A journey through Greek, Mesopotamian, and biblical mythology in search of Lucifer's pagan origins, tracing the recurring myth of the radiant being who falls from the heavens and becomes a symbol of rebellion, power, and revolution.
Who, in truth, is Lucifer? Before becoming the Prince of Darkness in Christian eschatology, and before being proclaimed the Light-Bearer cast down from Heaven, his image drifted for centuries through the traditions of ancient cultures. This essay is not concerned with theological dogmas. Rather, it attempts to reconstruct the ancient pagan substratum of the myth. We shall follow the traces of a striking recurring pattern: the story of a being of solar radiance, born from the union of Heaven and Earth, who is cast down into the underworld, leaving behind a trail of stench and decay. From the celestial journey of Phaethon, through the buried dragon Python, to the tyrant Nimrod, we shall trace the way a single motif flows through Greek, Mesopotamian, and biblical mythology, until we finally encounter the figure who would become the eternal symbol of rebellion and revolution.
Part I: Phaethon, Python, and Typhon
At the beginning of this inquiry into Lucifer, I shall set aside conventional images and instead turn to several suggestive details from Greek mythology, beginning with the myth of Phaethon. The connection between Phaethon, Python, Typhon, and Lucifer was noted by Jake Stratton-Kent in Geosophia. Phaethon, whose name may be translated as the shining one or the radiant one, was the son of the sun-god Titan Helios and the Oceanid nymph Clymene. In a blaze of light he fell from heaven after losing control of the solar chariot he had borrowed from his father. As a consequence of this catastrophe, a terrible stench arose from his gigantic remains.
Here we may draw a parallel with the corpse of Python, whose name signifies the rotting one and who was slain by the solar god Apollo before being buried at Delphi. In certain versions of the myth, Python is replaced by Dracaena, a female dragon, recalling the Mesopotamian tale in which the solar god Marduk slays the dragon-serpent goddess Tiamat. Following Stratton-Kent, we may complete the relationship between Phaethon and Python by introducing yet another mythological figure: Typhon, a buried god whose decaying body generated a dense and foul-smelling mist.
Typhon, whose name suggests a hurricane or tempest, was the child of Tartarus and Gaia, a serpentine and anthropomorphic winged giant who was slain by Zeus. Typhon was identified with the Egyptian god Set. He was also the father of Cerberus, the three-headed hound guarding the entrance to the Underworld, as well as of the Sphinx, whose mother was the half-serpentine Echidna. Zeus likewise brought about the death of Phaethon.
The maddened solar chariot, whose horses clearly refused to obey their inexperienced driver after he became terrified upon seeing Scorpio in the heavens, meaning the constellation, descended dangerously close to the Earth and ravaged it with solar heat. Zeus then struck Phaethon down with a thunderbolt. Phaethon fell into the river Eridanus, which flows through Hades. Here one may note a linguistic resemblance to the Sumerian city of Eridu, sacred to the water-god Enki.
Likewise, the biblical Helel ben Shachar (Son of the Dawn), mentioned by the prophet Isaiah, descends into the Hebrew underworld, the realm of the dead known as Sheol. In Revelation 8:10, we encounter the image of a star falling like a torch into the waters. Thus Phaethon, Python, and Typhon share a cluster of details that would become highly characteristic of later Christian representations of Lucifer or Satan. Among these are:
a hellish, chthonic stench;
a fall from celestial heights into the abyss of the underworld;
an association with solar divinities;
and a connection to the supreme thunder-wielding god.
Phaethon was commemorated in the constellation Auriga, the Charioteer. The Greek name of this constellation is Eniochos (“the holder of the reins”), a name whose sound curiously recalls the biblical Enoch, whom God took during his lifetime (Genesis 5:21-24).
Part II: Phaethon, Erichthonius, Clymene, and Eos
There also exists a tradition that associates this constellation with the legendary Sumerian king Nimrod, the builder of the famous Tower of Babel. In one version of the Greek myth, the charioteer's name is Erichthonius, whose name may be interpreted as “he who struggles with the earth.” He is the son of the volcanic god Hephaestus and the goddess Athena, although some sources claim that Gaia herself gave birth to him. Erichthonius was born crippled, and because he could not walk, his father fashioned a wheeled carriage, or chariot, for him. His protectress was Athena, who concealed him within a basket, traditionally used for keeping serpents, because the lower portion of his body was serpentine. On the famous statue of Athena in the Parthenon, Erichthonius was represented in the form of a serpent beside the goddess's shield. He was also regarded as the inventor of the quadriga, the four-horse chariot.
