What's the connection between this planet,
the Greek goddess of love and beauty,
and the word Lucifer?
To find out we need to look up to the stars.
These days we have powerful telescopes to observe the countless stars in our galaxy.
But humanity's fascination with observing the objects and patterns in the sky is nothing new.
An interest in depicting celestial symbols and keeping track of the days appears very early in our human story.
And over the course of millennia we've continued to look up
and wonder about our place in the cosmos
The distance between Earth and Venus changes depending on their orbits.
At its farthest we have to travel 162 million miles to reach Venus, according to NASA.
It's the hottest planet in our solar system
with surface temperatures high enough to turn lead into liquid
And over 1500 major volcanoes cover its surface.
It also happens to be the only planet in our solar system to be named after a female figure.
Venus was one of the first planets to be noticed by our ancestors,
since it can be observed with the naked eye at both dawn and dusk.
Because of this, the ancient Greeks had two names for Venus:
They called it Phosphorus in the morning,
and Hesperus in the evening.
When it was discovered that both were the same object in the sky,
they named it Aphrodite in honor of their most beautiful goddess.
The major symbols associated with her are the rose, the dove, and the swan.
Aphrodite's birth is described in Theogony:
A work composed by the Greek poet Hesiod at around 700 BC.
According to Hesiod,
Cronus, leader of the Titans,
castrated his father, the primal sky God Uranus,
and threw his genitals into the sea.
The lovely Aphrodite was said to be born from the sea foam produced by his dismembered parts
Hesiod interpreted Aphrodite's name as: risen from the foam...
But her name is also thought to stem from a word meaning shining, wanderer, and bright.
Hesiod mentions two islands in his story about Aphrodite's origins.
He says that she was born on Cyprus,
but that she reached the holy Island of Cythera
He seems to allude to a procession;
one that begins at Cyprus where she originally took form,
and ends on Cythera: her new homeland,
where she's consecrated and goes forth into the Greek world.
Perhaps Hesiod was making reference to the fact that Aphrodite was a descendant
of a long line of goddesses from the Near East.
The Greek influence extended to the names of the Roman planets as well.
They translated the original Greek words into Latin,
so that the Greek word Hesperus, or the evening aspect of Venus, became Vesper for the Romans.
And Phosphorus became Lucifer,
meaning "light bringer".
But why does such a bright word conjure up dark images of Satan or a fallen angel?
To find out where this began we need to start with a scripture from the Book of Isaiah.
Lucifer is only mentioned once in the Hebrew Bible,
in a prophecy that begins:
This comparison to the morning aspect of the planet Venus is made to the king of Babylon,
not to the figure of Satan
In the ancient world, the royal families were connected with gods and goddesses,
who, in turn, were associated with the stars and the planets.
The equivalent of the word Lucifer, light bringer, or Morningstar,
was considered an honorific title in the Babylonian language.
One of the major deities whom the king and his people worshipped was named Ishtar.
She was the precursor to Venus and Aphrodite, and her symbol was an eight-pointed star
which, in turn, symbolized the planet Venus.
It wasn't until much later, during the decline of the Roman Empire at around 300 AD,
that Christian scholars began to interpret the word Lucifer as an alternate title for Satan.
It's thought that this was simply a result of mistranslation.
But perhaps it was also a convenient way to demonize the Babylonian king,
along with the various gods and goddesses that he represented.
As polytheistic religions eventually fell out of favor in the Near Eastern
and Western world as Christianity took over,
the light of the goddess flickered out.
The Roman Empire fell in 476 AD, and the knowledge from the classical world
was left to the whim of history as the Dark Ages commenced.
Important works such as "On the Nature of Things" by Lucretius were either destroyed or lost.
But by a twist of fate, almost a thousand years later, this work by Lucretius
along with others, were discovered in 1417 in a German monastery
by an Italian scholar from Florence named Poggio.
As a result of manuscripts like this being rediscovered and circulated,
the old gods and goddesses made their return to the Western world...
Bringing with them a love of philosophy and beauty,
as well as the desire to look up to the Stars once more.