14. The Old Serpent
“The Great Dragon, the old Serpent, surnamed the Diabolos and the Satan, who misleads the whole habitable.”
The whole habitable, την οικουμενην ὁλην, was that portion of the earth comprehended within the limits of the great pagan-dragon dominion, which, in the epoch of the Sixth Seal, acknowledged the jurisdiction of the great city Rome. The head of this dominion was the Roman emperor, who united in his own official person the supreme pontifical, p. 49 civil, and military authority. He was the sovereign living incarnation, for the term of his official existence, of the power resulting from the combination of the dwellers upon the habitable into a body politic, or kingdom of men. Human power enthroned upon the seven mountains, and exercising authority over the whole habitable—imperial human power—is apocalyptically styled “the Old Serpent,” ὁ οφις ὁ αρχαιος—the Serpent which was in the beginning.
The apocalyptic dominion ruled by this Serpent was Mediterranean. It enclosed this sea within its territory. On the north, it was bounded by the Caucasus, the Euxine, the Danaster, the Danube, the Rhine, and the German Ocean. On the south, by the Roman Africa, a strip of land lying between the Atlas range and the sea, and extending from the Atlantic to the Red Sea: on the west, it was washed by the Atlantic: and on the east reached to the Tigris, Euphrates, and the Arabian Desert. This territory, two thousand miles by three thousand, extended into Scotland; but did not include Ireland, Germania, Sarmatia, nor Persia, The former three were peopled by savage hordes; but at the epoch of the Sixth Seal they did not belong to the dominion of the apocalyptic serpent.
But an inquirer might ask, were not all the outlying countries as much ruled by the Serpent, as the inhabiters of the Roman earth and sea? To this I reply, not in the apocalyptic sense. The apocalypse prefigures the conflict between “the Seed of the Woman” and the Serpent, for the sovereignty of the world—Gen. iii. 15. This conflict was not between the Woman’s Seed and the governments outlying the Roman empire. At the opening of the Sixth Seal, the time had not come for that. The time to deal with the sin-powers of Asia and America had not then arrived. It was therefore necessary only to indicate by appropriate symbols that section of the general enemy with whom the saints would have especially to contend; and this was the serpent in his Græco-Latin, or Roman, manifestation upon the territory defined.
But, if the Pago-Roman Dragon Power be the Old Serpent, did that power exist in the days of the serpent that tempted Eve? To this question the answer is, it did unquestionably exist. The testimony before us, bears witness to the fact. It is there styled αρχαιος, which signifies, not only old, ancient; but primeval, from the beginning, original. The Roman Dragon was the original serpent power. This is not to be disputed.
The reader will bear in mind that we are treating of a power styled “the old serpent,” not of the reptile styled נחש nahkash, which Moses says, “was more sagacious than any beast of the field, which Yahweh Elohim had made.” The animal was not the power, but only p. 50 the type of it. He was quick of thought, penetrating, and acutely discerning. He was the most intellectual of all the creatures, and had but one superior among the living, and that was Man. The difference between man and the serpent was diversity of organization. They were both dust of the ground; but the one more highly and perfectly organized than the other. The organism of the serpent embodied faculties whose functions placed him in harmony with man’s nature. The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life, were common to them both; so that their intellectual and animal tendencies were on a par. Hence, man was more nearly related to the serpent than to any other animal—so nearly, that the serpent-nature and the man-nature, without much exaggeration, might be termed identical. I have said that man was intellectually his superior. This, however, must not be taken absolutely. The serpent showed himself to be more of an adept than Eve. He purposed to make her and Adam eat the fruit; and to do so by reasoning them into the commission of the act. In this he succeeded, and thereby proved that his intellectual subtilty was superior to theirs. Had they been as quick of thought and penetrating as he, he would have found his match, and the temptation would have failed. They, however, were over-matched by the serpent, who succeeded in deceiving them. He was the intelligent deceiver who darkened their understandings; while they stood in the humiliating position of the serpent-deceived.
Man has a class of faculties which the serpent had not. These are the moral faculties. The possession of these is the mental difference between the two creatures. The moral faculties are the basis of man’s accountability. If he had been destitute of these he would have been as little accountable as the serpent. This organic difference is a matter of capacity for the reception of ideas. The mental capacity of the man was more ample than the serpent’s, though less acute. He had more knowledge of things in general, and was capable of higher attainments in knowledge than the serpent, but he was not so sharp-witted in the use of what he knew as the subtile beast, whose wisdom has passed into the proverb, “Be ye wise as serpents, and harmless as doves.”
The moral faculties, I say, are the basis of man’s accountability. The mere fact, however, of their possession would not have made him responsible to the Deity. The possession of them gave the man no advantage over the serpent. The serpent was “very good,” and the man was “very good;” for it is written, “Elohim saw everything that he made, and behold, it was very good”—Gen. i. 31. As mere material creatures, then, the capacity of one of them for the reception of moral, or spiritual ideas, did not destroy the analogy, or rather the p. 51 identity, of the serpent nature and the man nature. The truth of this is apparent in mankind at this day. The Fejees, Japanese, New Hollanders, and such-like, have the same number of cerebral organs as Adam when pronounced “very good.” Among those are organs capable of high moral developments. But, what better are they for the possession of them under existing circumstances? Manifestly none. They are as thoroughly serpent in nature as though they had but the intellectual and animal faculties of the serpent, and no more.
Morally, then, the serpent could not respond to the thoughts, principles, and the institutions of the Deity; but man could, because of his organic capacity for the reception of them. The serpent could not, and the man would not; so that in relation to the way and principles of the Deity, both man and the serpent were reprobate; and of the two the man who could but would not believe and do, was unquestionably the worse.
