R. Ishmael said: Metatron, the Angel, the Prince of the Presence, said to me :
(1) When the ministering angels say “Holy” before the Holy One, blessed be He, in the proper way, then the servants of His Throne, the attendants of His Glory, go forth with great mirth from under the Throne of Glory.
(2) And they all carry in their hands, each one of them thousand thousand and ten thousand times ten thousand crowns of stars, similar in appearance to the planet Venus, and put them on the ministering angels and the great princes who utter the “Holy”. Three crowns they put on each one of them: one crown because they say “Holy”, another crown, because they say “Holy, Holy”, and a third crown because they say “Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord of Hosts” .
(3) And in the moment that they do not utter the “Holy” in the right order, a consuming fire goes forth from the little finger of the Holy One, blessed be He, and falls down in the midst of their ranks and is divided into 496 thousand parts corresponding to the four camps of the ministering angels, and consumes them in one moment, as it is written (Ps. xcvii. 3): “A fire goeth before him and burneth up his adversaries round about”.
(4) After that the Holy One, blessed be He, opens His mouth and speaks one word and creates others in their stead, new ones like them. And each one stands before His Throne of Glory, uttering the “Holy”, as it is written (Lam. iii. 23): “They are new every morning; great is thy faithfulness”.
If you do not believe nonbinary people are truly nonbinary
If you perpetuate transphobic rhetoric
Lucifer is not your friend
He belongs to the trans satanists and there’s nothing you can do about it
Considering that most angels were not actually all that humanoid and were often entirely frightening… I would assume Lucifer had the ability to alter themselves to whatever suits the situation. So I suppose non binary would cover it.. although putting human aspects to them that are above human standards is something I have always found limiting. But I agree with the sentiment above. I just have a lot of thoughts on the depiction of angels both normal and fallen.. especially when they supposedly look like this.. on a good day..
I feel this is where our views differ then, which is sensible seeing as we are not members of the same religion.
While Lucifer is much greater and more complex than any mortal being, that does not mean he lacks human features all-together. To me, Lucifer has always represented the meeting of the Earthly and the Heavenly in perfect balance. So for every features he has that is beyond human understanding or comparison, he has another feature in common with humanity. His associations with sexuality, strong emotion, and survival are good examples of this.
In addition, while the term nonbinary is of human creation, what it covers is vast and perfectly capable of covering concepts like a shifting gender, or a non-existent gender, or a gender completely beyond our comprehension even. All “nonbinary” means is “not solely male nor female”. All angels easily fall into that category. Nonbinary is a term that rejects limits rather than setting them.
I will say though, with all due respect, that as a trans person I don’t appreciate the implication that gender is connected to appearance or form. What angels appear as or are depicted as should be irrelevant to a discussion of gender, because even humans of any gender can appear in a thousand different ways that may or may not be deemed passable for their gender. I find the notion that an angel’s gender would be at all connected to appearance to be much more limiting than the term nonbinary.
I meant no disrespect and I assume our clash is due to differing sides of religions. As angels are described in the Bible they rarely are humanoid of nature and this wouldn’t even be considered to have a gender let alone a form that humans could comprehend. How one identifies is entirely up to oneself. My addition to the post was not that looks define gender but that angels have shifting aspects that can be both humanoid and not and therefore fit nicely under non binary if it is their choosing. My other statement was that because they are higher beings that only we can really hold them to human standards and that they may not even consider themselves anything other than “angel” or “seraphim”. It’s more of a conversation about text and what angels are. I’m sorry for hijacking your post. I meant no disrespect:
Mm, that is my point though: nonbinary means anything that is neither entirely female or entirely male. Literally all other possibilities of gender or the lack-thereof are nonbinary. To identify as simply “angel” without gender is to be nonbinary, as one is not identifying with male or female at all. It can be a term one voluntarily picks and identifies heavily with, but that is not a requirement. So that is why I feel that angels are nonbinary, canonically, because of the bible’s descriptions of them.
