Lucifer in Silk and Purple: The Queen of Heaven Unveiled
- Michelle Hayman
- 3 hours ago
- 21 min read
Lactantius wrote The Divine Institutes to show that there is one true God and that all the gods of the pagans were not divine beings but mortal men who were worshipped after death. This argument appears most clearly in Book I, especially in the Epitome of the Divine Institutes, chapters 6 and 7. His purpose was to prove that pagan religion was founded on human error and superstition, and that only the Christian faith preserves true knowledge of God.
He begins by saying that those who are now called gods were born as men, had parents and children, ruled as kings, fought wars, and died. Anything that is born and dies cannot be divine, because true divinity is eternal and unbegotten. Lactantius writes that these men were honored after death because they had been powerful rulers or had brought some benefit to their people, such as teaching them the use of wine or agriculture. Temples and statues were raised to their memory, and gratitude or fear caused their followers to venerate them as gods. He says that almost all nations fell into this error, each one worshipping its own ancestors.
He explains that this practice began as a form of gratitude and remembrance, but it was later corrupted by flattery and deceit. Some rulers encouraged the worship of their ancestors or even of themselves to strengthen their power. Evil spirits, according to Lactantius, took advantage of this human folly by entering into idols and pretending to be the souls of the dead, thus keeping people in the darkness of superstition.
He gives many examples to show that the gods were once men. Hercules was a hero who lived in the age of the Argonauts and conquered Troy. Bacchus, or Dionysus, was a king who taught the planting of the vine. Saturn was an ancient king of Italy who was later honored as the god of the Golden Age. Mercury, also called Hermes Trismegistus, was famous for his wisdom and the invention of letters. The Egyptians worshipped Joseph the Hebrew under the name Serapis because he had provided them with corn during the famine. Isis and Osiris were rulers of Egypt whose cults survived after their deaths. In each case, men and women who had lived as mortals came to be regarded as divine through custom and error.
Lactantius uses these examples to make a larger theological argument. There can be only one true God who is eternal, invisible, and uncreated. The so-called gods cannot be divine because they were born, they sinned, and they died. Their stories, preserved by poets and historians, show human weaknesses; lust, greed, anger, deceit, and violence; which would be impossible in a true deity. To worship them is to exchange the Creator for His creatures and to mistake human memory for divine truth.
He also argues that idolatry destroyed reason and justice. By setting up images of mortal men and worshipping them, people lost sight of the invisible God who rules heaven and earth. Demons continued the deception by speaking through oracles and idols, pretending to be gods in order to keep mankind in bondage. The only way to recover the truth is through the knowledge of the one God revealed in Christ.
For Lactantius, saying that the gods were once men was not only a historical claim but a moral and theological one. It showed that paganism had no divine authority and that its worship was directed toward the dead. Christianity alone, he says, worships the living and eternal Creator who made both men and the world. Pagan religion arose from gratitude and fear, but Christian faith arises from truth. Thus, what the nations call gods are only mortal men whose memory has been corrupted by superstition, and true divinity belongs only to the one God who gives life to all.
The Cup of Sorceries and the Souls of Men
In ancient myth, the legendary phoenix was a unique sacred bird of fire and renewal. In Ovid’s account the phoenix lives for five centuries before it builds its nest of spices and burns, a number that may not be accidental. Ancient astronomers had long observed that the planet Venus completes five synodic returns to the same point in the sky every eight Earth years, tracing a perfect five-petaled figure; the pentagram. This fivefold geometry became one of the oldest emblems of Venus, the morning and evening star, whose periodic disappearance into the Sun’s blaze and re-emergence at dawn looked to the naked eye like death and rebirth by fire. To Greek and Roman poets the bird that dies in flame and rises renewed was a terrestrial reflection of that celestial rhythm. Both Venus, under her many names—Isis, Ishtar, Astarte, and others—and the phoenix stood as emblems of immortal beauty continually renewed through fire.