At first glance, it may seem difficult to identify Erichthonius with Phaethon, yet a connection between Phaethon and Hephaestus exists in a version of the myth according to which Phaethon was the son of Hephaestus himself. Another link between Phaethon and the Underworld lies in the identification of his father Helios with Hephaestus, whose Egyptian counterpart was the god Ptah. Furthermore, it was Hephaestus who forged the cup that served as a vessel, comparable to the solar barque of Ra, by which Helios travelled through the subterranean waters from West to East during the night. Helios and Hephaestus, although distinct deities, may be understood as two manifestations of the same solar being. The difference is that Hephaestus represents the chthonic form of the Sun, while Helios embodies its celestial aspect.
In another version of the myth of Phaethon, his mother was the dawn-goddess Eos, herself of Titanic origin and the sister of the solar god Helios and the lunar goddess Selene. His father was the mortal Cepheus, possibly connected etymologically with Khufu or Cheops, the son of the Egyptian king Belus, ruler of Ethiopia, husband of Cassiopeia, and father of Andromeda, all of them names preserved among the constellations of the heavens. In this version, Phaethon was beloved by Aphrodite. It should be remembered that both Eos and Aphrodite are mythic expressions of the planetary nature of Venus, which once again brings us back to the Venus-Lucifer complex.
In one variant of the myth, Phaethon's mother, the nymph Clymene, also appears as the mother of another highly suggestive mythological figure, one who evokes powerful Luciferian associations: Prometheus. In addition to these two, Clymene is also the mother of the famous giant Atlas, who, because of his participation in the Titanic rebellion against the Olympian gods, was condemned to bear the vault of Heaven upon his shoulders. It is therefore in the figures of Clymene and Eos that we may seek the keys to the maternal principle of Luciferianism. As the morning dew associated with Eos and as the nymph Clymene, we encounter here the watery element functioning as the Mother who, through union with the Sun, gives birth to a great and powerful being fated toward downfall, a being destined for death through the intervention of heavenly powers.
In the version of the myth where Eos is Phaethon's mother, the probable cause of his fall resides in the mortal nature inherited from his father Cepheus. Clymene is also the mother of the seven nymphs known as the Heliades, a motif strongly suggestive of solar waters. A constellation itself was named after the Heliades. Phaethon would thus be the eighth child, the only male among them.
This recalls much of what Kenneth Grant, following Gerald Massey, wrote concerning the Egyptian Great Mother goddess Ta-Urt, represented through the seven stars of Ursa Major, who gives birth to the god Set, embodied in the Dog Star, Sirius. Originally, this was the Son of the Mother, born without the participation of a father, pointing to a matrilineal culture and to an age in which the male role in procreation possessed little or no significance. The masculine principle was therefore invisible, supernatural, or divine. And its most suitable representative was the Sun itself.
III Segment: Helel ben Shahar, Nimrod
Peter Grey, in Lucifer: Princeps, identifies several additional figures from Greek mythology as examples of Luciferian motifs alongside Phaethon, including Bellerophon, Prometheus, and Icarus. He also mentions the Sumerian figures Etana, Gilgamesh, and Attar. We can therefore observe multiple variations of the same mythic pattern across different cultures.
At this point, I would like to make a brief digression and present several ideas from Grey's book that are relevant to the present discussion before returning to the main thread of the narrative embodied in the examples drawn from Greek mythology. At the very core of the Lucifer myth stands rebellion against an established or legitimate order and the attempt to seize supreme authority. The term Lucifer, in its biblical sense, appears in the Latin translation of the Old Testament, in Isaiah 14:12, rendered in English as:
"How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! How art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations!"
According to Grey, the passage in Isaiah (14:12-15) contains fragments of a myth corresponding to the figure of Phaethon, a myth that probably possesses an even older origin, most likely Sumerian. Isaiah's Light-Bearer was translated into Latin as Lucifer. In the Greek version, the equivalent term is Eosphoros. The immediate context of the passage refers to an Assyro-Babylonian ruler, most likely Sargon II, whom the prophet Isaiah curses. Isaiah rejoices in his downfall and interprets it as evidence of Yahweh's supremacy. Ultimately, however, the identity of an ancient Near Eastern tyrant is of little importance. What matters is that he represents a power, a geopolitical force, which imposed upon the Israelites what they perceived as an illegitimate, blasphemous, pagan, anti-cosmic, and ultimately Satanic order. The ruler of the Neo-Assyrian Empire thus became the embodiment of a legendary adversarial spirit of world history.
