Lucifer

In modern and late Medieval Christian thought, Lucifer is a fallen angel commonly associated with Satan, the embodiment of evil and enemy of God. Lucifer is generally considered, based on the influence of Christian literature and legend, to have been a highly regarded angel in heaven, prior to having been motivated by pride to rebel against God. When the rebellion failed, Lucifer was cast out of heaven, along with a third of the heavenly host, and came to reside in the world.

Lucifer was originally a Latin word meaning "light-bearer" (from lux, "light", and ferre, "to bear, bring"), a Roman astrological term for the "Morning Star", the planet Venus. The word Lucifer was the direct translation of the Greek heosphorus ("dawn-bearer"; cf. Greek phosphorus, "light-bearer") used by Jerome in the Vulgate. In that passage, Isaiah 14:12, it referred to one of the popular honorific titles of a Babylonian king; however, later misinterpretations of the text and the influence of embelishments in works such as Dante's The Divine Comedy and Milton's Paradise Lost led to the common idea in Christian mythology and folklore that Lucifer was a poetic appellation of Satan.