Man was the only creature of the Deity’s “very good” animal creation, whose action was restrained by a law. It was said to him, “Of every tree of the garden eating thou mayest eat: but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil thou shalt not eat of it; for in the day of thine eating thereof, dying thou shalt die.” This was spoken to man only; but in the hearing of the serpent. Had the serpent, or any other animal, eaten of it he would not have transgressed, because the eating, or touching of the tree, was only prohibited to man. The law demanded of man the recognition of the Deity as his ruler and lawgiver by a faithful abstinence from the thing forbidden. The law was the spoken word, or oracle, of the Deity; and threatened the man with death if he despised it. No greater offence could be committed by the man; because “the Deity hath magnified his word above all his name;” so that to despise his word is equivalent to despising him.
The serpent saw the lawgiver, heard the law, and could distinguish the trees. Being very quick of thought, he instinctively speculated, or reasoned, upon what he saw and heard. “The eyes of the Elohim are open, and they know both good and evil, and yet are immortal. Adam is made in their image and after their likeness; and is doubtless like them in all things but the knowledge of evil as well as good. This knowledge, it is clear, may be obtained by eating of the tree forbidden. If they eat thereof, the man and the woman would be like the Elohim; their eyes would be open, and they would know good and evil. And as for dying; that is by no means a necessary consequence. The Elohim are immortal, and Adam and Eve may be so too; for all that is needful to be done to avoid the threatened penalty of the law, is for them to go to the other tree, called the Tree of Lives, and to eat of it, and they will live forever.” Such was the intellectualizing p. 52 of the serpent upon what he had seen and heard. It brought him to conclusions, not altogether false nor entirely true. His conclusion was a mixture of truth and error, in which the error neutralized the truth and made it void. It was therefore “a lie;” and he, though ignorant of the falseness of the theory he was thinking out, “a liar, and the father of it.”
Highly satisfied with his newly discovered views of the situation, he presented himself before the mother of all living, and opened a conversation with her upon the subject of the law and its penalty, in which he submitted to her the conclusions to which he had come from the premises before him. He introduced the conference by showing that he knew what the Elohim had said, “Yea,” said he, “hath Elohim said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden!” The “yea” implies that he knew the fact; but he put what he knew interrogatively to draw the woman out. She admitted that it had been so said, and specified the particular tree, and its locality in the midst of the garden, and added that they were forbidden even to touch it upon pain of death. This was the point he wished her to come to, as it enabled him at once to state the discovery he had made of what Deity really intended contrary to his word. He replied, “Dying ye shall not die;” that is, “Your dying shall not end in death.” This was a point-blank denial of what the Deity had said. He had said they should die, and the serpent said they should not, and undertook to establish his position by declaring his acquaintance with the secret of the Deity hidden from her—“Dying ye shall not die; for Elohim knows that in the day of your eating thereof then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as Elohim, knowing good and evil.” The Elohim do not die, they know good and evil, and you will become like them.
The woman listened to his sermon on the law, and thought his exposition of the word might be its true spiritual import. It was possible that the Deity did not mean what he said; that it was the letter of the law only that killed; but the spiritual or secret meaning expounded by the intelligent and eloquent serpent, was the real life-imparting truth. She entertained this supposition, since become so popular with her descendants; and, half convinced, she moved towards the tree to take a look at it, and more practically consider the matter. Her faith in the unadulterated Word was shaken. She believed the spiritualizing serpent, and she believed the Deity; for she believed the eating of the tree would impart the knowledge of the good and the evil divinely indicated; but then she believed also, that the death-penalty might be evaded according to the doctrine of the serpent. The tree, she knew, was “good for food,” it was also p. 53 “pleasant to the eyes.” Here were two classes of human lusts coworking in favor of the serpent’s conclusion. There remained only one class more to be gained and his triumph would be complete. She was ambitious. She knew the Elohim, how wise and exalted they were, and how superior to Adam and herself. She wanted to be like them, and the serpent had assured her that she had the power of this desirable self-exaltation in her own hands. But then, might she not lose all by the operation of the death-penalty? True; but the serpent had assured her that Elohim did not intend to carry it into effect; and besides, was there not that other tree—the tree of lives—as accessible as the tree of the knowledge of good and evil? could she not also eat of that, and be immortal as the Elohim? Surely, this was a well-combined scheme of the serpent’s by which they might easily and speedily attain to wisdom and immortality upon their own terms! With the earth in their possession, what independent, glorious, and powerful ones they would be when like the Elohim! The thought was charming; it was quite fascinating to contemplate! What more could “the pride of life” desire? They would live on the earth forever; and all the world that might inhabit it would be subject to them and to the principles of the serpent, by which they would have attained their high Elohistic estate!
Thus was the mother of all living “drawn away of her own lusts, and enticed.” She was attracted by “the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life.” These instincts of the flesh predisposed her to believe the serpent and to follow his suggestion, regardless of the divine law. Lust conceived within her. The doctrine of the serpent sown in her heart inflamed her desires, and stirred them up into rebellious exercise. Faith in the word was obliterated; her mind was darkened by false teaching; she was beguiled and corrupted from the simplicity of the truth; her thinking was serpentized, and she “brought forth sin,” or the transgression of the law: and when the sin was perfected, contrary to the serpent’s theory and her own expectation, “it brought forth death.”—James i. 14, 15.
