Bible -- Commentaries; Bible -- Feminist criticism; Women in the Bible
3 And there appeared another wonder in heaven; and behold a great red
dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his
heads.
4 And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and the
dragon stood before the woman to devour her child as soon as it was
born.
5 And she brought forth a man child, that was caught up unto God.
6 And the woman fled into the wilderness, where she hath a place
prepared of God.
13 And when the dragon saw that he was cast unto the earth, he was
wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her seed.
The constellation Draco, the Great Serpent, was at one time ruler of
the night, being formerly at the very centre of the heavens and so
large that it was called the Great Dragon. Its body spread over seven
signs of the Zodiac, which were called its seven heads. So great a
space did it occupy, that, in mystic language, it "drew a third part of
the stars from heaven and cast them to the earth." Thuban, in its tail,
was formerly the pole-star, or "judge of the earth!" It approached much
nearer the true pole than Cynosura, the present pole-star, which is one
and a half degrees distant and will never approach nearer than twelve
minutes, while Thuban was only ten minutes distant.
At an early day serpents were much respected; they were thought to
have more "pneuma" or spirit than any other living thing and were
termed "fiery." For this cause high initiates were called "naga," or
serpents of wisdom; and a living serpent was always carried in the
celebration of the mysteries. During the brilliant eighteenth and
nineteenth Egyptian dynasties, Draco was a great god; but when this
constellation lost its place in the heavens, and Thuban ceased to be
the guiding sidereal Divinity, it shared the fate of all the fallen
gods. "The gods of our fathers are our devils," says an Arabic proverb.
When Re-Veilings was written, Draco had become a fallen angel
representing evil spirituality. By precessional motion the foot of
Hercules rests upon its head, and we find it depicted as of the most
material color, red.
Colors and jewels are parts of astrology; and ancient cities, as
Ectabana, were built and colored after the planets. The New Jerusalem
of Re-Veilings is purely an astrological city, not to be understood
without a knowledge of mystic numbers, letters, jewels and colors. So,
also, the four and twenty elders of Re-Veilings are twenty-four stars
of the Chaldean Zodiac, "counsellors" or "judges," which rose and set
with it. Astrology was brought into great prominence by the visit of
the magi, the zodiacal constellation Virgo, the "woman with a child,"
ruling Palestine, in which country Bethlehem is situated. The great
astronomer and astrologer, Ptolemy, judged the character of countries
from the signs ruling them, as to this day is done by astrologers.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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