But you’re right in that this discussion was not the point of this post, it was made to make other trans Satanists and Luciferians feel safe and welcome in our community, as well as send the message that hate will not be tolerated in the name of Lucifer. It is best that we agree to disagree. Thank you for your apology. Consider it water under the bridge.
OK, I am gonna chime in but first I have to say this. No disrespect is meant to either @luciformspiral or @christowitch . Particularly @christowitch I would imagine you would have a very different relationship to The Bible than us Luciferians, and I respect that, so my reading and the passages I emphasize and the importance I place on what was written when may vary a lot from your interpretations. I really appreciate both of your input, and hope that you can find something of use in mine.
That said, there is Biblical support for angels assuming gendered human forms, and possibly for even reproducing with humans.
In Genesis 18, Abraham has some male-appearing, humanoid visitors who turn out to be angels.
Finally, although the Book of Enoch is pseudepigrapha, Genesis does refer to the story of the Nephilim, who are considered to have been the product of a sexual union between angels and humans:
Genesis 6:1–6 Now it came about, when men began to multiply on the face of the land, and daughters were born to them, that the sons of God (bene Elohim) saw that the daughters of men were beautiful; and they took wives for themselves, whomever they chose.
Then the Lord said, “My Spirit shall not strive with man forever, because he also is flesh; nevertheless his days shall be one hundred and twenty years.”
The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God (bene Elohim) came in to the daughters of men, and they bore children to them. Those were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown. Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
Now we can argue a lot about what “sons of God” means and whether it actually refers to angels. More on this here.
This summary on the appearance of angels in the Bible seems to indicate that the idea of angels as terrifying creatures with lots of wings and eyes comes from Revelation 4:8. Revelation is of course one of the newest texts in the Bible, and older texts seem to generally have less trippy-looking angels.
Angels being invisible definitely happens a lot. (Angels having big swords also happens a lot. And people falling down on their faces when they see angels is a thing that happens all the time.)
This is not to say that angels are in fact innately gendered, or generally sexual. I don’t believe that one bit, but based purely on what scripture says, I’d have to admit that angels seem to spend a lot of time appearing as human dudes. (Which could be for a lot of reasons involving interacting with patriarchal human societies.)
(Of course I also believe, in the absence of explicit scriptural support, that Lucifer was the serpent of Eden, so I guess that means I believe fallen angels can look like snakes, which would tend to indicate that angels can look like whatever the heck they want.)
So, TL:DR, just wanted to point out that the Bible says various things about the corporeality/humanoid-ness of angels at different times.
Feel free to let me know where I am wrong. I definitely don’t claim to know The Good Book backwards and forwards, although I aspire to. The devil can quote scripture, after all.
I tried to add this to a reblogged ask to @luciformspiral about mistranslation issues and Isaiah and whether Isaiah/the name Lucifer actually have anything to do with the entity we call Lucifer at all. But tumblr decided to make the formatting really fucking ugly. So this has to be a separate post.
Here is what I was replying to, and here is what I said:
Regarding the mistranslation issues– yes, Isaiah 14:12 is about the King of Babylon, but it’s also using a metaphor to talk about him. So we have to ask– what is the source of that metaphor? Who is he being compared to?
Let’s break it down.
12 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!
OK this is the KJV, and here’s that famous mistranslation– Luciferson of the morning for Helel ben Shahar, which is “Helel, son of Shahar.”
Shahar was the god of the morning star in Ugarit mythology. Attar would then be the son of Shahar, and this is the entity that the King of Babylon was being compared to directly. Attar was also a god of the morning star/the planet Venus. (Fun fact: Attar has appeared as both male and female!)
The Vulgate used Lucifer, the name of the Roman god of the morning star, in the translation. Kinda random. But yes, that’s where we got the name Lucifer. So maybe we’re calling him by the wrong name– but that doesn’t mean a divine entity wasn’t talked about here.
Point is, the controlling metaphor here is comparing the King of Babylon to a divine entity, specifically a deity connected to the morning star/venus.
