ABSTRACT
The Book of Isaiah undoubtedly holds a special place, in both Jewish and Christian tradition. The mediaeval Jewish poets found in Isaiah a rich source of language and imagery, like the image of angels weeping when they saw the suffering of the Jews at the hands of the Crusaders, and he was a battleground for Jewish-Christian debate, as in the great Disputation in Barcelona in 1263. The great Eusebius of Caesarea, "Father of Church History", only wrote two commentaries – one on Psalms and one on Isaiah. Isaiah's Lucifer is also the subject of a sonnet by the Victorian poet George Meredith. The original biblical passage is about Lucifer and "the stars of God", not angels, and Meredith, perhaps unconsciously, stays more closely with Isaiah. For Christian theologians Christ is both man and God, and the words of Isaiah, addressed to them, beautifully express this, as the Church Fathers realized.
