Page "Lucifer" Paragraph 12

Early Christians were influenced by the association of Isaiah 14: 12-15 with the Devil, which had developed in the period between the writing of the Old Testament and the New Testament.

Even in the New Testament itself, Sigve K Tonstad argues, the War in Heaven theme of, in which the dragon " who is called the devil and Satan … was thrown down to the earth ", derives from the passage in Isaiah 14.

Origen ( 184 / 185 – 253 / 254 ) interpreted such Old Testament passages as being about manifestations of the Devil ; but of course, writing in Greek, not Latin, he did not identify the Devil with the name " Lucifer ".

Tertullian ( c. 160 – c. 225 ), who wrote in Latin, also understood (" I will ascend above the tops of the clouds ; I will make myself like the Most High ") as spoken by the Devil, but " Lucifer " is not among the numerous names and phrases he used to describe the Devil.

Even at the time of the Latin writer Augustine of Hippo ( 354 – 430 ), " Lucifer " had not yet become a common name for the Devil.

But some time later, the metaphor of the morning star that Isaiah 14: 12 applied to a king of Babylon gave rise to the general use of the Latin word for " morning star ", capitalized, as the original name of the Devil before his fall from grace, linking Isaiah 14: 12 with (" I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven ") and interpreting the passage in Isaiah as an allegory of Satan's fall from heaven.