powers, the one leading directly forward to the right, and the other retrograde and wayward. So that this life is mixed, and the world irregular and various, and subject to all manner of change. For if there be nothing without a cause, and good cannot afford the cause of evil, there must be some peculiar generation and principle containing the nature of evil as well as of good. And this opinion was held by the mass of the wisest of men. For they believe that there are two Gods, like antagonists, the first, the Creator of Good, the latter of Evil. The better of them they call God, the other Demon, as they are termed by Zoroaster, the magician (sage), who is reported to have lived five thousand years before the Trojan war. He called the first Oromazes, and the other Arimanes ; and added, that the first was most like Light, and the latter like Darkness and Error.”* The name of this evil genius, Aperμavns, whom Plutarch elsewhere denominates πονερός δαίμων, wicked demon, and who is styled by Diogenes Laertius Ads, hell, unquestionably betrays a Hebraic origin. Some derive it from D, Chal. Dastutus, cunning, crafty, the appellation bestowed upon the Serpent, Gen. 3. 1, to which, if the Arabic termination be added, it makes it Ariman. Others deduce it from 7, Chal. Pr, πλavãv, to deceive, as if it were merely the Greek form of in the deceiver. Still, in either case, the term shows its affinity with the Hebrew language and with the distinguishing attributes of the Dragon or Old Serpent, the standing adversary of God and man. The name of the idol

עָרוּם

* Plut. de Isid. et Osirid. p. 407. ed. Ald.

Rimmon, mentioned 2 Kings 5. 18. is probably to be referred to the same source. Now this mythologic divinity Arimanes is the same with the Typho of the Egyptians, who was represented and worshipped under the form of a serpent. And it is worthy of note that the title Belial in the Scriptures, another name for the evil spirit, of which the Greek form is Beλap, Beliar, is defined by Hesychius by Spaxwv, dragon. But to what was it owing that the Serpent, the symbol of all ill, the grand personification of mischief and sin, instead of being detested as an enemy, came to be worshipped as a god, having his altars, and services, and votaries among all pagan nations on earth? Perhaps no more satisfactory solution of this remarkable fact can be given, than to suppose that that which was at first abominated as the symbol of the wicked principle, came in process of time, from a motive of fear, to be regarded as having the power of doing harm to mankind, which it was necessary for them to deprecate by sacrifices and offerings. Hence the Serpent began to be worshipped, and the natural effect would eventually be, that he should be regarded as a placable deity, having it equally in his power with other tutelary demons to do good and to confer blessings when his favour was secured. "The devil," says Mr. Owen, "who under the shape of a serpent tempted our first parents, has, with unwearied application, laboured to deify that animal as a trophy of his first victory over mankind. God having passed sentence upon the serpent, Satan consecrates that form in which he deceived the woman, and introduces it into the world as an object of religious venera

tion. This he did with a view to enervate the force of the divine oracle with respect to the seed of the woman. Scarcely a nation upon earth, but he has tempted to the grossest idolatry, and in particular got himself to be worshipped in the hideous form of a serpent.'

"And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them to the earth." A 'tail,' considered as a prophetic emblem, is used to signify two things which frequently concur in the same subject, the one being the cause of the other. (1.) It denotes subjection, or oppression under tyranny. In this sense the symbol occurs with the explanation of God himself, Deut. 28. 13. where he promises blessings to the obedient; And the Lord shall make thee the head and not the tail; and thou shalt be above only, and thou shalt not be beneath.' (2.) It signifies a false prophet, impostor, or deceiver, one who propagates corrupt and pernicious doctrines, as the scorpion infuses into his victims the deadly poison of his tail. Is. 9. 14, 15. "Therefore the Lord will cut off from Israel head and tail, branch and rush, in one day. The ancient and honourable, he is the head; and the prophet that teacheth lies, he is the tail.' Again, Is. 19. 15. Neither shall there be any work for Egypt, which the head or tail, branch or rush, may do ;' i. e. neither the power of the princes nor the devices of false prophets and enchanters shall be at all availing. 'Stars,' on the other hand, is the well-known symbol of spiritual teachers or ministers of the truth; so that by the Dragon's drawing

* Qwen's Hist. of the Serp. p. 216.

down from heaven, by means of his tail, a third, that is, a large or very considerable part of the stars, is shadowed forth the exertion of an evil influence through the agency of idolatrous priests and other abettors of Paganism, whereby many of the ministering servants of God, the reputed luminaries of the church, are prevailed upon to apostatize from the true religion, and embrace the errors and abominations of Paganism. But such foul defections are usually the result of the display of the terrors of tyranny. Men are not ordinarily seduced from the true faith into idolatry except from motives of fear. So that the twofold idea of civil oppression and mental delusion is included under the symbol before us. That this has been in all ages the character of the Dragon, history renders indubitable. For this feature of the symbol, like the foregoing, is not to be limited to any particular era, but is to be regarded as descriptive of the general character of the monster to whom it pertains. It was, however, most signally evinced in the history of the persecutions which took place under the Roman emperors. "In every persecution there were great numbers of unworthy Christians, who publicly disowned or renounced the faith which they had professed; and who confirmed the sincerity of their abjuration, by the legal acts of burning incense or of offering sacrifices. Some of these apostates had yielded on the first menace or exhortation of the magistrate; while the patience of others had been subdued by the length or repetition of tortures."*

* Gibbon's Decl. and Fall, P. 219.

"And the dragon stood before the woman which was ready to be delivered, for to devour her child as soon as it should be born." Like the other features of the hieroglyphic scenery upon which we have already remarked, this also is to be viewed as an action co-extensive with the entire scope of the vision. It is to be regarded as characteristic of the Dragon during the whole reigning term of his existence. For throughout every period of the gradual acquisition of his imperial heads, he maintained the same attitude of deadly hostility against the seed of the woman in their progressive developement. Accordingly, in seeking an explication of this part of the visionary action of the Dragon, we have only to revert to the history of the children of Is rael in Egypt, the first probably of his germinating heads; and there, in the ruthless order of Pharaoh to cast all the male children into the Nile, we see his horrid appetite glutting itself with infant blood. At a later period, after the attainment of his Roman head, we behold in the sanguinary edict of Herod, commanding the slaughter of the male children of Bethlehem and its coasts, the same cannibal hankering gorging itself with its chosen aliment. But of his intended prey he was, in this latter instance, disappointed. The child brought forth by the woman, which we consider to have been literally Jesus Christ himself, was caught up to the throne of heaven. The true Messiah, having broken asunder the bars of the grave, was raised to the right hand of God, and there invested with that divine dominion which the Father had decreed for him from eternity. Then commenced the symbolical war in heaven. Un