Lucifer the Lightbearer

Lucifer the Lightbearer was an individualist-anarchist journal published by Moses Harman in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Originally produced by a local branch of the National Liberal League as the Valley Falls Liberal (1880–1883), Harman changed the title after he assumed sole editorship in 1883.

The mission of Lucifer was, according to Harman, "to help woman to break the chains that for ages have bound her to the rack of man-made law, spiritual, economic, industrial, social and especially sexual, believing that until woman is roused to a sense of her own responsibility on all lines of human endeavor, and especially on lines of her special field, that of reproduction of the race, there will be little if any real advancement toward a higher and truer civilization. "The name was chosen because "Lucifer, the ancient name of the Morning Star, now called Venus, seems to us unsurpassed as a cognomen for a journal whose mission is to bring light to the dwellers in darkness."

Light bearer

Light Bearer may refer to:

Lucifer

Lucifer (/ˈluːsɪfər/;LOO-sif-ər) is the King James Version rendering of the Hebrew word הֵילֵל in Isaiah 14:12. This word, transliterated hêlêl or heylel, occurs once in the Hebrew Bible and according to the KJV based Strong's Concordance means "shining one, light bearer". The Septuagint renders הֵילֵל in Greek as ἑωσφόρος (heōsphoros), a name, literally "bringer of dawn", for the morning star.

The word Lucifer is taken from the Latin Vulgate, which translates הֵילֵל as lucifer, meaning "the morning star, the planet Venus", or, as an adjective, "light-bringing".

Later Christian tradition came to use the Latin word for "morning star", lucifer, as a proper name ("Lucifer") for the devil; as he was before his fall. As a result, "'Lucifer' has become a by-word for Satan/the Devil in the church and in popular literature", as in Dante Alighieri's Inferno, Joost van den Vondel's Lucifer (play) and John Milton's Paradise Lost. However, the Latin word never came to be used almost exclusively, as in English, in this way, and was applied to others also, including Jesus. The image of a morning star fallen from the sky is generally believed among scholars to have a parallel in Canaanite mythology.

The Light Bearer

The Light Bearer is a 1994 historical novel by Donna Gillespie set in first century Rome, during the reigns of the Emperors Nero and Domitian. The novel centers upon three historical events: the Emperor Domitian’s war with the Germanic Chattian tribe in 83 A.D.; the inauguration of the Colosseum, or Amphitheatrum Flavium; and the assassination of Domitian. In dramatizing the assassination, the author follows the details given by first-century Roman historian Suetonius.

Plot summary

The fictional protagonists are a proto-Germanic tribeswoman, Auriane, daughter of a Chattian war leader; and Marcus Arrius Julianus, a Roman senator and imperial advisor whose character and circumstances are loosely based on the Roman philosopher Seneca, as well as another contemporary in the reign of Nero, Stoic philosopher and statesman Helvidius Priscus, a man known for his outspokenness in public life. Rome’s interference in tribal affairs compel Auriane to take the warrior’s oath and lead her father’s retinue after his death. In Rome, Stoic humanist Marcus Julianus reaches the highest levels of government, where he is taken into the confidence of the Emperor Domitian. Through political maneuvering, he attempts to check the excesses of the increasingly corrupt Emperor Domitian. Auriane is captured in Domitian's Chattian War and taken to Rome. As Domitian's reign of terror begins, Julianus orchestrates a plot to assassinate the Emperor; here the author has inserted a fictional character into a gap left by history. The Emperor Domitian, who according to Suetonius, was fond of pitting women against dwarfs in the arena, condemns Auriane to a gladiatorial school. Here Auriane discovers the tribesman who betrayed her people in war. As Julianus’ assassination plot reaches its conclusion, Auriane must carry out the tribal rite of vengeance in the Colosseum.