Such was the first lie, the father of it, and the consequence of believing it. YAHWEH Elohim admitted that the lie contained some truth. As the serpent said, their eyes were opened, but opened to discover their own shame; they became as the Elohim in the knowledge of the good and evil of an evil state adapted to the formation of character under trial; but independence, glory, honor and power, they were not permitted to attain. Nor could they so easily as they imagined eat of the tree of lives, and live forever. When the sin was finished they were too much occupied with their new discovery p. 54 of their nakedness, and devices to conceal it from their expected Elohistic visitors, to promptly follow out the serpent’s programme. In the midst of their perturbation they perceived their approach, and fled for concealment among the trees from the presence of YAHWEH Elohim. This appearing of “the Lord the Spirit” was an incident not provided for in the programme of the serpent. It marred the whole scheme, and stamped his speculation with falsehood and deceit. The Lord’s appearing arrested the guilty in their career of sin, and brought them before the Judge for trial and sentence according to their works. The offence was charged upon Adam, who accused the woman as the first in the transgression; and when she was interrogated she confessed, saying, “The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat.” The serpent was the progenitor of the whole transaction. Animal intellectuality, or the thinking of flesh in accordance with its own lusts, emanating from the serpent in discourse, was the spirit that worked in the disobedient, and caused them to stumble at the word. The divine Judge did not interrogate the serpent. It had preached according to its instinct, making proclamation simply of its own reasoning in the premises. The subtle beast, however, was visited with reprobation for the mischief incurred by his ignorant presumption in prating about what he did not understand. He had given expression to what had proved to be a lie, and, therefore, he was truly the father or inventor of it. This particular serpent that beguiled Eve by his subtilty, spent all the days of his life in the dust upon his belly; and from being the most sagacious, he became “cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field.” The intellectualism of the serpent had been transferred to the man. The serpent-system of ideas and mode of thinking had become characteristic of the man, whose lustful nature, inflamed to rebellion by the serpent’s reasoning, came to occupy the same relation to the word of the Deity in all after ages, that the original speaking beast did before the fall of man. All the primeval serpent, or any other kind of serpent, has had to do with serpentine developments since that important crisis has been merely as the expressive and appropriate symbol of the nature of man.
The serpent, then, is the reasoning of the flesh, which is inseparable from it, and tends only to death. This is human nature, and styled by Paul in Rom. viii. 3, σαρξ ἁμαρτιας, SIN’S FLESH, in which, in ch. vii. 18, he says, “dwelleth no good thing,” In its original creation, this flesh, like the serpent, was “very good” of its kind. It had its affections and desires, which, like the affections and desires of other creatures, were innocent and harmless; and the man would not have known sin in the gratification of them, except the law had p. 55 said, Thou shalt not eat of the tree. There would have been no scope for the serpent’s speculation if no law had been enacted; for without the law his doctrine could have no existence. The serpent’s reasoning was sin in conception. “Sin is the transgression of law,” and this transgression was originally conceived in the brain of the serpent, and by reasoning on false premises, was transferred into the woman’s, where, taking occasion by the commandment ordained for life, and in itself holy, just and good, it wrought in her all manner of intense and unlawful desires. Had she been contented to believe the Deity, and to obey the commandment, her course would have resulted in life eternal. But, instead of this, she found the commandment to be for death; because the reasoning of the serpent, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived her, and by it slew her. Thus, the serpent’s reasoning which she adopted as her own, worked death in her by the good and just and holy law, by which, when the reasoning was perfected in transgression, Human Nature displayed itself as an exceedingly great sinner—καθ’ ὑπερβολην ἁμαρτωλος.
The theory generally entertained concerning “the old serpent” is, that “an Evil Genius under the semblance of a serpent styled the Devil, was the primary cause of man’s fall, and that he used the serpent as his instrument. This theory is founded in incredulity, or unbelief of the Mosaic account. A brute beast, they say, was incapable of reasoning the woman into the transgression of the law. They might as well say that the dumb ass upon which Balaam rode was incapable of speaking with man’s voice and rebuking the madness of the prophet. The one is as improbable as the other; yet improbable as the story of the ass, and incapable of speaking and rebuking madness, as by experience we know asses to be, the fact is attested by both Moses and Peter, and, therefore, rests upon as good evidence, and is as worthy of belief as any other fact in Scripture. He that made the serpent and the ass—“very good” brutes of their kind, and not so much inferior to man, their fellow brute, as is generally supposed—could also for any special occasion or emergency confer upon them the power of expressing their thoughts in human speech. No reasonable being will deny the power of the Creator to do this. Whether he did so is a matter of evidence, and no evidence can be more plainly, pointedly, and intelligibly testified than that the serpent was a beast of the field, pre-eminently subtle, and capable of expressing his thoughts in man’s speech rationally. There is not a word said about any other “evil genius,” devil or satan, than the serpent himself; and to bring in another in an interpretation is only to spoil the narrative, and to confess ignorance of p. 56 its meaning, and inability to expound it as it stands. No, the whole transaction is referable exclusively to the serpent and the woman. There was no third party behind the scenes styled “the great enemy of mankind.” The greatest enemy of mankind is man, and more to be feared than any devil or evil genius incredulity and ignorance of the word are able to invent. The serpent was an acute observer and an attentive listener; and all the inspiration he was the subject of consisted in the things he had seen and heard.
As to the incapability of a woman being reasoned into transgression by a brute beast, we are every day familiar with the contrary. Man that is in honor and does not understand the word has no pre-eminence over a beast. This is the doctrine of Scripture. He is as an ass or a serpent, whether performing in a pulpit, a temple, a mosque, or in the private walks of life. The folly that hisses from their mouths is but the teaching of the serpent less speciously expressed than in the beginning; so that it is not a question of principles and brains, but of external configuration, that establishes an apparent difference between them and “their father who abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him.”—Jno. viii. 44. These “natural brute beasts, made to be taken and destroyed,” serpent-like, speak evil of the things that they understand not; “and creeping into houses, lead captive silly women laden with sins, led away with divers lusts, ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.” They reason them into transgression of the word, and into self-satisfaction and contentment in sin, as effectually as their father did the mother of all living.
After the death of the particular serpent that beguiled Eve, the only speaking serpent was within man. His own lusts are the internal serpent by which he is drawn away and enticed. He is hungry. This condition of stomach creates a strong desire for food. This is a lust. He may have power to convert stone into bread for the satisfying of his hunger. He begins to reason, what harm is there in exercising one’s power for the appeasing of one’s hunger? Manifestly none. But would it be right to exercise the power under the circumstances of the case? I have been placed thus in order to be made to know that man lives not by bread only, but by what proceeds out of the mouth of Yahweh. If I exercise the power, I distrust him, and express my conviction to the contrary; and in effect declare, that without bread supplied by my own providence, I should die. I have the power, it is true, to put an end to this painful craving for food; but I will not frustrate Deity in placing me here, by anticipating his deliverance.