Lactantius preserves this symbolism when he writes that the phoenix flies to Syria, a land named Phoenice by Venus herself, to perform its fiery renewal. The goddess who gives her name to the land thus presides over the bird’s resurrection, uniting the color purple of Phoenician dye, the brightness of the morning star, and the purifying flame of the East.
In Isaiah 14:12 the prophet’s lament reads, “How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning!” The Hebrew phrase helel ben-shachar literally means “shining one, son of the dawn.” In the older Canaanite and Babylonian languages, this phrasing would have evoked the bright planet Venus; the morning star; and by association the goddess who bore that light, known in the Levant as Ishtar or Astarte, the Queen of Heaven. When the text was translated into Greek, the Septuagint rendered it ho heōsphoros ho prōi anatellōn, “the morning-bearer, who rises at dawn,” still describing a luminous body rather than a personified male being.
Only later, in the Latin Vulgate, was the word rendered Lucifer, meaning “light-bearer,” and from that translation the epithet hardened into a masculine proper name. Thus a term that once referred to a celestial feminine principle; the radiant planet long associated with goddesses of love, fertility, and dawn; was reshaped into a masculine persona symbolizing rebellion and pride. The shift mirrors a broader cultural transformation in which the imagery of Venus/Isis and Ishtar, the morning star of life and renewal, was recast as a fallen or corrupted power. The very star once seen as the sign of divine beauty and generation became, through linguistic evolution, the emblem of a masculine adversary, the fallen light.
Then what secret does her womb; the vesica piscis; whisper from the heart of St. Peter’s Square?
As Ovid recounts, when a phoenix completes a full five centuries of life, it gathers aromatic spices; drops of frankincense, cinnamon, spikenard, myrrh; and builds a burning nest atop a tall palm tree. In Lactantius’s retelling, the aged phoenix directs her swift flight into Syria, to which Venus herself has given the name of Phoenice, choosing a lofty palm in a secluded grove to die and be reborn.
The Greek word phoinix links the phoenix, the Phoenician coast, and the deep crimson dye of Tyre and Sidon. In the ancient imagination this land of purple belonged to the rising sun; its perfumes and spices; frankincense, myrrh, and cinnamon; were thought to carry the breath of life itself, the very ingredients of the phoenix’s fiery nest. Because rebirth and dawn were joined in the same symbol, peoples across the Mediterranean oriented their temples toward the east, the quarter of first light. From Egypt’s sanctuaries of Ra to later Roman and "Christian" basilicas, the altar faced the sunrise to signify renewal, illumination, and the hope of life restored.
The association of dawn with the goddess of love and birth lingered in language. “Easter” in the Germanic West preserves the name of a spring goddess, Eostre or Astarte, whose rites celebrated the return of light. Likewise the sixth day of the Roman week was dies Veneris, the day of Venus, from which the word “Friday” descends. In the Christian calendar that day became the commemoration of the Passion, so that the remembrance of suffering was set upon the day once sacred to the goddess of desire. The following “Sunday,” dies Solis, the day of the Sun, marked resurrection; yet the structure of the week, inherited from the classical world, continued to echo the older celestial cults.
Some early Christian writers, reflecting on these overlaps, sought to measure the events of the Passion by the Hebrew reckoning of days and the rhythm of the sabbath. Texts such as the Didache record that the first disciples fasted on both the fourth day, Wednesday, and the day of preparation for the sabbath, Friday; remembering both the betrayal and the burial, and ressurection on the Sabbath.
I provide here a detailed breakdown of the timeline to demonstrate that Christ was not crucified on the day dedicated to Venus nor did He rise on the day devoted to the Sun.
Across the ancient Near East, a queen of heaven goddess reigned under names like Inanna or Ishtar in Mesopotamia, Astarte or Ashtoreth in the Levant, Isis in Egypt, and ultimately Venus or Aphrodite in Greece and Rome. These goddesses embodied erotic love, war, fertility, and heavenly power, and were often identified with the planet Venus, the "bright morning star" (that fell). Temples to Astarte or Venus in Phoenicia were adorned in purple robes and gold. Their rituals burned incense and poured libations from sacred cups or bowls. Astarte or Ishtar was worshipped as the goddess of goddesses, queen of heaven and earth. Isis, another Venus-associated goddess, was famed as a magician who resurrected her husband Osiris with heka, or magic, and aromatics. In short, these images overlap: a purple-clad divine queen, mother of nations, with a sacred chalice and perfumed temple.
