was ex-officio Pontifex Maximus; the gods were national.  Cicero declares as a principle of legislation, that no one should be allowed to worship foreign gods, unless they were recognized by public statute.  Maecenas thus counselled Augustas:  Honor the gods according to the customs of your ancestors, and compel others to worship them.  Hate and punish those who bring in strange gods.’  As the Roman empire was founded on the absolutism of the State, and made nothing of personal rights, Christianity, which first taught and acknowledged them, would be peculiarly offensive to the State.  Moreover, the conscientious refusal of Christians to pay divine honor to the emperor and his statutes, and to take part in idolatrous ceremonies at public festivals ... and their constant assembling themselves together, brought them under the suspicion and obloquy of the emperors and the people.”  Pp. 49, 50.

The dragon was stationed in the same heaven where the woman appeared.  This signifies his exalted position in the world.  While the dragon was in the height of his power and glory, Michael (Jesus Christ—­Jude 9; 1 Thes. 4:16; John 5:28) and his followers appeared on the scene, and a fierce battle for supremacy ensued, resulting in the final victory of the hosts of Michael.  That it was against the dragon as a religious system that the Christians fought is proved by the kind of weapons they employed.  “And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death.”  Christianity never sought to overturn the civil empire, but did with all the power of truth oppose the huge system of error sustained by it and gained such decisive victories that the cry was heard, “Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ; for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night.”  The Devil himself suffered a severe defeat when his favorite agents, the dragon and his followers, were cast down from their lofty position and Christianity was exalted instead.  Says Butler:  “The final victory of Christianity over heathenism and Judaism, and the mightiest empire of the ancient world, a victory gained without physical force, by the moral power of faith and perseverance, of faith and love, is one of the sublimest spectacles of history, and one of the strongest evidences of the divinity and indestructible life of our holy religion.”  P. 40.

But the fact that many Christians lost their lives in this conflict (verse 11), insomuch that the man-child is represented as being caught up unto God (verse 5), shows that the dragon employed also the arm of civil power in his opposition to the growing truth.  The rapid increase of Christianity, despite the violent opposition and persecution of the Pagan party, can be no better represented than by a quotation from the notable Apology of Tertullian, who wrote during the persecution by Septimus Severus, about the end of the second century.