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Lucifer is a Latin word derived from two words, lux (light; genitive lucis) and ferre (to bear, to bring), meaning light-bearer. Lucifer does not appear in Greek or Roman mythology; it is used by poets to represent the Morning Star at moments when "Venus" would intrude distracting imagery of the goddess. "Lucifer" is Jerome's direct translation in his Vulgate (4th century) of the Septuagint's Greek translation, as heosphoros, "morning star", literally "bringer of the Dawn", of a phrase in Isaiah that originally intended no reference to Satan (see below). In Christianity, Lucifer has become synonymous with Satan, nevertheless.
Modern astrologers identify the planet Venus as having been known by the name Lucifer in Roman astrology before being given its current name. See poetical instances below.
Lucifer is also a deity in the Voodoo religions.
"Lucifer" is used by Jerome in the Vulgate (4th century) to translate into Latin Isaiah 14:12-14, where the Hebrew text refers to helel ben-shachar (הילל בן שחר). Helel signifies the planet Venus, and ben-shachar means "the brilliant one, son of the morning", to whose mythical fate that of the King of Babylon is compared in the prophetic vision. The Jewish Encyclopedia reports that "it is obvious that the prophet in attributing to the Babylonian king boastful pride, followed by a fall, borrowed the idea from a popular legend connected with the morning star". Isaiah 14 starts out discussing the King of Babylon, and the reference "morning star, son of the dawn" originally applied specifically to that king's pride,:
The compilers of the Jewish Encyclopedia note that Isaiah was drawing on some star-myth familiar to his hearers for his passing image, and they suggest a comparison with the Greek star-myth of Phaëton, who suffered for his hubris.
The later Jewish tradition, with which the early church fathers were familiar, elaborates 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 repentent Samhazai suspended star-like between heaven and earth instead of being hurled down to Sheol. The Helel-Lucifer myth was transferred to Satan in the 1st century BC, as may be learned from Vita Adæ et Evæ (12), where the Adversary gives Adam an account of his early career, and the Slavonic Book of Enoch (xxix. 4, xxxi. 4), where Satan-Sataniel (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, and since then he has been flying in the air continually above the abyss.
"Lucifer" is a poetic name for the "morning star", a close translation of the Greek eosphoros, the "Dawn-bringer", which appears in the Odyssey and in Hesiod's Theogony.
A classic Roman use of "Lucifer" appears in Virgil's Ovid:
A more effusive poet, like Statius, can expand this trope into a brief but profuse allegory, though still this is a poetical personification of the Light-Bearer, not a mythology:
Jerome, with the Septuagint close at hand and a general familiarity with the pagan poetic traditions, translated Helel as "Lucifer". Much of Christian tradition also draws on interpretations of Revelation 12:5 ("He was thrown down, that ancient serpent"; see also 12:7 and 12:100) in equating the ancient serpent-god 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.
A description of the supernatural fall
relates the fall of Hephaestus from Olympus in Homer's Iliad I:591ff, but it was drawn upon by Christian authors embellishing the fall of Lucifer.
In the fully-developed Christian interpretation, 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 Lucifer; 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 transformed it into Satan's proper name.
It is noteworthy that the Old Testament itself does not at any point actually mention the rebellion and fall of Satan directly. This non-Scriptural belief assembled from interpretations of different passages, would fall under the heading Christian mythology, except that the very idea of a Christian mythology is widely attacked as offensive. For detailed discussion of the "War in Heaven" theme, see Fallen angel.
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 "signs of the zodiac" (Job 38:32) and "the aurora" (Psalm 109:3). Aside from Isaiah's reference to the King of Babylon, "lucifer" is applied to "Simon son of Onias" (Ecclesiasticus 50:6). In the New Testament, the Vulgate translates "glory of heaven" (in Apocalypse 2:23) and "Jesus Christ" (in II Peter 1:19; Apocalypse 22:16) with "lucifer". ( these references need checking)
Lucifer is a key protagonist in John Milton's Protestant Christian epic, Paradise Lost. Milton presents Lucifer almost sympathetically, an ambitious and prideful angel who defies God and wages war on heaven, only to be defeated and cast down. Lucifer must then employ his rhetorical ability to organize hell; he is aided by Mammon and Beelzebub. Later, Lucifer enters the Garden of Eden, where he successfully tempts Eve, wife of Adam, to eat fruit from the Tree of knowledge of good and evil.
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