Remains the battle with the beasts. What these same beasts were, how many there were of them,--how many legs they respectively had--for example, two or four--in what way he was introduced into their company,--whence his difference with them took its rise,--whether it was of his own seeking, or by invitation that he entered the lists with these his antagonists,--how it fared with _them_ when the affair was over,--(for as to the hero himself, it does not appear that he was much the worse for it);--these, amongst other questions, might be worth answering, upon the supposition, that these antagonists of his were real beings and real beasts, and not of the same class as the arch-beast of his own begetting--Antichrist. But, the plain truth seems to be, that if ever he fought with beasts, it was in one of his visions: in which case, for proof of the occurrence, no visible mark of laceration could reasonably be demanded. Meantime, to prove the negative, as far as, in a case such as this, it is in the nature of a negative to be proved,--we may, without much fear of the result, venture to call his ever-devoted scribe. To this same Ephesus,--not more than a twelvemonth or thereabouts, before the date of the Epistle--he brings his patron,--finds appropriate employment for him,--and, off and on, keeps him there for no inconsiderable length of time. There it is, that we have seen, Chap. 13, §. 7., his handkerchiefs driving out devils as well as diseases: there it is, and for no other reason than that _he_ is there--there it is, that we have seen so many thousand pounds worth of magical books burnt--and by their owners: there it is, that with a single handkerchief of his,--which so it were but used, was an overmatch for we know not how many devils,--we saw a single devil, with no other hands than those of the man he lodged in, wounding and stripping to the skin no fewer than seven men at the same time. If, then, with or without a whole skin at the conclusion of it, he had really had any such rencounter, with one knows not how many beasts, is it in the nature of the case, that this same historiographer of his, should have kept us ignorant of it? To be shut up with wild beasts, until torn to pieces by them, was indeed one of the punishments, for which men were indebted to the ingenuity of the Roman lawyers: but, if any such sentence was really executed upon our self-constituted Apostle, his surviving it was a miracle too brilliant not to have been placed at the head of all his other miracles: at any rate, too extraordinary to have been passed by altogether without notice. The biographer of Daniel was not thus negligent.