14. The Old Serpent

“The Great Dragon, the old Serpent, surnamed the Diabolos and the Satan, who misleads the whole habitable. ”

The whole habitable, ten oikoumenen holen, 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, 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,” ho ophis, ho archaios — 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. 3:15). 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 Graeco-Latin, or Roman, manifestation upon the territory defined.

 

The reader will bear in mind that we are treating of a power styled the old serpent,” not of the reptile styled 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 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

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 archaios, 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 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. 1:31). 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 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 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 “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 1:14,15).

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 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 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 de­

 

ceit. 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 intel- lectualism 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. 8:3, sarx hamartias, Sin’s Flesh, in which, in ch. 7:18, 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 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 — hath’ huperbolen hamartolos.

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 rrtuch 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 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” (John 8:44). 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 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 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” (1 John 2:15-17).

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. 3:15-19). 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 — ho ophis, ho archaios.

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 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 Psa. 74:12, 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. 11:3), 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 signifying “a serpent coiling himself in folds,” is the Dragon of Apoc. 20:2; and embraces all the intermediate dr agonic 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. 12:6,14); and where John saw Leviathan as he will be seen by the discerning after the thief-like advent of the Ancient of Days (ch. 17:3).

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 shivbarta; while the other is 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.

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. 51:9, was developed into what Ezekiel describes in ch. 29:3. 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

**°,me in the 4th Century AD: City of Destiny — but' not of eternity

man (Dan. 7:2,4). 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, sumamed 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” (Isa. 14:29).

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” (Isa. 14:12; 13:17; Dan. 5:28,31). 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. 2:32; 8:3).

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 “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-homed goat (Dan. 7:6; 2:32; 8:5-8). 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. 8:9. 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, Aequi, 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 lands 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 Antomne 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

1. 000 square miles. The number of subjects, who, either as citizens, provincials, or slaves, observed the rule of Rome, is estimated at

1. 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 A.D. 33, was popularly and pontifically acknowledged as “the King of the Jews” (John 19:12,15). 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 (Isa. 27:1). 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. 12:9).

This crocodile, or Egypto-Romaic Babylonian, embodiment of falsehood and rebellion is styled purros, “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 1 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 donquering 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.

This Roman gol­den coin depicts the emperor Val- entinian holding the Iabarum ana Victory on a globe. His right foot spurns a kneeling captive — indicative of Rome as ruler over “the kings of the earth” (Rev. 17:18).

This Roman gol­den coin depicts the emperor Val- entinian holding the Iabarum ana Victory on a globe. His right foot spurns a kneeling captive — indicative of Rome as ruler over “the kings of the earth” (Rev. 17:18).

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. 11:8; 17:5,18). 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 which Rome was the capit­al until ceded to the Beast (ch. 13:2) is properly designated Egypto- Romaic Babylonian.