29a - Chap 7, Sec 1 - The Great Red Dragon
The Two Babylons Alexander Hislop
Chapter VII The Two Developments Historically and Prophetically Considered
Hitherto we have considered the history of the Two Babylons chiefly in detail. Now we are to view them as organised systems. The idolatrous system of the ancient Babylon assumed different phases in different periods of its history. In the prophetic description of the modern Babylon, there is evidently also a development of different powers at different times. Do these two developments bear any typical relation to each other? Yes, they do. When we bring the religious history of the ancient Babylonian Paganism to bear on the prophetic symbols that shadow forth the organised working of idolatry in Rome, it will be found that it casts as much light on this view of the subject as on that which has hitherto engaged our attention. The powers of iniquity at work in the modern Babylon are specifically described in chapters 12 and 13 of the Revelation; and they are as follows:--I. The Great Red Dragon; II. The Beast that comes up out of the sea; III. The Beast that ascendeth out of the earth; and IV. The Image of the Beast. In all these respects it will be found, on inquiry, that, in regard to succession and order of development, the Paganism of the Old Testament Babylon was the exact type of the Paganism of the new.
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Section I The Great Red Dragon This formidable enemy of the truth is particularly described inRevelation 12:3--"And there appeared another wonder in heaven, a great red dragon." It is admitted on all hands that this is the first grand enemy that in Gospel times assaulted the Christian Church. If the terms in which it is described, and the deeds attributed to it, are considered, it will be found that there is a great analogy between it and the first enemy of all, that appeared against the ancient Church of God soon after the Flood. The term dragon, according to the associations currently connected with it, is somewhat apt to mislead the reader, by recalling to his mind the fabulous dragons of the Dark Ages, equipped with wings. At the time this Divine description was given, the term dragon had no such meaning among either profane or sacred writers. "The dragon of the Greeks," says Pausanias, "was only a large snake"; and the context shows that this is the very case here; for what in the third verse is called a "dragon," in the fourteenth is simply described as a "serpent." Then the word rendered "Red" properly means "Fiery"; so that the "Red Dragon" signifies the "Fiery Serpent" or "Serpent of Fire." Exactly so does it appear to have been in the first form of idolatry, that, under the patronage of Nimrod, appeared in the ancient world. The "Serpent of Fire" in the plains of Shinar seems to have been the grand object of worship. There is the strongest evidence that apostacy among the sons of Noah began in fire-worship, and that in connection with the symbol of the serpent.
We have seen already, on different occasions, that fire was worshipped as the enlightener and the purifier. Now, it was thus at the very beginning; for Nimrod is singled out by the voice of antiquity as commencing this fire-worship. The identity of Nimrod and Ninus has already been proved; and under the name of Ninus, also, he is represented as originating the same practice. In a fragment of Apollodorus it is said that "Ninus taught the Assyrians to worship fire." The sun, as the great source of light and heat, was worshipped under the name of Baal. Now, the fact that the sun, under that name, was worshipped in the earliest ages of the world, shows the audacious character of these first beginnings of apostacy. Men have spoken as if the worship of the sun and of the heavenly bodies was a very excusable thing, into which the human race might very readily and very innocently fall. But how stands the fact? According to the primitive language of mankind, the sun was called "Shemesh"--that is, "the Servant"--that name, no doubt, being divinely given, to keep the world in mind of the great truth that, however glorious was the orb of day, it was, after all, the appointed Minister of the bounty of the great unseen Creator to His creatures upon earth. Men knew this, and yet with the full knowledge of it, they put the servant in the place of the Master; and called the sun Baal--that is, the Lord--and worshipped him accordingly. What a meaning, then, in the saying of Paul, that, "when they knew God, they glorified Him not as God"; but "changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is God over all, blessed for ever." The beginning, then, of sun-worship, and of the worship of the host of heaven, was a sin against the light--a presumptuous, heaven-daring sin. As the sun in the heavens was the great object of worship, so fire was worshipped as its earthly representative. To this primeval fire-worship Vitruvius alludes when he says that "men were first formed into states and communities by meeting around fires." And this is exactly in conformity with what we have already seen in regard to Phoroneus, whom we have identified with Nimrod, that while he was said to be the "inventor of fire," he was also regarded as the first that "gathered mankind into communities."
