The Mess With Venus-Lucifer

The mess with Venus-Lucifer

You know, with Venus in mythologies, some kind of mess is always happening. Sometimes it is a symbol of light and love, sometimes it is a symbol of war with a rather contradictory character. For the ancient Greeks and Romans, the Morning Star is the son of the goddess of dawn (Greek) Eos - (Roman) Aurora. He is described as an incredible handsome man who can compete in this with the local goddesses of beauty (Venus-Aphrodite). And in principle, he is a rather positive character there, heralding the beginning of the day. He was not among the main gods, no one made temples for him, but in poetry and just in everyday life he was often addressed. Okay, that is, we have a positive, light-bearing near-deity. Why is there also a Hesperus-Noctifer (Evening Star or Nightbringer)? Because Venus is visible well before dawn and at sunset, and the ancients thought that these were two different "stars", and when they realized that this was not the case, it was too late and they decided to simply leave them separately as convenient metaphors for the poetry.

Now let's turn to the biblical "Lucifer", because this is where it gets really interesting. This name appears in the Bible exactly once in the Latin translation, in a passage where the author mocks the Babylonian king who has fallen from grace.

“How you are fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! How you are cut down to the ground, You who weakened the nations! You said in your heart, “I will ascend to the heavens; I will raise my throne above the stars of God; I will sit enthroned on the mount of assembly, on the utmost heights of Mount Zaphon."

So, first: in the Hebrew it says "Helel ben Shahar", that is, the Shining son of Shahar. Wait, what Shahar, you ask? And Shahar was the Canaanite-Ugaritic god of the morning. It is unknown whether this god had a son, and whether his name was Helel, I have not found any evidence, but maybe you will be able to figure it out. But there was a god Attar (the male version of the goddess Ishtar), who was also the personification of the planet Venus, and just had a rather ambiguous reputation as almost a god of war. On the one hand, his epithet was the word "terrible", and on the other hand, he was worshiped as a god-protector in some cities.

In general, Ugaritic mythology almost entirely refers to the Old Testament. There was a supreme god El, who created everyone and everything. El gave birth to lesser gods - they were called Elohim, children of El. (Yes, later they started calling angels Elohim). So there were a lot of Elohim, but we are only interested in a couple - Baal, Yahweh and Attar. There are a lot of things to think about, but as far as I understand, Baal was the local analogue of Zeus and ruled the other gods (Elohim), because El himself (the creator of the universe) preferred not to do anything special and dumped everything on his son. So Attar somehow sat on Baal's throne, but Baal returned and threw him down. This is according to one version, according to another - El himself offered him to become the supreme god after Baal's death, but the throne was too big for him, and he eventually went to the underworld himself and began to live there. Doesn't remind you of anyone at all, does it?) By the way, Attar's symbols were a bull and an antelope, so he was depicted with horns.

There is one interesting feature in the ancient Eastern pantheons, all the Elohim were not universal, but were folk gods, they patronized only one chosen nation, and fought against the rest. I mentioned Yahweh earlier, and Yahweh is the biblical god we are familiar with, whose cult appeared before Christianity and at some point he also became part of the Elohim. Over time, his cult became so popular that he absorbed the qualities of both Baal and El, as a result of which he was proclaimed the creator of the universe. But initially, Yahweh was the god of the Jews and only the Jews, and did not patronize other peoples. Remember the line from the Bible, where they said about "Lucifer": "I will sit enthroned on the mount of assembly, on the utmost heights of Mount Zaphon." So, in Ugaritic mythology, Zaphon is the mountain on which the supreme gods lived, that the analogue of Olympus. At first it was Baal's, but then he was replaced by the previously mentioned Yahweh. In the Bible, this mountain seems to be called Sinai (the place where God gave Moses the commandments).

So what happens: the God of the planet Venus tries to get the throne of the supreme god Baal-Yahweh, but in the end he goes into the darkness to rule there. Well, a pure biblical story about Lucifer as a fallen angel.

It is just not clear why these people did not like the planet Venus. Well, it shines and shines, so what? The thing is that ancient people REALLY loved to watch the sky. Really really. And they saw that before dawn a bright "star" appears in the sky, and they were like: damn, what does this mean? Then there was a sunrise, which blocked the glow of Venus and people were like: Hmm… The sun always defeats this star, Venus can only bring light in the darkness. But unlike the Greco-Romans with their positive Lucifer-Phosphorus, the ancient Eastern tradition interpreted this negatively, like: Ha, Venus, how dare you want to become the sun!

Well, here's your "devil". Now you roughly understand where it all comes from. And I look at all this and think: wait, so a huge number of people now live based on a rather chaotic mythological fan fiction of one of the ancient Eastern peoples? In short, I advise you to also check all this, google it, maybe you'll also find something interesting.