The King of Babylon obviously didn’t literally fall out of heaven. But in Helel/Attar/Lucifer did. So we can learn the story of this entity from the metaphor. Two stories are running paralell here– literal and metaphorical.
And here’s how the rest of Attar/Lucifer/Helel’s story goes, whatever name we call him by:
13 For thou hast said in thine 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 sides of the north:
14 I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High.
15 Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit.
After that it kind of breaks out of metaphor, signaled by referring to the King as a man/human:
16 They that see thee shall narrowly look upon thee, and consider thee, saying, Is this the man that made the earth to tremble, that did shake kingdoms;
So 14:12-15 are the most potentially relevant verses.
Similarly, the verses in Ezekiel about the King of Tyre use a divine fallen angel/God metaphor to talk about a human man, and we can potentially learn about the God/angel from the metaphor being used about the king.
“You were the seal of perfection, Full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. 13 You were in Eden, the garden of God; Every precious stone was your covering: The sardius, topaz, and diamond, Beryl, onyx, and jasper, Sapphire, turquoise, and emerald with gold. The workmanship of your timbrels and pipes Was prepared for you on the day you were created.
14 “You were the anointed cherub who covers; I established you; You were on the holy mountain of God; You walked back and forth in the midst of fiery stones. 15 You were perfect in your ways from the day you were created, Till iniquity was found in you.
16 “By the abundance of your trading You became filled with violence within, And you sinned; Therefore I cast you as a profane thing Out of the mountain of God; And I destroyed you, O covering cherub, From the midst of the fiery stones.
17 “Your heart was lifted up because of your beauty; You corrupted your wisdom for the sake of your splendor; I cast you to the ground, I laid you before kings, That they might gaze at you.
Obviously the King of Tyre was not literally in the garden of Eden. Nor was he a cherub. Nor was he cast literally out of the mountain of God. So who was? Again, who is he being compared to?
12 They shall name it No Kingdom There,
and all its princes shall be nothing.
13 Thorns shall grow over its strongholds,
nettles and thistles in its fortresses.
It shall be the haunt of jackals,
an abode for ostriches.
14 Wildcats shall meet with hyenas,
goat-demons shall call to each other;
there too Lilith shall repose,
and find a place to rest.
15 There shall the owl nest
and lay and hatch and brood in its shadow;
there too the buzzards shall gather,
each one with its mate.
I re-read the accounts of Matthew and Luke of the Temptation of Christ recently, and several things struck me. Matthew and Luke’s versions of this event are nearly identical, so I am using Luke here for no particular reason. (Translation is King James, because it’s pretty, and in this case doesn’t disagree too significantly from versions often considered more accurate.)
This is just a quick sketch of my impressions and initial thoughts.
First: On Satans
One problem for me in the Bible is that when “Satan” or “the devil” is referenced, we don’t always know which satan is being spoken of. Satan means “obstacle” or “adversary,” and seemingly originally described a class of angels/spirits/demons who played a role of antagonizing, challenging and testing humanity. In other words, it was a noun more than a name, particularly in the Old Testament/Torah.
Similarly there has been disagreement on the identity of the Serpent of Eden. He is not always identified with “the devil” or even “a devil”/“a satan.”
Being Luciferian, of course I identify the serpent with Lucifer, because the Promethean appeal of legend is what drew me to this path in the first place.
On the other hand, the satan in the Book of Job doesn’t seem particularly Luciferian in character– he has more the flavor of Iblis, to me, with his desire to prove humans insufficient, their devotion lacking. Tellingly, the story of Job also appears in the Qu’ran.
So one never necessarily knows which satan is being talked about in scripture.
Sons of the Morning:
Lucifer, though, is a very specifically Christian character– as a satan, anyway. (He obviously has pre-Christian antecedents and equivalents.) That’s one argument for him specifically being the co-star of this New Testament story.