The Greek goddess Aphrodite, later the Roman Venus, inherited this mantle. Her symbols of beauty and love; often cloaked in purple and gold; are echoed and inverted in Revelation’s vision of Babylon. Revelation 17–18 deliberately turns this symbolism on its head.
The great whore sits in purple and scarlet, decked with gold, precious stones, and pearls, and holds a golden cup full of abominations (Revelation 17:4). She is called Babylon the Great, the mother of harlots, sitteth upon many waters (Revelation 17:1). Her merchants traffic in the treasures of the East; fine linen, gold, spices, and incense (Revelation 18:12–13), and among their cargo are also the most terrible commodities of all; the bodies and souls of men (Revelation 18:13). The list of goods in the prophet’s vision moves from material luxury to the final degradation of human life itself, as though to show that the trade of Babylon ends in spiritual slavery. What began with gold and perfume concludes with flesh and spirit bought and sold, the ultimate sign of a civilization that has turned worship and commerce into one, the same luxuries that once filled the temples of Phoenicia and Egypt.
In prophetic language the “many waters” over which she rules signify peoples and nations, but the image also echoes the origins of the old goddesses who rose from the sea. Classical poets told that Venus was born from the foam of the ocean, and Egyptian hymns hailed Isis as the queen of the seas as well as of heaven, the protectress of sailors and mother of gods. The epithet “mother of the gods” occurs in several late Egyptian and Greco-Roman texts where Isis or Venus is praised as the source of all divine generation. Revelation turns that ancient title inside out: the “mother of harlots” becomes a figure of corruption, her waters no longer life-giving but the tides of spiritual commerce and deceit.
The prophet’s vision thus gathers together the imagery of the maritime East; purple cloth from Tyre, incense from Arabia, gold from Ophir, and the worship of the sea-born goddess; and re-presents it as a single symbol of idolatrous empire. The phrase “by thy sorceries were all nations deceived” (Revelation 18:23) uses the Greek pharmakeia, the same word used in antiquity for magical potions and rites, linking Babylon’s seduction to the old cultic arts once attributed to Isis, Astarte, and other mistresses of enchantment. The waters, the sea, and the cup all join in one image: beauty and commerce turned to sorcery, the world intoxicated by the glamour of a false divinity.
In this judgment, Revelation reuses the symbolism of Phoenicia and the phoenix myth to condemn Babylon (Rome). The woman’s purple and scarlet attire recalls Phoenician Tyrian dye, once the emblem of royalty and divinity. But now Babylon flaunts it as excessive wealth, soon to be consumed by fire (Revelation 18:8). The golden cup full of abominations parodies the sacred libation vessels used in goddess cults. In Scripture, the cup often symbolizes divine wrath (Jeremiah 25:15), so the holy chalice of Isis and Aphrodite is inverted into idol-worship and defilement. The spices that perfumed the phoenix’s nest and adorned Venus temples; cinnamon, myrrh, frankincense; are listed among Babylon’s doomed merchandise. In myth, these spices represented renewal through fire. In Revelation, they signify corrupt luxury destined for destruction.
The waters upon which the whore sits (Revelation 17:1) mirror the sea trade of Phoenicia and the maritime power of the goddess Venus. Venus herself was said to be born of sea foam, and Isis was a goddess of the sea as well as magic. The beast that the whore rides, with seven heads and ten horns, represents the same dragon or serpent that Revelation 12:9 calls that old serpent, the Devil and Satan. Thus, the whore’s alliance is not with a divine lover, but with Satan himself. In the end, the beast turns against her: the ten horns shall hate the whore and shall make her desolate and naked, and shall eat her flesh and burn her with fire (Revelation 17:16).
