Dragone

DRAGONE. - A (mythical) monster that in the ancient East symbolized the cosmic forces hindering human life and well-being; it represents the devil (v.) or Satan in Rev. 12-13 and 20:2. A terrible beast, lurking mostly in the watery depths, it was conceived as an enormous reptile or serpent.

The Greek term (δράκων, from δέρχομαι "I stare fixedly"), occurs 26 times in the biblical Septuagint version (Vulg. draco), where it translates 12 times the Hebrew tannin (2 times tannim: Ex. 29:3; 32:2), 5 times lišejáthán (v. LEVIATHAN), 2 times náhás ("serpent"), and the other times wrongly tan "jackal" (also in Lam. 4:3, Vulg. lamiae), kēphír "young lion," péthen "viper," 'attúr "he-goat." The Septuagint uses δράκων another 8 times: Esth. 1:1 and 10:3 c (Vulg. 11:6; 10:7); Wis. 16:10; Eccl. 25:16 (Vulg. 23); Dan. (Bel et draco, Vulg.) 14:22-27, where it concerns the serpent cult at Babel.

The tannin (from tnn "to stretch out lengthwise") was a sea monster or cetacean (Gen. 1:21 is translated κῆτος; but Aquila, Symmachus, Theodotion: δράκων; Ps. 148:7; cf. Job 7:12; Is. 27:1), or a fearsome serpent (Ex. 7:9-12; Deut. 32:33; Ps. 91 [90]:13). This monster becomes, in poetic passages, the image of the powers of evil, sometimes joined with ráhabh "ferocity," which likewise designates a sea monster: Is. 51:9 (God shatters ráhabh, pierces tannin, then dries up téhóm; missing in the Septuagint), Job 26:12 f. (God shatters ráhabh and captures náhás). Like ráhabh, tannin metaphorically indicates the political enemy (Egypt: Is. 27:1; Ex. 29:3; 32:2), or in general the hostile forces that men cannot contain, which bring them danger and death (Is. 51:9; Jer. 51:34; Job 7:12; Ps. 74 [73]:13; 91 [90]:13). God does not kill the d., but wounds or captures it and demonstrates his power over it; the d. is a creature of Yahweh (Gen. 1:21; Ps. 104 [103]:26: leviathan in the sea), whom it must fear (Ps. 148:7). An enemy of men, the tannin (or the leviathan, or the náhás) never appears as a direct enemy of God, unlike the d. of Rev. 12-20.

From Ex. 7:9-15 the equivalence between tannin and náhás emerges (Vulg.: vv. 9-10 coluber, vv. 12 and 15 draco). Náhás is translated δράκων in Am. 9:3 (in the sea) and Job 26:13, while elsewhere it is rendered ὄφις "serpent," also

Gen. 3:1-14, where P. Joion proposes to understand "d." or a reptile (cf. P. F. Ceuppens, De historia primaeva, Rome 1934, pp. 166-79).

The Greeks too understood δράκων as an enormous serpent, from Homer (Il., XII, 202) to Pausanias (II, 28, 1); the tragedians use the feminine δράκων for the Erinyes: ἄδου δράκων (Euripides, Iph. Taur., 286; Aeschylus, Eumen., 128).

From the texts of Rás Samrah it emerges that among the Phoenicians of Ugarit the d. tnn and ltn (= tannin and lišejáthán) were known (15th cent. ca. 2nd mill. B.C.). The d. must have represented the elemental forces of nature that threaten man: mostly the hidden snare in the waters, while the serpent with its venom appeared akin to the earth both in Babylonia and in Egypt (cf. St. Epiphanius, Haer., 45, 1). In India the nága "serpent" was feared, which could be divinized or anthropomorphized; the principal "king of serpents" (nāgarāga) is Šeṣa or Ananta "the serpent infinite", sovereign of the universal sea "which is spread out in the water" and carries the earth on its head or on its many heads (R. Goossens, p. 415). This d. was called by Ctesias (fr. 27) σκώληξ "worm" (cf. Dante, Inf., VI, 22: "Cerberus, the great worm"; XXXIV, 108: Lucifer is "the guilty worm"). The Greeks (cf. R. Goossens, pp. 428-35) knew the "king of serpents", ὁ βασιλίσκος τῶν δρακόντων. Hence the "basilisk" corresponds to venomous serpents (Heb. péthen and 'ep'ēh) in the Septuagint (Ps. 90, 13; Is. 59, 5 [Vulg. regulus]); in the Vulg. 1 time basiliscus (Ps. 90, 13) and 6 times regulus; Aquila has βασιλίσκος (for δράκων) in Deut. 32, 33 and Is. 59, 5 (with ἐχίδναι), Symmachus in Is. 30, 6. R. Goossens identifies with it the ἀδοντοδράκων (cf. Sap. 16, 10). The βασιλίσκος has 7 heads, in Pistis Sophia, 88, 34.

