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A LUCID LOOK AT LUCIFER By Dr. Harrell Rhome
This article originally appeared in Special Issue #10 (“Unexplained Mysteries and the Paranormal”) of NEW DAWN magazine, Melbourne, Australia. http://newdawnmagazine.com.au/With the exception of illustrations this is Copyright ©2010 All Rights Reserved.
The Fallen Angel by Gustave Dore, one of his illustrations for Milton’s Paradise Lost. We have to literarily, philosophically and theologically deconstruct certain concepts before we can really understand them. This is a process where we look beneath and beyond the commonly assumed folklore. Some readers may think Lucifer is a clearly designated biblical character, the same figure as Satan. Lucifer is the Fallen Angel in the Bible, in the Book of Genesis. Right? Of course, the answer is no on all counts. Surprisingly, the word Lucifer appears only once in the Bible in Isaiah 14:12, translating the Hebrew word helel meaning shining one. In the Greek Septuagint translation, it was rendered as heosphoros (Ηωσφόρος) or light-bearer. This word comes from Hesperus, a Greek goddess of the dawn. When the Romans took over the Christian scriptures in the 300s, Jerome translated helel and heosphoros as Lucifer in his Latin Vulgate Bible. Whether in old Hebrew, Greek or Latin, the word was the common name for Venus, the brightest planet, the Morning Star, the Light-Bearer, the Day Star. So in the real meaning of Isaiah 14:12, Lucifer merely describes the vainglorious image that the arrogant King of Babylon would seek to affect. Some Protestant translations from John Wycliffe and others followed the Vulgate. But the respected Protestant biblical exegete Matthew Henry (Matthew Henry’s Commentary, 1721) says nothing about Lucifer being Satan, focusing on the real meaning of the text, which has to do with the nation of Babylon and its rulers who oppressed the Old Testament Hebrews. It goes without saying that a simple Internet search will bring up mountains of material to the contrary, supporting the “traditional” view that Lucifer is the fallen angel, the Devil, the same as the Satan cited in Luke 10:18. But in truth, the very same term, Day Star, is also applied to the Christ himself in II Peter 1:19, Revelation 22:16, and in the ancient Latin Easter hymn, the Exultet. In an interesting coincidence, an early Christian theologian and bishop back in the 300s was named Lucifer, so it was obviously not a negative name back then. What’s more, I’m pretty sure Jerome would have known of him since they were contemporaries in the early Church. In some ways, the personification of Lucifer as Satan is crucial to certain versions of Christianity. Otherwise, if the so-called Fall of Lucifer does not account for the origin of Satan, then the Old Testament is silent on the matter. Regardless of that, only a few Bible versions follow Jerome’s translation. Early Protestants differed. The English King James version used Lucifer, but Martin Luther’s German translation did not. When Luther was in seminary, he studied the Vulgate, so he purposefully differed from Jerome by not using Lucifer. We begin with the King James Version, "How art thou fallen from heaven O Lucifer, son of the morning? How are thou cut down to the ground which didst weaken the nations!” Isaiah 14:12, KJV. “Quomodo cecidisti de caelo Lucifer, qui mane oriebaris corruisti in terram qui vulnerabas gentes?” Jerome’s Latin Vulgate. “O Lucifer who didst rise in the morning! How art thou fallen to the earth, that didst wound the nations!” Douay Rheims English translation of the Vulgate. “Du schöner Morgenstern.” (You beautiful morning star.) Luther Bible. “O morning star, son of the dawn!” New International. “O Day Star, son of the morning.” Revised Standard. “Bright morning star.” New Revised Standard. "O Day Star, son of Dawn!” New English Bible. "O star of the morning, son of the dawn! New American Standard. Lucifer or Dawn or Venus is also a figure in ancient Canaanite mythology, having nothing to do with Satan or evil beings. “The dwelling of the gods and the riding of the clouds are both known to us from the Ras Shamra texts at Ugarit in N. Syria, and so too is Dawn a deity, of whom this figure is described as a son. The most high is Elyon, the title so often used of God…. All these elements may be paralleled in the Old Testament, suggesting how richly Canaanite religion and mythology have influenced Old Testament thought.” Interpreters One Volume Commentary of the Bible, 1971. Old and new reference sources tell us more. “Lucifer Isa. 14:12. This word, signifying light bearer, occurs but once in our Bible, and then applies to the king of Babylon to indicate his glory as a morning star, or figuratively, a son of the morning. Tertullian and some others suppose the passage to relate to the fall of Satan; and hence the term is usually applied in that way; though, as it seems, without specific warrant.” The Union Bible Dictionary, 1842 “Its application, from St. Jerome downwards, to Satan in his fall from heaven, arises probably from the fact that the Babylonian Empire is in scripture represented as the type of tyrannical and self-idolizing power, and especially connected with the empire of the Evil One in the Apocalypse.” Smith’s Bible Dictionary, 1884. “In spite of this rendering, the proper name ‘Lucifer’ is not in the original Hebrew text. In Hebrew ‘Lucifer, son of the morning’ is helel ben shachar. It could be translated ‘shining one, son of the dawn.’ It is not a proper name, but an epithet for the king of Babylon.” Bryan Knowles, Who Is Lucifer? http://www.godward.org, 2009.