In this example, the reasoning suggested by the hunger, and counselling p. 57 its immediate satisfaction by any means within reach, is the innate serpent, or devil, speaking within the man. It is the “I carnal sold under sin”—the sin dwelling in the man; the sin-law in the members. Such reasonings are the writhings and twistings of the serpent, or the motions of sins working in the members, which, if unchecked and unrestrained by “the engrafted word” as the law of the mind, bring forth fruits unto death. All unenlightened men are what the scripture terms “the natural man.” This man does “not assent to the things of the Spirit of the Deity; for they are foolishness to him; and he is unable to know them because they are spiritually discerned.” This was exactly the serpent’s case. He was without the power of spiritual discernment. And so with all men in default of a revelation of spiritual things from the Deity. If he had not made known his purposes none of Adam’s descendants could have discovered them. Hence, while ignorant of the word, they are as the serpent, and scripturally classed with him as his seed or children.
Thus, mankind in whom the truth is not, being the Seed of the Serpent, the flesh of sin, is their natural parent. This is “their father the Devil, whose lusts they do.” But when the truth obtains entrance into a serpent-man, or sinner, and makes a lodgment in his understanding and affections, a power gets possession of him, and generates there “a new man,” styled also “the inward man;” so that a Christadelphian, or brother of Christ, is not what he appears to be in the eyes of ordinary men. The serpent-world of sinners does not know them. To the eye of sense they appear as serpent-men. Their outward man differs nothing from the seed of the serpent; while their inward man is beyond the range of the perceptions of the serpent-man, or sinner. It is this new man of the heart, within the old man of the flesh, which constitutes an individual a saint, a son of the Deity, and a brother of Christ. Collectively, the saints or brethren of Christ, constitute his woman or spouse; they are, therefore, styled the Seed of the Woman. This arrangement distributes mankind into two unequal and opposite classes—THE SERPENT-WORLD, and the Woman-Seed; the former, being based upon a lie; the latter, upon the truth.
In the beginning, the Serpent-World consisted of no more than two sinners—Adam and his wife; yet small as was its extent, all the evil that has since manifested itself, was latent in them. Their symbol was the Serpent, or Dragon, and represented falsehood, unbelief, and rebellion against the Deity. Wherever these three have been found politically organized, and in conflict with the saints, there is the Serpent which was in the beginning—“the old serpent.” Of p. 58 this serpent-world the scripture saith, “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof; but he that doeth the will of the Deity abideth for ever”—John ii. 15-17.
Now, after Adam had brought sin into being by transgression of the law, the Deity proceeded to organize the “evil” to which man had subjected himself by his rebellion. He had come to know it elohistically, as the serpent had said; but he was not also to be like the Elohim in abiding for ever. He had sinned, and the law he had violated was now to take its course. YAHWEH Elohim therefore proceeded to expound the penalty of the law, and to teach him the practical import of the phrase, “Dying thou shalt die.” He began with the instinctive whispering promoter of the mischief, whom having cursed, he addressed as the representative of the disobedient in all future time, and said, “I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between THY SEED and HER SEED; this shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.” To the woman, as first in the transgression, he said, her progeny should be greatly multiplied, her desire should be to her husband, who should rule over her. And to Adam, because he hearkened to his wife instead of to him, he said, “Cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; . . . till thou return to the ground; for out of it wast thou taken; for thou art dust, and to dust shalt thou return”—Gen. iii. 15-19. The specifications in these sentences upon the serpent, the woman, and the man, form THE CONSTITUTION of the Serpent-World, or KINGDOM OF SIN; and termed in scripture “the Kingdom of Men”—dominion hostile to the divine law administered by the Serpent’s Seed. It matters not what form the dominion assumes, whether imperial, regal, republican, or papal, its basis is one and the same; and most appropriately symbolized by the serpent which was in the beginning—ὁ οφις ὁ αρχαιος.
In after times, far distant from the beginning, the serpent-world acquired an immense development. From two persons it had increased to myriads of millions; and without specifying the outlying savages of the dominion, is treated of in scripture as “the kingdom of Egypt;” which, in the days of Moses, had attained great political proportions—a kingdom of kingdoms. It was “the dragon, the old serpent,” of his day—the great enemy and bruiser of the woman’s seed, who sought their extirpation from the earth. This was the political relation of things then. The “Woman’s Seed” was p. 59 identified with Israel; the “Serpent’s Seed,” with all that had enmity against, or oppressed, them; while the “Head of the Serpent,” styled in the sentence upon the serpent, “thy head,” is that chief government of the Gentiles, or nations, which directs, controls, or influences, the policy of the world for the time being.
The scriptures oftentimes connect the beginning and the end without taking cognizance of the interval of a multitude of generations and ages, or, if at all, only very slightly. Thus, in Ps. lxxiv. 12, the Mosaic salvation from Egyptian bondage, and the future Messianic salvation from the down-treading of the mystic Babylon, apocalyptically and “spiritually called Sodom, and Egypt” (ch. xi. 3), are so connected: as it is written, “My King of old is Elohim, working salvation in the midst of the earth. Thou didst divide the sea by thy strength.” Then, predictive of what will assuredly come to pass, and befall the same Serpent-power in its latter-day manifestation, as apocalyptically displayed in the binding of the dragon, it proceeds in verse 14 to state, “Thou bruisedst the heads of leviathan, and gavest him to be meat to the people inhabiting the wilderness.” LEVIATHAN לויתן signifying “a serpent coiling himself in folds,” is the Dragon of Apoc. xx. 2; and embraces all the intermediate dragonic manifestations of previous ages and generations, which are the folds of his coil. The “heads of leviathan” are those apocalyptically exhibited. “The people inhabiting the wilderness” are the saints, and Israel after the flesh made willingly subject to them. “The wilderness” is “the two wings of the Great Eagle” where the fugitive woman was fed and “nourished for a time, times, and half a time from the face of the serpent,” or, for 1260 symbolic days—Apoc. xii. 6, 14; and where John saw Leviathan as he will be seen by the discerning after the thief-like advent of the Ancient of Days—ch. xvii. 3.
