Part 30 (1/2)

The warrior angels sheathed their swords.

Then the Dragon attacked the just Prince of the G.o.ds.

Strongly they joined in the trial of battle, The King drew his sword, and dealt rapid blows, Then he took his whirling thunderbolt, and looked well behind and before him: And when the Dragon opened her mouth to swallow him, He flung the bolt into her, before she could shut her lips.

The blazing lightning poured into her inside.

He pulled out her heart; her mouth he rent open; He drew his (falchion), and cut open her belly.

He cut into her inside and extracted her heart; He took vengeance on her, and destroyed her life.

When he knew she was dead he boasted over her.

After that the Dragon their leader was slain, Her troops took to flight: her army was scattered abroad, And the angels her allies, who had come to help her, Retreated, grew quiet, and went away.

They fled from thence, fearing for their own lives, And saved themselves, flying to places beyond pursuit.

He followed them, their weapons he broke up.

Broken they lay, and in great heaps they were captured.

A crowd of followers, full of astonishment, Its remains lifted up, and on their shoulders hoisted.

And the eleven tribes pouring in after the battle In great mult.i.tudes, coming to see, Gazed at the monstrous serpent....

In the fragment just quoted we have the 'flaming sword which turned every way' (Gen. iii. 24). The seven distinct forms of evil are but faintly remembered in the seven thunderbolts taken by Bel: they are now all virtually gathered into the one form he combats, and are thus on their way to form the seven-headed dragon of the Apocalypse, where Michael replaces Bel. [56] 'The angels, her allies who had come to help her,' are surely that 'third part of the stars of heaven'

which the apocalyptic dragon's tail drew to the earth in its fall (Rev. xii. 4). Bel's dragon is also called a 'Tempter.'

At length we reach the brief but clear account of the 'Revolt in Heaven' found in a cuneiform tablet in the British Museum, and translated by Mr. Fox Talbot: [57]--

The Divine Being spoke three times, the commencement of a psalm.

The G.o.d of holy songs, Lord of religion and wors.h.i.+p seated a thousand singers and musicians: and established a choral band who to his hymn were to respond in mult.i.tudes....

With a loud cry of contempt they broke up his holy song spoiling, confusing, confounding his hymn of praise.

The G.o.d of the bright crown with a wish to summon his adherents sounded a trumpet blast which would wake the dead, which to those rebel angels prohibited return he stopped their service, and sent them to the G.o.ds who were his enemies.

In their room he created mankind.

The first who received life, dwelt along with him.

May he give them strength never to neglect his word, following the serpent's voice, whom his hands had made.

And may the G.o.d of divine speech expel from his five thousand that wicked thousand who in the midst of his heavenly song had shouted evil blasphemies!

It will be observed that there were already hostile G.o.ds to whom these riotous angels were sent. It is clear that in both the Egyptian and a.s.syrian cosmogonies the upper G.o.ds had in their employ many ferocious monsters. Thus in the Book of Hades, Horus addresses a terrible serpent: 'My Kheti, great fire, of which this flame in my eye is the emission, and of which my children guard the folds, open thy mouth, draw wide thy jaws, launch thy flame against the enemies of my father, burn their bodies, consume their souls!' [58]

Many such instances could be quoted. In this same book we find a great serpent, Saa-Set, 'Guardian of the Earth.' Each of the twelve pylons of Hades is surmounted by its serpent-guards--except one. What has become of that one? In the last inscription but one, quoted in full, it will be observed (third line from the last) that eleven (angel) tribes came in after Bel's battle to inspect the slain dragon. The twelfth had revolted. These, we may suppose, had listened to 'the serpent's voice' mentioned in the last fragment quoted.

We have thus distributed through these fragments all the elements which, from Egyptian and a.s.syrian sources gathered around the legend of the Serpent in Eden. The Tree of Knowledge and that of Life are not included, and I have given elsewhere my reasons for believing these to be importations from the ancient Aryan legend of the war between the Devas and Asuras for the immortalising Amrita.

In the last fragment quoted we have also a notable statement, that mankind were created to fill the places that had been occupied by the fallen angels. It is probable that this notion supplied the basis of a cla.s.s of legends of which Lilith is type. She whose place Eve was created to fill was a serpent-woman, and the earliest mention of her is in the exorcism already quoted, found at Nineveh. In all probability she is but another form of Gula, the fallen Istar and Queen of Hades; in which case her conspiracy with the serpent Samael would be the Darkness which was upon the face of Bahu, 'the Deep,'

in the second verse of the Bible.

The Bible opens with the scene of the G.o.ds conquering the Dragon of Darkness with Light. There is a rabbinical legend, that when Light issued from under the throne of G.o.d, the Prince of Darkness asked the Creator wherefore he had brought Light into existence? G.o.d answered that it was in order that he might be driven back to his abode of darkness. The evil one asked that he might see that; and entering the stream of Light, he saw across time and the world, and beheld the face of the Messiah. Then he fell upon his face and cried, 'This is he who shall lay low in ruin me and all the inhabitants of h.e.l.l!'

What the Prince of Darkness saw was the vision of a race: beginning with the words (Gen. i. 3, 4), 'G.o.d said, Let there be Light; and there was Light; and G.o.d saw the Light that it was good; and G.o.d divided between the Light and the Darkness;' ending with Rev. xx. 1, 2, 'And I saw an angel come down from heaven having the key of the bottomless pit, and a great chain in his hand. And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil and Satan, and bound him a thousand years.'

CHAPTER XI.