Along with the sun, as the great fire-god, and, in due time, identified with him, was the serpent worshipped. (See
Now, Thoth, it will be remembered, was the counsellor of Thamus, that is, Nimrod. From this statement, then, we are led to the conclusion that serpent-worship was a part of the primeval apostacy of Nimrod. The "FIERY NATURE" of the serpent, alluded to in the above extract, is continually celebrated by the heathen poets. Thus Virgil, "availing himself," as the author of Pompeii remarks, "of the divine nature attributed to serpents," describes the sacred serpent that came from the tomb of Anchises, when his son Aeneas had been sacrificing before it, in such terms as illustrate at once the language of the Phoenician, and the "Fiery Serpent" of the passage before us:-- "Scarce had he finished, when, with speckled pride, A serpent from the tomb began to glide; His hugy bulk on seven high volumes rolled, Blue was his breadth of back, but streaked with scaly gold.
Thus, riding on his curls, he seemed to pass A rolling fire along, and singe the grass."
It is not wonderful, then, the fire-worship and serpent-worship should be conjoined. The serpent, also, as "renewing its youth" every year, was plausibly represented to those who wished an excuse for idolatry as a meet emblem of the sun, the great regenerator, who every year regenerates and renews the face of nature, and who, when deified, was worshipped as the grand Regenerator of the souls of men. In the chapter under consideration, the "great fiery serpent" is represented with all the emblems of royalty. All its heads are encircled with "crowns or diadems"; and so in Egypt, the serpent of fire, or serpent of the sun, in Greek was called the Basilisk, that is, the "royal serpent," to identify it with Moloch, which name, while it recalls the ideas both of fire and blood, properly signifies "the King." The Basilisk was always, among the Egyptians, and among many nations besides, regarded as "the very type of majesty and dominion." As such, its image was worn affixed to the head-dress of the Egyptian monarchs; and it was not lawful for any one else to wear it. The sun identified with this serpent was called "P’ouro," which signifies at one "the Fire" and "the King," and from this very name the epithet "Purros," the "Fiery," is given to the "Great seven-crowned serpent" of our text. *
* The word Purros in the text does not exclude the idea of "Red," for the sun-god was painted red to identify him with Moloch, at once the god of fire and god of blood.--(WILKINSON). The primary leading idea, however, is that of Fire.
Thus was the Sun, the Great Fire-god, identified with the Serpent. But he had also a human representative, and that was Tammuz, for whom the daughters of Israel lamented, in other words Nimrod. We have already seen the identity of Nimrod and Zoroaster. Now, Zoroaster was not only the head of the Chaldean Mysteries, but, as all admit, the head of the fire-worshippers.(see note below) The title given to Nimrod, as the first of the Babylonian kings, by Berosus, indicates the same thing. That title is Alorus, that is, "the god of fire." As Nimrod, "the god of fire," was Molk-Gheber, or, "the Mighty king," inasmuch as he was the first who was called Moloch, or King, and the first who began to be "mighty" (Gheber) on the earth, we see at once how it was that the "passing through the fire to Moloch" originated, and how the god of fire among the Romans came to be called "Mulkiber." *
* Commonly spelled Mulciber (OVID, Art. Am.); but the Roman c was hard. From the epithet "Gheber," the Parsees, or fire-worshippers of India, are still called "Guebres."
It was only after his death, however, that he appears to have been deified. Then, retrospectively, he was worshipped as the child of the Sun, or the Sun incarnate. In his own life-time, however, he set up no higher pretensions than that of being Bol-Khan, or Priest of Baal, from which the other name of the Roman fire-god Vulcan is evidently derived. Everything in the history of Vulcan exactly agrees with that of Nimrod. Vulcan was "the most ugly and deformed" of all the gods. Nimrod, over all the world, is represented with the features and complexion of a negro. Though Vulcan was so ugly, that when he sought a wife, "all the beautiful goddesses rejected him with horror"; yet "Destiny, the irrevocable, interposed, and pronounced the decree, by which [Venus] the most beautiful of the goddesses, was united to the most unsightly of the gods." So, in spite of the black and Cushite features of Nimrod, he had for his queen Semiramis, the most beautiful of women. The wife of Vulcan was noted for her infidelities and licentiousness; the wife of Nimrod was the very same. * Vulcan was the head and chief of the Cyclops, that is, "the kings of flame." **
* Nimrod, as universal king, was Khuk-hold, "King of the world." As such, the emblem of his power was the bull’s horns. Hence the origin of the Cuckhold’s horns.