In the thirteenth verse of the Psalm brief and passing reference is made to the dragon-powers of the interval; as, “Thou breakest the HEADS OF THE DRAGONS upon the waters.” In the English Version, “breakest” occurs in relation to the “heads of the dragons” and “the heads of leviathan;” though in the original different words are used. In reference to the dragon-heads the word used is שברת shivbarta; while the other is רצצת ritzatzta. This verbal difference was doubtless not accidental. The former signifies “to break the power of, destroy;” the latter, “to bruise.” Leviathan is bruised and bound for a thousand years, and at the end thereof revives, and embraces the serpent-world in his coils: but the power of the dragons and their heads in the long interval antecedent to the epoch of the binding, is destroyed.
p. 60 Now there have been different dragon-manifestations of “the old serpent” in the long interval between the Mosaic salvation of Israel and the Messianic, which is at the door. That contemporary with Moses, and styled “Rahab” in Isa. li. 9, was developed into what Ezekiel describes in ch. xxix. 3. Here the power of Egypt, called Pharaoh, is thus addressed by the Spirit, “Behold I am against thee, Pharaoh, King of Egypt, THE GREAT DRAGON that lieth in the midst of his rivers”—the mouths of the Nile, representative of the subjects of the power: “which hath said, My river is my own, and I have made it for myself.” For this arrogance, and blasphemy against the source of all power, YAHWEH Elohim sentenced it to destruction, so that Egypt should no more exalt itself above the nations to rule over them; and, as Nebuchadnezzar had received no recompense for executing the sentence of Deity against Tyre, therefore YAHWEH Elohim gave the land of Egypt to him for his labor. Thus Egypt became a part of Babylon; the great Egyptian Dragon was abolished; and the power of “the old serpent” thus symbolized, transferred to the FIRST of Daniel’s four Mediterranean empires; which under Nebuchadnezzar stood man-like upon its feet, with a lion’s head, and the heart of a man—Dan. vii. 2, 4. Hence, at this epoch, when the Seed of the Woman; of which Daniel, Ezekiel and Jeremiah were constituents, was heel-bruised in Babylon, the wing-plucked lion-power was “the Great Dragon, the old serpent, surnamed the Devil and the Satan.”
The Head of the old serpent, in this first beast manifestation, was the dynasty represented by Nebuchadnezzar, who had conquered Egypt, and plucked the wings of the Assyrian Lion. This dynasty was “the Head of Gold”—the cockatrice, or adder, which came forth out of the Egypto-Assyrian Serpent’s root, whose fruit the world has found to be “a fiery flying serpent”—Isai. xiv. 29.
The dragon under this dynastic form continued only seventy years. At the end of this period it was changed; and “Lucifer, son of the morning, who weakened the nations, was cut down;” and made to give way to YAHWEH’S “sanctified ones,” the Medes and Persians; who, under the command of Darius and Cyrus, “took the kingdom”—Isai. xiv. 12; xiii. 17; Dan. v. 28, 31. This was the Medo-Persian dynasty of “the old serpent.” It answered to the second of Daniel’s four beasts; and is represented in Nebuchadnezzar’s Lion-Man image by the breast and arms of silver; and by the two horns of unequal height upon the ram—Dan. ii. 32; viii. 3.
The old serpent continued under the Bear, or silver, dynastic manifestation some two hundred and six years. Another change was then developed. Power set in from the west, and diffused itself p. 61 “over the face of the whole earth.” The Medo-Persian Bear, or Ram, dynasty was made to give place to Daniel’s third dominancy, symbolized by the four-winged and four-headed Leopard, the brass of the image, and the four-horned goat—Dan. vii. 6; ii. 32; viii. 5-8. These symbols represent “the old serpent” in the Era of the Greeks. Dominion was given to this people over the whole Dragon territory, which was enlarged towards the west. But the power of the old serpent was not to remain in the form of the four heads of the leopard, and four horns of the Grecian goat. The Greeks of “the whole earth,” the sovereign race, were to yield the dominion given to them, to “A LITTLE HORN,” or power; which, in relation to the Lion-Man territory of Daniel’s first beast, which included the Holy Land, was to appear in the country of the Northern Horn of the Goat. This is evident from Dan. viii. 9. The power, which was new to the Asiatic, came from Europe west of Greece; and planting itself in Syria, north of Palestine, extended its dominion eastward, and southward, until it had absorbed within itself the power of all the Four Horns of the Goat.
The Little Horn power was that of a rude and uncultivated people inhabiting Italy; and known in the history of that country, as Etrurians, Umbrians, Ligurians, Sabines, Veientes, Latins, Æqui, and Volscians. About five hundred years after the foundation of ROME, Italy was subdued to the authority of this city of the seven mountains; and all these tribes came to bear indiscriminately the name of Romans. After the subjugation of Italy, the Little Roman Horn proceeded to conquer all the nations round the Mediterranean. It subdued Greece about 146 years before Christ. In 67 before Christ, it appeared in Syria; and from thence “waxed exceedingly great, toward the south,” and “toward the pleasant land,” absorbing Palestine and Egypt; “and toward the east,” to the Tigris and laws of Euphrates.
