The Story of Lucifer’s Uprising

Here’s a detail from a fresco by the early 15th-century painter Giovanni da Modena, showing Satan munching on some poor damned soul, while defecating some other poor damned soul from his mouth-sphincter. Eew. The grotesque body of the Devil would have been especially horrifying in light of the Medieval belief that Satan had once had a glorious body, having dwelt with God in Heaven until his pride made him rebel. The former angel Lucifer was then cast down into Hell, where, envious of God’s mortal creation, he would do his best to tempt humanity into sin.

In fact, the story of Lucifer’ s uprising against God and his expulsion out of Heaven is not in the Bible. It grew up in the early centuries of Christianity, perhaps influenced by some Ancient Mespopotamian myths as well as a passage from a book in the Hebrew Bible. Lucifer is the Latin term for “light-bringer” and referred to the Morning-star, aka the planet Venus. In the Ancient Cannanite mythology, the morning-star was represented by a God called Attar, who tried to ascend the throne of the deity Ba’al. When he failed, he went to rule the underworld. In the Hebrew Bible’s Book of Isaiah chapter 14, there is a wicked king ruling Babylon who is also called the morning star. The prophet Isaiah condemns the king for having tried to reign above God, and declares that the morning star is now cast out of Heaven and has fallen down into “The realm of the dead, to the depths of the pit”. On the second image is one of the first known representations of the Christian Devil. It is the blue figure beside Jesus, who stands behind the souls of the damned, here represented by goats. Obviously, Lucifer hadn’t quite become the revolting and terrifying creature that eventually emerged in the Christian artistic tradition.