Sometimes the robots surprise you. For this week’s monster, (aka Lucifer, Demon of May), I started out with the very straightforward prompt “angel falling from heaven.” I’m ashamed to admit, I’d expected it to spit out a man.
It didn’t.
Of course, having no need to reproduce, angels as a species are entirely genderless. However, their traditional presentation and pronouns largely, if not completely, tend toward the male. But the more I thought about it, the more it made sense for fallen angels, and Lucifer in particular, to present as feminine.
Don’t believe that? Great! There is literally nothing I’d love more than to spend the length of this article explaining why Lucifer was definitely a woman.
Please do so responsibly—and let me know! I want to see what y’all get up to.
Origins of Lucifer
Before we start telling Bible stories, let’s roll the clock back a little bit further. We begin in BCE with a source no less august than the British Museum:
In Graeco-Roman mythology, the morning star (planet Venus) or dawn is sometimes represented as a young male light bearer, Lucifer (Latin) or Phosporos (Greek).
BritishMuseum.org
Granted, they say “young male.” HOWEVER, they also acknowledge that the phrase “morning star” is a reference to the planet Venus. Which, in turn, is associated with feminine energy.
Okay, now we can move on to the story everyone knows:
Lucifer was a heavenly host and one of God’s favorites, held in as high regard as Michael the Archangel. But the sin of pride infected Lucifer, and they begin to think themselves mightier than God. They begin to amass followers, and eventually challenge God and His faithful for the command of heaven. A war ensues, in which Lucifer and their followers are defeated and cast out into the pits of Hell, where they are damned to remain for all eternity.
On its face, that story doesn’t really speak to the portrayal of Lucifer one way or the other. But, if you know the rest of your Bible stories, then you know that there is no greater villain in all of Christendom than Woman. You see her time and again endeavoring and often succeeding virtuous (Men) to ruin. I’m not going to list every single one, but here’s a fun top ten list with some of the greatest hits, and it is by no means exhaustive. For the my purposes, its enough to say that, though women make up only 15% of characters in the Bible, they account for an outsized percentage of the villains.
And that, my friends, brings up back to Lucifer. The being most synonymous with Satan–whose name, as we’ve learned previous, means “The Adversary.” As you’ve seen above, there is no greater adversary to God’s rule than women. And yet in the traditional interpretation (and most modern ones as well), Lucifer is portrayed as a man. Why?
Powers and Abilities
I’ll tell you why. But before I do, I’d like to ask a favor: for the rest of this article, I’d like to simply go with my premise that Lucifer is feminine, even if you’re not totally convinced. Go on and lock that in. I’ll wait.
Okay, now, run that whole “war on God” thing back again. You have a deity that the religion has gendered male, being challenged by a heavenly host that’s been gendered female. A host that, remember, compelled legions of other angels to follow her. Blasphemous? Sure. Worthy of being cast out? I’d say so. But also indicative of staggering power. Power that, when you think about it, may actually be indestructible. Even for God.
You think Church is gonna want power like that wearing a woman’s face? Pardon the pun, but HELL NO.
At this point, some of you are probably thinking I’ve lost my mind a bit. Maybe I have, but I’m not alone. The book Satanic Feminism: Lucifer as the Liberator of Woman in Nineteenth-Century Culture picks up this argument in the Garden of Eden, where Lucifer, in her capacity as light-bringer once again, attempts to liberate Eve by providing her with knowledge and freeing her from male subjugation. Of course, I don’t know all the arguments presented in that book, because it is once again prohibitively expensive (+$50). Dammit, why do all the witchy feminism books cost so much money???
I mean, I’m not say it’s because of everything I just wrote. But I’m not not saying that either.
Defeating Lucifer
If you believe any part of the argument I’ve made here, the question of whether and how to defeating Lucifer becomes significantly more complicated. As with all the other demons we’ve discussed on Monster of the Week, you could simply avoid her and hazard no risk. And yet, she is the light-bringer. Across all the mythologies and stories, that fact is never disputed. Light of knowledge. Light of the world. Does that sound like something you should avoid? Okay, yes, so she tried to overthrow God once. Anyone can make a mistake. Assuming, of course, that’s what it was.
After all, we’ve only ever heard the man’s side of that story.
Additional Sources
Related Note: In the course of my research, I stumbled upon a Branch Davidian website with material that allegedly supported this claim, which was very weird for me. Of course, I’m absolutely NOT going link to it, for two reasons: first, the argument they made was both convoluted and didn’t provide anything I didn’t get from the sources I already have; and two, I’m a dark fiction author. I’m sure my search history has me on a number of lists already. I don’t need another to risk another one.
Happy Monday, monsters!
