Lucifer

Lucifer is the King James Version rendering of the Hebrew word הֵילֵל in Isaiah 14:12. This word, transliterated hêlêl 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,[Isa 14] meaning "the morning star, the planet Venus", or, as an adjective, "light-bringing". The Septuagint renders הֵילֵל in Greek as ἑωσφόρος (heōsphoros),[12][13][14] a name, literally "bringer of dawn", for the morning star.

In this passage Isaiah applies to a king of Babylon the image of the morning star fallen from the sky, an image he is generally believed to have borrowed from a legend in Canaanite mythology.

The pseudepigrapha of pre-Christian Enochic Judaism, the form of Judaism witnessed to in 1 Enoch and 2 Enoch, which enjoyed much popularity during the Second Temple period, gave Satan an expanded role, interpreting Isaiah 14:12-15, with its reference to the morning star, as applicable to him, and presenting him as a fallen angel cast out of heaven[ for refusing, according to Jewish writings, to bow to Adam, of whom Satan was envious and jealous of the power over the earth granted to Adam.

Christian writers explained the motives of the angel's rebellion and the nature of his sin in the same way, but added pride against God, which they mention more frequently than envy or jealousy with regard to humanity.

Christian tradition, influenced by the Jewish presentation of the passage of Isaiah as applicable to Satan,] came to use the Latin word for "morning star", lucifer, as a proper name ("Lucifer") for Satan as Satan 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.

However, the Latin word lucifer kept its original positive sense for early Christians, as is evident from its use as a personal name by, among others, two 4th-century bishops, Lucifer of Cagliari and Lucifer of Siena, and its appearance in the Easter Proclamation as a description of Jesus.