** Kuclops, from Khuk, "king," and Lohb, "flame." The image of the great god was represented with three eyes--one in the forehead; hence the story of the Cyclops with the one eye in the forehead.
Nimrod was the head of the fire-worshippers. Vulcan was the forger of the thunderbolts by which such havoc was made among the enemies of the gods. Ninus, or Nimrod, in his wars with the king of Bactria, seems to have carried on the conflict in a similar way. From Arnobius we learn, that when the Assyrians under Ninus made war against the Bactrians, the warfare was waged not only by the sword and bodily strength, but by magic and by means derived from the secret instructions of the Chaldeans. When it is known that the historical Cyclops are, by the historian Castor, traced up to the very time of Saturn or Belus, the first king of Babylon, and when we learn that Jupiter (who was worshipped in the very same character as Ninus, "the child"), when fighting against the Titans, "received from the Cyclops aid" by means of "dazzling lightnings and thunders," we may have some pretty clear idea of the magic arts derived from the Chaldean Mysteries, which Ninus employed against the Bactrian king. There is evidence that, down to a late period, the priests of the Chaldean Mysteries knew the composition of the formidable Greek fire, which burned under water, and the secret of which has been lost; and there can be little doubt that Nimrod, in erecting his power, availed himself of such or similar scientific secrets, which he and his associates alone possessed. In these, and other respects yet to be noticed, there is an exact coincidence between Vulcan, the god of fire of the Romans, and Nimrod, the fire-god of Babylon. In the case of the classic Vulcan, it is only in his character of the fire-god as a physical agent that he is popularly represented. But it was in his spiritual aspects, in cleansing and regenerating the souls of men, that the fire-worship told most effectually on the world. The power, the popularity, and skill of Nimrod, as well as the seductive nature of the system itself, enabled him to spread the delusive doctrine far and wide, as he was represented under the well-known name of Phaethon, (see note below) as on the point of "setting the whole world on fire," or (without the poetical metaphor) of involving all mankind in the guilt of fire-worship. The extraordinary prevalence of the worship of the fire-god in the early ages of the world, is proved by legends found over all the earth, and by facts in almost every clime. Thus, in Mexico, the natives relate, that in primeval times, just after the first age, the world was burnt up with fire. As their history, like the Egyptian, was written in Hieroglyphics, it is plain that this must be symbolically understood. In India, they have a legend to the very same effect, though somewhat varied in its form. The Brahmins say that, in a very remote period of the past, one of the gods shone with such insufferable splendour, "inflicting distress on the universe by his effulgent beams, brighter than a thousand worlds," * that, unless another more potent god had interposed and cut off his head, the result would have been most disastrous.
* SKANDA PURAN, and PADMA PURAN, apud KENNEDY’S Hindoo Mythology, p. 275. In the myth, this divinity is represented as the fifth head of Brahma; but as this head is represented as having gained the knowledge that made him so insufferably proud by perusing the Vedas produced by the other four heads of Brahma, that shows that he must have been regarded as having a distinct individuality. In the Druidic Triads of the old British Bards, there is distinct reference to the same event. They say that in primeval times a "tempest of fire arose, which split the earth asunder to the great deep," from which none escaped but "the select company shut up together in the enclosure with the strong door," with the great "patriarch distinguished for his integrity," that is evidently with Shem, the leader of the faithful--who preserved their "integrity" when so many made shipwreck of faith and a good conscience. These stories all point to one and the same period, and they show how powerful had been this form of apostacy. The Papal purgatory and the fires of St. John’s Eve, which we have already considered, and many other fables or practices still extant, are just so many relics of the same ancient superstition.