Co-star. Did you catch the pun? He and Christ are the two Biblical characters most often called “Morningstar” or “Son of the Morning.” In light of this (pun again intended) it’s tempting (whoops, another pun) to assume that Lucifer is the devil of this particular story. It appeals to our sense of drama– the rebel son confronts the dutiful son, the two Morning Stars face off to see which burns more brightly.
But analyzing the passage seems to give additional support to this assumption. In analyzing this devil’s actions, we are able to see the many of characteristics of Lucifer, and also poignant echoes of the story of his fall.
The Temptation:
4 And Jesus being full of the Holy Ghost returned from Jordan, and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness,
2 Being forty days tempted of the devil. And in those days he did eat nothing: and when they were ended, he afterward hungered.
3 And the devil said unto him, If thou be the Son of God, command this stone that it be made bread.
If there’s one thing Luciferians know, it’s that he wants us to deal with our own problems, by making use of the God within us. In the case of Christ, whose inner divinity was so powerful, I can easily imagine how frustrating Lucifer would find this display of learned helplessness. You have a problem– you’re hungry. You have a solution– your divine powers. Why not use them? To refrain makes little sense to Lucifer, or to Luciferians.
4 And Jesus answered him, saying, It is written, That man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God.
But Christ is intensely committed to his humanity, particularly in this passage. He is focused on the limitations of his human body, which is after all made and destined to suffer on the cross. To alleviate his hunger now makes no sense to his mission.
I’ve encountered the theory–sadly, I can’t remember where at the moment– that perhaps Lucifer was originally intended by God for the Christ role, or at least, for a place in the holy Trinity. Much more common is the theory that Lucifer wanted a place in the Trinity for himself, but was denied, leading to his rebellion (several references to this can be found in The Luminous Stone). I’m not particularly enamored of either of those theories, but I mention them because they are interesting in context.
5 And the devil, taking him up into an high mountain, shewed unto him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time.
6 And the devil said unto him, All this power will I give thee, and the glory of them: for that is delivered unto me; and to whomsoever I will I give it.
7 If thou therefore wilt worship me, all shall be thine.
8 And Jesus answered and said unto him, Get thee behind me, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.
I have to admit I don’t have a lot of thoughts on this passage. It jars a little, because I am not used to Lucifer demanding worship– although, let’s face it, if he was going to ask for worship from anyone, it would be the son of God! It’s the perfect punchline, after all! This reads to me almost like a throw-away on Lucifer’s part– worth a try, too good to pass up.
The most interesting part of this is the idea of Lucifer as the Lord of the World. I’ve never been of the school that he is eternally restrained in hell– there are just too many scriptural references, like this, to him getting out and about. Certain passages of scripture arguably reference Lucifer being cast to Earth, not into hell (Isiah 14:12, Genesis 3:14, Ezekial 28:18).
(Is Earth hell to an angel? Maybe it is Lucifer’s hell. But this is just speculation.)
Now, are you sitting down? Because this, to me, is where it gets really good.
9 And he brought him to Jerusalem, and set him on a pinnacle of the temple, and said unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down from hence:
10 For it is written, He shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee:
11 And in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone.
I actually laughed when I read this.
Lucifer is daring Christ to take a fall! And he’s doing it by quoting a psalm. The devil knows his scripture! (And all Luciferians and Satanists certainly should, too! Ahem.)
But my god, the irony, the bitterness! Lucifer telling Christ that angels will bear him up. No angels came to his rescue when he fell. He is certainly reliving some very old pain here.
Is he really daring Jesus to literally jump– or is he confronting Christ with his own father’s cruelty in casting out his formerly beloved angel? Or both?
What is the temptation here– to jump, and test his father’s love? Or to consider the fall his brother took, and face his father’s cruelty?
And when Christ replies…
12 And Jesus answering said unto him, It is said, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God
…is he rebuking Lucifer to stop tempting him, as his Lord and God… or is he talking about the past, reminding Lucifer that he brought that fall on himself, by tempting and provoking God’s anger all those aeons ago?
Church of the Morningstar 