User:CredoFromStart/Sandbox

The fallen angels
All three Abrahamic religions have stories about angels cast down from heaven by God, often presenting the punishment as inflicted in particular on Satan. The name Lucifer, Latin for Morning Star, is often given to Satan in these stories. The idea was borrowed from a popular legend about this star, which for a short time outshines all other stars, but is then eclipsed by the morning sun. Stars were then regarded as living celestial beings, and the Jewish Encyclopedia states that the myth concerning the morning star was transferred to Satan by the first century before the Christian era, citing in support of this view the Life of Adam and Eve and the Slavonic Book of Enoch 29:4, 31:4, where Satan-Sataniel is described as having been one of the archangels. Because he contrived "to make his throne higher than the clouds over the earth and resemble 'My power' on high", Satan-Sataniel was hurled down, with his hosts of angels, and since then he has been flying in the air continually above the abyss. The picture of the morning star "fallen from heaven" and "cast down to the earth" appears in, where it is used to describe the fate prophesied for the king of Babylon, who is described as aiming to rival God. This passage too has been applied to the fall of Satan, and it is on this basis that the name "Lucifer" (Morning Star) was given to him.

War in heaven
A number of sources mention a war between God and his armies and Satan's host. The war in heaven as a result of the rebellion of Satan and other angels before the Fall of Man was vividly described by John Milton in his work Paradise Lost. Jonathan Edwards in his sermon Wisdom Displayed in Salvation describes Satan and his angels as having rebelled against God before the fall of man and tested their collective strength against him, ultimately failing and resorting to other methods of thwarting him.
 * "Satan and his angels rebelled against God in heaven, and proudly presumed to try their strength with his. And when God, by his almighty power, overcame the strength of Satan, and sent him like lightning from heaven to hell with all his army; Satan still hoped to get the victory by subtilty(sic)"

The Book of Revelation consists principally of eschatological visions. Among its visions of things to come is one of "a great sign in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars", and of "another sign in heaven: a great red dragon, with seven heads and ten horns, and on his heads seven diadems, whose tail swept down a third of the stars of heaven and cast them to the earth", and which unsuccessfully planned to devour the pregnant woman's child. This is followed by:
 * "Now war arose in heaven, Michael and his angels fighting against the dragon. And the dragon and his angels fought back, but he was defeated, and there was no longer any place for them in heaven. And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world – he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him."

This image of a war in heaven at the end of time became added to the story of a fall of Satan at the beginning of time, including not only Satan but other angels as well, in view of the phrase "the dragon and his angels". The number of angels involved was taken to be a third of the total number because speaks of the dragon's tail casting a third of the stars of heaven to the earth, before the start of the "war in heaven".