in the way for an adversary [Satan, Heb.] against him.”  Here an angel of the Lord is called a Satan to Balaam.  In 1 Sam. 29:4 David is called an adversary (Heb.  Satan) to the Philistines.  In 2 Sam. 19:22 certain opposers are said to be adversaries (Satans, Heb.) unto David; while in 1 Kings 11:25 a certain man was said to be an adversary (Satan) to Israel all the days of Solomon.  A number of other instances could be given if necessary.  In the New Testament, also, the term Satan is sometimes used to signify merely an opposer.  “But he turned, and said unto Peter, Get thee behind me, Satan.”  Mat. 16:23.  In 1 Cor. 10:20 Paul declares “that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to devils.”  Paganism stood as the great opposer of Christianity, hence was a Satan (adversary) unto it; while the apostle denominated its religious rites as devil-worship.  I do not question the fact that the spirit of Beelzebub was manifested in the thing; but the dragon itself was the empire, as is proved by the heads and the horns.  However, the Devil and the agency through which he works are often used interchangeably.  Satan and the serpent in Eden stand in the same relation as do Satan, or Beelzebub, and Paganism in the New Testament; hence to bind Paganism was to bind the Devil and Satan in one important sense.

The dragon would be a beast from the natural world (if such a creature actually existed) and as such could represent nothing more than a civil empire; but in the vision under consideration he is represented as accompanied by angels actuated by his spirit and defending his cause.  By this combination of symbols is set forth the politico-religious system of the empire—­a religion that denied the doctrine of the one exclusive God and the divinity of Jesus Christ.  It was the religion of infidelity.  It was the dragon as a false religious system that Christianity attacked, and not the State itself.  The following quotation from Butler’s Ecclesiastical History will show the relation of Christians to the empire: 

“The Romans were accustomed to tolerate all new religions if they took their place by the side of those already existing, and if they did not cast reproach upon them....  But Christianity, by its very nature exclusive in its claims ... was offensive to the Romans and to the State.  A religion which cast contempt upon the religions and rites sanctioned by the laws, and endeavored to draw men away from them, seemed to express thereby contempt and hostility for the State itself.  Hence Christianity was branded as a malignant superstition, and Christians spoken of as the enemies of the human race....  From the letter of Pliny to Trajan, it was evidently recorded as an religio illicita, and the mere fact of being a Christian was counted of itself a crime....  The exclusiveness of Christianity seemed also to place its disciples in a position of direct disloyalty to the emperors and the State.  ’The emperor