It will be observed, however, that the Great Red Dragon, or Great Fiery Serpent, is represented as standing before the Woman with the crown of twelve stars, that is, the true Church of God, "To devour her child as soon as it should be born." Now, this is in exact accordance with the character of the Great Head of the system of fire-worship. Nimrod, as the representative of the devouring fire to which human victims, and especially children, were offered in sacrifice, was regarded as the great child-devourer. Though, at his first deification, he was set up himself as Ninus, or the child, yet, as the first of mankind that was deified, he was, of course, the actual father of all the Babylonian gods; and, therefore, in that character he was afterwards universally regarded. *
* Phaethon, though the child of the sun, is also called the Father of the gods. (LACTANTIUS, De Falsa Religione) In Egypt, too, Vulcan was the Father of the gods. (AMMIANUS MARCELLINUS) As the Father of the gods, he was, as we have seen, called Kronos; and every one knows that the classical story of Kronos was just this, that, "he devoured his sons as soon as they were born." Such is the analogy between type and antitype. This legend has a further and deeper meaning; but, as applied to Nimrod, or "The Horned One," it just refers to the fact, that, as the representative of Moloch or Baal, infants were the most acceptable offerings at his altar. We have ample and melancholy evidence on this subject from the records of antiquity. "The Phenicians," says Eusebius, "every year sacrificed their beloved and only-begotten children to Kronos or Saturn, and the Rhodians also often did the same." Diodorus Siculus states that the Carthaginians, on one occasion, when besieged by the Sicilians, and sore pressed, in order to rectify, as they supposed, their error in having somewhat departed from the ancient custom of Carthage, in this respect, hastily "chose out two hundred of the noblest of their children, and publicly sacrificed them" to this god. There is reason to believe that the same practice obtained in our own land in the times of the Druids. We know that they offered human sacrifices to their bloody gods. We have evidence that they made "their children pass through the fire to Moloch," and that makes it highly probable that they also offered them in sacrifice; for, fromJeremiah 32:35, compared withJeremiah 19:5, we find that these two things were parts of one and the same system. The god whom the Druids worshipped was Baal, as the blazing Baal-fires show, and the last-cited passage proves that children were offered in sacrifice to Baal. When "the fruit of the body" was thus offered, it was "for the sin of the soul." And it was a principle of the Mosaic law, a principle no doubt derived from the patriarchal faith, that the priest must partake of whatever was offered as a sin-offering (Numbers 18:9-10). Hence, the priests of Nimrod or Baal were necessarily required to eat of the human sacrifices; and thus it has come to pass that "Cahna-Bal," * the "Priest of Baal," is the established word in our own tongue for a devourer of human flesh. ** * The word Cahna is the emphatic form of Cahn. Cahn is "a priest," Cahna is "the priest."
** From the historian Castor (in Armenian translation of EUSEBIUS) we learn that it was under Bel, or Belus, that is Baal, that the Cyclops lived; and the Scholiast on Aeschylus states that these Cyclops were the brethren of Kronos, who was also Bel or Bal, as we have elsewhere seen. The eye in their forehead shows that originally this name was a name of the great god; for that eye in India and Greece is found the characteristic of the supreme divinity. The Cyclops, then, had been representatives of that God--in other words, priests, and priests of Bel or Bal. Now, we find that the Cyclops were well-known as cannibals, Referre ritus Cyclopum, "to bring back the rites of the Cyclops," meaning to revive the practice of eating human flesh. (OVID, Metam.)
Now, the ancient traditions relate that the apostates who joined in the rebellion of Nimrod made war upon the faithful among the sons of Noah. Power and numbers were on the side of the fire-worshippers. But on the side of Shem and the faithful was the mighty power of God’s Spirit. Therefore many were convinced of their sin, arrested in their evil career; and victory, as we have already seen, declared for the saints. The power of Nimrod came to an end, * and with that, for a time, the worship of the sun, and the fiery serpent associated with it.
