Focalor and Hesperus

by Stanisław Wyspiański

I was quite intrigued to find a deviation titled "Focalor" in my inbox today. 

I have never, ever seen any of the 400+ artists I watch post work carrying names of more obscure demons. But it just so happens that with the rise of the manga Magi, the character Focalor is starting to pop up on dA and tumblr. 

I already knew from past research that Focalor is an anagram associated with Lucifuge Rofocale. They say that Lucifuge was a "character" modeled after Lucifer - kind of like his dark counterpart (since Lucifer = "light bringer" and Lucifuge = "to flee the light"). But I did a bit of research just now and discovered that once again, there's a Greek equivalent to these names. Lucifer is obviously the Latin version. But the Greek version?

Phosphorus (or Eosphorus).
But not only that - the Greeks had a dark counterpart for Phosphorus ("Morning Star"), too: his brother, Hesperus, or "Evening Star."

I find this incredibly fascinating. Christianity "borrowed" a lot of terminology from Greeks, but it's so interesting to see the connections here... or the plain old theft. Lol. I just wonder now - what led Christians to associate a light-bringer with the downfall of man? I haven't read the Bible, of course (I can't get past the first couple pages of Genesis), and I know that everyone and their mother keeps emphasizing that Lucifer was never related to Satan in the Bible, but someone somewhere at sometime decided to relate the two, which has led to a buttload of misinterpretation. 

Gah. I wish I knew the truth behind what really happened over the past few thousand years. 

The point of this post is that I think Lucy is shedding some more light (no pun intended) on all this angel-demon stuff. It's obvious his presence is still around (if I can call it a presence). But if the original Lucifer is actually Phosphorus, that means he's only a personification of Venus. So how the hell did he become a freaking archangel?

I do love the symbolism of the Greek myth, though. According to theoi.com, Phosphorus and Hesperus were later combined into a single star god/personification... because they both represented Venus, just at different times of the day. I like that balance. And it lines up with what Lucifer has been communicating to me about what he represents. 

History, man. It's freaking fascinating. 
Now I'm going to go meditate with Lucy again. I could use some stress relief after spending the whole day doing storyboards and math homework.

Finny