Lucifer ( /ˈluːsɪfər/ or /ˈljuːsɪfər/) is the King James Version rendering of the Hebrew word הֵילֵל in Isaiah 14:12. This word, transliterated hêlēl or heylel, occurs only once in the Hebrew Bible and according to the KJV-influenced Strong's Concordance means "shining one, morning star, Lucifer". The word Lucifer is taken from the Latin Vulgate, which translates הֵילֵל as lucifer, meaning "the morning star, the planet Venus" (or, as an adjective, "light-bringing"). The Septuagint renders הֵילֵל in Greek as ἑωσφόρος (heōsphoros), a name, literally "bringer of dawn", for the morning star. Kaufmann Kohler says that the Greek Septuagint translation is "Phosphoros".
Before the rise of Christianity, the pseudepigrapha of Enochic Judaism, which enjoyed much popularity during the Second Temple period, gave Satan an expanded role. They interpreted Isaiah 14:12-15 as applicable to Satan, and presented him as a fallen angel cast out of Heaven. Christian tradition, influenced by this presentation, came to use the Latin word for "morning star", lucifer, as a proper name ("Lucifer") for Satan as he was before his fall. As a result, "Lucifer has become a by-word for Satan in the Church and in popular literature", as in Dante Alighieri's Inferno and John Milton's Paradise Lost.
Read more about Lucifer: Lucifer or Morning Star, Mythology, Taxil's Hoax, Gallery
Famous quotes containing the word lucifer:
“Now the runaways would run no more and never
again would their hair be tangled into diamonds,
never again their shoes worn down to a laugh,
never the bed falling down into purgatory
to let them climb in after
with their Lucifer kicking.”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)
“Of all the inhabitants of the inferno, none but Lucifer knows that hell is hell, and the secret function of purgatory is to make of heaven an effective reality.”
—Arnold Bennett (1867–1931)