* The wars of the giants against heaven, referred to in ancient heathen writers, had primary reference to this war against the saints; for men cannot make war upon God except by attacking the people of God. The ancient writer Eupolemus, as quoted by Eusebius (Praeparatio Evang.), states, that the builders of the tower of Babel were these giants; which statement amounts nearly to the same thing as the conclusion to which we have already come, for we have seen that the "mighty ones" of Nimrod were "the giants" of antiquity. Epiphanius records that Nimrod was a ringleader among these giants, and that "conspiracy, sedition, and tyranny were carried on under him." From the very necessity of the case, the faithful must have suffered most, as being most opposed to his ambitious and sacrilegious schemes. That Nimrod’s reign terminated in some very signal catastrophe, we have seen abundant reason already to conclude. The following statement of Syncellus confirms the conclusions to which we have already come as to the nature of that catastrophe; referring to the arresting of the tower-building scheme, Syncellus (Chronographia) proceeds thus: "But Nimrod would still obstinately stay (when most of the other tower-builders were dispersed), and reside upon the spot; nor could he be withdrawn from the tower, still having the command over no contemptible body of men. Upon this, we are informed, that the tower, being beat upon by violent winds, gave way, and by the just judgment of God, crushed him to pieces." Though this could not be literally true, for the tower stood for many ages, yet there is a considerable amount of tradition to the effect that the tower in which Nimrod gloried was overthrown by wind, which gives reason to suspect that this story, when properly understood, had a real meaning in it. Take it figuratively, and remembering that the same word which signifies the wind signifies also the Spirit of God, it becomes highly probable that the meaning is, that his lofty and ambitious scheme, by which, in Scriptural language, he was seeking to "mount up to heaven," and "set his nest among the stars," was overthrown for a time by the Spirit of God, as we have already concluded, and that, in that overthrow he himself perished. The case was exactly as stated here in regard to the antitype (Revelation 12:9): "The great dragon," or fiery serpent, was "cast out of heaven to the earth, and his angels were cast out with him"; that is, the Head of the fire-worship, and all his associates and underlings, were cast down from the power and glory to which they had been raised. Then was the time when the whole gods of the classic Pantheon of Greece were fain to flee and hide themselves from the wrath of their adversaries. Then it was, that, in India, Indra, the king of the gods, Surya, the god of the sun, Agni, the god of fire, and all the rabble rout of the Hindu Olympus, were driven from heaven, wandered over the earth, or hid themselves, in forests, disconsolate, and ready to "perish of hunger." Then it was that Phaethon, while driving the chariot of the sun, when on the point of setting the world on fire, was smitten by the Supreme God, and cast headlong to the earth, while his sisters, the daughters of the sun, inconsolably lamented him, as, "the women wept for Tammuz." Then it was, as the reader must be prepared to see, that Vulcan, or Molk-Gheber, the classic "god of fire," was so ignominiously hurled down from heaven, as he himself relates in Homer, speaking of the wrath of the King of Heaven, which in this instance must mean God Most High:-- "I felt his matchless might, Hurled headlong downwards from the ethereal height;
Tossed all the day in rapid circles round, Nor, till the sun descended, touched the ground.
Breathless I fell, in giddy motion lost. The Sinthians raised me on the Lemnian coast." The lines, in which Milton refers to this same downfall, though he gives it another application, still more beautifully describe the greatness of the overthrow:-- "In Ausonian land Men called him Mulciber; and how he fell From heaven, they fabled. Thrown by angry Jove Sheer o’er the crystal battlements; from morn To noon he fell, from noon to dewy eve, A summer’s day; and, with the setting sun, Dropped from the zenith, like a falling star. On Lemnos, the Aegean isle."
Paradise Lost
These words very strikingly show the tremendous fall of Molk-Gheber, or Nimrod, "the Mighty King," when "suddenly he was cast down from the height of his power, and was deprived at once of his kingdom and his life." *
* The Greek poets speak of two downfalls of Vulcan. In the one case he was cast down by Jupiter, in the other by Juno. When Jupiter cast him down, it was for rebellion; when Juno did so, one of the reasons specially singled out for doing so was his "malformation," that is, his ugliness. (HOMER’S Hymn to Apollo) How exactly does this agree with the story of Nimrod: First he was personally cast down, when, by Divine authority, he was slain. Then he was cast down, in effigy, by Juno, when his image was degraded from the arms of the Queen of Heaven, to make way for the fairer child.
Now, to this overthrow there is very manifest allusion in the prophetic apostrophe of Isaiah to the king of Babylon, exulting over his approaching downfall: "How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning"! The Babylonian king pretended to be a representative of Nimrod or Phaethon; and the prophet, in these words, informs him, that, as certainly as the god in whom he gloried had been cast down from his high estate, so certainly should he. In the classic story, Phaethon is said to have been consumed with lightning (and, as we shall see by-and-by, Aesculapius also died the same death); but the lightning is a mere metaphor for the wrath of God, under which his life and his kingdom had come to an end. When the history is examined, and the figure stripped off, it turns out, as we have already seen, that he was judicially slain with the sword. *
* Though Orpheus was commonly represented as having been torn in pieces, he too was fabled to have been killed by lightning. (PAUSANIAS, Boeotica) When Zoroaster died, he also is said in the myth to have perished by lightning (SUIDAS); and therefore, in accordance with that myth, he is represented as charging his countrymen to preserve not his body, but his "ashes." The death by lightning, however, is evidently a mere figure.
