Lucifer from Petrus de Plasiis Divine Comedy 1491.png

Lucifer is one of various figures in folklore associated with the planet Venus. The entity's name was subsequently absorbed into Christianity as a name for the devil. Modern scholarship generally translates the term in the relevant Bible passage ( Isaiah 14:12), where the Greek Septuagint reads ὁ ἑωσφόρος ὁ πρωὶ, as "morning star" or "shining one" rather than as a proper noun, Lucifer, as found in the Latin Vulgate.

As a name for the Devil in Christian theology, the more common meaning in English, "Lucifer" is the rendering of the Hebrew word he, הֵילֵל, hêlēl, label=none, (pronunciation: ''hay-lale'') in Isaiah given in the King James Version of the Bible. The translators of this version took the word from the Latin Vulgate, Originally published New York: The MacMillan Co., 1923. which translated by the Latin word (uncapitalized), meaning "the morning star", "the planet Venus", or, as an adjective, "light-bringing".

As a name for the planet in its morning aspect, "Lucifer" (Light-Bringer) is a proper noun and is capitalized in English. In Greco-Roman civilization, it was often personified and considered a god and in some versions considered a son of Aurora (the Dawn). A similar name used by the Roman poet Catullus for the planet in its evening aspect is "Noctifer" (Night-Bringer).

Roman folklore and etymology

In Roman folklore, Lucifer ("light-bringer" in Latin) was the name of the planet Venus, though it was often personified as a male figure bearing a torch. The Greek name for this planet was variously Phosphoros (also meaning "light-bringer") or Heosphoros (meaning "dawn-bringer")."Lucifer
in ''Encyclopaedia Britannica'']. Lucifer was said to be "the fabled son of Aurora and Cephalus, and father of Ceyx". He was often presented in poetry as heralding the dawn.The Latin word corresponding to Greek is . It is used in its astronomical sense both in prose. and poetry. Poets sometimes personify the star, placing it in a mythological context.

Lucifer's mother Aurora is cognate to the Vedic goddess Ushas, Lithuanian goddess Aušrinė, and Greek Eos, all three of whom are also goddesses of the dawn. All four are considered derivatives of the Proto-Indo-European stem ' (later '), "dawn", a stem that also gave rise to Proto-Germanic , Old Germanic and Old English . This agreement leads to the reconstruction of a Proto-Indo-European dawn goddess. Hence the Sanskrit/Hindi/Malayalam word Ushas (dawn) is the root of the German word "Ost" and its English equivalent "East". It should also be noted that "Austria" (Österreich in German) means "Eastern Kingdom".

The 2nd-century Roman mythographer Pseudo-Hyginus said of the planet:

The Latin poet Ovid, in his 1st-century epic , describes Lucifer as ordering the heavens:

Ovid, speaking of Phosphorus and Hesperus (the Evening Star, the evening appearance of the planet Venus) as identical, makes him the father of Daedalion. Ovid also makes him the father of Ceyx, while the Latin grammarian Servius makes him the father of the Hesperides or of Hesperis.

In the classical Roman period, Lucifer was not typically regarded as a deity and had few, if any, myths, though the planet was associated with various deities and often poetically personified. Cicero stated that "You say that Sol the Sun and Luna the Moon are deities, and the Greeks identify the former with Apollo and the latter with Diana. But if Luna (the Moon) is a goddess, then Lucifer (the Morning-Star) also and the rest of the Wandering Stars () will have to be counted gods; and if so, then the Fixed Stars () as well."

Planet Venus, Sumerian folklore, and fall from heaven motif

The motif of a heavenly being striving for the highest seat of heaven only to be cast down to the underworld has its origins in the motions of the planet Venus, known as the morning star.

The Sumerian goddess Inanna ( Babylonian Ishtar) is associated with the planet Venus, and Inanna's actions in several of her myths, including ''Inanna and Shukaletuda'' and ''Inanna's Descent into the Underworld'' appear to parallel the motion of Venus as it progresses through its synodic cycle.

A similar theme is present in the Babylonian myth of Etana. The '' Jewish Encyclopedia'' comments:

The fall from heaven motif also has a parallel in Canaanite mythology. In ancient Canaanite religion, the morning star is personified as the god Attar, who attempted to occupy the throne of Ba'al and, finding he was unable to do so, descended and ruled the underworld. The original myth may have been about the lesser god Helel trying to dethrone the Canaanite high god El, who lived on a mountain to the north. Hermann Gunkel's reconstruction of the myth told of a mighty warrior called Hêlal, whose ambition was to ascend higher than all the other stellar divinities, but who had to descend to the depths; it thus portrayed as a battle the process by which the bright morning star fails to reach the highest point in the sky before being faded out by the rising sun. However, the Eerdmans Commentary on the Bible argues that no evidence has been found of any Canaanite myth or imagery of a god being forcibly thrown from heaven, as in the Book of Isaiah ( see below). It argues that the closest parallels with Isaiah's description of the king of Babylon as a fallen morning star cast down from heaven are to be found not in Canaanite myths, but in traditional ideas of the Jewish people, echoed in the Biblical account of the fall of Adam and Eve, cast out of God's presence for wishing to be as God, and the picture in Psalm 82 of the "gods" and "sons of the Most High" destined to die and fall. This Jewish tradition has echoes also in Jewish pseudepigrapha such as 2 Enoch and the Life of Adam and Eve. The Life of Adam and Eve, in turn, shaped the idea of Iblis in the Quran.

The Greek myth of Phaethon, a personification of the planet Jupiter, follows a similar pattern.

Christianity

In the Bible

In the Book of Isaiah, chapter 14, the king of Babylon is condemned in a prophetic vision by the prophet Isaiah and is called (, Hebrew for "shining one, son of the morning"), who is addressed as (), The title refers to the planet Venus as the morning star, and that is how the Hebrew word is usually interpreted. The Hebrew word transliterated as or ,Strong's Concordance, H1966
/ref> occurs only once in the Hebrew Bible

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