so deeply and intensely that he could not bring himself to bow before anything else, and because he refused to bow down to something that was of less superiority than him. (Since he was made of fire, and man from clay.) And it was for that that he was flung into Hell, condemned to exist there forever, apart from his love.

This interpretation of the satanic rebellion described in the Quran is seen by some Sufi teachers such as Mansur Al-Hallaj (in his 'Tawasin') as a predestined scenario in which Iblis-Shaitan plays the role of tragic and jealous lover who, unable to perceive the Divine Image in Adam and capable only of seeing the exterior, disobeyed the divine mandate to bow down. His refusal (according to the Tawasin) was due to a misconceived idea of God's uniqueness and because of his refusal to abandon himself to God in love. Hallaj criticized the staleness of Iblis' adoration. Excerpts from Sufi texts expounding this interpretation have been included along with many other viewpoints on Shaitan (by no means all of them apologetic) in an important anthology of Sufi texts edited by Dr. Javad Nurbakhsh, head of the Nimatullahi Sufi Order.^[10]

The Sufi teacher Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan taught that 'Luciferian Light' is Light which has become dislocated from the Divine Source and is thus associated with the seductive false light of the lower ego which lures humankind into self-centred delusion.^{[citation needed]} Here Lucifer represents what the Sufis term the 'Nafs', the ego.

Occult beliefs

In the modern occultism of Madeline Montalban Lucifer's identification as "The Morning Star" (Venus) equates him with Lumiel, whom she regarded as the Archangel of Light, and among Satanists he is seen as The "Torch of Baphomet" and Azazel. In this modern occult teaching, an obvious appropriation of Christian soteriology, it is stated that it is Lucifer's destiny to incarnate in human form at certain key times in world history as a savior and redeemer for humanity. A symbol for this process is the Tudor Rose. The Tudor Rose can be red, representing Lucifer, or white representing Lilith. The Tau cross is also a symbol of Lumiel/Lucifer and his role as an avatar for the human race.

Astronomical significance

Because the planet Venus (Lucifer) is an inferior planet, meaning that its orbit lies between the orbit of the Earth and the Sun, it can never rise high in the sky at night as seen from Earth. It can be seen in the eastern morning sky for an hour or so before the Sun rises, and in the western evening sky for an hour or so after the Sun sets, but never during the dark of midnight.

Venus (Lucifer) is the brightest object in the sky after the Sun and the Moon. As bright and as brilliant as it is, ancient people couldn't understand why they couldn't see it at midnight like the outer planets, or during midday, like the Sun and Moon. Some believe they invented myths about Lucifer being cast out from Heaven to explain this. Lucifer was supposed to shine so bright because it wanted to take over the thrones or status of Saturn and Jupiter, both of which were considered most important by the worshippers of planetary deities at the time.

In Romanian mythology, Lucifer (Romanian: Luceafăr) means the planet "Venus" and some other stars. It is also linked with Hyperion, a figure who animates bad spirits (but is not the Devil himself).

See also

• Luzbel is another name for the rebel angel Lucifer in Spanish (Lusbel in Portuguese).^[11]
• Luciferin and luciferase are two substances involved in the chemical production of light.
• Luciferianism
• Satan
• Christianity

Notes

References

• Campbell, Joseph (1972). Myths To Live By. A Condor Book: Souvenir Press (Educational & Academic) Ltd. ISBN 0-285-64731-8

External links

Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia; from the article "Lucifer". Image Credit.

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