Leviathan has many heads (Ps. 74 [73], 14: "d." in the Septuagint and Vulgate), and other hybrid and terrifying monsters appear in the poetic or allegorical passages of the Old Testament: the 4 beasts of Dan. 7, 3-8, the he-goat of 1 and 4 horns (Dan. 8, 5-22), but these are mere symbols not identifiable with the d. In the apocrypha the d. recurs as the equivalent of Satan or of death, or of their instruments: Ps. Salom., 2, 25-31 (pagan power [Pompey] whose ὑπερηφανία and ὕβρις are noted); Apoc. Baruch gr., 4 (the belly of the d. is Hades); Od. Salom., 22, 5 (7 heads of the d. which has "roots" and "seed"; v. 7 is "slanderer" or devil). Midrashim and Talmud identify the "serpent" of Gen. 3, 1-14 with Satan, called "ancient serpent" (Siphre Deut., 32, 33), "envious serpent" (Sanhedhrin, 59 b; Sōjāh, 9 b), with horns and feet (Gen. rabbá', 19, 1).

The biblical d. presents no affinity with the mythical Babylonian d. According to the interpretation of many moderns, in Babylonia the origin of the world was conceived as a struggle against chaos, sometimes personified in a monster. It is certain that Enlil of Nippur was venerated as subjugator of the d. and maker of the world; the city of Babel, having attained supremacy, put Marduk in place of Enlil, whose struggle against Tiāmat for the creation of the world is narrated by the Enuma elis, a poem recited at every new year. Ninurta (Nin-ib), son of the god Enlil, was celebrated as victor over the d. Every Babylonian city celebrated its god as victor over the d., transforming the god of the defeated city into a d.

Similarly in Egypt, the baleful Seth-Typhon (serpent or crocodile) was vanquished by the young sun god Horus, son of the goddess Isis persecuted by Seth. The Hittites celebrated the god Tešup for his victory over the serpent Ilujankā. The Indians narrated of the d. Vṛtrā vanquished by Indra; the Persians of the serpent-shaped d. Azhi-Dahāka, enemy of men. In Greek mythology, Apollo killed the d. Python, draco ingenu son of the Earth (B. Allo, L'Apoc., pp. 189 ff. and 197 ff.); Hercules killed the d. son of Tryphon who guarded the golden apples of the Hesperides, besides the hydra of Lerna; for the d. of Asklepios, cf. Macrobius, Saturnal., 1, 20. Macrobius (loc. cit., 9) informs: "Phoenices... draconem finxerunt in orbem redactum, caudamque suam devorantem, ut appareat mundum et ex se ipso ali et in se resolvi".

Abusing some biblical poetic image, H. Gunkel (followed by A. Jeremias, H. Gressmann, etc.) affirms that creation and divine providence are conceived, in the Bible, as a struggle against personified chaos, and he associates the d. with the tēhām, which he identifies with Tiāmat; he understands (besides tannin and leviathan) rāhabh, bēhēmāth (v.) and tēhām, which moreover are never translated δράκων by the ancients, as reflections of the Babylonian myth of Marduk's struggle against the d. H. Gunkel's thesis still has various followers. But even granting that the Babylonians had a metaphysical-dualistic conception of the origin of the world, expressed by the struggle against the d., later expounded thoroughly by M. Witzel, in the Bible no trace of it is found. Nothing permits us to affirm that the tannin and leviathan participate in it in a drama of creation or represent chaos in it. The tēhām "abyss" never appears there as a living monster; it is the immense sea, seen poetically, which God limits and contains. It is moreover false to identify the d. with Tiāmat, and therefore the struggle against the d. with creation; the d. vanquished by Marduk (later by Nabū) was the mūruštu, a mixture of lion, serpent and bird, depicted on the gate of the temple of Ištar at Babel; in many Babylonian cylinders and engravings such a d. appears, often with horns, sometimes with diadems.

F. Boll (followed by W. Bousset, A. Loisy, etc.) gives the d. a Hellenistic astronomical origin; J. Freundorfer refutes him well; moreover a connection was sometimes posited between the d. and constellations (Job 3, 8: leviathan in the sky). The error of these critics is to seek precise meanings and ideological derivations in ancient documents in which the allegory of danger and evil is expressed vaguely, rich in variations in the sagas of all times and also in modern poetic figuration, from Dante to Calderón, to Goethe, to C. Brentano. The struggle of a god or hero against a monster or d. was a theme common to all peoples, from which poetry and apocalyptic could draw.