Thus the Little Horn became an exceedingly great power. Its empire, which, seven hundred and thirty years before the birth of Jesus, was confined to the walls of a small city, in the second century of our era, was about two thousand miles in breadth, from the walls of Antonine and the northern limits of Dacia, to Mount Atlas and the tropic of Cancer; it extended in length more than three thousand miles from the Western Ocean to the Euphrates, and was supposed to contain 6,000,000 square miles. The number of subjects, who, either as citizens, provincials, or slaves, observed the Rome, is estimated at 120,000,000. This Little Horn become so great was now the fourth of Daniel’s beast-dominions. It planted itself in Jerusalem B. C. 63; and in p. 62 A. D. 33, was popularly and pontifically acknowledged as “the King of the Jews”—John xix. 12, 15. It had acquired identity with “the old serpent” by its incorporation of the Syro-Babylonian, or Northern Horn power (out of which, in relation to the Holy Land, it came forth), into its Italian dominion. It was now “the Dragon, the Old Serpent” — Leviathan, the flying and very tortuous serpent, the dragon that is in the sea—Isai. xxvii. 1. But when it conquered the Syro-Babylonian Horn, B. C. 67, it did not thereby acquire the apocalyptic “surname” of “the Diabolos and the Satan.” It was not until the Little Horn had “magnified itself against the Prince of the Host,” or Messiah the Prince; and undertook, as “a roaring lion, prowling about, seeking whom he might devour,” to exterminate the saints from among the living; that it acquired the character signified by the terms “fiery red,” “diabolos,” and Satan”—Apoc. xii. 9.
This crocodile, or Egypto-Romaic Babylonian, embodiment of falsehood and rebellion is styled πυρρος, “fiery red,” or red as fire. Daubuz, on the authority of certain heathen writers, says, “the Roman emperors and empresses had fire carried before them; also kings and generals at the head of their armies; it serving instead of trumpets as signs to begin the fight.” This was notably the fact in the aggressions of the Dragon. Fire preceded him when he stood before the woman and her seed. During 280 years he had contended with her in all the fire of his fury, blazing forth against her with all the power of destruction at his command. He became red with rage and slaughter, especially in the period of the fifth seal, in which he vowed the extermination of the very name of christianity, which he likened to a hydra. But the archer of the first seal, who continued his warfare through all the six, was divinely commissioned to go on conquering until he conquered him “through the blood of the Lamb, and the word of their testimony.” The fiery redness of his wrath caused multitudes of the woman’s seed to lie beneath the altar weltering in their blood. But their death availed him nothing in the end. The truth is stronger than human wrath—too mighty for the Dragon though confederate with all the potentates of earth.
I have termed this symbol of fiery destruction, the Egypto-Romaic Babylonian Crocodile. The propriety of this designation will appear from what has been said in this section; and from the fact, that “the Great City” of the Seven Hills, which in John’s day, as also in ours, “reigns over the kings of the earth,” is styled Babylon and Egypt—Apoc. xi. 8; xvii. 5, 18. These specifications identify Rome, Babylon, and Egypt, as well as Sodom, with “the Great City;” so that the crocodile, dragon, or serpent, symbolizing the power of p. 63 which Rome was the capital until ceded to the Beast (ch. xiii. 2) is properly designated Egypto-Romaic Babylonian.
15. The Devil and the Satan
This crocodile, or dragon, is said to be at once ὁ καλουμενος Διαβολος, και ὁ Σατανας ὁ πλανῶν την οικουμενην ὅλην;—“surnamed the Diabolos, and the Satan who deceives the whole habitable.”
A surname is a name added to the original name. The original name for the embodiment of falsehood, unbelief, and disobedience, was “the Serpent.” In all the five Books of Moses we do not once find it styled “the Diabolos,” nor “the Satan.” This surname was not bestowed upon the Egypto-Romaic Babylonian Dragon until, as the Little Horn of the Macedonian, or Grecian, Goat, it “magnified itself against the Prince of the Host (Christ)—Dan. viii. 11. It did this when it falsely accused and crucified Him. I need not repeat here what has been written in the first volume of this work on the Diabolos and Satan. The reader can refer to this on pages 234 and 241, at his leisure. Suffice it in this place to say, that the Roman power acquired the surname of the diabolos, because, being falsehood and transgression politically incarnate, it enacted the part of the Old Serpent in tempting the Brethren of Christ to cross the line of their allegiance to Him in burning incense to Cæsar as the god of the earth—διαβολος, in its etymological import, being that which causes to cross the law-line of Deity.
But, it also acquired the surname of “the Satan.” This word שׂטן, sahtahn, signifies an adversary; and without the definite article the, may signify any adversary in general. It is applicable to persons and things of whatever kind they may be. Thus, when the sons of Zeruiah counseled the death of Shimei, David rejected their impolitic advice, and styled them, Satan—2 Sam. xix. 22. So also when Yahweh became adverse to Israel because of transgression, He is styled Satan. This appears from 2 Sam. xxiv. 1, where it is written, that Yahweh moved David against Israel to say, “Go, number Israel and Judah:” while in 1 Chron. xxi. 1, it is written, “And Satan stood up against Israel, and provoked David to number Israel.” There is also the case of Job. Job was a man of substance and power, being “the greatest of all the men of the East.” He was one of “the sons of the Deity” belonging to that generation. There was among them also another man of power, an oriental, who was nominally a coreligionist, but full of envy and unfriendly feeling towards Job. This is not an unusual circumstance, even in societies reputed apostolic. In p. 64 these, Satans too often abound, and become the adversaries of those they cannot imitate. In Job’s day, there were general gatherings of the Men of the East, with the sons of the Deity, at the place where the symbol of Yahweh’s presence was established. If I might hazard a conjecture I should say, they assembled at Salem, in the days of the High Priesthood of Melchizedek. Be this, however, as it may, “the sons of the Elohim came to present themselves before Yahweh, and the Satan השׂטן, hassahtahn, came also among them.” Here were two classes of worshippers, the nominal and the true; the former constituting the Satan; the latter consisting of the Sons of Deity, of whom Job was most eminent and conspicuous. Among his adversaries, one seems to have been more notable than the rest. This was probably the Chief of the Sabeans, a tribe of Arabia Felix, who fell upon Job and did him much mischief. To this man Yahweh said by His priest (for, in scripture, what is said by his priests and prophets, Yahweh is said to say himself) “Whence comest thou?” To which he replied as any marauder would, “From going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it. His attention was then directed to Job, whose character was highly eulogized. This developed the latent enmity of the Sheikh, who insinuated that Job’s fear of Elohim had been purchased by extraordinary favors; but that, if these were withdrawn, and he were reduced to poverty, he would curse Him to his face. Yahweh, however, knew Job better; nevertheless, he was willing that he should be tested, that his enemies might be confounded; and a triumph of principle in adversity might be exhibited, as an example for the Sons of Deity in all future times. Therefore to Job’s adversary he granted permission to do what he pleased against him, short of personal injury. Having obtained this grant, he returned home, and organized his Sabeans and Chaldeans for raids, which, with the fire of heaven, soon stripped Job of all he possessed.