This use of fire draws a powerful contrast to the phoenix myth. In pagan lore, the phoenix lies down and yields up her life on a pyre made of spikenard, cinnamon, and myrrh, and is reborn from the ashes. Her fire is one of sacred renewal. But in Revelation, Babylon is consumed with fire as judgment: she shall be utterly burned with fire (Revelation 18:8). What was once portrayed as divine resurrection is now divine wrath. The phoenix’s flame is turned into Babylon’s furnace. The same color; phoinix, purple or crimson; is a sign of opposite destinies. The fire of God saves the faithful but destroys the idolater.
By calling her Babylon the Great, the mother of harlots (Revelation 17:5), Revelation invokes and condemns the queen-of-heaven archetype. Ishtar and Astarte were known for sacred prostitution and fertility cults; the harlot of Revelation is a caricature of seductive religion wedded to empire and sorcery. Jeremiah condemned Israel for baking cakes to the queen of heaven (Jeremiah 7:18, 44:17–25) and planting groves to Asherah (Deuteronomy 16:21–22, 1 Kings 14:23, 2 Kings 17:10–11); all of which God called abominations. Egypt was another source of spiritual adultery: woe to them that go down to Egypt for help (Isaiah 31:1), and Israel is repeatedly said to go a whoring with Egypt (Ezekiel 23:3, Hosea 7:11). In Revelation, these older idolatries converge in the final harlot city. She is not a true queen but a sorceress who deceives nations and drinks the blood of saints.
Yet even her star is taken from her. Revelation 22:16 declares that Jesus Christ, not Venus, is the true bright morning star. The Morning Star of pagan myth is dethroned and revealed as false light. The Lamb is victorious: they shall make war with the Lamb, and the Lamb shall overcome them: for he is Lord of lords, and King of kings (Revelation 17:14). What began as the story of a bird of fire and a queen of love ends in a divine courtroom of judgment and fire.
In sum, Revelation reuses and inverts the most sacred imagery of Phoenician, Egyptian, and Roman goddess cults. The phoenix, the queen of heaven, the golden cup, purple robes, incense, the morning star—all these are repurposed. What once promised rebirth and divine union is now exposed as corruption and destruction. The same symbols of flame, dye, cup, and incense speak of two destinies: one the eternal life of the risen Christ, the other the burning fall of false religion.
The Queen of Heaven becomes the queen of earth’s abominations, and her fate stands as a warning to all who would trade divine truth for seductive power. Her purple, her perfume, her phoenix fire—all are judged in the presence of the Lamb, and her glory shall be found no more at all (Revelation 18:14). This is not myth but prophecy: Babylon shall fall, and the kingdoms of this world shall become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ (Revelation 11:15).
In 1 Clement 25 the bishop of Rome; later remembered as pope Clement I; wrote:
“Let us consider that wonderful sign which takes place in the east, in Arabia and the countries round about. There is a certain bird which is called a phoenix. This is the only one of its kind and lives five hundred years. When the time of its dissolution draws near, it builds for itself a nest of frankincense and myrrh and other spices; when the time is fulfilled it enters and dies. As the flesh decays a worm is produced, nourished by the juices of the dead bird; it grows feathers, gains strength, and taking up the nest with the bones of its parent, flies from Arabia into Egypt to the city called Heliopolis. In open day, in the sight of all men, it places them on the altar of the sun; and when this is done, it hastens back to its former abode. The priests then examine the registers and find that it has returned exactly at the completion of the five-hundredth year.”
Clement offered this as a sign of resurrection. His purpose was to illustrate the hope of life from death by means of a story already famous in Greek and Egyptian lore. He immediately followed it by quoting Job 29:18 to remind his readers that even Scripture speaks of dying in one’s nest and multiplying one’s days, language that early translators sometimes connected with the phoenix. For Clement the bird served as a metaphor: creation itself contains parables of renewal.
Clement believed he was drawing on a biblical precedent for this image; Job 29:18, which he seems to have read as saying, “Then I said, I shall die with my nest, and I shall multiply my days as the phoenix.”
But the Hebrew text never actually says that.
