Apocalypse Chat Corner

Pope Benedict gives a beautiful homily today on the feast of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary. During his homily he references the well known passage of the Book of Revelations where the Mary figure is pursued by the dragon:

Revelation 12:3
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.

The Pope correctly explains that the events foreseen through the visions given to St. John have been taking place (the World Wars and genocides of the past century, for example) and are now a part of the continuing ongoing assault on spirit and goodness that we see today. My comments are to underscore what the Pope said, because people over analyze the symbolism of Revelation, trying to assign to it specific people and a set of events in the future, rather than seeing it as an ongoing struggle people are already within. So for your consideration, think of the dragon. Why does he have seven heads and ten horns, rather than say, seven wings? Ten hands? Or some different number of each?

The focus on the head emphasizes mentality and devouring (mouth) rather than body or heart. So the oppression of the Mary figure (the bearer of Jesus and his message, his messianic role, and the motherhood of humanity overall) is driven by mental overemphasis. One head is not enough, the dragon has seven. Further, since seven is a biblical number indicating perfection, the dragon mocks this by saying his "heads" his "thinking" is perfect. Not coincidentally there are seven continents on earth, which is again a global, physical, intellectual focus rather than on nurturing and faith, and hence the dragon has seven earthly crowns even as he supposedly flies in the air (but notice no wings are mentioned.) He has ten horns to mock the Ten Commandments. The horns are on his head because again, the "superior" dragon mentality thinks he can out think and rationalize his own anti-Ten Commandments. That is screamingly obvious in our society today. People who are secularist (and those of the faith tempted by them) say that humankind has evolved in their thinking so that they no longer need the Ten Commandments. They are so much more sophisticated than the primitives who needed religious guidance. That is the meaning of the seven heads, with crowns, and ten horns. Another thing to note is that the kingdom of heaven with the new Jerusalem has twelve gates representing the twelve tribes and the twelve Apostles, and the woman Mary figure is crowned with twelve stars. Again, this is a "global" number (complete set of tribes of Israel, complete set of Apostles) but one that is rooted in the completeness of the community of God, not of humankind's intellect.

By the way, just because the dragon is used as the symbol of evil and devil in the Bible, this does not mean the use of the dragon in for example Chinese history, mythology and faith should be equated. In the Chinese set of beliefs, the dragon is actually resulting from a positive recall of evolution, that reptile like beasts preceded humans on earth. Notice that many of the most spectacular dinosaur and other fossil finds of recent times are occurring in China. In very ancient times, the Chinese people of old observed many of these fossils and wisely concluded the existence of "dragons" that came before them and are of beneficence. This is why the dragon has a role in the divinity of the emperor historically, as the emperor was viewed as a "descendant." So remember to not overextend a particular biblical symbol because it is only a symbol in the moment and context that it is being discussed.