|
In order to understand the relation between the prophecy concerning the beast and Rome and the visions of the dragon and the
Messiah (the Christian "lamb") which precede and follow, it is necessary to bear in mind that since the days of
Pompey Rome was in the eyes of the Jewish apocalyptic writers the fourth beast in the Daniel apocalypse (see Dan. vii. 7),
the last "wicked kingdom" whose end is to usher in the Messianic kingdom (Cant. R. ii. 12; Gen. R. xliv. 20; Lev.
R. xiii.; Midr. Teh. Ps. lxxx. 14; see Romulus). Rome was found to be alluded to in Ps. lxxx. 14 (A. V. 13), in the words
("the boar out of the wood"), the letter ע being written above the others so as to make the word ("Rome")
stand out in transposed order (comp. Enoch, lxxxix. 12, where Esau is spoken of as "the black wild boar").
The identification of Rome with Babylon is found also in the Jewish Sibyllines, v. 159, and the identification with Tyre
in Ex. R. ix. 13—facts which indicate the lines of Jewish apocalyptic tradition. "The wild beast of the reeds"
(Ps. lxviii. 31 [R. V. 30]) has also been identified with Rome (see Midr. Teh. Ps. lxviii. [ed. Buber, p. 15]). But in order
to account for the delay of the Messiah, who was to "slay the wicked by the breath of his mouth" (Isa. xi. 4), a
cosmic power in the shape of an Ahrimanic animal, the dragon, was introduced as the arch-enemy plotting the destruction of
the Messiah, the Antichrist who with his hosts hinders the redemption ("me'aḳḳeb et ha-ge'ullah";
Sauh. 97b; Nid. 13b; comp. II Thess. ii. 6-7). To this end the author used a mythological story (xiii. 1-6), borrowed from
Babylonia, as Gunkel (l.c. pp. 379-398) claims, from the Apollonic myth, as Dieterich ("Abraxas," 1891, pp. 117-122)
thinks, or from Egypt, as Bousset suggests. He sees (xii. 1-6) Zion in the garb of "a woman clothed with the sun, the
moon beneath her feet, and twelve stars on the crown of her head," while about to give birth to a child destined to "rule
all nations with a rod of iron" (Ps. ii. 9), pursued by a seven-headed dragon; the child (the future Messiah) is carried
up to the throne of God (that is, he is hidden), and she flees to the wilderness, where a place is prepared for her by God
to be nourished in for 1,260 days (three and a half years; comp. xi. 3, xiii. 5, and Dan. vii. 8, xi. 25). Compare with this
the Talmudic legend of the Messiah babe carried off by the storm (Yer. Ber. ii. 5a). Here follows a similar story from another
hand (xii. 7-15), telling of a battle raging in heaven between Michael, the "Synegor" (= "pleading angel")
of Israel (Midr. Teh. Ps. xx.), and Satan, the "Kategor" (= "Accuser"), which ends in the casting down
of the old serpent with his hosts—a victory brought about by the merit of the Jewish martyrs, which silenced the
Accuser.
It was thereafter, says the second version, that the woman (Israel) was pursued by the serpent; but she was carried by
a great eagle into a safe place in the wilderness, where she was nourished for "a time, two times, and a half time"
(three and a half years; comp. Dan. vii. 25); "and when the dragon cast forth a flood of water to drown her, the earth
opened her mouth to swallow the water." Finally, unable to slay the woman with her Messiah babe, the dragon made war
with the remnant of her seed, the pious ones "who observe the commandments of God."
|