Hence, Jerome’s use of Lucifer as a capitalized proper name is not correct. The Roman Church concocted the Lucifer-as-Satan myth after they took over emergent Christianity in the early 300s, as evidenced by references to both Tertullian and Jerome. If Lucifer is so important, why is nothing else ever said? Light Bearer, Morning Star; nothing negative about that. Lucifer not only does not mean anything negative, as a matter of fact, it doesn’t really seem to mean anything at all, biblically speaking. Out of the over 800,000 words in the Bible and the Apocrypha, Lucifer appears once, and then in an ambiguous reference. Whatever it may mean to certain Christian sects, theosophical and metaphysical groups, or secret societies, as you can clearly see, does not come from the Bible!
THE PAGAN ORIGINS OF SATAN. Satan (Hebrew השָׂטָן ha-Satan; in Arabic Shaitan) translates as adversary or accuser. In all three Semitic religions, Satan refers to the opposite of the good god, or the so-called Devil. This is, of course, a direct transplant from Persian Zoroastrianism into the ancient Hebrew religion then into the Talmud, Kabala, the New Testament and lastly into the Koran. Zoroastrianism poses two gods, one responsible for good and another responsible for evil. The polyglot god traditions found in Genesis reflect this Persian pagan influence. For some, the image and persona of the Satan is quite fascinating, indeed, perhaps even noble. As readers of English literature know, John Milton addressed this theme in his famous 1667 poetic magnum opus, Paradise Lost. Consider the following hypothesis, based on the multiple Semitic deities portrayed in Genesis.“El in Egyptian is also the Child, who in the early Sabean age, was Sut, the planetary type, Saturn. Later El was transformed into Satan, whom Job introduces as one of the sons of god. Satan was accounted a son and an Angel of God by all Semitic nations. The learned Kabalist, Eliphas Levi, speaks of Satan thus: It is the angel who is proud enough to believe himself god; proud enough to buy his independence at the price of eternal suffering and torture; beautiful enough to have adored himself in full divine light; strong enough to reign in darkness amidst agony, and to have built himself a throne on his inextinguishable fire.’ He further says that the true name of Satan is that of Jehovah reversed, for Satan is not a black god but the negation of Deity. The Devil of the early Christians, with horns, hoofs and tail was introduced from Babylon through the Jewish Talmud. The Christian religion transforms Satan into an enemy of God, whereas in reality by Satan the highest divine spirit or Occult Wisdom on earth is meant.” E. Valentia Straiton, Celestial Ship of the North. Levi also says Lucifer is the Holy Spirit. “What is more absurd and more impious than to attribute the name of Lucifer to the devil, that is, to personified evil, The intellectual Lucifer is the spirit of intelligence and love; it is the Paraclete, it is the Holy Spirit, while the physical Lucifer is the great agent of universal magnetism. To personify evil and exalt it into an intelligence which is the rival of God, into a being which can understand but love no more - this is a monstrous fiction. To believe that God permits this evil intelligence to deceive and destroy his feeble creatures is to make God more wicked than the devil. By depriving the devil of the possibility of love and repentance, God forces him to do evil. Moreover a spirit of error and falsehood can only be a folly which thinks, nor does it deserve indeed the name of spirit. The devil is God’s antithesis, and if we define God as He who is we must define His opposite as he who is not.” Eliphas Levi, The Mysteries of Magic. “The Yahwists and Elohists reflected a very early stage of the Israelite religion. This is when it was still essentially a nature/fertility much the same as as the other pagan religions of the same time and region. It contained things like angels (in the text called Elohim), talking animals, dreams, and the idea of an anthropomorphic deity. This deity brought forth both good and evil as any anthropomorphic deity does. There was no Satan to bring the natural disasters. It was God. It was God also when (he was) displeased with someone simply ‘removed’ him by taking his life. So it was necessary to propitiate and worship this deity in order not to anger him in any way. It was later, after the Babylonian ‘captivity’, that this God became patient, just, and merciful, just like [the Zoroastrian good god called] Ahura Mazda.” Alexander S. Holub, The Gospel Truth, the Heresy of History, 2004. So then, when we deconstruct the words, symbols and images, it turns out that Lucifer-Satan-Devil, the source of all evil, is originally neither a Hebrew, Christian nor a Muslim concept, springing directly from much earlier Persian pagan roots. Naturally, all this biblical revisionism is not popular with the priests and preachers. If they couldn’t scare you with Lucifer, the Devil and visions of burning with Satan in Hell, there might be fewer donations. We can’t have that! LUCIFER IN THEOSOPHY AND SECRET SOCIETIES. Now that we understand more about the real origins of the word as misused in the Vulgate Bible, we see that various metaphysical groups, Illuminati orders and secret societies essentially created their own deity centered on the image of Lucifer as Light Bearer. Madame Blavatsky, like Eliphas Levi, said the Holy Spirit and Lucifer are the same entity. “Lucifer represents, Life, Thought, Progress, Civilization, Liberty, Independence; Lucifer is the Logos, the Serpent, the Savior. … It is Satan who is the God of our planet and the only God. … The Celestial Virgin which thus becomes the Mother of Gods and Devils at one and the same time; for she is the ever-loving beneficent Deity but in antiquity and reality Lucifer or Luciferius is the name. Lucifer is divine and terrestial Light, 'the Holy Ghost' and ‘Satan' at one and the same time.” Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine, 1888. Moving beyond this, the magical rituals of some Illuminati secret societies seem sinister and evil. A lot of commentary is not needed; the quotations speak clearly. For those wanting to explore beyond this, all the sources cited, and lots more, are not hard to find. Neither have we dealt with the myriad of modern belief systems called Satanism, yet another complex and diverse topic, but that will have to be at another time. But right now, just read on and see what the secret initiatic orders and their high adepts have to say about their god/demigod/demon-god/holy spirit. "First Conjuration Addressed to Emperor Lucifer: Emperor Lucifer, Master and Prince of Rebellious Spirits, I adjure thee to leave thine abode, in what-ever quarter of the world it may be situated and come hither to communicate with me. I command and I conjure thee in the Name of the Mighty Living God, Father, Son and Holy Ghost, to appear...." Arthur E. Waite, Book of Black Magic, 1913. "I hereby promise the Great Spirit Lucifuge, Prince of Demons, that each year I will bring unto him a human soul to do with as it may please him, and in return Lucifuge promises to bestow upon me the treasures of the earth and fulfill my every desire for the length of my natural life. If I fail to bring him each year the offering specified above, then my own soul shall be forfeit to him. Signed.... Invocant signs pact with his own blood." Manly P. Hall, 33rd Degree Freemason, The Secret Teaching Of All Ages, 1978. “When The Mason learns that the Key to the warrior on the block is the proper application of the dynamo of living power, he has learned the Mystery of his Craft. The seething energies of Lucifer are in his hands and before he may step onward and upward, he must prove his ability to properly apply this energy.” Manly P. Hall, Lost Keys of Freemasonry, 2006. “That which we must say to a crowd is - We worship a God, but it is the God that one adores without superstition. To you, Sovereign Grand Inspectors General, we say this, that you may repeat it to the Brethren of the 32nd, 31st, and 30th degrees – The Masonic Religion should be, by all of us initiates of the high degrees, maintained in the purity of the Luciferian Doctrine. If Lucifer were not God, would Adonay whose deeds prove his cruelty, perfidy and hatred of man, barbarism and repulsion for science, would Adonay and his priests, calumniate him? Yes, Lucifer is God, and unfortunately Adonay is also god.” “For the eternal law is that there is no light without shade, no beauty without ugliness, no white without black, for the absolute can only exist as two gods: darkness being necessary to the statue, and the brake to the locomotive. Thus, the doctrine of Satanism is a heresy; and the true and pure philosophical religion is the belief in Lucifer, the equal of Adonay; but Lucifer, God of Light and God of Good, is struggling for humanity against Adonay, the God of Darkness and Evil.” … “Lucifer, the Light-bearer! Strange and mysterious name to give to the Spirit of Darkness! Lucifer, the son of the morning! Is it he who bears the Light, and with it's splendors intolerable blinds feeble, sensual or selfish Souls? Doubt it not!” Albert Pike, 33rd Degree Freemason, Morals and Dogma, 1871. LUCIFER IN SUMMARY. Several conclusions present themselves. Firstly, the Lucifer of the Bible is but a minor character at best, mentioned only once, not really standing out or signifying much of anything. The real character portrayed in the Isaiah text is an arrogant Babylonian monarch who oppressed the Hebrew people. Secondly, the mystical interpretations about Lucifer as Satan were added by Kabalistic rabbis, Catholic priests, Islamic mullahs, and Protestant preachers, all with clearly vested self-interests. Thirdly, various occult philosophers and metaphysicians explored and enlarged the Lucifer persona and paradigm, creating an odd godlike figure.Lastly, on the outer fringes of this magic and mysticism are the secret societies and Illuminati initiatic orders, especially Freemasons of one kind or another. Remember, there are secret lodges, degrees and covert rituals, unknown outside the upper level adepts of the Illuminati orders. Their peculiar Luciferian doctrines and dogma always have had and still do have a significant impact on world history and geopolitical affairs. Not so much because of the rituals themselves, but because of the people who practice this strange cultic religion. Like any belief system, its basic teachings, its morals and values color the decisions made by the truly devoted believers. Certain ones are in very high positions in the government, the churches and the social order. I hope some of you will continue your explorations into the occult underground and its impact on the world around us. If my deconstruction of the Lucifer legends and lore has been a literary Light Bearer, then let it be! # # #
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