{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/5813", "note": "Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it. Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact.", "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'" }, "archive": "urth", "thread": { "id": 5813, "subject": "Devil/Satan/Lucifer", "messages": 2, "voices": 2, "first": "2010-12-11T18:46:04+00:00", "last": "2010-12-11T20:05:48+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Andrew Mason", "address": "andrew.mason53 at googlemail.com" }, "date": "2010-12-11T18:46:04+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Devil/Satan/Lucifer", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "As this thread is, as Jonas would say, flying off in all directions,\nI'm taking the liberty of renaming some bits. (I notice from the\narchives that in the early days of this list,it seems to have been de\nrigueur to rename threads all the time, thus making them almost\nimposible to follow. Now it has swung the other way and we keep the\nsame titles even when all contact with the original subject has been\nlost.)\n\nI am a bit confused about all this talk of distinctions between\nvarious diabolic figures. David says that the Devil and Lucifer are\ndifferent literary figures, one from American folklore and one from\n_Paradise Lost_. But the Devil/Satan/Lucifer - all names of the same\nbeing - was a figure of Christian thought long before either American\nfolklore or Milton (who, in any case, mostly calls his character\nSatan) existed.\n\nAntonio said they are different philosophically, but I'd like more\nexplanation of that - I'm not sure what philosophical traditions we\nare talking about here. Perhaps this links up with another thing David\nsaid, that Satan is an eternal source of evil while Lucifer is a\nfallen angel. In that case I think we can say quite firmly that any\ndiabolic figure in Wolfe (I'm not convinced there are any, but any\nthere might be) would have to be a fallen angel (or, an in some way\ncorrupt angelic sort of being) - Christian orthodoxy doesn't allow\neternal sources of eveil, and I'm pretty sure Wolfe goes along with\nthat.\n\n(I wonder if Inire might be Crowley - 'an angel who didn't so much\nfall as saunter vaguely downwards'.)" } ] }, { "message_id": "<4D03D99C.3080002@verizon.net>", "from": { "name": "David Stockhoff", "address": "dstockhoff at verizon.net" }, "date": "2010-12-11T20:05:48+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Devil/Satan/Lucifer", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Thanks Andrew---I'd like to hear more from Antonio too.\n\nI agree that Christian orthodoxy does not posit two eternal, opposing \nprinciples of good and evil, and that makes the \"origin myth\" of Satan \nkey. Whether it \"allows\" this idea of real personified evil may be a \ndifferent question, since I believe even the Vatican has a house exorcist.\n\nRegardless, the Devil is largely a folk concept, like the Harrowing of \nHell and so on, that was invented (or built up from pieces) during the \nMiddle Ages. It might be more correct to say \"orthodox tradition\" rather \nthan \"orthodoxy\"---Christianity has many contradictory traditions, as \nall religions do.\n\nWe also have two testaments of the Bibles to deal with. The Serpent in \nthe Garden is in Genesis, which is most closely tied with myths of \ncreation and precedes all other books. The name Satan does not appear \nthere---but \"everyone\" agrees the serpent is Satan. Satan appears in the \nNew Testament. Lucifer appears in the Old, but see below ...\n\nI just found the following bit of illumination on a Mormon web site and \nmake no guarantees about it, but it is an example of the kind of \ntransformations that occur over centuries \n(http://www.lds-mormon.com/lucifer.shtml):\n\n\"Lucifer makes his appearance in the fourteenth chapter of the Old \nTestament book of Isaiah, at the twelfth verse, and nowhere else: \"How \nart thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! How art thou \ncut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations!\"\n.\n..Lucifer is a Latin name.... In the original Hebrew text, the \nfourteenth chapter of Isaiah is not about a fallen angel, but about a \nfallen Babylonian king, who during his lifetime had persecuted the \nchildren of Israel. It contains no mention of Satan, either by name or \nreference . \nThe Hebrew scholar could only speculate that some early Christian \nscribes, writing in the Latin tongue used by the Church, had decided for \nthemselves that they wanted the story to be about a fallen angel, a \ncreature not even mentioned in the original Hebrew text, and to whom \nthey gave the name \"Lucifer.\"\n\nWhy Lucifer? In Roman astronomy, Lucifer was the name given to the \nmorning star (...Venus). The morning star appears in the heavens just \nbefore dawn, heralding the rising sun. The name derives from the Latin \nterm lucem ferre, bringer, or bearer, of light.\" In the Hebrew text the \nexpression used to describe the Babylonian king before his death is \nHelal, son of Shahar, which can best be translated as \"Day star, son of \nthe Dawn.\"\n\nThe scholars authorized by ... King James I to translate the Bible into \ncurrent English did not use the original Hebrew texts, but used versions \ntranslated ... largely by St. Jerome in the fourth century. Jerome had \nmistranslated the Hebraic metaphor, \"Day star, son of the Dawn,\" as \n\"Lucifer,\" and over the centuries a metamorphosis took place. Lucifer \nthe morning star became a disobedient angel, cast out of heaven to rule \neternally in hell. Theologians, writers, and poets interwove the myth \nwith the doctrine of the Fall, and in Christian tradition Lucifer is now \nthe same as Satan, the Devil, and --- ironically --- the Prince of Darkness.\n\n\nI wonder if Iubar, in the context of BOTNS, should somehow be read more \nin terms of \"heralding the rising sun\" (the New Sun?!) than \"fallen \nangel.\" Or both.\n\nAnyway, you can see why I emphasize Milton's Lucifer, since Paradise \nLost is a retelling of Genesis and Lucifer the angel is nowhere else so \nmuch expounded upon." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 12/11/2010 1:46 PM, Andrew Mason wrote:\nAntonio said they are different philosophically, but I'd like more\nexplanation of that - I'm not sure what philosophical traditions we\nare talking about here. Perhaps this links up with another thing David\nsaid, that Satan is an eternal source of evil while Lucifer is a\nfallen angel. In that case I think we can say quite firmly that any\ndiabolic figure in Wolfe (I'm not convinced there are any, but any\nthere might be) would have to be a fallen angel (or, an in some way\ncorrupt angelic sort of being) - Christian orthodoxy doesn't allow\neternal sources of eveil, and I'm pretty sure Wolfe goes along with\nthat." } ] } ] }