But now we may remark the steady progress of these monsters to
the bounds of their mythological habitat. There came a time when
Behemoth and Leviathan were hardly more presentable than other
personified horrors. They too must 'take the veil,'--a period in the
history of mythical, corresponding to extinction in that of actual,
monsters. The following passage in the Book of Enoch is believed by
Professor Drummond to be a later insertion, probably from the Book
of Noah, and as early as the middle of the first century:--'In that
day two monsters shall be divided; a female monster named Leviathan,
to dwell in the abyss of the sea, above the sources of the waters;
but the male is called Behemoth, which occupies with its breast a
desolate wilderness named Dendain, on the east of the garden where
the elect and righteous dwell, where my grandfather (Enoch) was
taken up, being the seventh from Adam, the first man whom the Lord
of the spirits created. And I asked that other angel to show me the
might of these monsters, how they were separated in one day, and one
was set in the depth of the sea, the other on the firm land of the
wilderness. And he spoke to me, 'Thou son of man, thou desirest in
this to know what has been concealed.' And the other angel who went
with me, and showed me what is in concealment, spake, ... 'These two
monsters are prepared conformably to the greatness of God to be fed,
in order that the penal judgment of God may not be in vain.' [254]
We may thus see that there were antecedents to the sentiment of
Aquinas,--'Beati in regno coelesti videbunt poenas damnatorum,
ut beatitudo illis magis complaceat.' Or, perhaps, one might say
rather to the logic of Aquinas; for though he saw that it would be
necessary for souls in bliss to be happy at vision of the damned or
else deficient in bliss, it is said he could hardly be happy from
thinking of the irreversible doom of Satan himself. It would appear
that only the followers of the Genevan who anticipated his god's hell
for Servetus managed to adapt their hearts to such logic, and glory
in the endless tortures of their fellow-creatures.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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