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Summary
- The Bible gives no personal name for the angel who became the devil, and no verse says his name changed when he fell.
- “Lucifer” is the Latin Vulgate’s word, meaning “light-bringing” and naming the morning star, for the Hebrew helel, “shining one,” in Isaiah 14:12, a taunt against the king of Babylon.
- Christian writers such as Origen in the third century applied Isaiah 14:12 to Satan, reading it with Luke 10:18.
- Scripture never calls him an archangel; Ezekiel 28:14’s “anointed cherub,” addressed to the king of Tyre, is the verse read as describing his rank, and Michael is the angel who fights him (Revelation 12:7–9).
- Samael comes from rabbinic literature, and Satanael from the Slavonic Book of Enoch and the medieval Bogomils; neither name is in the Bible.
- “Satan” is Hebrew for “adversary” and is the Bible’s own name for the devil.
Bibliography (Click to show)
- Scripture quotations are from the King James Version (1611), text of Project Gutenberg eBook no. 10 (Job 1:6; Isaiah 14:4, 12–14; Ezekiel 28:12–15; Zechariah 3:1; Luke 10:18; 1 Thessalonians 4:16; 2 Peter 1:19; Jude 9; Revelation 12:7–9; 22:16). https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10
- Biblia Sacra Vulgata, Isaiah 14:12 and 2 Peter 1:19. https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Isaiah+14%3A12%3B2+Peter+1%3A19&version=VULGATE
- Septuagint (LXX), Isaiah 14:12. Blue Letter Bible. https://www.blueletterbible.org/lxx/isa/14/12/s_693012
- Isaiah 14:12 in the New International Version, English Standard Version and New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition. https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Isaiah+14%3A12&version=NIV;ESV;NRSVUE
- Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon and Strong’s Concordance: H1966 helel, https://www.blueletterbible.org/lexicon/h1966/kjv/wlc/0-1/; H7854 satan, https://www.blueletterbible.org/lexicon/h7854/kjv/wlc/0-1/; H410 el, https://www.blueletterbible.org/lexicon/h410/kjv/wlc/0-1/; G5459 phosphoros, https://www.blueletterbible.org/lexicon/g5459/kjv/tr/0-1/
- “Lucifer (n.).” Online Etymology Dictionary. https://www.etymonline.com/word/Lucifer
- Origen. De Principiis (On First Principles), Book 1, chapter 5. Translated by Frederick Crombie. In Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 4. Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1885. https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/04121.htm
- Thomas Aquinas. Summa Theologiae, First Part, question 63, article 7. Translated by the Fathers of the English Dominican Province. https://www.newadvent.org/summa/1063.htm
- Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2nd ed. Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1997. Paragraphs 391–395. https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P1C.HTM
- “Lucifer (bishop of Cagliari).” Encyclopaedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Lucifer-bishop-of-Cagliari
- Blau, Ludwig, and the Executive Committee of the Editorial Board. “Samael.” The Jewish Encyclopedia. New York: Funk and Wagnalls, 1901–1906. https://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/13055-samael
- The Book of the Secrets of Enoch (2 Enoch), chapters 18 and 31. Translated by W. R. Morfill, edited by R. H. Charles. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1896. https://www.pseudepigrapha.com/pseudepigrapha/enochs2.htm
- Larsen, David J. Book notice of New Perspectives on 2 Enoch: No Longer Slavonic Only, edited by Andrei Orlov and Gabriele Boccaccini (Leiden: Brill, 2012). BYU Studies 54, no. 1. https://byustudies.byu.edu/article/new-perspectives-on-2-enoch-no-longer-slavonic-only
- Obolensky, Dimitri. The Bogomils: A Study in Balkan Neo-Manichaeism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1948, pp. 119, 207–210, 227.
- Doctrine and Covenants 76:25–27. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/dc-testament/dc/76?lang=eng
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