How does Edgar Allan Poe use imagery in The Masque of the Red Death?

Poe uses Biblical imagery throughout the text. The Red Death, Poe says, comes "like a thief in the night." The phrase is a direct quotation from 1 Thessalonians 5:2 and 2 Peter 3:10, which both refer to Christ. In Poe's mythology, the Red Death replaces Christ as the reigning force in the universe. Hence, the Red Death is said to have "dominion over all"—a reversal of Paul's statement in Romans 6:9, in which "death hath no more dominion" because of Christ's resurrection. Moreover, the halls of Poe's earthly paradise become "blood-bedewed"—suggesting a conflation of two familiar Biblical images, blood and dew: the blood of Christ's resurrection that redeems man, and the drops of dew that fall from heaven to save man from the harshness of nature. In Poe, the blood and dew of the Red Death replace the blood of Christ and the dew of heaven.