I was taking in my daily dose of hilarity on Matthew's blog this morning where he has a post about asteroids that begins with a comment about Lincoln's Sun being conjunct Lucifer which has caused some astrologers to say that Lincoln is the Antichrist"
The whole thing about Lucifer being Satan is bizarre to me. Lucifer is the "Light Bringer," the "Morning Star." So how did he get from bringing the light to representing the devil? This article from the Theosophical University Press has some interesting information on the subject.
Lucifer means lightbringer, from the Latin lux "light" and ferre "to bear or bring." The word Lucifer is found in only one place in the Bible -- Isaiah 14:12 -- but only in the King James and related versions: "How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! . . ." In other translations we find: "O shining star of the dawn!" (Moffatt) or "O morning-star, son of the dawn!" (Hebrew Bible). The King James Version is based on the Vulgate, the Latin translation of Jerome. Jerome translated the Hebrew helel (bright or brilliant one) as "lucifer," which was a reasonable Latin equivalent. And yet it is this lucifer, the bright one or lightbearer, that came to be understood by so many as the name for Satan, Lord of Darkness.
Lucifer is mentioned only in the Old Testament, and Satan doesn't come into the picture until the New Testament. Jesus is also known as the "Morning Star" in the New Testament, which confuses the issue even more.
But before either the Old or New Testament, Venus was known as the "Morning Star." Plato, who is thought to have been born in 428 b.c.e. and therefore predates the New Testament and some of the rewrites of the Old Testament, wrote in his work called Timaeus:
Time, then, and the heaven came into being at the same instant in order that, having been created together, if ever there was to be a dissolution of them, they might be dissolved together. It was framed after the pattern of the eternal nature, that it might resemble this as far as was possible; for the pattern exists from eternity, and the created heaven has been, and is, and will be, in all time. Such was the mind and thought of God in the creation of time. The sun and moon and five other stars, which are called the planets, were created by him in order to distinguish and preserve the numbers of time; and when he had made their several bodies, he placed them in the orbits in which the circle of the other was revolving -- in seven orbits seven stars. First, there was the moon in the orbit nearest the earth, and next the sun, in the second orbit above the earth; then came the morning star and the star sacred to Hermes, moving in orbits which have an equal swiftness with the sun, but in an opposite direction; and this is the reason why the sun and Hermes and Lucifer overtake and are overtaken by each other.
Plato clearly here is speaking of Lucifer as being the actual planet Venus, with Hermes as being the planet Mercury, "moving in orbits which have an equal swiftness with the Sun."
It appears that the misogyny of the early Solar cults and the later Roman church might have had a part to play in linking the feminine Venus with Satan:
There are also many pre-Christian myths and allegories that include stories about Lucifer, which is the Latin name for the Greek Eosphoros. ... In the oldest Zoroastrian allegories, Mithra is supposed to have conquered the planet Venus. In the Christian tradition, Michael defeats Lucifer.
So we see that in the Zoroastrian myth the solar resurrected god Mithra conquers the Divine Feminine as represented by Venus, just as the archangel Michael in later Christian mythology conquers Lucifer. The Solar cults, of which Christian is just the most recent, feared the mythic power of the Divine Feminine and perhaps this is one of the reasons for the confusion over Lucifer's true identity.
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In Tarot, the key that represents The Devil, is also attributed to the Archangel Uriel, meaning Light of God. The astrological sign attributed to The Devil Key is Capricorn which begins at the point where the Light returns - Winter Solstice. So many hints across so many cultures!
Very enlightening debate!
The interesting thing is that some believe that this morning star was not in fact venus and in fact was another planet that had been destroyed.
the saying goes that "the fallen angel brings about sin".
It goes on to talk about how the waters were poisoned with salt and sulfer.
I have read someone who believed based on Babylonian and Sumerian text referring to gods that there used to be a planet called Tiamat. It was a planet almost entirely made of ocean, and the sun would shine and reflect so that it was so bright that it was seen at all times, as if it was a second sun.
This guy believes that the plannet was hit by a shooting star and the planet Tiamat then got caught in the earth's vacum. Part of the remains are the moon, and the other part is the astroid belt. As the planet got caught in the earth's orbit it's oceans were absorbed, and our gravitational pull was stronger pulling in large bodies of water. In addition, some chunks of the planet crashed down into the earth forming huge craters. This also would explain the great flood which is talked about in every single land mass on the earth. So the guy also believes that the earth was once mostly land and there were really no oceans until this cataclysmic event.
the remains of the planet is the earth's moon (babylonian moon god was called sin) This explains why it looks like it's been hit by astroids. Sin today became associated with all things bad and evil, Interestingly enough, the words "cat-astro-phe"(litterally means destruction or evil influence of star) and "dis-astre" (broken apart star) are associated with anything horrible.
This would also explain how the the prince of darkness was also the bringer of light, as the sun's reflections off Tiamat were seen most before the sun came up, and it appeared to bring the forthcoming light of the sun. And it ruled over the darkness, being the ONE brightest ball of light, luminating the sky apearing to be the ruler of night time, or ruler of darkness. This explains why all things evil are associated with it as well. I have heard others describe that the planets of Tiamat and Venus colided,and also from elsewhere even that Venus used to be Tiamat, and the moon was the remains of the astroid.
This sounds like Zecharia Sitchin's work. Michael Tsarion writes that when this planet exploded its oceans flooded the earth, thus creating the deluge that was Noah's flood and the flood of earlier deluge so-called myths.
Satan is, etymologically, a corruption of Saturn. In the OT, Satan is the Adversary, as is Saturn/Chronos/Time. In the Book of Job, Satan can do nothing (such as afflict Job) without God's permission. In my opinion, each of us has to contend with the Adversary in our lives, just as Jesus had to in the story of his temptation in the desert, but the conflict is personal, like Job's and Jesus's. I’ve always though that during their temptations, Saturn was at a troublesome point in their charts.
Not until the Manicheans and Gnostics and such does the Force of Evil come to be seen as powerful enough to win any ultimate conflict with the Force of Good. When the early Church tried to excise these "heresies," it didn't excise them completely, so the Bible as it survives contains vestiges of them that conflict with its main message of redemption through love.
I'm not saying an Ultimate Conflict in which Evil has a possibility of trouncing Good isn't possible, just that the Biblical support for it is bad scholarship on the part of the early Church as well as on the part of modern believers. After all, Mammon is everywhere worshiped, love no longer connotes charity, and greed may yet destroy the ecosystem that supports our lives.
As for the Antichrist, I take a historical approach: he was Nero.
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