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Is Jesus Lucifer?
There’s a passage in the Old Testament which is commonly used as Biblical “proof” of the character of Lucifer, the proud angel who rebelled against God and was thrown out of Heaven. It comes from Isaiah 14:12,
How you have fallen from heaven,
O morning star, son of the dawn!
You have been cast down to the earth,
you who once laid low the nations!
Lucifer is sometimes translated as “light bringer” but also as “the morning star.” Cool, so Lucifer, right? Well, then what the hell is Jesus doing saying this in the New Testament Book of Revelation 22:16,
I, Jesus, have sent my angel to give you this testimony for the churches. I am the Root and the Offspring of David, and the bright Morning Star.“
What the…? Well, maybe it’s just a fluke. Sorry, check out 2 Peter 1:19,
And we have the word of the prophets made more certain, and you will do well to pay attention to it, as to a light shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts.
So, what’s Jesus saying here… that he’s none other than Lucifer? That the reason he’s sent down to Earth is the same reason that Lucifer was cast out of Heaven? I’d be interested in seeing what kind of mental gymnastics literalist Christians use to get out of this trap, because it’s a doozy. Either we have Jesus admitting that he’s Lucifer… or something else which is equally damaging to literalist interpretations of the Bible: that the Bible was mistranslated and modified, and thus is not the perfect Revealed Word of God.
The translation “error” is thought to have occured with St. Jerome’s translation of the Greek Old Testament into the Latin in the 4th century. His version is called the Vulgate. I’ll quote from another website that picks up the trail of this weird mystery:
In the original Hebrew text, the fourteenth chapter of Isaiah is not about a fallen angel, but about a fallen Babylonian king, who during his lifetime had persecuted the children of Israel. It contains no mention of Satan, either by name or reference. […]
Why Lucifer? In Roman astronomy, Lucifer was the name given to the morning star (the star we now know by another Roman name, Venus). The morning star appears in the heavens just before dawn, heralding the rising sun. The name derives from the Latin term lucem ferre, bringer, or bearer, of light.” In the Hebrew text the expression used to describe the Babylonian king before his death is Helal, son of Shahar, which can best be translated as “Day star, son of the Dawn.” The name evokes the golden glitter of a proud king’s dress and court (much as his personal splendor earned for King Louis XIV of France the appellation, “The Sun King”).
Apparently though, Jerome didn’t make a mistake in his translation, because at the time, “Lucifer” was an appropriate term to use. An example can be found in the Roman poet Virgil (from here):
“Let us hasten, when first the Morning Star appears,
To the cool pastures, while the day is new, while the grass is dewy”
The morning star all these people are referring to is actually Venus:
Given the fact that the planet Venus/Lucifer is an inner planet, meaning that its orbit lies between the Sun and Earth, it can never rise high in the sky at night, from our Earthly point of view, since it is physically located closer to the Sun than our own planet. It can be seen in the morning sky for an hour or so before the Sun rises, and in the evening sky for an hour or so after the Sun sets, but never during the dark of midnight.
The planet Venus/Lucifer is the third brightest object in the sky, with the Sun being first, and the Moon being next.
It seems that Lucifer only became associated with Satan/the Devil over the centuries after Jerome, thanks to poets, and mythological traditions within the church. But that doesn’t quite explain the weird connection that is made here between Jesus and the Devil, does it? I don’t know that I quite have the answer for it, but I know a good place to look next to hone our question-asking process: the work of Rudolf Steiner. Rather than try and reinvent the wheel here, I’m going to grab some excellent stuff that Zac wrote on this subject not too long ago.
Steiner considered the course of human evolution to be aimed at the realization of the Christ consciousness, which seeks the harmonious manifestation of all aspects of the human being in balance. Steiner’s thought is characterized by his belief in the correct differentiation of forces, as a precursor to a higher integration. His belief was that the Christ consciousness was opposed by a current of consciousness based on destruction, imbalance and conflict, which we may identify with the counter-initiation, and which Steiner referred to as Sorat, the Dragon. Steiner was clear that Sorat was not an antithetical element to the evolution of humanity, but a necessary counter weight, much as the Buddha considers suffering a precondition for enlightenment.
Further, Steiner separated the Sorat-current into two arms, which symbolize two different kinds of consciousness, but both act as temptations away from the gnostic Christ force. Again, both are useful and even necessary to human growth, but allowed to run unchecked these forces are destructive.