Now, in the first chapter of Job, this is all attributed to Satan, as though, according to popular tradition, it had been done by a Fallen Angel, the world has agreed to call “The Devil.” But, in the second chapter, the Eternal Power informs us, that it was He that brought Job to poverty; for addressing his adversary, He says, “thou movedst me against him, to destroy him without cause.” All that was done being adverse to Job, it was attributed to his personal enemy, who was the moving cause; though the efficient cause was the power of Deity himself.
Such was the Satan in Job’s case. In the case of Jesus Christ the satanic development assumed a different phase. Jesus was tempted p. 65 by both the Diabolos and a Satan. These were both concerned in the trial to which he was subjected; and as the one coöperated with the other, they are spoken of as if the same. Jesus was “led up,” or “driven,” of the Spirit, into the wilderness “to be tempted of the diabolos;” or that which causeth to transgress, and “hath the power of death”—sin’s flesh. This was subjected to the long abstinence of forty days, at the end of which he felt a hunger that must have been very keen. We all know what would be the promptings of our flesh in a like situation. “Hunger,” it is said, “will break through stone walls.” It is very obstreperous, and will do any thing to satisfy itself. If any one had the power, under the pressure of intense hunger, he would convert stones into bread and eat them. Jesus had that power; and there was one acquainted with the scripture, introduced himself to his notice at this crisis, and suggested that he should use it. Paul doubtless alludes to this personage in 2 Cor. xi. 14. saying, “the Satan is transformed into an Angel of Light.” Such an angel is a messenger enlightened in the word, who handles it in such a way as to test the fidelity of others to it. Such an one becomes a Satan in suggesting a course of action in conformity with the promptings of the flesh. And if Deity became Satan to Israel, and to Job, it is not to be denied that an angel may have assumed the same attitude in the case of Jesus Christ.
Peter, though a good man and a devoted friend of his Master, was styled Satan by Jesus. He had told his disciples, that he must go to Jerusalem, and be killed, and be raised on the third day after. But Peter rebuked him, saying, “Be merciful to thyself, Lord; this shall not be unto thee.” He could not endure the idea of such a catastrophe. But Jesus said to him, “Get thee behind me, Satan; thou art an offence unto me; for thou savorest not the things that be of the Deity, but those that be of men.” Had Jesus been merciful to himself, as Peter advised, he would not have been “obedient unto death;” in the event of which he would have frustrated the Father’s purpose, incurred the fate of the first Adam, and failed in the dedication of the Abrahamic Covenant by which alone man can be saved. Peter’s well-meant advice was adverse to the first and last of these things, and therefore as such an adviser, he was for the time a Satan to Jesus.
On another occasion, the Lord said to his disciples, “I beheld the Satan fall out of the heaven like lightning.” This was the Satan in heaven contemporary with his sojourn upon earth. He beheld his fall as the prophets beheld things not yet come to pass: for this Satan was still in the heaven after His assumption to the right hand of the Majesty in the heavens. This is evident from Paul’s assurance to p. 66 the saints in Rome, the Capital of the Satan’s empire, that “the Deity of peace should bruise the Satan under their feet shortly”—Rom. xvi. 18. When Paul wrote this, the Satan was still in the heaven. It was the same Satan that prevented Paul more than once from visiting the saints in Thessalonica—1 Epist. ii. 18. It was their great and potent adversary in the Dragon government the Pagan Roman Church and State. It was this Great Red Dragonic Diabolos and Satan, that “magnified himself against the Prince of (Israel’s) host; and by whom the Daily Sacrifice was taken away, and the place of its sanctuary was cast down”—Dan. viii. 9-12. It is symbolized in this place by “a Little Horn, which waxed exceeding great.” It was by this Satanic Power, “Messiah the Prince was cut off;” and by which the city and sanctuary were destroyed”—Dan. ix. 26. It was the great adversary of Judah, and of the Saints, whom it reckoned also as Jews. When the Lord Jesus saw it in vision fall like lightning from heaven, he saw their adversary expelled from the Roman Heaven, as symbolized in this twelfth chapter of the Apocalypse. Paul said it would be bruised “shortly” after he wrote. It was ejected by the lightning of war from the heaven, about 250 years after, when the Michael and his party fought against the dragon and his angels—ch. xii. 7. It fell out of the heaven, as Jesus said; and John records, that “he was cast out into the earth,” to the great terror of those among whom he fell—ver. 9, 12.
The Dragon-Power of Rome, then, was surnamed THE SATAN, because it was the great and persistent Adversary of Christ and His Brethren. No one intelligent in the word would confound the Satans related to Israel, Job, Jesus, and Peter, and merge them into one and the same Satan, identical with such a Devil, as is pressed into the service of the Clergy, to aid them in scaring sinners into church-membership. The clerical devil and satan belongs to the mythology of the heathen, and is as unreal as their gods: nevertheless, this mythical phantasm has a real and tenacious hold of their worshipers; who are much more careful to treat him with reverence, than to praise and honor Him by whom they live and have their being.