The word in question, chol, almost always means “sand.” In its original sense, Job was saying that he hoped his life would be long and plentiful, as numerous “as the sand.” Nothing in the Hebrew implies a bird, immortality, or rebirth by fire.
Clement therefore was not quoting the plain meaning of Job but a Greco reinterpretation of it. The original Hebrew verse spoke simply of endurance; the later version, read through Greek myth, turned endurance into resurrection. Rome inherited this reading through Clement and the Latin fathers, and eventually the phoenix was absorbed into Christian symbolism as if it had come straight from Scripture. What began as a poetic expression about dying in peace “with one’s nest” became, through mistranslation and cultural overlay, a legend of an immortal bird rising from its ashes; an emblem that Job himself never imagined.
In later centuries, however, Roman and medieval commentators often treated Clement’s description as a record of an actual creature. Bestiaries and church sermons of the Middle Ages repeated the passage almost verbatim, surrounding it with moral allegory and with the sun-cult imagery that clung to the name Heliopolis. The symbolic story that Clement had used to point beyond nature was absorbed into a natural-theology tradition in which the phoenix became a literal herald of Christ’s resurrection and, at times, a quasi-sacramental emblem carved on tombs and altars.
The phoenix, the queen goddess, and Babylon’s judgment
All these images overlap, presenting a purple-clad divine queen, mother of nations, with a sacred chalice and perfumed temple.
John’s Apocalypse deliberately turns this old symbolism on its head. In Revelation 17–18 the great prostitute sits in purple and scarlet, decked with gold, precious stones and pearls, and holds a golden cup full of abominations. Babylon the Great is called the Mother of Harlots, enthroned over many waters symbolic of worldwide empires. Her merchants traffic in all the treasures of the East; fine linen, gold, spices, and incense, the very goods tied to Phoenician trade and Venus worship. But Revelation says these colors and goods are not tokens of divine beauty, but marks of corruption and power. The prophet mocks the former Queen, whose queenly cup is now full of the filth of her fornication, and by thy sorceries were all nations deceived (Revelation 18:23).
The golden cup full of abominations parodies the libation vessels of goddess cults. In Scripture, the cup often symbolizes divine wrath (Jeremiah 25:15), so the holy chalice of Isis or Aphrodite is inverted into idol-worship and debauchery. Likewise, Revelation 18 lists incense and spices among Babylon’s trade; materials used to anoint gods (mortal men)
The image of many waters in Revelation 17:1 recalls the Mediterranean sea-trade of Phoenician cities, and the idea that the harlot sits on nations and multitudes. She even rides a scarlet beast with seven heads. Earlier, in Revelation 12:9, John identified a dragon as that ancient serpent called Satan. Thus the whore’s beast is implicitly the dragon or serpent of old, making her the human-aligned enabler of Satan’s power.
In pagan myth the phoenix’s pyre is holy: she lies down and yields up her life on a spice-laden pyre, only to rise again from the ashes. Her birth-death cycle promises eternity. In Revelation, Babylon is similarly consumed utterly with fire (18:8), but the fire is final judgment, not renewal. The fire of God that saves the faithful destroys the idolaters. Thus the same color phoinix, deep crimson-purple, and image of fire carry opposite meanings. The phoenix and Venus’s sunrise once symbolized life and hope; the whore of Babylon is instead the emblem of forsaken power whose doom is sealed by that very flame.
Luke 11:35 (KJV):
“Take heed therefore that the light which is in thee be not darkness.”
Proverbs 23:31–32 (KJV):
“Look not thou upon the wine when it is red, when it giveth his colour in the cup, when it moveth itself aright. At the last it biteth like a serpent, and stingeth like an adder.”
By calling her Babylon the Great, the mother of harlots (17:5), Revelation nods to that Queen-of-Heaven archetype and declares it false. Ishtar and Astarte were known as devotees of sacred prostitution; now Revelation’s whore is a caricature of that seductive power in religion and empire. The Apostle John even alludes to ancient myths: we hear echoes of Canaanite Baal (baalzebub) worship as Jeremiah condemned cakes for the queen of heaven, and of Egyptian sorcery as he describes her intoxicating spells. Christ Himself is proclaimed the bright Morning Star in Revelation 22:16, reclaiming the Venus symbol for true divine light. But Babylon’s adversary is clearly the Lamb: they will make war on the Lamb, and the Lamb will overcome them (Revelation 17:14).