These two arms are ( you guessed it ) Lucifer and Ahriman.
In simplest terms these two represent energy and matter respectively. Lucifer is the symbol of energy, dynamic motion, dissolution of boundaries, and in a larger context, light, transcendence, and immateriality, hence an association with spirituality and even morality that can be misleading.
Ahriman is the symbol of matter, crystallization, formation of boundaries and limitations, solidification in all regions. Ahriman is the tendency for the animate to become inanimate, for motion to become stillness. Ahriman is thus identified with unconsciousness, materialism, and stasis. Because matter is ‘mute’ Ahriman can be considered to be the enemy of nonmaterial abstractions like morality and ethics.
Neither one is inherently harmful. Without Lucifer there is no motion, only dead matter, and without Ahriman there is no form, only endlessly fluctuating colliding forces.
Steiner makes an interesting point here, although we’re perhaps not so accustomed to thinking of Jesus in these terms. We’re more used to thinking of him along the lines of how he described Lucifer here, as sort of this spiritual opponent of the Devil, the Prince of Darkness. Steiner instead seems to see Jesus as an integration and transcending of both these impulses. This view of Lucifer definitely helps “shed some light on” the Luciferian strain of contemporary Satanism, which is often implicated by many conspiracy theorists in the form of Freemasonry and the Illuminati. Zac explains it a little better:
[…] these two forces act as twin temptations, always struggling to pull mankind away from the Gnostic/Christ current into some form of deviant synthesis of Lucifer/Ahriman that excludes the Christ consciousness as much as possible. In this way both fulfill their function as the arms of Sorat, the opponent of true human evolution. In Steiner’s own words each strives for a particular kind of deviant synthesis: Lucifer wishes us to become moral robots, cookie cutter children who await ascent into Lucifer’s world of light and beauty. While Ahriman wishes us to become free but amoral; rudderless ghost people in a dead world. Both overlook the deeper truth: that spirit is nondual, it transcends and incorporates both matter and energy, favoring neither.
Whether or not you buy into any of that, this seems to be the esoteric origin of the debate, and it all goes back to a little mis/translation of the Word of God. Some people might claim it goes much deeper than that, but those who do would do well to start here in their search.
- Myths of Masonry, Part 3
- God gets lonely too, you know
- Satan in the Hiz-ouse
- Jesus as an organizing principle
- I am Jesus
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July 30th, 2005 at 11:26 am
Well, i can think of at least three ways to look at this:
one is that the modern ‘fundamentalist’ christian behavior is pretty much textbook luciferanism. they become utterly infatuated by stories of light, miracles and visions of a place in a shining heaven and it tempts them to either devalue the material world, or despise it outright, hence hatred of sex, of the enviroment rgid morality to govern our behavior in a sinfull world, etc. this obsession with escape and redemption in some fantasy world is the quintessential pitfall of steinerian luciferanism.
another is the ‘classic’ gnostic viewpoint, which regards the material world as capital ‘E’ evil, and a creation of the demiurge. a trap for the sparks of divine light. in this schema the only difference from the first is a greater emphasis on Ahriman, who fills the role of the demiurge in this conception, and places jesus in the luciferian role of bringing us salvific knowledge to slip the bonds of material slavery. it tends to overlook the frequent admonitions of jesus that the kingdom of heaven is right here right now, and replace that with a another variation on the luciferian ascent into light, but in this case it’s structured in such a way as to exclude all the orthodox christians who are obviously pawns of the demiurge. elitist heaven basicly with no bad old roman authorities in it.
So the same imbalance just pushed from below not pulled from above.
and lastly the modern variant on gnosticism which tends to be skeptical of both poles but leans hevily towards Lucifer still, regarding worldy authority as incompetant corrupt and inherently evil or unworthy. it tends to deal less with ascent into light and more immanent transcendance of the material world and it’s negative aspects, in the manner of protestantism. a lot of modern luciferians do not seem to understand themselves as such, but you can see it in the obsession with the salvific quality of information, with acceleration, and occasionally even in some kind of apocalyptic transfiguration of the material world caused by the acceleration of the Lucifer current, whether it be the singularity, 2012 timewave zero, S.M.I.L.E. or the new jerusalem.
all three are unbalanced towards the Lucifer end of the spectrum, with individuals occasionally striking a good balance between the otherworldy and the material, transcendane and acceptance.
