In a message dated 8/8/00 10:35:41 PM Eastern Daylight Time, [log in to unmask]
writes:
> 've found this discussion of lion symbols interesting and timely. For the
> past year I've been working on medieval analogues to Michael
Wigglesworth's
> long poem of 1662, The Day of Doom, North America's first best selling
> book. The poem is a Calvinist account of the Last Judgment. Wigglesworth
> was a Puritan minister, born in Yorkshire, who emigrated with his parents
> to New Haven and was educated at Harvard College. (Puritan appropriations
> of medieval apocalypticism was the subject of my paper at Leeds; my thanks
> to the auditors of that panel, who contributed useful suggestions.)
Working
> at Yale last two weeks, I had the occasion to read the poem for the
> umpteenth time (a copy of the 1687 London ed.) and noticed for the first
> time:
>
> Fast by them stand at Christ's left hand
> the Lion fierce and fell,
> The Dragon bold, that Serpent old,
> that hurried Souls to Hell.
> There also stand, under command,
> Legions of Sprights unclean,
> And hellish Fiends, that are no friends
> to God nor unto Men. (stanza 36)
>
> I searched resources (bestiaries, reproductions of Judgment images, emblem
> books) at Yale's Beinecke, Sterling, and Art/Architecture libraries, but
> couldn't find medieval or patristic analogues for the lion AND the dragon
> restrained beside Christ at the Last Judgment. Am aware of scriptural
> allusions to lion as satanic, of course (1 Pt. 5:8; Daniel in the den; Ps
> 91:13) Any suggestions?
>
> Tom Long
>
In Rev. 13.2, there's a beast that has the mouth of a lion (but also
attributes of other creatures) and is given its power by the dragon.
pat sloane
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