{"id":507,"date":"2011-09-16T11:46:00","date_gmt":"2011-09-16T18:46:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.curtiscchen.com\/journal\/2011\/09\/16\/the-name-of-the-beast-and-friday-flash-fiction\/"},"modified":"2011-09-16T11:46:00","modified_gmt":"2011-09-16T18:46:00","slug":"the-name-of-the-beast-and-friday-flash-fiction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.curtiscchen.com\/journal\/2011\/09\/16\/the-name-of-the-beast-and-friday-flash-fiction\/","title":{"rendered":"The Name of the Beast (and Friday Flash Fiction)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last Sunday, as I was writing this week’s 512<\/i> story<\/a>, I casually mentioned on Twitter that I was “researching the difference between the Devil, Satan, and Lucifer.”<\/a> Lo and behold, @GrammarGirl<\/a> saw that and said she would be interested in my findings. So here they are, in brief:<\/p>\n

In a modern Judeo-Christian context, there’s really no practical difference between “the Devil,” “Satan,” and “Lucifer.” (Note that the capital “D” is important in the first term; lowercase-“d” devils can refer to a number of things, from vacuum cleaners<\/a> to zombies<\/a>.) The interesting thing is how those terms originated, and how they came to be conflated.<\/p>\n

Let’s start with Lucifer<\/b>. It comes from the Latin LUCEM FERRE<\/i>, which means, literally, “light-bringer”–the term originally referred to the planet Venus (“morning star”), which is often visible at dawn. It wasn’t until later that the name Lucifer became synonymous with a supernatural being who presides over Hell and tempts humanity to commit sin. (In fact, in Revelation 22:16<\/a>, Jesus refers to himself<\/i> as “the morning star”–though he uses different words, not “Lucifer.”) John Milton popularized the notion in Paradise Lost<\/i> when he made “Satan” and “Lucifer” the same character, drawing a distinction between the wayward angel’s post- and pre-fall-from-Heaven names.<\/p>\n

(Aside: DC Comics<\/a>, by way of Vertigo’s Sandman<\/i> series, gave him a full name–“Lucifer Morningstar”–which is a bit redundant, but I like the implication that he has a family, and maybe relatives he doesn’t like so much. More on that below.)<\/p>\n

Satan<\/b>, on the other hand, derives from the Hebrew term ha-Satan<\/i>, traditionally translated as “the adversary” and with the definite article prefix indicating a title rather than a personal name. I’m not a Biblical scholar (I rarely touch the stuff), but as far as I can tell, the earliest Greek translation of the good book turned satan<\/i> into the Greek word diabolos<\/i> (“slanderer”) in some places but not others, possibly causing confusion about whether the Hebrew word was a proper name. Many mythological creatures and persons are called by multiple names anyway, so it’s not a stretch to think that readers just went with it.<\/p>\n

Finally, the word Devil<\/b> comes–as you might imagine–directly from the Greek diabolos<\/i>, but depending on who you ask, the term may refer to either a demon or a fallen angel or simply a symbolic figure representing evil and\/or temptation. It’s the most generic of the three terms presented here, always used as a title rather than a personal name; that probably explains why it’s the most versatile and most often abused<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In my flash fiction piece “One of Our Angels is Missing,”<\/a> I go with the modern interpretation and use all three of these terms interchangeably. I have a little fun with the name Lucifer, which of course abbreviates to “Lou,” and introduce the Devil’s twin brother as my protagonist. (No, this is not based on any existing mythology I know of; I enjoy making stuff up.) Stanley Morningstar may be a bit slow, but he’s basically a nice guy. Well, as nice as you can be when you live in Hell…<\/p>\n

Read “One of Our Angels is Missing”<\/a> at 512 Words or Fewer<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

\"Curtis\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last Sunday, as I was writing this week’s 512 story, I casually mentioned on Twitter that I was “researching the difference between the Devil, Satan, and Lucifer.” Lo and behold, @GrammarGirl saw that and said she would be interested in…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[38,23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-507","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-512words","category-randomresearch"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtiscchen.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/507","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtiscchen.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtiscchen.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtiscchen.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtiscchen.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=507"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtiscchen.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/507\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtiscchen.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=507"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtiscchen.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=507"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtiscchen.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=507"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}