Lucifer

Angel equated with Satan. The name Lucifer means “bearer of light” or “bearer of fire,” “Son of the Morn- ing” or “Morning Star.” In Hebrew, Lucifer is Helel ben Sahar: “Bright Son of the Morning.” Rabbinical litera- ture of the fourth and fifth centuries C . E . describes him as Samael, the highest of those angels around the throne of God and created above the SERAPHIM .He was distinguished from all his other angelic brethren by possessing 12 wings. There is only one reference to Lucifer in the Bible, in Isaiah 14:12–15: “How you are fallen from HEAVEN , O Day Star, son of Dawn! How you are cut down to the ground, you who laid the nations low! You said in your heart, ‘I will ascend to heaven; above the stars of God I will set my throne on high; I will sit on the mount of assembly in the far north; I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will make myself like the Most High.’ But you are brought down to SHEOL [the under- world], to the depths of the Pit.” St. Jerome, one of the church fathers (ca. 347–420) identified the Isaiah passage with Satan, the leader of the fallen angels. From that time on “Lucifer” became one of the names of the devil. The identification was further reinforced by JOHN MILTON who made Lucifer the protagonist of Paradise Lost. The 18th-century mystic EMANUEL SWEDENBORG denied the existence of any Satan or demon. He attrib- uted all power to the Divine True and Good, or the Lord, and claimed that there was no controlling devil responsible for hell. He said that while a literal reading of Scripture seemed to tell the story of Lucifer’s fall, in reality “devil” and “Satan” simply mean hell, the place of evil and falsehood chose by those who go down the path of self-love and lack of charity. For Swedenborg, “Lucifer” meant “people from Babylon.”