Grey argues that the Hebrew title used by Isaiah, Helel ben Shahar ("Son of Dawn"), was in fact a royal title, since its legitimacy derived from the Morning Star, Venus, and therefore from the goddess Ishtar. In the eyes of the Old Testament prophet, Ishtar was an idol, a false deity. The ancient Semitic deity Attar, probably a variation of Ishtar or Astarte, was likewise associated with Venus and with the watery element.
Grey suggests that the figure who, within the biblical context, may serve as the prototype or common symbol of the Sumerian doctrine of cosmic and royal legitimacy, later inherited by other pagan peoples of the Ancient Near East, is Nimrod. This ruler is mentioned in the tenth chapter of Genesis and is frequently associated, in extra-biblical sources, with the construction of the Tower of Babel, thus becoming the embodiment of humanity's rebellion against the Divine Order.
In the Bible, Nimrod is identified as a descendant of Ham, one of Noah’s three sons, the son whom Noah cursed. Nimrod's father is Cush, the ancestor of the Cushites, or Ethiopians, a detail that irresistibly recalls the figure of Cepheus in Greek mythology, the Ethiopian king who, in one version of the myth, as I have already noted, was the father of Phaethon.
According to Genesis Chapter 10, the descendants of Ham, the Hamites, ruled the land of Sumer, although official historiography cannot confirm such a claim. More generally, the Hamites comprise Egyptians, Libyans, Canaanites, and Ethiopians, a lineage that, from the biblical perspective, appears as a diabolical race or bloodline whose magical religions provoked the wrath of Yahweh's prophets, yet whose technical and civilizational superiority cannot be ignored.
Greek mythology recounts that Africans became dark-skinned when Phaethon, having lost control of the chariot of Helios, descended too close to the Earth, scorching the skin of the African peoples and destroying the vegetation of what would later become the Sahara Desert. In the Book of Mormon of the American prophet Joseph Smith, dark skin is likewise described as the expression of a curse cast by God upon originally fair-skinned people who had become unfaithful. Such myths may represent either an echo of, or one of the roots behind, the perception of Africans as inheritors of dark rites and demonolatrous traditions, serving as an explanation for both their appearance and their association with a different sacred heritage.
The values, beliefs, and practices imposed by the pagan conquerors stood in opposition to the established order upon which the Kingdom of Israel had been founded as the State of God. Many Israelites of the period adopted these foreign fashions, embracing alien beliefs and customs, which drew the condemnation of the prophets. The prophet Isaiah curses them and describes their behavior as a rebellion against God. It is precisely this rebellion against God, undertaken in favor of worldly rivalry, pride, and idolatry, that becomes a key element in the formation of the myth of Lucifer as Satan, the universal Adversary who eventually acquires Ahrimanic dimensions. He becomes the Deceiver.
An additional motif of the Lucifer myth, as Grey emphasizes, is the cult of meteoritic metal, a subject about which Mircea Eliade also wrote extensively. Meteorites, especially those rich in iron, possessed an almost universally sacred character among ancient peoples. They provided the original impetus for the development of metallurgy and the smith's craft, which was traditionally associated with magic and the world of spirits. As Eliade demonstrated, smiths were originally alchemists as well. Among some peoples, smiths enjoyed great respect and prestige. Others regarded them as a necessary evil, as individuals connected to malevolent spirits and dark forms of magic. In this context, the connection between the biblical Tubal-Cain, a descendant of the infamous Cain, and metallurgy becomes particularly significant.
The betyl, or sacred stone, is precisely a stone of celestial origin, a meteoritic stone. For this reason many ancient peoples believed that the vault of heaven itself was composed of metal. Meteoric iron was understood as a gift from the gods of heaven. In this sense, it is not difficult to imagine a meteoritic origin for myths concerning fallen gods, demigods, angels, or the sons of the gods.
IV Segment: Bellerophon
I shall now turn to Bellerophon, the hero, grandson of Sisyphus, son of the god Poseidon, although in another version of the myth his father is Glaucus, king of Corinth, and his mother Eurynome, the wife of Glaucus. It was said that he was as beautiful as a god. What immediately stands out here is the ancient motif of divine paternity which, beyond reflecting a matrilineal culture, points to the exceptional nature of the child and serves as a central feature in the birth narratives of divine beings and extraordinary individuals. I shall not dwell excessively upon the details of his myth.