John’s Revelation, this goddess archetype becomes Babylon the Great, the Whore of Babylon. The seven-headed beast she rides is the dragon or serpent of the Apocalypse, Satan, marking her as the enemy of Christ’s kingdom. John twists Isis’s imagery of libations; the whore holds a golden cup overflowing with abominations, perverting the sacred libation vessels of Ishtar’s cult. The very colors once holy to Venus and kings, purple and scarlet, now clothe this idolatrous figure. Revelation 18:23 warns, by thy sorceries were all nations deceived, directly linking Babylon’s world empire to occult enchantment, the craft attributed to Isis and Astarte.
The golden cup, a ritual libation vessel of eastern goddesses, becomes a cup of abominations in Revelation 17:4, a vessel that once offered divine drink now overflowing with idolatrous filth.
The parallels between Revelation 17–18, Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Lactantius’s writings, and Phoenician myth show how biblical imagery deliberately reverses the old goddess archetype to expose idolatry and affirm Christ’s true reign.
The Whore of Babylon in Revelation is not a new invention but the final biblical unveiling of a very old spiritual identity that has appeared across the ancient world under different names; Ishtar in Babylon, Astarte in Phoenicia, Isis in Egypt, and Venus in Rome. These were not separate deities but regional variations of the same goddess archetype: the queen of heaven, the lady of sorcery, the ruler of the sea, the seductress of kings, and the mother of whores and abominations.
In ancient myth, the phoenix; a symbol of fire-born renewal; flies to Phoenicia and dies upon a nest of incense, only to be reborn. Ovid says the bird builds a pyre of frankincense, cinnamon, spikenard, and myrrh. Lactantius confirms that the phoenix dies in Syria, in a palm grove consecrated by Venus, who gave the land its name: Phoenice, or Phoenicia. The Greek word phoinix means both phoenix and Phoenician, and is also the name of the deep purple dye for which Tyre and Sidon were famous. Thus, the phoenix’s color, homeland, and death all link to the divine fire and royalty associated with this eastern goddess.
Venus herself was born from sea foam. Isis was called queen of the sea and mother of the earth. In Roman inscriptions, Isis is saluted as mistress of sailors and ruler of the waves. The planet Venus, visible as the morning and evening star, was sacred to all these goddesses. In Egypt, Isis was the magician who raised Osiris from the dead using spells, rituals, and spices. In Babylon, Ishtar descended into the underworld to bring back Tammuz. All these myths promised resurrection through the feminine divine, through perfume, ritual, and flame. But in Revelation, these symbols are reinterpreted and judged.
Revelation 17:1 says, “Come hither; I will shew unto thee the judgment of the great whore that sitteth upon many waters.” Waters represent peoples, nations, and tongues (Revelation 17:15), but they also symbolize the sea; the traditional domain of Venus-Ishtar-Isis. Revelation 17:3 says the woman sits upon a scarlet-colored beast full of names of blasphemy. In Revelation 17:4 she is “arrayed in purple and scarlet colour, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations.” The purple and scarlet directly recall the Phoenician dyes used for royal and temple garments. The cup recalls the libation bowls used in Venus and Isis worship. But instead of offering life, her cup is full of fornication and filthiness.
Revelation 18:12–13 lists her merchandise: “gold, and silver, and precious stones, and of pearls, and fine linen, and purple, and silk, and scarlet… and cinnamon, and odours, and ointments, and frankincense, and wine, and oil, and fine flour, and wheat, and beasts… and slaves, and souls of men.” These are the same spices used in phoenix myth, Isis rituals, and ancient goddess temples. But Revelation declares them cursed. Revelation 18:8 says, “She shall be utterly burned with fire.” The fire that once symbolized sacred rebirth now becomes the flame of God’s wrath.
