But a clear and direct allusion to this last grouping of the constellations occurs in the Apocalypse. In the twelfth chapter, the proud oppressor dragon from the sea is shown us again with much fulness of detail. There the Apostle describes his vision of a woman, who evidently represents the people of God, being persecuted by a dragon. There is still a reminiscence of the deliverance of Israel in the Exodus from Egypt, for "the woman _fled into the wilderness_, where she hath a place prepared of God, that there they may nourish her a thousand two hundred and threescore days." And the vision goes on:-- "And the serpent cast out of his mouth, after the woman water as a river, that he might cause her to be carried away by the stream. And the earth helped the woman, and the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed up the river which the dragon cast out of his mouth." This appears to be precisely the action which is presented to us in the three constellations of _Andromeda_, _Cetus_, and _Eridanus_. Andromeda is always shown as a woman in distress, and the Sea-monster, though placed far from her in the sky, has always been understood to be her persecutor. Thus Aratus writes-- "Andromeda, though far away she flies, Dreads the Sea-monster, low in southern skies." The latter, baffled in his pursuit of his victim, has cast the river, _Eridanus_, out of his mouth, which, flowing down below the southern horizon, is apparently swallowed up by the earth. It need occasion no surprise that we should find imagery used by St. John in his prophecy already set forth in the constellations nearly 3,000 years before he wrote. Just as, in this same book, St. John repeated Daniel's vision of the fourth beast, and Ezekiel's vision of the living creatures, as he used the well-known details of the Jewish Temple, the candlesticks, the laver, the altar of incense, so he used a group of stellar figures perfectly well known at the time when he wrote. In so doing the beloved disciple only followed the example which his Master had already set him. For the imagery in the parables of our Lord is always drawn from scenes and objects known and familiar to all men. In two instances in which _leviathan_ is mentioned, a further expression is used which has a distinct astronomical bearing. In the passage already quoted, where Job curses the day of his birth, he desires that it may not "behold the eyelids of the morning." And in the grand description of _leviathan_, the crocodile, in chapter xli., we have-- "His neesings flash forth light, And his eyes are like the eyelids of the morning." Canon Driver considers this as an "allusion, probably to the reddish eyes of the crocodile, which are said to appear gleaming through the water before the head comes to the surface." This is because of the position of the eyes on the animal's head, not because they have any peculiar brilliancy.