Angels-LUCIFER

The name Lucifer (Light Giver) refers to the planet Venus—the
brightest object in the sky apart from the Sun and Moon—when
appearing as the morning star. Lucifer has been erroneously equated
with the fallen angel Satan, because of a misreading of a scriptural
passage that applied to Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, who in his
glory and pomp had aspired to exalt himself to the level of God, as
reported in Isaiah 14: “How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer,
son of the morning.” Just as the brilliancy of Lucifer surpasses that of
all other stars in the firmament, so the splendor of the king of Babylon
surpassed that of all other Oriental monarchs.
The Babylonians and Assyrians personified the morning star as
Belit and Istar, respectively. Others have speculated that the phrase
“son of the morning” might refer to the crescent moon. Others argue
for an identification with the planet Jupiter.
The Devil acquired the name Lucifer when the early Christian
theologians Tertullian and St. Augustine identified him with the
falling star in the passage from Isaiah. They made this association
because the Devil was formerly a great archangel who rebelled against
God and was tossed out of heaven. The legend of the rebellion and
expulsion of Lucifer, as formulated by Jewish and Christian writers,
describes Lucifer as the chief in the hierarchy of heaven, and as preeminent
among all created beings in beauty, power, and wisdom. To this
“anointed cherub” was apparently allotted power and dominion over
the earth; and even after his fall and exclusion from his old domain, he
still seems to retain some of his power and ancient title to sovereignty.
According to the writings of the rabbis and church fathers, his sin
was pride, which was an act of complete egoism and pure malice, in that
he loved himself to the exclusion of all else and without the excuse of
ignorance, error, passion, or weakness of will. Other versions hold that his
audacity went so far as to attempt to seat himself on the Great Throne.
In the medieval mysteries, Lucifer, as the governor of the heavens,
is seated next to the Eternal. As soon as the Lord leaves his seat,
Lucifer, swelling with pride, sits down on the throne of heaven. The
indignant archangel Michael takes up arms against him and finally
succeeds in driving him out of heaven down
into the dark and dismal dwelling reserved for
him for all eternity.
In heaven the archangel’s name had been
Lucifer; on earth it was Satan. The angels who
joined his rebellion were also expelled from
heaven and became the demons, of whom
Lucifer is lord. Reference to Lucifer as the daystar
occurs in Ezekiel’s prediction of the coming
downfall of the king of Tyre. Here Lucifer is an
angel, blazing with brilliant jewels, who was in
Eden, the garden of God, walking up and down
among the “stones of fire.”
Lucifer may have been the hero of an earlier
story in which the morning star tries to steal
the role of the Sun but is defeated. This story is
derived from the observation that the morning
star is the last star proudly to defy the sunrise. It
has also been suggested that the story is another
version of the fall of Adam and his expulsion
from Eden.
The name Lucifer was also applied to Satan
by St. Jerome, writing in the fourth century,
and other church fathers, in commenting on
Luke 10:18: “I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven.” The name
Lucifer is applied by Milton to the demon of sinful pride in Paradise
Lost. In Christopher Marlowe’s play Doctor Faustus and in Dante’s The
Divine Comedy, Lucifer is the king of hell.
Lucifer is the eponymous principal character of an epic poem by
the seventeenth-century Dutch author Joost van den Vondel. He is
the main character in the mystery play The Tragedy of Man (1861), by
the Hungarian poet and dramatist Imre Madách. Lucifer is also the
name used by William Blake in his illustrations to Dante’s work.
George Meredith refers to Prince Lucifer in his sonnet “Lucifer in
Starlight,” and Edmund Spenser describes him as “the brightest angel,
even the Child of Light” in “An Hymne of Heavenly Love.”