The apocalyptic or Roman-Satan is the great enemy of Jerusalem, and of all related to her. Zechariah saw it in vision, when he saw the Satan standing at the right hand of Joshua to resist him. In all the times of the Gentiles, during which Jerusalem and the saints are trodden under their feet, the Holy City is subjected to the Satan. When these are fulfilled, then Yahweh, who hath chosen Jerusalem, will rebuke the Satan, in “rebuking strong nations afar off,” and making them powerless (Mic. iv. 3); and “pluck Jerusalem as a p. 67 brand out of the fire.” Her warfare will then be accomplished; and her deliverer will be a wall of fire round about her, and the glory in the midst of her—Zech. ii. 5; iii. 1, 2.
The Satan of Apoc. xii, is characterized as the power “which deceives the whole habitable”—την οικουμενην ὅλην not “the whole world,” as in the English version, in the sense of all the inhabitants of the globe; but the whole of that portion of it subject to the Dragon-Power of Old Rome. When the apocalypse was communicated to John, the Satan in the heaven was pagan. It deceived the people of the empire by the priests and poets (and the emperor was the High Priest) of the reigning superstition. But while this Satan flourished in the heaven of Italy, there was another Satan in embryo preparing to occupy the same heaven from which the pagan Satan was foredoomed to fall like lightning. This was the Satan enthroned in Pergamos—Apoc. ii. 13; where his principal synagogue was situated—ch. ii. 9, 24; iii. 9. This Satan consisted of nominal christians; professors, who claimed to be Jews by adoption through Christ; but not being what they claimed, the Spirit denounced them as liars and blasphemers. They were zealous anti-pagans, as Protestants are, or used to be, zealous anti-papists; but their spiritual condition was that of Sardians and Laodiceans; and fit only to be “spued out of the Spirit’s mouth.” These pretenders styled themselves “the Church of God;” or “the Holy Apostolic Catholic Church.” They contended earnestly against paganism; from which “with all power and lying wonders, styled by Paul “the working of the Satan” they alienated multitudes; but failed to indoctrinate them with “the love of the truth that they might be saved”—Thess. ii. 9, 10. Their Satan was enlarged, and their political influence increased; so that, when the pagan Satan fell from the heaven, the “Holy Catholic” Satan was prepared to occupy the Bishoprick vacated by his fall. The revolution of the Sixth Seal substituted the one Satan for the other. The Catholic Satan is still in the heaven; and will remain there, until he is ejected by Christ himself, after the type or pattern, exhibited in this twelfth chapter, This final expulsion of the Satan from the heaven, is represented in Apoc. xx. 1-3. In this scene, his head is bruised; and “the Dragon the Old Serpent, which is Diabolos and Satan,” is bound in the abyss, and shut up and sealed, so that the nations may be no more deceived for a thousand years.
p. 6816. The Dragon stands before the Woman
“And the Dragon stood before the Woman about to bring forth, that when she may have brought forth, he might devour her offspring”—Ver. 4.
Understanding that the “Great Red Dragon” is symbolical of the blood-stained power of Rome-pagan; and that the Woman represents the Anti-pagan Community of the Roman empire; the only points for exposition under this head are the standing of the one before the other; and the time when the standing occurred.
For a power to stand before that which is offensive to it, is to assume a hostile attitude. In Esther ix. 16, the Jews against whom a decree of extermination had gone forth, and were afterwards permitted to use their weapons for attack upon all assailants, are said to have “stood for their lives.” In Jer. xlvi. 15, it is said of the Egyptians “they stood not, because Yahweh did drive them.” And in Dan. viii. 7, speaking of the relative power of the Macedonian Unicorn, and the two-horned Persian Ram, it says, “there was no power in the ram to stand before him.” Hence, to have power to stand, is not only to be able to struggle for victory, but to do it with effect.
The standing of the Dragon before the Woman indicates that he was in an aggressive attitude. His standing had no courtesy in it, for he stood before her that he might devour her offspring.
The time when he stood before her with this ferocious intent, was before her delivery. She was “about to bring forth” while he was standing, or making war upon her. Her child had not been manifested to the world. Hence, the historical illustration must be applicable to a time of the Woman’s career when she had no champion, but when that “Coming Man” was just about to be manifested.
The time, then, of this standing was the period of the Fifth Seal; or the ten years preceding the development of Constantine, as the imperial chieftain of the anti-pagan party. The exposition of the Fifth Seal will be found in Vol. 2. p. 252. Its historical illustration shows the attitude assumed by the Dragon, and how that sanguinary power deported itself towards her in its standing. The following extract from Gibbon will furnish an exhibition of the situation at the crisis of the Woman’s delivery:
“The fame of Constantine has rendered posterity attentive to the most minute circumstances of his life and actions. The Great Constantine was most probably born at Naissus, in Dacia. He was about eighteen years of age when his father (Constantius) was promoted to the rank of Cæsar. Instead of following Constantius in the west, he remained in the service of Diocletian, signalized his valor in p. 69 the wars of Egypt and Persia, and gradually rose to the honorable station of a tribune of the first order. The favor of the people and soldiers, who had named him as a worthy candidate for the rank of Cæsar, served only to exasperate the jealousy of Galerius (the chief emperor of the Dragon): and though prudence might restrain him from exercising any open violence, an absolute monarch is seldom at a loss how to execute a sure and secret revenge. Every hour increased the danger of Constantine, and the anxiety of his father, who, by repeated letters, expressed the warmest desire of embracing his son. For some time the policy of Galerius supplied him with delays and excuses, but it was impossible long to refuse so natural a request of his associate, without maintaining his refusal by arms. The permission of the journey was reluctantly granted, and whatever precautions Galerius might have taken to intercept a return, the consequences of which he, with so much reason, apprehended, they were effectually disappointed by the incredible diligence of Constantine, Leaving the palace (of the Dragon) at Nicomedia in the night, he travelled post through Bithynia, Thrace, Dacia, Pannonia, Italy and Gaul, and amid the joyful acclamations of the people, reached the port of Boulogne in the very moment when his father was preparing to embark for Britain.” Such was the narrow escape of the Woman’s future imperial chief from being “devoured” by the imperial Pontifex Maximus who “stood before her” in ferocity watching to that end.