In general though, Ahriman has done a good job of driving seekers into the opposite end of the cattle chute towards the escape that Lucifer seems to offer. It’s the satanic dialectic if you will, according to rudolph steiner.
So to get back to the point moreso, you could say that jesus legitamtely adopted aspects of the lucifer energy to drive social progress and religious reform, but to take that and turn into an excuse to renounce the world and escape into fantasy is a distortion of what he meant. it’s good to remember there was no devil in the orginal bible, and ’sin’ just meant ‘error’.
July 30th, 2005 at 12:44 pm
Isaiah 14:12, nowhere in that passage does this actually refer to lucifer. maybe it was a reference to jesus. then the two would be one.
July 30th, 2005 at 1:06 pm
well, this doesn’t directly relate to your post, but have you ever heard of this:
http://christianexodus.org/
i was just reading an article in gq about them. they’re pretty wild.
July 30th, 2005 at 1:17 pm
That’s a great analysis Zac. Nevermind the New Age movement, which is pretty much pure Luciferianism, or Transhumanism which incorporates major elements.
July 30th, 2005 at 1:41 pm
well the new age is grounded pretty much in the ‘human potential’ movement, which basicly makes a religion out of acceleration towards our ‘potential’, which is all well and good but tends to delude people into thinking their ego with superpowers is somehow spiritual.
July 30th, 2005 at 1:47 pm
..and transhumanism is another weird example. it seems to have the bizzare notion that materiality can somehow overcome itself and become spirit. it’s like they’ve bought into Ahriman so completely they think it’s Lucifer. I suppose you could look at it as a half baked new branch of alchemy but in practice it’s more mortality fearing materialists who think materiality is going to save them from materiality someday. if a transhuman actually existed with the philosophical grounding most transhumanists seem to have, I’d run for fucking cover, cause he’s either batshit crazy, or soon will be…
July 30th, 2005 at 2:59 pm
so we`ve come around to spiritual again. please define.
July 30th, 2005 at 3:13 pm
http://goldenbraid.blogspot.com/2005/0...lution-will-not-be-spiritualised.html
July 30th, 2005 at 6:02 pm
This concept of Lucifer/Ahriman has been incredibly useful to me. How to reconcile the “Lightbringer” with all its positive connotations of enlightenment and transcendence, with the spectre of Lucifer himself? Is he good or evil? Well, neither. Pure spirituality is no better than pure materiality, it seems (though the dangers of pure materialism are far more obvious).
Christ consciousness as a synthesis of the material and the spiritual (if I’m reading this right) seems like a more “correct” way to go. I’ve recently been thinking about how god “so loved the world” that he sent his only begotten son. Well, the “world” he sent his son to was the material one, this one. And why wouldn’t god love raspberries and sunsets and trees?
I’ve always been a sensual person, open to the delights of touch and taste and sight and hearing. One of the things that scared me away from spiritual practice, in the past, was its denial of the body. The ascetic current seems like an extreme reaction to the material world. Perhaps our real struggle is to learn to live in balance.
July 30th, 2005 at 6:08 pm
Can anybody describe what the basic difference is between Steiner’s Lucifer vs. Ahriman, and the dichotomy between Platonism and Aristotelianism? It seems to me that the one real difference is that the third Christ-force enters here which bridges the dichotomy: fully God & fully Man. It seems like he set up Lucifer/Ahriman as both negatives (with some positive aspects of course) rather than just as opposing forces, so that Christ comes in as the one true positive force.
July 30th, 2005 at 6:59 pm
A friend of mine wrote a song that linked those two bits.
Damien Youth “Mythical Light” The payoff is the last line.
Yup. Just looking for an excuse to post that.
July 31st, 2005 at 1:03 am
FWIW teh Buddha also found enlightenment after sitting under the boddhi tree and then seeing the morning star
July 31st, 2005 at 2:48 am
Of course, you should fully expect to be swamped by hardcore Christians eager to tell you how wrong you are and how you are *so* going to Hell for equating the bearded longhair with Lucifer…
July 31st, 2005 at 3:52 am
Well, we know how they felt about it the last ime (the Ophites), but they don’t have the option of burning folks any more. (Or we’d be short a few Mormons, anyhow).
July 31st, 2005 at 3:53 am
Funny you should say that, I found a seventeenth century argument to that effect last night. Interestinglky, didn’t seem to havbe been to controversial.
July 31st, 2005 at 7:49 pm
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August 14th, 2005 at 1:57 pm
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