It is sufficient to emphasize that Bellerophon was a heroic slayer of monsters and, among other feats, succeeded in killing the famous three-headed Chimera, a creature composed of lion, goat, and serpent. He also managed to capture and tame the winged horse Pegasus, a mythological figure who eventually became far more famous than Bellerophon himself, to such an extent that an entire constellation bears his name. Pegasus, incidentally, was born from the blood that gushed from the neck of the decapitated Gorgon Medusa, identified by some esoteric traditions with the star Algol, after she had been slain by the hero Perseus. Although winged, Pegasus was fundamentally a creature of aquatic origin. Be that as it may, it was precisely by riding Pegasus that Bellerophon succeeded in ascending to Olympus itself, an act of audacity that did not go unpunished by Zeus. As we know from mythology, horses, at least for the Greeks, were chthonic animals and were sacred to the water-god Poseidon. For this reason, solar chariots possess an intrinsic connection to depth and to the underworld.
The Sumerian mythological figure Etana likewise ascended to the heavens with the aid of an eagle, reaching the highest point of the sky, Elati. Etana also descended into the underworld and became the guardian of the entrance to the lower realm. Here again we encounter the fundamental Luciferian motif: the ascent to heaven followed by a fall brought about through the intervention of a supreme or solar deity. In Isaiah (14:13-15) we read:
“For thou hast said in thy heart, ‘I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation in the farthest north; I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the Most High.’
Yet thou shalt be brought down to Sheol, to the depths of the Pit.”
According to one version of the myth, Bellerophon was originally a Lycian solar deity who traversed the heavens upon a winged horse and subdued hostile forces threatening humanity, forces embodied, for example, in the figure of the Chimera. Within this solar dimension we may discern a similarity between Bellerophon and Phaethon. Bellerophon, once a handsome youth of extraordinary beauty, eventually fell from the heights of Olympus and ended his days as a crippled and disfigured figure. This recalls either the son of Hephaestus or Hephaestus himself, the lame god. Likewise, in popular tradition, Lucifer, once beautiful and proud, becomes after the Fall an ugly, limping, and ill-tempered devil.
Peter Grey refers to the work of Michael C. Astour and his analysis of the etymology of the name Bellerophon. Astour interprets the name as a Semitic derivation whose underlying form is Baʿal-rāphôn, meaning "Baal the Healer." In the final analysis, this figure may be regarded as a prototype of the archangel Raphael, who likewise possesses a healing function. Grey emphasizes another aspect of the story of Bellerophon that is closely connected with magic, namely the assistance he received from the goddess Athena in taming Pegasus. With the aid of a magical charm, he succeeded in mastering the wondrous horse.
These are the powers and arts of witches, but also of the so-called Daughters of the Sun: Circe and Medea. Likewise, the knowledge of metallurgy and herbal lore, the preparation of magical potions for enchantment, poisoning, or healing, belongs to the chthonic domain of sorcery, later associated with the worship of the Devil and, ultimately, with Satanism. It is precisely this satanic aura that characterizes Lucifer within our own culture. In that sense, Lucifer, or Helel ben Shahar, was demonized and transformed into a devil through the curses of the prophet Isaiah, a transformation later reaffirmed within the New Testament.
The magical current had been set in motion, and from that point onward it continued to poison the imagination, gradually constructing the figure of the demon. In this regard, a question remains suspended in the air: Is this figure emancipatory or repressive? Or is it perhaps both at once? Whatever our opinion of him may be, one thing cannot be disputed: Lucifer is a symbol of revolution.
Conclusion
The journey from Phaethon to Bellerophon reveals that Lucifer is not the product of a single mind, a single prophet, or a single book. Above all, he is a structure, a recurring narrative pattern deeply rooted in the human psyche and in its attempts to explain the origins of light, power, rebellion, and suffering. Whether we are speaking of the Greek Phaethon losing control of his father's chariot, the Sumerian Etana falling from the heavens, or the Assyrian ruler cursed by Isaiah, we encounter the same fundamental motif: a being of extraordinary beauty and power is cast down because it reached for something that did not belong to it.
Within this story of the Fall, the Mother plays a crucial role: Clymene, Eos, Ishtar. Through their watery and stellar nature, they unite the celestial and the chthonic realms. In the end, what we now call Lucifer is the point of convergence of all these ancient stories, a mythic hero who, passing through the filter of Judeo-Christian condemnation, became not merely a symbol of evil, but also an eternal reminder of the boundary that separates humanity from the gods, and of the tragic beauty of crossing it.
NOTE:
Originally published in Serbian. This English version is an AI-assisted translation of the original text.
