THE FALL OF LUCIFER
(a) On the Third Day of Creation God's chief archangel, a cherub by name Lucifer, son of the Dawn ('Helel ben Shahar'), walked in Eden amid blazing jewels, his body a-fire with carnelian, topaz, emerald, diamond, beryl, onyx, jasper, sapphire and carbuncle, all set in purest gold. For awhile Lucifer, whom God had made Guardian of All Nations, behaved discreetly; but soon pride turned his wits. 'I will ascend above the clouds and stars,' he said, 'and enthrone myself on Saphon, the Mount of Assembly, thus becoming God's equal.' God, observing Lucifer's ambitions, cast him down from Eden to Earth, and from Earth to Sheol. Lucifer shone like lightning as he fell, but was reduced to ashes; and now his spirit flutters blindly without cease through profound gloom in the Bottomless Pit.[80]
***
1. In Isaiah XIV. 12–15, the King of Babylon's pre-ordained fall is compared to that of Helel ben Shahar:
How art thou fallen from heaven,
O Lucifer son of the Dawn!
How art thou cast down to the ground,
Despoiler of nations!
And thou saidst in thy heart:
'I will ascend to heaven,
Above the stars of El
Will I lift my throne;
I will sit on the Mount of Meeting,
In the utmost North.
'I will ascend above the hills of cloud;
I will be like unto the Most High!'
Yet thou art brought down to Sheol,
To the bottomless abyss.
This short reference suggests that the myth was familiar enough not to need telling in full: for Isaiah omits all details of the archangel's punishment by God (here named Elyon, 'the Most High'), who resented rivals in glory. Ezekiel (XXVIII. 11–19) is more explicit when he makes a similar prophecy against the King of Tyre, though omitting Lucifer's name:
Moreover the word of the Lord came unto me, saying:
'Son of man, take up a lamentation upon the King of Tyrus, and say unto him: "Thus saith the Lord God: Thou sealest up the sum full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty.
'"Thou hast been in Eden, the garden of God; every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius, the topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold: the workmanship of thy tabrets and of thy pipes was prepared for thee in the day that thou wast created.
'"Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth; and I have set thee so: thou wast upon the holy mountain of God; thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire.
'"Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee.
'"By the multitude of thy merchandise they have filled the midst of thee with violence, and thou hast sinned: therefore I will cast thee as profane out of the mountain of God: and I will destroy thee, O covering cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire.
'"Thine heart was lifted up because of thy beauty, thou hast corrupted thy wisdom by reason of thy brightness: I will cast thee to the ground, I will lay thee before kings, that they may behold thee.
'"Thou hast defiled thy sanctuaries by the multitude of thine iniquities, by the iniquity of thy traffic; therefore will I bring forth a fire from the midst of thee, it shall devour thee, and I will bring thee to ashes upon the earth in the sight of all them that behold thee.
'"All they that know thee among the people shall be astonished at thee: thou shalt be a terror, and never shalt thou be any more."'
2. Helel ben Shahar was originally the planet Venus, the last proud star to defy sunrise: a simple Hebrew allegory which has, however, been combined with the myth of Phaethon's fall—burned to death when he presumptuously drove his father Helius's sun-chariot. This myth, though Greek, seems to have originated in Babylon where, every year, a masterless sun-chariot symbolizing the demise of the Crown—during which a boy-surrogate occupied the royal throne for a single day—careered through the city streets. The surrogate, a favourite of the Goddess Ishtar (who controlled the planet Venus) was afterwards sacrificed. Isaiah seems, therefore, to be prophesying that the king must suffer the same death as his surrogate. In Greek myth, Phaethon son of Apollo became identified with a namesake, Phaethon son of Eos ('Dawn'); according to Hesiod, the Goddess Aphrodite (Ishtar) carried him off to guard her temple. Ezekiel's King of Tyre worshipped Ishtar and watched boys being burned alive as surrogates of the God Melkarth ('Ruler of the City').
3. Although Job XXXVIII. 7 describes the 'morning stars' singing together, the name 'Helel' occurs nowhere else in Scripture; but Helel's father, Shahar ('Dawn'), appears in Psalm CXXXIX. 9 as a winged deity. Ugaritic mythology makes Shahar, or Baal son of El, a twin-brother to Shalem ('Perfect'). The Mountain of the North ('Saphon') which Helel aspired to ascend, can be identified with Saphon, Mount of God, upon which, according to Ugaritic myth, stood Baal's Throne. When Baal was killed by Mot, his sister Anath buried him there. Saphon, or Zaphon, the 5800-foot mountain—now called Jebel Akra—on which the North-Semitic Bull-god El also ruled 'in the midst of his divine assembly', rises near the mouth of the Orontes. The Hittites named it Mount Hazzi, and held it to be the place from where Teshub, the Storm-god, his brother Tashmishu, and his sister Ishtar sighted the terrible stone-giant (the 'diorite man' as some scholars translate it) Ullikummi who planned their destruction; launched their attack against him, and finally defeated him. The Greeks named it Mount Casius, home of the monster Typhon and the she-monster Delphyne who together disarmed Zeus, King of Heaven, and kept him prisoner there in the Corycian Cave until the god Pan subdued Typhon with a great shout and Hermes, god of Cunning, rescued Zeus. The Orontes had been known as 'Typhon'. Saphon was famous for the destructive North winds that whirled from it over Syria and Palestine. All these myths refer to conspiracies against a powerful deity; in the Hebrew alone no mention is made of God's initial discomfiture.
4. Lucifer is identified in the New Testament with Satan (Luke X. 18; 2 Corinthians XI. 14), and in the Targum with Samael (Targ. ad Job XXVIII. 7).
