Shalten compares the Exaltationists to Lucifer. Everard reflects that Shalten sometimes speaks in Biblical style.
For previous blog references to Lucifer, see here.
For a recent comparison of an Exaltationist to Lucifer, see here.
On my way out for the evening. I recommend Neil Gaiman's and Mike Carey's Lucifer Morningstar as an antidote to John Milton's Satan. The former even acquired a TV series.
8 comments:
Quite a good TV series, too...
Lucifer advising the police sounds way off the reservation but I haven't seen any of it so I can't comment any further.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling and Paul!
But since I believe Satan to be an utterly evil and fallen angel, hating God and man alike, I can't take seriously any stories painting the Devil as a decent, but misunderstood guy. No, I thought Stirling's use of Satan in THE PESHAWAR LANCERS far more plausible!
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Well no. This Lucifer is not decent. Nietzchean. Unconcerned about others but not malicious.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
And I believe Satan is deliberately and malevolently malicious.
Ad astra! Sean
Also, in the TV series, Lucifer notes that his calling is -punishing the guilty-. That makes it entirely appropriate that he helps the police, besides his finding it entertaining.
Later in the series, he meets Cain (the one cursed to wander with the "mark of Cain").
There is excellent dialogue between Lucifer and Cain in Gaiman's THE SANDMAN. Like other myths, Cain and Able live in the Dreaming. Morpheus sends Cain as a messenger to Lucifer because Cain is the only messenger whom Lucifer will not harm. Lucifer pulls back Cain's hair, revealing the circular mark on his forehead. Lucifer also quotes Genesis, adding that Cain still lives in the Land of Nod.
Lucifer flies above Hell, holding Cain by his hair. When he stands on a solid cloud and lets go of the hair, he tells Cain to look at what a poor realm he, Lucifer, rules but adds (quoting from memory): "Still, better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven, eh, little brother-killer?"
Cain: Certainly, Lord Lucifer! Whatever you say, Lord Lucifer!
Lucifer: We didn't say! Milton said it! And he was blind!
Later, Can reports back to Morpheus, "He is most terrible, Lord." Morpheus replies, "Well done, thou good and faithful servant."
Kaor, Mr. Stirling and Paul!
Both: But all these remarks from the both of you still boils down to saying Satan was not a truly BAD being. Which, while it can make for entertaining literature, is not what I believe as a Catholic to be actually, literally and truly the case. Rather, to use a different example from literature, the grim and horrific Satan we see in Dante's INFERNO is what that fallen angel is truly like.
Ad astra! Sean
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