In Jeremiah 7:18, the Lord rebukes Israel saying, “The children gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead their dough, to make cakes to the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto other gods.” In Jeremiah 44:17–25, the people proudly admit, “We will certainly do whatsoever thing goeth forth out of our own mouth, to burn incense unto the queen of heaven.” This queen of heaven is Astarte-Ishtar-Isis, the same goddess later called Venus. In 1 Kings 11:5, Solomon goes after Ashtoreth the goddess of the Zidonians. In 1 Kings 14:23, Israel “built them high places, and images, and groves, on every high hill.” In 2 Kings 17:10–11, they “set them up images and groves in every high hill… and there burnt incense, as did the heathen.”
Deuteronomy 16:21 commands, “Thou shalt not plant thee a grove of any trees near unto the altar of the Lord thy God.” These groves were sacred to the goddess, filled with images, incense, and fornication.
Modern elites preserve this symbolism. Bohemian Grove in California is a secret forest gathering place where world leaders perform "mock" sacrifices before a giant owl statue named Molech, under ancient trees. Though they call it theater, the ritual echoes ancient grove worship. The grove remains the meeting place of the powerful, just as in Canaanite and Phoenician rites. The same queen of heaven sits enthroned invisibly over modern systems; seducing through wealth, secrecy, and spiritual compromise.
In Egypt, Isis was the great magician who used incantations and aroma to raise the dead. She was also identified with the sea and underworld. The sea, in Scripture, is not only the domain of commerce but also of the abyss—the underworld. Revelation 11:7 and 17:8 describe the beast that ascendeth out of the bottomless pit. This is the sea beneath the sea.
In ancient cosmology, the sea symbolized chaos and the dead. That is why Revelation 21:1 says, “and there was no more sea.” The abyss is the realm of demons. So when Babylon sits upon many waters, she is not only ruling nations but also aligned with the abyss.
Julius Caesar claimed descent from Venus. He traced his bloodline to Aeneas, son of Venus, and declared himself divinely born. But Venus is the same queen of heaven rebuked in Jeremiah. She is the same Isis whose cult ruled Egypt. She is the same Astarte whose groves led Israel astray. These are not separate gods. They are names of one spirit; spiritual Babylon, mother of harlots, who rides the beast and exalts herself above the Lord.
Revelation 18:23 says, “by thy sorceries were all nations deceived.” The sorceries here are not only magic but the luxurious deceptions of empire: perfumes, wealth, idols, fornication, and false divinity.
In Revelation 22:16, Jesus declares, “I am the root and the offspring of David, and the bright and morning star.” He takes the title once claimed by Venus and reclaims it for truth. Lucifer, too, had been called son of the morning (Isaiah 14:12), but fell through pride. The bright morning star does not belong to Venus or Caesar, but to Christ. He is the true resurrection, not the phoenix. His blood, not incense, brings eternal life. The phoenix’s nest of spice is a counterfeit of Christ’s cross.
Thus, the Whore of Babylon is the unveiling of the old goddess system in its final form. She wears the colors of Venus and the robes of Phoenicia. She holds the cup of Isis and rules the seas. Her incense, spices, and purple cloth once adorned the temples of Tyre and Sidon, but now they are fuel for judgment. She is Astarte, Isis, Ishtar, and Venus—queen of heaven, queen of the sea, queen of sorcery. But Revelation exposes her as the queen of hell, consumed by fire, overthrown by the Lamb.
The same groves planted for Asherah still grow in hidden places. The same incense burned to the goddess now perfumes the markets of global empire. But the Lord will not share His glory. Revelation ends not with a queen of heaven, but with a bride of Christ. The phoenix burns, but does not rise. Babylon falls, and never returns. The beast and the woman perish together. Only the Lamb reigns forever.
“Thus says the Lord God: Woe to the women who sew magic bands upon all wrists, and make veils for the heads of persons of every stature, in the hunt for souls! Will you hunt down souls belonging to my people and keep your own souls alive?”
— Ezekiel 13:18
2 Thessalonians 2:3 (KJV):
“Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition.”
Get out of her my people.
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