While translating a little bit of Pliny the other day, I stumbled across a phrase that caught my attention: "lucem ferre," or, literally translated the way I like it, "bringer of light." There is a strong connection between lucem ferre and Lucifer, a minor Roman God who represented the glory of the morning sun.

Upon further study, I found that the old testament, where Lucifer is first found representing the devil, was written in Hebrew long before Latin was a language universally recognized. So I was wondering who would choose to use Lucifer to represent the "prince of darkness" rather than the "bearer of light."

It appears, this is all speculation and is more than just difficult to prove, that early scholars had two reasons for using Lucifer. The first is to represent a fallen star, despite the fact that Lucifer was a representation of warmth and brightness, it was light related and had a movement attached. The second reason is to denounce Roman polytheism. If a minor but celebrated Roman god could be attached to ultimate evil in Christianity, it would create a rift between Christians and polytheistic Romans as well as pagans who believed in other forms of a "bringer of light" other than the sun.

Belzebub is a more cut and dry attack on polytheism. Beelzebub (with two e's), also known as Ba'al Zebub, meant "lord of those that fly" to the ancient Philistines. Ba'al Zebub was an important god to the polytheistic people, a representation of the insect swarm and also of other positive entities that happened to fly. However, early Hebrew scholars attached the name to smaller demons and occasionally to the devil himself when important individuals in the Bible (King Ahaziah, Pharisees, Jesus) became involved with evil. This was a blatant attack from one faction of Hebrews, the monotheistic Jews, on another faction of Hebrews, the polytheistic Philistines.

While it might seem like I'm a Bible hater, that isn't quite true; it has many redeeming qualities. However, I do have problems with the slander of other religions that has become so ingrained in the vernacular of Christianity.