In the Apocalypse the d. is the principal symbol, after the Lamb (v.), of whom it is the capital enemy, leading all struggles, open or hidden, against Him and His saints (B. Allo, L'Apoc., p. LXX); it is identified (12,9) with the "ancient serpent" (of Gen. 3, 1-15), with the devil (v.) or satan (v.).

The culminating point of the book is ch. 12, in which the d. appears. "A great sign", a Woman ("Ecclesia": Victorinus of Pettau; "civitas Dei": St. Augustine; secondary sense: Mary Most Holy) clothed with the sun, with the moon for a footstool, with a crown of 12 stars, is about to give birth; but against her appears "another sign": a great d. of fiery color (cf. Euripides, Iphig. Taur., 1245: αἰνωτὸς δράκων; Plutarch, Is. et Osir., 22: τὸν Τυφῶνα ... πυρρόν) with 7 heads (opposed to the "7 spirits of God": 1, 4; 3, 1; 4, 5; 5, 6) crowned and 10 horns (Dan. 7, 7). It is a king: "the prince of this world" (Io. 16, 11, etc.). Vanquished in heaven by the angelic army, the d. has fallen "with his angels" to earth, where it confronts the Woman to devour her newborn (future universal king, caught up to the throne of God); the Woman flees, carried by the "two wings of the great eagle (God)", into the desert for 3 and a half years (until the d. is finally overcome at the parousia), while the saints applaud the fall of the d. (cf. Lk. 10:18; Jn. 12:31), which "wages war on the remnant of the Woman's seed" (Rev. 12:1-17). It is, in a more dramatic form, the "hostility" described in Gen. 3:15 (J. Bover, p. 325 ff.) between the serpent (the špākav of vv. 3-9, 13, 16 f., is called ἔφις "serpent" in vv. 9 and 14 f.) and the Woman, whose "seed" (already in Gen. 3:15) is persecuted by Satan (cf. Esth. 10:6-8 [LXX, 3 c-8]; two d. confront each other, and the river of persecution disappears (Rev. 12:15 f.).

The d. fights the Church by stirring up the two Beasts or the two-formed Antichrist (v.) (Rev. 13:1-18); but it is defeated: "the d., the ancient serpent, who is the Devil and Satan" is bound for a thousand years (20:2: cf. J. Ph. Vogel, p. 199: the "king of serpents" Sesa is hung head down already for a thousand years). Cf. Jn. 12:31; Rom. 16:20; Heb. 2:14. Also in 1 Pt. 5:8 the devil is a d. that "devours." The d. here has nothing in common with the tauniu, still less with Tiāmat as H. Gunkel would have it, who maintains the Babylonian origin of Rev. 12; it is not a cosmic or mythical monster, but an evil spiritual power, Satan (v.), the perpetual principle of evil.

The d. remained among Christians a frequent metaphor for the devil (Passio s. Perpetuae, 4); in the magical papyri it is often mentioned (K. Preisendanz, 4, 994: θεῖ ἁγῶν ... κατέγων βράκωνα; cf. II Thess. 2:6). But the naturalists were concerned to describe, besides the basilisk or "regulus" (Pliny, VIII, 21 [33]; St. Isidore of Seville, Erymel., XII, 4, 6: "rex serpentium"); the d. in nature: St. Isidore, loc. cit. 4-5, "draco maior cunctorum serpentium, sive omnium animantium super terram"; St. Albert the Great, De animalibus, XXV: "dracones indici"; cf. Physiologus, IV, 155 ff. Ulisse Aldrovandi collected such "science" in Serpentium et draconum historiae libri duo, Bologna 1640.

Antonino Romeo

ARCHAEOLOGY

The draco magnus venerated by the Babylonians was made to burst by Daniel by means of a cake (Dan. 14:22-26). The scene, unknown in catacomb painting, is instead represented several times on Christian sarcophagi from Rome, Italy, Gaul and Africa. The prophet, often assisted by an angel, is shown in the act of offering the cake to the draco, which has the form of a serpent, sometimes with a crest (galeatus), and rises from the ground or stretches out from a tree around which it is coiled.

In some examples (Verona and Grozon, Wilpert, Sarcofagi, I, p. 150, 2; pl. 197, 1) the temple is also found and, near the prophet, an altar either lit or overturned, or else an overturned torch (ibid., 197, 5). The prophet Daniel prefigures Christ in this scene, while the draco is the "serpens antiquus qui vocatur diabolus et satanas, qui seducit universum orbem" (Rev. 12:9).

Enrico Josi