Such is the language of the prophecy, and so exactly does it correspond with the character, and deeds, and fate of the ancient type. How does it suit the antitype? Could the power of Pagan Imperial Rome--that power that first persecuted the Church of Christ, that stood by its soldiers around the tomb of the Son of God Himself, to devour Him, if it had been possible, when He should be brought forth, as the first-begotten from the dead, * to rule all nations--be represented by a "Fiery Serpent"?
* The birth of the Man-child, as given above, is different from that usually given: but let the reader consider if the view which I have taken does not meet all the requirements of the case. I think there will be but few who will assent to the opinion of Mr. Elliot, which in substance amounts to this, that the Man-child was Constantine the Great, and that when Christianity, in his person sat down on the throne of Imperial Rome, that was the fulfilment of the saying, that the child brought forth by the woman, amid such pangs of travail, was "caught up to God and His throne." When Constantine came to the empire, the Church indeed, as foretold inDaniel 11:34, "was holpen with a little help"; but that was all. The Christianity of Constantine was but of a very doubtful kind, the Pagans seeing nothing in it to hinder but that when he died, he should be enrolled among their gods. (EUTROPIUS) But even though it had been better, the description of the woman’s child is far too high for Constantine, or any Christian emperor that succeeded him on the imperial throne. "The Man-child, born to rule all nations with a rod of iron," is unequivocally Christ (seePsalms 2:9;Revelation 19:15). True believers, as one with Him in a subordinate sense, share in that honour (Revelation 2:27); but to Christ alone, properly, does that prerogative belong; and I think it must be evident that it is His birth that is here referred to. But those who have contended for this view have done injustice to their cause by representing this passage as referring to His literal birth in Bethlehem. When Christ was born in Bethlehem, no doubt Herod endeavoured to cut Him off, and Herod was a subject of the Roman Empire. But it was not from any respect to Caesar that he did so, but simply from fear of danger to his own dignity as King of Judea. So little did Caesar sympathise with the slaughter of the children of Bethlehem, that it is recorded that Augustus, on hearing of it, remarked that it was "better to be Herod’s hog than to be his child." (MACROBIUS, Saturnalia) Then, even if it were admitted that Herod’s bloody attempt to cut off the infant Saviour was symbolised by the Roman dragon, "standing ready to devour the child as soon as it should be born," where was there anything that could correspond to the statement that the child, to save it from that dragon, "was caught up to God and His Throne"? The flight of Joseph and Mary with the Child into Egypt could never answer to such language. Moreover, it is worthy of special note, that when the Lord Jesus was born in Bethlehem, He was born, in a very important sense only as "King of the Jews." "Where is He that is born King of the Jews?" was the inquiry of the wise men that came from the East to seek Him. All His life long, He appeared in no other character; and when He died, the inscription on His cross ran in these terms: "This is the King of the Jews." Now, this was no accidental thing. Paul tells us (Romans 15:8) that "Jesus Christ was a minister of the circumcision for the truth of God, to confirm the promises made unto the fathers." Our Lord Himself plainly declared the same thing. "I am not sent," said He to the Syrophoenician woman, "save to the lost sheep of the house of Israel"; and, in sending out His disciples during His personal ministry, this was the charge which He gave them: "Go not in the way of the Gentiles, and into any city of the Samaritans enter ye not." It was only when He was "begotten from the dead," and "declared to be the Son of God with power," by His victory over the grave, that He was revealed as "the Man-child, born to rule all nations." Then said He to His disciples, when He had risen, and was about to ascend on high: "All power is given unto Me in heaven and in earth: go ye therefore, and teach allnations." To this glorious "birth" from the tomb, and to the birth-pangs of His Church that preceded it, our Lord Himself made distinct allusion on the night before He was betrayed (John 16:20-22). "Verily, verily, I say unto you, That ye shall weep and lament, but the world shall rejoice; and ye shall be sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy. A woman when she is in travail hath sorrow, because her hour is come; but as soon as she is delivered of the child, she remembereth no more the anguish, for joy that a MAN is born into the world. And ye now therefore have sorrow; but I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice." Here the grief of the apostles, and, of course, all the true Church that sympathised with them during the hour and power of darkness, is compared to the pangs of a travailing woman; and their joy, when the Saviour should see them again after His resurrection, to the joy of a mother when safely delivered of a Man-child. Can there be a doubt, then, what the symbol before us means, when the woman is represented as travailing in pain to be delivered of a "Man-child, that was to rule all nations," and when it is said that that "Man-child was caught up to God and His Throne"?